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Photoshoot: Deep V Dress With Michelle

Okay, so these lights they have to be exactly exactly parallel thank you. My math skills again horrible yeah, they gotta be parallel all right, so that one is gonna have to be way down here shooting straight across to be good. These are all in the b channel always loads we get channel okay, where is michelle she's still getting stuff? How about carly? Do I have a stand in carly's gonna come up here? Okay, michelle, come on out I need to do is I need to figure out how far away she is gonna be from the background so let's start with you here on the march where we had carly first I'll grab my camera from inside here. Okay? This is a little bit different. So, um the meeting on this could be really difficult. So which do we have all four heads on? Yes, the modeling later. Okay, all four heads are on the modeling lights are off all right? And I think for this we're going to start with they horizontal. So michelle, take a step to your left about a foot to your right about foot there you go ri...

ght there is good all right that's good and so I'm doing is looking at the composition of this shot all right now where's of the meter when you get this the metering is weird this is sort of it's not gonna be very accurate and shells going totally dark in this let me sort of put this right halfway take a reading I'm getting almost no light at this reading yeah, so these lights are too far out so I think for to see this we need to kill all the ambient lights and turn on the modeling lights because we can't see where light is falling yeah, we cannot see it awesome someone killed that we need to start seeing what we're doing here ariel yeah, so I'm just looking to see how this light is falling on this screen we're gonna just this stuff looking to see if these grids are too restrictive or not restrictive enough we're gonna get a lot of light lasting through here and the reason I want these to be uh you know, coming from the side we went really, really radical sidelight to emphasize this shape something go in here where we see some light that's about four five it's about one so kelsey let's do this go ahead and put those two full power please on both packs on the b channel I'll get this guy over here we're cranking up the power lots more okay whammo that's eighteen that's more like it. You can feel it I know you can hear that, but man like a pal okay, now that's it eighteen so I'm gonna do is we sort of won over exposed it's just a little bit what I'll do is we're going just to taste here so I'm going to shoot this not eighteen I want to shoot this right about eleven we're going to see how this works okay, perfect put that on manual focus second here will have a display yeah, okay um we're blowing things out intentionally you see how we have this wall of really coolness found it looks let's tell the artificial now we have some areas here that we need to fix there's just sort of a dark horizontal area that needs to be fixed so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take this light here is going to raise it up just a little bit like that, okay think that's probably going to do it for us so may's take one more test shot that's coolness, isn't it alright? One more shot here I'm going to manual focus because I can't see anything the area we lost a little on the bottom so kelsey let's add a little bit so it can you be bad lights let's take that bottom line on both sides and let's lower them because we're losing this these corners so not there just right here let's just take this down a little bit just the opposite of what you just did if you need to get some more light down in here and that's the five degree we might have to go to a twenty on that have you got a ten years? So do we have another ten or twenty alright let's replace that with something that's less restrictive for just shaping our light and we're doing this uh I'm calling this tomorrow levine way so there's a photographer that's she's terrific she's in los angeles or name is tomorrow levine and she doesn't use a light meter at all, which drives me bonkers because I don't know how she does it, but she just shoots and looks and sheets and looks and gets phenomenal images so google her t m t a m a r l I e v e tomorrow loving amazing work so I gotta hang out with her a little bit last year and she taught me some stuff so we're using her methodology right now. That's twenty okay, yes that's what we want perfect. So we just brought that lower right hand corner and so much better. So let's, look at what we just did. So we started with the first shot here so you wouldn't get this back so it should have been card in your camera I have no card. Luckily it stores up to three images, so the first shot we wanted to fix a little gap we fixed the gap but we lost the bottom so we brought in her light now we got everything in there all right so normally I would have my lights my camera set to do not fire unless there's a card in the camera I almost always have my card set for that uh my camera set for that but I do a lot of workshops and I don't want to just slow everything down so I have taken it off in this instance uh could have been really bad but it wasn't right when I put a card in my camera because we need to continue to build this after we get the screen style then the next thing we need to do is we need to get michelle dialed in so I'm going to delete format my card so nothing is on there now yes I should say no card I remember earlier I said I had a system for storing cards so I would know which one I could