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Wedding Day Critique Part 2

Love love love the idea of this photograph I'll tell you what I'm nuts about in this picture I like the fact that the maker in this picture are the maker the person who took this photograph chose to photograph through something I love the whole feeling of what's going on with this thes these twinkly things there in the foreground on if it's candles or whatever is but I think it's really really nice what is bothering me is that there's too much attention she competes with them she totally competes with them if you had moved that subject away from that painting right here because she's she's we want to see her she's looking in the camera so we start looking at them and then we look at her so I think if you had moved them forward and not let that be a foot of a focal point then this would have been a rock star because all of this goes with this the other thing is is that the light on them is too bright and you can tell scott maybe you can address that the way that they live got picture ye...

ah I think they went over there because there was maybe a table there something so they could put the flash behind it and light it um but like I said it's very that's very popular style just to put the flash behind and then like the subjects again, if you would have brought the subject's closer and if you would had that light a little bit less obvious, um, you could I mean, in this particular case here because, uh, to the left of the subject is just kind of a blurry texture. You could actually have your assistant like them from the side and easily take them out of photo shop. And a lot of photographers do that when they have a clean area. That's not, um I have a lot of detail that needs to be in the picture. They'll literally just put the photographer right there the light it in the milk, loan it and take it out. And so the the light looks a little bit more natural. And so that's what's kind of throwing it off to me is whenever photographer does that lighting style it's cool, it gets wow, but then it's not realistic, right? Because you don't always see lighting that way, I would start to try to create something where the lighting is a little a bit more realistic, so I probably would have maybe had my assistant on a stick or something. Hold the lighting a pyre and off to the side so they look like make it look like there's, a light source coming on them. In addition to that I think it's the quality of light that bothers me you see the whole scene is very soft and very moody and romantic and then you have this crisp sharp small light source so in order to keep it very harmonious the light source that they use has to be the right one and I think that's one of the reasons that photographers need to have a variety of different tools in their toolbox they need to have strobes but they also need to have like a continuous light source like like the little ice light or or the some of the other life's sources that are out on the market because then you can control the amount of output and I like a continuous light source like the ice light because I can absolutely control how much light how is coming out and it's a very soft light source and I think that is that in this particular context would make a huge difference boy I'd love to see this make her go back to this spot and there's something here because I love their creativity this club so they just have it's like it's like having all the ingredients to make a great cake but but not sure how to put them all together can I go technical here on how approach it from a technical technical aspect okay so fire lighting this situation first off I set my eyes so really high like maybe sixteen hundred okay, I would capture that background in that field and because I'm using a high iess so I don't have to use a flash with a lot of power to give me my life I could just take a little video like like my own killer video light and just turn it on a little bit sometimes I defuse it through in him umbrella take a simple shoot through umbrella I stick that light through it and bam and just hit them with a hint of light on them to match the scene soft light should go with soft light this case is soft light but it's hard light behind so when you're in the situation sticky rice so high bring it up to sixteen hundred because if you're using constant light your shutter speed has to be high to or else you're going to get a blur not necessarily unless you're really good at hand yeah, well yeah yeah if you're good with your hands then I guess but in the back but in regards to flash I could shoot a flash at one second hand held on to be razor sharp. You can't do that when you're using constant that's what I mean so that's what I mean keeping it up above, you know, fiftieth of a second or so okay um I like the idea of what they're going for here um but the expression I think we could have got a little bit better expression on her face, and I don't like the crop in this situation, that little eye eyes bothering me. So if you would have went straight down the middle of the face, I think it would have been pulled off a lot better and a tad bit mohr of kind of enduring emotion in the face, too. And, you know, whenever you do this kind of crop, this can be done very successfully, but the expression has to fit the crop so in this case, because she just is looking off with her eyes and then that there is that little black spot where the other eye goes, it just looks like you made a mistake. Where is if you had her going you like, you know, or had some sort of funky little expression that fit the crop, then it's going to look a lot lot better? I think I like the idea where