Lessons

Lesson Info

Sunrise Selects & Discussion

Hello and welcome back were in the studio with lucas gilman and lucas loved for you to just sort of stepped back from like ten thousand feet high and talk about some of the big takeaways from this but I'm also going to throw a question at you could you talk a little bit about the importance of having a full breath of different styles of photography including portraiture in your in your business yeah I think I've said it before you being a photographer you basically have a tool kit the more things you could do well whether that's shooting portrait's shooting chandler shooting fashion all these sort of techniques I guess you could say in photographic terms the more you can do the better photography you will be and the more well rounded you will be you may be better certain things but knowing how to do those things will really allow you to go out and have a wide breath of jobs I know we get very focused I know it's easily become pigeonholed as thie sir photographer of the portrait photogr...

apher but going out and do these things on your own time we allows you to go go and expand your uh creative vision I guess you could say and some big takeaways yes big takeaways this is the first time I've seen this video and it looks like I need to go to the chiropractor because everything was sort of tilted but you know it's one of those things where you know, seeing seeing these images the takeaways are you know, it's really a step by step process you could write this down or no pad and you could say you know, show up, take amin exposure at subject add light, take a test shot you know, you could do this step by step and I think the takeaways are, you know, having a decent like it having a light modifier and you don't necessarily have to have a professional athlete like eric it could be a friend or a family member initially, you know, because there's a lot less pressure we don't necessarily have to go out and, you know, have a the top tier athlete to start with start small start with one light at a second light on and sort of grow from there um and the more lights you add um the more fun it can be, but just remember we're adding on the thing that we built before so don't put seven lights up at once and then go I'm not sure what it's not working one light to light three light for light and just continue to grow that scenario ah and you're lighting will be pleasing and you'll be successful great well, how about we take a look at your selects from that session we went through and I basically just picked a couple of the images I liked thie images you haven't seen the last couple days were tone I think they were just, uh screen grabs or whatever for the video purposes but these have had just a minor touch of light room on this one I just used a graduated neutral density to sort of knocked that sky down a little bit, but I know how my camera performs I've gone out and I've done tests and I know you know, if I have the sky and it's not blown that there is data there and I can bring that back and that that pleasing color will still be there, you know, nice lit tent eriks there we have some shadows that are not necessarily unpleasant because you can see on the left side here behind him there's a little bit of a shadow, but it looks like it could be coming from the sunshine, which is what I'm trying to do. I wouldn't want that shadow raking across eric and b, you know, going well, why's there a shadow there because it looks like the sun's coming in this direction. So you know, I think it's a pretty successful picture some nice light, clean background uh kind of rule of thirds, it doesn't always have to be that way, but he sort of not dead center in the middle you know continue to work through this process we had eric sit trying to make more of a camp scene in hindsight um you know the coffee cup to me is not big enough to really show that he's just waking up I don't think it's that successful because uh it really doesn't work we would have needed a campfire something to show that he sort of just just up it is campsite in hindsight I probably should have had him working on a surfboard or something giving him that process giving us something that's realistic something that we can we can all sort of ascertain what's going on in the image uh moving on we got the litt portrait's here and you know there's just a lot of fun we got our light modifier large thirty six inch technol soft box on eric on dh we've got the grid in there so that the light is not spilling on the ground you notice the grounds a little bit darker below eric so that's why we use that grid to be able to make sure that that light is going where we wanted teo and this is a forty degree grid that I typically use so that it's going in the areas we want and it falls off right around that lit tent uh I think you know successful at least I got my horizon line straight on this one which is always a big help uh and then the sort of process ten photo um you know again it's nice and if I'm working for a client this could be a great image for them for my portfolio uh it's you know it's not going to make it but if this is a story for this tent company o r ah just a clothing brand or something we need to think of these these process photos and make sure that we have enough of these so it's just not a guy sitting a guy standing like doing these things to round out this story they may not be particularly interesting per se this isn't like a standalone oh while this is a portrait you are a portfolio quality image but as faras the client's concerned this may tell the story of what their brand is this's the lifestyle that they're leading and this is the demographic they're trying to sell tio uh yes sir goto the in studio audience for questions right afterwards to tell us why away these what are the clients love about the shot it's where they work well you know I think first of all I've built my brand on being authentic knowing the nuances of the sports that I photograph on that's you know and that's basically because I come from an outdoor background I grew up camping and you know, being outdoors and that kind of thing so I think that the clients love the fact that it you know that anybody that was into the outdoors is going teo see this and feel like it's realistic that, you know, it's not just opposed shot, this is something that could actually happen. So I think that that really aspect is something that the clients like I also feel that, you know, it's well lit there's, high quality of the sharp um, you know, I cannot stress enough no matter how much you love an image, if it's a little soft, don't send it in because that image will haunt you all of a sudden the client decides that they really love it and it's going