use I still have a card on my card later I want to take that one out and I'm going to put it where that one was because I know I can now take that and use it as well okay, so what we're gonna do now because we need to start building the light on michelle and so if you could take this kelsey take that away we're gonna keep the key light uh where it was before you're gonna need to come forward to keep coming there you go keep coming just about right there I'm bringing her for because I really need to separate the light and for this I want some nice light fall off and I want some nice dramatic down light high contrast vertical light and so I'm gonna put this up a ways marked for the people on the internet who can't tell they just like to know how how far is the model michelle from what's the actual he's about six feet about six feet thank you but more than a kelsey span yes there's about six feet way have the side shot here you can see it's six feet maybe six feet six feet like that takes me to a half inches right so I'm looking at this light and I can see just by holding in my hand that the light stops about right here so if you want to just sort of figure out where light is falling you can use your hand teo look at it and see if you have consistent light works pretty good. Um so now that we have that kelsey can you please meet her michelle nine okay, we need a little bit more of that all right wanted justice so we have nine check that ten we need one more check that thirteen down one that should be eleven eleven alright that's the magic adjustment so that comes from working with these packs a lot so I was doing is I was adjusting that and full stop increments and then I backed it down half stop so again it doesn't matter that you know exactly how I did that that what matters is that you know that whatever a pact that you own that you're gonna add power decrease power on your pack that's all I was doing was adding power decreasing power on this pact to get it right where I wanted it that's also why this digital packs are so amazing because you can do it by tenth stop increments so you could say oh you need one tent stop less group you got it so you can't do that with those but you get pretty close all right now I'm just gonna do a test shot here to see if the light is falling on shell the way we want it to be and no it's not so it's too too much shadow is too bright so I think everything is just two luminous for me but it's very difficult to tell with this shot but I think we can tell enough um from that to know that the shadows aren't right somebody move this I wanted to be more um more centered gonna move this so it's down a little bit I've gotta sandbag on this raise it up I'm saying that raise it up raise your children up raising up people in alabama know what that means raise it up ok anyway from alabama no all right I need a saw uh a box please or step stool is where steps till it'll come in handy because I'm looking right now at the shadows right here the shadow is way too deep for me I want to hide it underneath her chin so what I'm gonna do is get up here I'm gonna make this a little bit flatter you don't want to smash your model I've never done that but it could happen never let your nearest don't be nervous okay I'm only smashed one model may be mad okay um yes like that I think that's going to be a little bit too much shadow under the chin but we're going to go with that for right now so let's meet her that one time would you like me to meet her on her forehead now yeah just meet her at her and her forehead because it's got lots of light right on your forehead sixteen sixteen so now we have too much light try that thirteen thirteen okay, that will help us drop the background a little bit less luminous so I'll crank that up to thirteen once again we're going to check this okay now we're getting there so let's get a small soft box in ahead what we're gonna do is we're going to start filling out these shadows we have too many shadows I don't like that so we need to fill this in here so we're gonna put a soft box on the ground, add light from below and that'll help us out a little bit um ask him no just laying on the ground okay? Just laying on the ground this is the smallest off box. We have this alright this in there and plugged that into b yeah, not every pack allows you to do that where we're just throwing a a light so we need you to meet her kelsey I tried walking around taking the long way. Okay? This is the mean, less power because we just added light to that capacity like we don't need a meter under her chin for now. Eight eight okay, we're gonna crank this up a little bit more ten okay, let's see what we do here, what we do is what we do. So now we have a totally different look much softer and we're getting there so that the problem with this is she's blending totally into the background so there's no separation here there's uh these these colors here there's just no separation she's just falling in so we need to fix that way we're going to fix that is we're going take this background or it's gonna lower a little lower so the bracket just put it right in the middle kelsey bam bam we're taking the luminosity of the background down just a bit make it less luminous you'll see that it drops here yeah we're getting a little bit more separation there and then uh let's even adjust that top left so just swivel it just a little bit john just a little bit toward the wall just a little bit where you go I'm trying to do is knock a little light off that background yeah it needs to be swivelled just little bit more area I think that