the makers going, and I'd like to see you explore that again. But this time I want you to think not just about the mechanics of a crop, but I want you to think about what goes into the expression that goes along with that crop. I love the camera position on this I got to tell you this photograph is really close I like the way that they treated this I mean it's a little bit contrast t but I don't it doesn't bother me and why it doesn't bother me is because of the style of the dress that the girls wearing if you look at it's not she's not like one of those perfectly croft little brides and the background and all of the there's a lot of harmony to me going on in this photograph background is overexposed but then they went ahead and overexposed all of the other elements so it doesn't really bother me the way that they treated it the one thing if this is an unprompted image in other words they didn't they didn't pose it then maybe this is probably as good as you could get I would like to see where the feet area is I'd like to see a little bit more room at the feet but if you prompted this photograph this is one that you directed then what I would like to see you do is not have her with her arms straight you notice her arms just like this he had my hands are and we don't want that we don't want to see the back of the arms first of all the back of the arm when you see this part of the arm is heavier and wider then the side of the arms so if I move my hands my arms like this this part of my arm isn't as large as the back side so we want to see the side of the hand not the back of the hand in addition, if she's got that skirt instead having her just go like this and grab it like that have her grab it not with these two fingers but these two fingers you see look what happens to my arms you see when you have that long continuous line she can lift it and also that's step number one but notice what happens my elbows I'm not pulling my elbows out I'm pulling them back, pulling the shoulders back so that it goes like this and that way if she walks you can see that light trapped between her arm and her waist which gives context anyone with a waist so then it makes her look it looks more believing she could look down, see how that looks more elegant. The other thing that I would do is if I were prompting this photograph I would have her walk not like this but I would have her walk like this like this and like this and like this because something happens to the way that your hip s move when you walk with one leg in front of the other it kind of swivels your hips a little bit and so this see how it takes my shoulders and my hips and pushes him and so that gives you more of a waistline then it does if you just see how that doesn't look very good. So um scott, this is the exact type of photograph that I would have taken me like maybe five years ago so the difference between me taking a photograph now and versus five years ago I would have saw this particular situation I want to solve the light and when I saw how she looked and I would have taken that picture because I'm voter journalist lee capturing the image I will look at it and go wait, I have a chance for a masterpiece here let's back up and let's do this right I can spend time on this image and get it right because I could see the potential of it and so that's exactly what bambi did it's like ok, this is great but let's make it into a masterpiece and that's what now that's how I shoot weddings a lot of times on the shooting, shooting, shooting and then I'll run across something that's almost there because you're never going to get that perfect picture a lot of times by just capturing it you're gonna happen that's what separates you from the average wedding for tiger to the really good photographer is that you could find tune that image redo it like like I tell my students all the time it's ok to hit the rewind button if you see something really good it's only taking a few minutes more we're going to fine tune it and create that message. You know, one of the thing about this photograph I'd see I I love the light on this picture. Look at the way where the main lights coming from. You see, the main light is coming from across here lighting her face. I mean, it's probably coming from a little bit behind, but whatever is over here is bouncing on this young lady's face, which is gorgeous. It's really pretty. So in this kind of a scene, if I'm doing if I see that environment when I go to a wedding place and I see where I look around the room, I would pick this spot it's okay? For sure I want to do pictures there. So in addition to photographing her maybe walking down looking like this, I might want to get her to turn her face back up a bit so that we could see that and then get her to play a little bit for the camera, get a laugh and interact because this kind of environment lends itself very, very nicely to the more playful moment it could be more a little bit more spontaneous, so within a couple minutes of just doing those few little things instead of getting one photo you can literally end up getting four five really great photos ok um first of all I like the camera angle I think that you did a nice job I like the I like the way that you composed the picture I feel like there's a little bit too much it's cropped a little bit too loosely I like the fact that they chose to photograph through those trees I like trees I think it could be a very a very good way to draw your eye right to your subject with that said if you if you look at this image carefully the house behind them has that white diagonal bar and it pulls your eye right away from the subject so I find that that's a bit of a distraction another huge distraction