to be blown up on a billboard and all of a sudden your names there next to it, and you've got this soft image and that's, you know what people will remember you like, oh, there that's the guy with the soft image, so, you know, even if you know so make sure that you're getting sharp shots, make sure to take the time to focus on, and I'm always focusing on scenes like this. The spot I'm focusing on every single time is I'm looking at the eyes, I'm looking to focus on his head, his eyes, because that's, what we're looking at in this this photo, so before I do anything before we have lights before we have anything additional props I'm making sure that we have good focus and that that is a takeaway for that as well. Very good looking. What kind of struggles did you have early on in your career finding your style? Well, that's a good question finding a style is really something that takes time because, you know, I would encourage people that don't necessarily know what their style is to go out and shoot things that they're interested in and to figure out what's comfortable because is a photographer, you know, once you start getting paid to do this and you're out there, you want to make sure that it rings true to something that you enjoy um, you know, for some people lights may not be their bag. They may enjoy using light modifiers and reflectors and things like that or just shooting available light. I enjoy the technical aspects in the problem solving of adding strobes and sometimes lots of them a ce faras, you know, finding that style the advice I would give is to go out and see what feels comfortable and what you were drawn. Teo is an artist essentially. So who your primary clients? You mentioned that you traveled about two hundred fifty days a year um where are you traveling? Why are you traveling who's hiring you so I work for aa lot of high tech clients a cz well as editorial magazines and ah is well as a lot of industry camera manufacturers gear manufacturers uh typically the way it works is uh you know, with the you know, things changing worldwide business wise ah lot of times I will come together I will figure out interesting locations to go and I will find interesting people in places and I will bring together you know, I guess a group of people and facilitate a lot of different clients simultaneously I work for some high end car cos I'll reach out to them and say hey, we're going to save for instance were goingto iceland would you like to give us a car for a week? I'm gonna have images that you're going to be able to use for you know your social media possibly advertising you know we can we can cross that bridge when we get there and just having those real open dialogues and finding complimentary cos complimentary brands that are happy working together because there's not a conflict of interest and then really styling those chutes with athletes and props and things for instance bag companies and outdoor apparel company a tent company all these things are possible clients and and when you go to set your own shoots up uh one of things to remember is what you know when we talked a little bit about our wardrobe and things finding complimentary brands that worked well together but also thinking well, you know he's got a backpack he's got shoes he's got he's got a surfboard he's got a tent these air all potential clients or people that you could at least reach out to and, uh say hey, I've got some really interesting images on a lot of my business, you know? Honestly, when I first was starting out, start out with cold calls or cold emails in this day and age, you know, I would find out who the art director was or the creative director and I would is funny as it sounds, I forgot his name or her name and be like they are at the here's the earl don't be like frank dot smith, frank smith of smith and send all those you know, basically until I figured out what was the correct one that didn't get kicked back and but and again, I'm not reaching out for something it's not like hey hire me I have something specifically that I think that that client is goingto want so question back when you're doing this marketing, how do you protect your image is when you're sending them out there into the internet world? Well, that's a very good question there is there is a risk every time we publish anything with screen grabs, you know, for me a ce faras if we were to speak specifically about social media you know there is a risk of people taking them, but you know, you have to get to a point where you need people to see these images to promote your brand, so there you have to make your own assessment on what that risk reward is for me the risk is well worth it to see tohave people interact with this and potentially again new clients you know, I register all of my images with the copyright us copyright on and I send them out and I don't typically do watermarks and things like that because if you if you go to a high end creative agency and the art director's looking at this and you have some horrible watermark across it it's visually they don't want to see that, you know, if if somebody really wants to steal your images, they're going tio it's the same thing in is your is your house, you can you can protect yourself, but if somebody really wants to break in and steal your camera gear they're going to so you can you can minimize the risk by registering your images with a copyright office, making sure you document everything who you sent them to and so on and so forth and do that but you know you have to get past the fear of getting your images out there because that's, how people find you and that's how you to business, we had two pro photo be once ah, that were used in the chute with the transmitter from the camera were originally going to use a little led light in the tent to basically just like that up, I have ah, different a bunch of different flashlights and ladies that, you know, work sufficiently for that. But I found that there just wasn't enough juice in that scenario to really like that up because I wanted attention really glow. The ladies really work well when you're doing a night shot with stars and things like that, because you want the light to be very, very low, almost like just barely glowing is with the way the tent looks because you're tryingto match the stars essentially. So we use to probe pro photo be ones one on channel a or channel b, and so they're separate channel so we can basic dial the power up and down on each of those specifically and get, you know, a good exposure for eric, because the light that is essentially right there at the tent, a looming the tent is goingto need a different a different power setting than one that say fifteen, twenty feet away from eric so that's how we did that.