light is coming from somewhere else maybe not we gotta fix this light right here that's what we're working on right here yeah so maybe we could even bring this out a little bit yeah so let's just try to get some of that light off in there so we can we'll make that little less luminous all right? We're gonna keep going though this is this might not be perfect as we're doing this right now but I liked the light that we have uh michelle the only other thing we might do for this is at a kicker right behind her toe actually add that separation light so do we have a d one head on a understand we don't but we could put one right so get one on the stand and we'll we'll show why sometimes it's good to have a kicker light so I still think this needs some separation so by adding some light right here will be good so we won't even learn to block it. Wizard so I got that we need on a boomer no mistake, chris and we just need a plug there is an extra stinger behind just okay and then we're going to see how we need to control this light because it's gonna throw it right into the gonna throw it right into the lens probably way have power. Okay, there we go on we have this all way dialed down so I'm going to see if this fire's and it goes yep. So stay right here so we're gonna just this power all right and again we're just, uh checking this out based on yeah, we're definitely going to need a flag all right? So let's get a flag large flag and then allan if you could grab one of those that right there that stand right there with the grip on it yet perfect that's gonna come out here? Oh, the pressure getting the stand it's a lot. All right, so I don't know if we could get a camera in one of the video cameras on this side because it's, this will really illustrate this um so you guys are there gonna be shown what I'm trying to do is from behind I don't know if you can get that far all right, john, hold this for just a second. So from this angle here I want to show this from the reverse angle we have light that's hitting her but it's also coming all the way over here so from that camera you can see that there's light coming into the linens that light coming into the lens is going to cause lens flare so are trying to do here is before you mount that is we're trying to get something like this. This is a flag and I need to essentially without blocking you out, I need to block the light from that linds that's what I need to do I'm not walking it from her just blocking it out of the lens. You can really see that on the camera right there that's we're gonna do we're gonna take one of these guys were just gonna sort of cheated in so it's like that and it'll be all good, right? That's what flags are used for let's get this right there. Stick this in the head they're in titan enough. Yep I'm bringing up a little bit was gonna stick it in there like that it doesn't really have to be positioned uh to accurately just has to block the light, all right now we have much nicer separation. Much, much nicer. I like that you see the highlight on our shot on her right shoulder. So if I go back here no highlight on that right shoulder the one closest to the left side of the screen. And now there's some highlights were building that totally makes your pop out there much, much, much nicer like that. Okay, um, we could probably play with this quite a bit more, but I think we're at a point that, uh, we're gonna bring this in just a little bit more just to give us a little bit more. Okay, so that means that we're restricted now two shooting to about right here at the lowest because this is going to get in to the scene. I remember a lot of this stuff is going to be cut out in post production. Go ahead. Ten ten, which is what we've been shooting at along, which is good. So I'm gonna get our verticals. Horizontal is here, so that right side would probably have to vineyard out is good. I'm gonna change my angle of you a little bit, so I can get rid of the ugly stand on the right bank are going to see if we can move it just a little bit. I'm gonna move you actually just to hear just about right there so just take a step there you go just like that just trying to get rid of that ugly stands in the right hand side of the screen you see you got that stand there. We gotta get rid of it. Here you go. Good. This is also where long lens is going to really help you out when you have some nice compression. So if I had another twenty feet or so, I could just use my two hundred and we wouldn't have this issue infected to see if I could come back even farther not sure it can consume in there we go. So look up at the lights so we can have their ugo and let your mouth follow congested hair just a little. There you go. Good, good. Excellent. We're going to do some post in this to cop out some of those lights and that flag so let's see, john, if you could move that flag a little bit uh more offstage yeah, keep coming if you can there you go. There you go. Good all right, excellent. Look at your camera with your eyes, there you go, good yeah chin down just ahead there you go excellent I'm chopping off our fingers that's no good I need to widen this out very good excellent, good, good good let's try to have your arms up a little bit like this so there you go. Yeah, so because I need to be able to get a horizontal I think we're gonna be having to crop about right there because of all these crazy stands then kelsey can you dress that so there's those cables or behind sure so we're going to save ourselves from right here kelsi so we're going to save ourselves some postproduction time by getting these to be on this