and I couldn't get at him life mind was the length of that tie it just come on it's just completely like I mean I think it's great you know the expression and the casual moment and the light behind them and everything but this that that and I think that's being part of a photographer is noticing these details and when you have something you have the makings of a masterpiece there and then oh man look at the ties off if it's something that we can control should try to control that and if you had moved that subject forward to you if they had brought that subject in front of that, you know, closer to the camera position and move them up a bit that house would you and he was seen it and this could have been an amazing picture sometimes the length of lens you choose can really make the difference for you and I don't I don't believe this was the seventy two, two hundred millimeter lens, but I think that I would choose the seventy two, two hundred millimeter lens in this kind of context because you can get rid of a lot of things that are distractions using a longer focal light blends can I jump in with a question? Yeah, I'm wondering as you're critiquing do you always start off? It seems like you always start with the positive comment first and then get into something more critical. Is that true? Am I just imagining that you do that? Well, I know for me it's not intentional, okay, but I just think that it's important for people who know what they did right sometimes if you on ly identify what's wrong in a picture, then you know, I think that can be very overwhelming for a person they think well, they just got to start from scratch and start all over and I think that's not the case yeah you know, a lot of cases, they might have seven out of the ten things, right? And we're just kind of talking about the two ones that are not, but you know, that photographer, my gun, a lot of things well, so well in the knowledge that and, hey, if you guys don't mind, I'd like to just jump in because noah who's, the photographer here, just wanted to write a little bit of backstory. September afternoon, just before sunset. Three foot octagon box, octagon, octo box camera, right. It was a very special winning for us because the bride and collapse that morning, and until three hours before this picture was taken, we all thought the wedding would not happen that day. After all the paramedics and the stress, the portrait session was the first moment when the couple could it wasn't this photograph that we see now the tree, this exact oh, my goodness, they did a really great job, it's anything what they had, you know that, and that to me, takes a lot of skill. I think sometimes the back stories in a competition, we don't get the luxury of hearing about the back story, so well, we have all we can do is judge what's right in front of us, but the back story can be so such a huge thing and that to me separates the men from the boys when you see someone who you know in an adverse situation was able to take something and move it to such a really nice place I like this image um lighting the composition maybe I would have cropped it up ted tough tighter on the left hand side kind of feels like maybe it could be a bit closer but maybe not if they kind of toned down the brighter areas of this picture so they would this the subjects would just stick out a little bit more that would make me a little bit happier and then if they dodged I mean, if they I kind of brought out a little bit of the deep tail on the right hand side to come through I mean it's not bothering me that much, but when you look at that image you're going wow and that has that effect to it see, I really like this photograph and actually I like the whole panoramic look of it. I started kind of thinking well, maybe we should crop off that area on the right with those trees on I think that it would look very still very nice either way the area that I'd like to see this photographer work on to me is on the posing the posing is a bit static with the bride and the groom they are standing very flat footed you can tell that they're kind of pretty much staying there now you know obviously I don't know if you with this young lady maybe you are you have to cut you some slack as if she wasn't feeling well they may not get get get them up like that much but if that's whatever the case is can you at least get them to get from being standing flat footed on two feet two sticks to one foot you know so that they are so it's a bit more believable here kid stand it so let's I want to show your best side so here tio s o s o I would have him he's going to rock this way and then she in turn would go this way in that case with that photograph right here that main light coming in the way it is you see how now to me we look very it looks more believable I could look at him I could look down you know they could be she could come around him and the cool thing about this is that she now she could go like this she can go like this she could even come and bring your hands on the back of him so you have a lot with that moving their feet too much once you get that weight off and get it on one foot look where I'm at right now if she's a bigger girl that she doesn't look very big, but but if she were, I've cut off half of my body right now, I know I look at least pounds thinner, but notice what she can do, you can even start moving of this way so that and bring the face down with your give me hug with that cheek right there all love it, so those are the kind of things that you could do very quickly just identify the small little body parts and finesse it just a little bit and you've got a really nice I think that's like a definitely a classic pose that you