side there we go and then even just take this off the stand and put it on the ground I was trying to get rid of some of that mess there you good good that's going to save us a little bit of trouble there you go. Michelle looked right at me perfect yes arms up like that is better chin down just a bit a little bit more good, good excellent. We're gonna do a couple more verticals here chin to your right just to here there you go. Yes that's what I want right there is good excellent running it's um tight shots good let your arm drop beautiful that's what we want okay, aaron there you are right there. Are we going to do the face mask? Okay, let's get that set when I put these in these were not my favorites sometimes you have a set that this doesn't work out the way you thought they think this is one of those that this is the not my absolute favorite that's okay, we have backup plans I'm gonna put these in too the computer let's take a check and see how these work out on these we didn't do the color so, um we should be able to use the originals because the color hasn't changed in all ways in the exact same color temperature of the exact same lighting style so we can cheat a little bit so on this I'm going to use my same metadata I'm gonna put in michelle and we're gonna do screens that's good everything else is the same import that and here we go gonna be popping in so, um diane wanna come look at these and then michael also let's get a look at these let's go teo um there's cameras that can see all right, so these are not the ones that we want to look at yet they're still loading your we'll try to slow these down to show to show you what we're looking for um as I've said before, these are my favorite that I, uh I don't feel that they're my favorite at this point based on what I've seen out of the camera because the cropping is a little weird because of where the stands were, the lights we need a little bit more time to dial it in we're just trying to move along so that we don't spend too much time dialing in the lighting shoots when everyone's rooting for you and me it back up and kill the hot lights okay, papering the ambient back on please actually, I sort of like this, okay? We're gonna start from where we added the kicker like okay, so for these obviously we have too many cables here, so we're gonna go through these step by step and tell you why yes it's good or why no it's no good and for these it's mostly technical, mostly technical why we want something or not want something and so what? I'm looking for a separation from the background, the lack of problems in there and this cable here should have been dressed a little bit better so he's looked better to me and post than they did in the camera, so I'm going to go through this sword were rejecting the reason rejecting it too much production to take this cable out the flag is in the opposite side, so you don't like that this one again there's too much too much right here I'm gonna make these little larger too much stand too much flag we're still diluted in same thing too much too much going to the next one this um could be good but I've chopped out her finger fingers chopped off so that's no good still her fingers chopped off that's no good I know it's almost want to pick this because we might be able to crop it and get something out but it be cropped pretty high so it's a weird crop we're gonna keep still fingers have been chopped still we have too much stuff here we have lots of technical problems with this this one here could be cropped no, I like this pose like this shape here I like the curve right here like how that works? Um this stand doesn't bother me too much but it's gonna have to be burned or dodged or something to get rid of that so I'm gonna choose that one um I'm looking to see if we have any issues here. Looks like things are okay. We're gonna need a little powder here's an example of when I have two different spectator highlights on the eyes. Well, sir, that doesn't bother me I love the speculum highlights on this on the lips and on the cheek that looks great so we're going through here um uh are still going through this your chin is too high so it looks like too much knows we don't want to look up the nose of anybody it's looks like to me so that's why we reject that one this I sort of like um we may have a little bit of an awkward arm here if I'm being really really picky but I'm gonna pick it but this arm looks a little bit like weightlifter showing off at muscle beach so I think I'm being really picky on these so there's three that are very close this one the shadows on the eyes are are no good in this big dark area right here so to me that's just too dark I don't like that one to the next one that one has an awkward crop with the arm so it should be above the shoulder so that's no good same with this one same awkward crop so we're rejecting that which is unfortunate because these air these could be nice that's the last one so of all of those and we learned some things though by doing this activity we learned that had need to be really been paying more attention to the fingers we learned about where the cropping is we learned that we need to fix that cable which we did so that's why I usually don't go too far into the chute before we do this kind of a review because it helps me understand how I need to change what I'm shooting, and so I've learned a few things based on this, we can go back here to see our picks do a survey, and we could look and say, you know what? I think we're starting to dial it in and so with a cleaned up, um, cleaned up cable over there, I think this is what we need to be going for is this with an arm, maybe down? I like the second the middle one sort of I think she has to have that be we have that bandit leads your eye around, but, um, I like this poser like her expression, okay, so what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to use this as an inspiration to do future closes, and we're gonna do that right now. So we've gone through, we've looked we've tried to figure out where the problem areas are, we've identified a few of those, and so you see how this is imperative, we I tried some stuff didn't work, we learned some things, we fixed it. Now we're coming back, and we're going to try to use this now since diana seen this pose. She's going to help the model so she's gonna help michelle return to maybe not necessary the exact same post we're going to try to keep some of the curves that we have here and repeat some of the success we've already cleaned up this so that's going to be looking fine they're doing some of the retouching that we wanted them to dio so let's do this and then as soon as we're done with this we're gonna do one more shoot on michelle not yet we gotta nail this first so are all lights back on let's get the modeling lights back on I need to at least the front modeling like second focus back ones don't matter too much but the front ones yeah ok good so diane I need you if you can to help her pose so come on out help for post would you like me to re meet you no unless he's moved it's gonna be the same oh okay okay she needs to step forward just keep coming forward so do we not market? I didn't know she moved okay, so, um this is usually when I'd have a granola bar because normally we don't let anybody move in the middle of a shoot so um let me see the meter thank you very much so and when you meet her originally on her forehead to get ten then you had me moved under that show was here okay, so that's nine so let's have you step back just to hear this has a grid on it so it's restricting some of the light so that still and still a step back there we go and step back just a little bit more there you go ten exactly yeah and so that's that's good so you can use the meter to help make sure that everything is exactly the same place generally during that way have models and not move at all but we needed to have her move for other reasons okay, so we're going to go back to this pose that we had we just have this last little bit of powder and then we'll be done with that day she's done all right, so diane, if you can help her with this pose the one that we see in the laptop screen and talk so people can actually hear what you're saying so your elbow wasn't quite out very far this elbow it was sort of behind you a little bit and a little don't look at the tv screen that's not that's not the right post so just relax kind of relax your arm into that and then relax into the hip there you go there you go yeah, that is good, good that's what we want and also after we shoot a couple of these what I'd like you to do michelle is too just go ahead and drop that left arm good and drop your left arm there you go. Good. Just let that excellent just like that. Okay, good that's the shot right there I can tell that's it that's the one okay, now the last thing we want to do is uh let's go ahead and put the face screen on. All right, so what I will do is I'm going to put these last shots in we're going to go on to our next and last model shoot because we've got to get that table and or else we're going to run out of time something going here I'm import these once again very quickly just to make sure we're good it's popping and when a type and michelle here that's good and my card reader has not been detected yet sometimes this happened the card reader I'm jumped the gun a little bit so I need to make sure that my card reader is actually there there it is. All right import these going take one final look this just to make sure we have the shot I think we do we need to validate that we have the shot and then once we have the shot I can take that and do some total corrections to it so we can have yeah that's that's perfect so kelsi what I want you to do is um turn off the lights in the back okay? I'm totally off and then get a five degree grid on a standard reflector for the front okay instead the beauty dish yes. Okay. Yeah that's the shot of their computer screen? Yeah, positive on yep. So this shot just has everything that I really like. We've got eyes directly to the camera. We'll double check to make sure the technical issues are dealt with it's in focus we've got great highlights. I like the look we're going to need to do some you know, we got to take a vineyard or something to get rid of that stand, but we can do that. We also have a little bit of room too crop in just to hear if we need teo was shooting white on purpose so we can do this way could get rid of that and just like that, we're good and I'm gonna also go in here and I'm going to make a virtual copy because I'm just curious I think this is gonna look better with a little bit different setting so I'm gonna make a virtual copy. I'm gonna open the virtual copy into my, uh develop module and then what I'm gonna do is go in here and I'm just gonna do a black and white high contrast look, I don't like any of the original those guys right there it's gonna go in here and play with my shadows bring those down bring this up that sort of looks cool it's a little bit to contrast it for me though but I'm gonna give you that as an option so it looks a little film noir was sort of like that so if you guys want to see this at home