could use every single time instead of the two sticks, I just get the groom this wait this way, lean her this way look at each other, you do that every single time that you're go to vam, you've got a winner and that's a good thing about having something in your bag that is like when you have your plan because there's times when you need like, in this case, they would need it done, they would need a plan because, you know, you probably don't know how long she's going able to stand up if she'd been ill, then you know she may be fainting in the next moment so and I figured a photographer who goes to all the trouble to bring an octo bank to a wedding reception that's probably somebody who is willing to go to put forth a little bit of effort to do you suppose it is? It takes a lot of work to do that and to see that and I think the maker did a great job. So k, k photography just said across having a photo critique on creative live off my bucket list. Ok, ok, um love the connection here, they've got that nice feel they've got the lens flare coming through because they kind of did a high contrast thing what's kind of throwing my eye off right off the bat. Is that horizontal line going right through their head? So how could you eliminate that either go higher or either go lower and up and then just to try to remove that? Um, again, you know, it's it's kind of shooting a lot of his back, uh, they're so possibly their re crop inning or repositioning and fixing that, but those are the two things that kind of came across my mind. I'll tell you what I like that the maker did, I like the high camera angle that they chose that's an important camera angle for this young lady, she's got a bigger she's thick underneath the next shoe collection a little bit of a chin on dso the lower camp camera angle to me would not work with this young lady you cannot shoot a low camera angle on somebody that has a bit of ah chin down there I also love the fact that he covered part of her arm with his arm I think that works beautifully because if you can't see it it doesn't exist that to me what would have helped this image and made it a little more believable is if he had tilted her head this is a perfect example of see how she's standing straight with her chin she's kind of got her head leaning into him whereas she had just said to that young lady tilt your head just a little bit this way then two things were gonna happen first of all tilting her head to the left hand side like that would give her a bit more of a jaw line and it would make that photograph look a little bit more believable it would give it a little more believable as it is because it's straight up and down we stay a little bit more of the chin and we want to I understand why the maker chose to overexpose this because the background is very distracting and so in that case I would probably have gotten up maybe a little bit higher and if you can't then this is where let's say that this is what you've got to see. We have there's a trade off. If we go a bit higher camera angle, the higher camera angle means we may not have seen her face properly, and then you've got that light coming in on the right hand side, the sunlight, which is why there's some length lor going on? So there are some times when you can't do all of the things that we talk about, you wanted to do so at the end of the day, that dark line going across their head is an easy fix and photo shop. I would just have gotten rid of that, and then we wouldn't even a scene now, yeah, I would absolutely just go into photo shop, use the clone stand tool under the lightened mode. If you use it in the light mode, make two layers of your picture and under the lightened mode in the clone stamp tool. What happens is it only affects the dark pixels, so I'm not kidding. I literally would have run across that, you know, except for their heads. Of course, I would have run across that with a good sized brush that would have been gone, like, literally just like that it's, so such a quick fix. That's one way to do it another way to do it is just to take some of the light background in the background and make a second layer of that, and then just painted out where you need to doing those few extra things I think could really help this image. See, I don't mind where he's his the camera angle on him. I don't find that I don't find that bad, because I like so much about what's going on with her, I just think a little bit more finessing remember with that young lady tilt her head towards the camera or to the side of the camera, not away, because you don't want to see this part of that jaw line. So if you're getting kind of which you say is doing this right, even if he's just leaning a little bit forward, it would make a big difference. Yes, that's, exactly true. So in other words, let's, demonstrate that scott s ok, so here, so as it is, okay camera positions like maybe they're so as it is, they're like he's doing that and she's like this, so now we want to tilt her head this way and now maybe have her lean this way see how much I'm leaning away despite, like and now that even drops the shoulder, which is going to mean this part of the arm isn't going to show up as much, because we have choices, like use their shooting into the shoulder. Okay, we can cover it with his arm. But if you go like that, guess what? It goes away. One rule that I liketo use when posing a bride, and I'm looking at it, and I see stiffness a lot of times is that this shoulders is parallel to the ground, right? So any time you break that and you turn it right, it's going to have a more flowing feel to it. And in that case, that's, what it does, leaning forward or repositioning, will break that stiffness to it.