it looks like this ma'am sort of cool I like that yeah so maybe that's the shot so I'll give you two versions one in color one it's uh not in color and so let's just go ahead and put this in here they're gonna get one more shot and then we'll move on to the table and uh then we'll be zipping along so expert that with previous yes aaron you have questions now we're fine she just asked if I wanted her to change into a different dress so I said no looks good okay um let us take this and I'll inject it give it to michael he's gonna go do his magic there you go good all right we're cranking along right now so before well before I trip over anything um questions from the live audience we can actually turn back on ambulance if you want waken show people also do you want this lower soft box on no just that light is always one question from photo newbie are you are you meeting to match your desired aperture um yes because we had we we set our ratios of that background screen we did some experiments and we knew that f ten that's where we're getting the highlights blown out in a way that was pleasing and so that we uh we needed to make sure the model was meeting of ten consistently that's why I had her move back so she'd be in the same exact place not only for the meeting but for the shadows because if she was too far for she'd be blown out we'd have shadows that we're different so um in this case yeah, I wanna have atleast f ten because I want to have that screen in the background to be in focus I want to be able to see the details of that screen and if I open up my aperture anymore it's going to fall out of focus and I don't want that so a question from also from photo newbie does mark have a limit to how far into a photo a crop is acceptable eighty percent seventy five percent etcetera yeah it's exactly seventy point to know I don't know there's some rules therefore cropping you know if you have an entire body in a shot you don't want to crop at the head you want to do that you don't chop off people's hands you don't chop off right below a limb that's no good so it's natural crop above um above joints above the knees um at the waist, but never right above the ankles because it looks like you're stuck in the mud never right below the knees because it looks like you're, you know, stuck in something so above the knees at the waist above the arm joints and if you have a really tight headshot, which we're about to do, they're going to see extreme cropping on this next shot. We're going to get really, really close. Well, probably crop. So close that the chin in the forehead or are gone in this next shot. Okay, sounds good. Georgie has a question. Can you give any special tips for using a relatively small suit studio safe or by six meters? Can you repeat that? Can you give any special tips for using a relatively small studio space? Relatively small studio space? Um, there's tons of tips, but just some general things you're normally going to be working in soft light because you're going to be bouncing light and intentionally um and so, um, make sure you have ways to control that light with grids and flags and things like that. Um if possible, if not just just understand your light's gonna be soft because it's bouncing all over the place, you know, most of us start out and really small studios and to get some of it looks like we're getting here it's not possible because you have to get really far back with your camera and so don't plan on shooting full body shots maybe just headshots things like that if you're using longer lenses um you just have to work sort of within the boundaries of that space but generally for shooting soft light portrait's you're going to be it'll be spectacular if you need to shoot full body stuff then uh you need to get somewhere that has a little bit more space well, more questions I'm gonna keep cranking, okay uh it was just a little follow question from photo newbie with regard to that his cropping question on it was he was really asking meaning before you lose resolution for acceptable for print oh acceptable for prints. Yes, it totally depends on the resolution of the camera that you're working from and so, um I'd have to look normally I do the cropping in photo shop and it tells you at three hundred dpr three hundred pixels per inch, which is a print resolution how large that file is going to be in dimensions and inches and so I'm really bad at math and I know if I mentioned that so I just let photoshopped help me out with how large or how small but generally I no like today we're gonna be cropping sometimes pretty heavily, and so I've got the d three x, and I think I don't know what the resolution of this camera is, but I think it's twenty something mega pixels, something that so and sure somebody out there knows what it is, but it's it's up there, all right? We're gonna keep going. And, uh, I don't want to miss out on anything, okay? So what we're gonna do here, by the way, let me have this very important. Extremely important in, uh, a studio environment. Make sure that you have been de straws. And so these are bendable straws. The reason for bendy straws is when models need to drink. If they have normal straws, it messes up their lipstick and it's no. Good. So if you don't have been de straws, the models won't be able to stay hydrated. It seems like a really stupid thing, but bendy straws are very important for the models, so make sure your catering we have won. They're aaron just rented to get a bendy straw because you thought I was saying we did but way germs, cooties. But anyway, those bendy straws are really important.