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Lesson Info

4-5 Month Olds: Basket Shot

This floor is from intuition backgrounds becky and I need this to move over we can the middle more thank you, dear and we'll just do a little have a different set up here and see what it looks like thank you so when this background is from becky too she just has these really nice little that might be a little bit short but that's okay we'll figure it out I'm gonna shoot from a previous in distance we should be all right. Um becky does really nice stuff that's a little bit better and she like hand paint off I'm not sure about all of them but she hand paints a lot of her background so this's not something I would normally all the time do with they five months old but what she is about to turn five months right? Is that what mom said just turned five months. Okay, so she's on the older side of the stage let's see here yeah so she's on the older side of the stage which is my little which means I'm not afraid to try a little bit of try potting and get her to sit up just a touch this right h...

ere is just a doorstop I use it all the time when I'm shooting in these buckets to help me kind of keep baby in one spot are kind of in a in a little pocket, so to speak now lauren is going to be spotting this child bigtime lawrence has strict instructions that I don't care if she ruined the shot uh what's important is that little munchkin sloan here? Uh does not tip over okay, so we're gonna move this forward just touch no, no let me do that that's okay? We'll make that happen. Okay, so my other light back here is set on half power just so I light my back drop a little bit and it also gives me a little bit of a kicker um now the proper way to do it is to have several lights back there change lenses too. Thank you. Uh is toe light the background with two lights but I'm a cheapskate and uh so I just use a large lot of fire at the back that kind of helps still some light onto my subject as well. My background now is this highly controlled light no it's not highly controlled it all as a matter of fact it's highly out of control but I want a soft look to my life so I don't need, you know, teeny tiny fine edge control on my kickers. I want a soft, glowing, almost natural look to my images, so as long as I have a lighting ratio of some kind that's soft with not a ton of contrast, I'm pretty happy with that okay so we're going to get her in a little bit different of a get up here yeah I think we're gonna put these over her come on over here lauren on let's get something soft to put her down on again I have a changing table at the studio and um we're just gonna use this as like a little diaper cover I have a changing table at the studio so we are constantly going back and forth for that to change baby's hey you just too cute for words oh just angel you are and, um you're already ruling over look atyou already ruined over and this stuff is meant to fit like five month olds however she's in I think nine to twelve now um and the diapers gonna show through just a little bit here should be okay and uh I like that that's the blue and the green showing through all the diapers I'm gonna go ahead and take it off it's okay if you pee in this yeah and you already peed so I don't think you're gonna do it again right? You wouldn't give me twice would you know if we live through I believe you queenie you were just too cute for words and you crack those beautiful blue eyes yes, yes we tried that hat on thank you look adorable even more adorable than you already are she's just weak acute hash tag and orbs you get all tired aren't you? I know this is the last set up okay, you can do it you can do it okay so lawrence job I'm going to put her in here and lawrence job just commit you're just help herself we haven't tested her out to see how she gets it up let's go ahead and do that before we put her in the basket so I just kind of want to see if she can tripod so she's gonna lean over a lot on me yeah job you're twins you're so strong look at you can you kind of see what she's doing she's kind of leaning over which I'd rather have them do that then you know fall backwards so we're heading popper in them and the bucket here look att used to meet girl hi here we go when she's gonna want a tripod forward he and his cute school hadn't just kind of put your hand on her chest because she take the weight off of her chest so she doesn't have to lean on herself so much perfect oh my gosh you're cute up here we'll get buzz and um I kind of helped her get up into a sitting position when I'm ready oh my gosh you are just a durable test shot I mean huh okay and when you're ready if you feel like she's just don't you can ruin my shot okay learn yeah you're who's arguing let's get him closed intothe q b you're doing too good look how strong you are may put her hands on this sometimes they get it like oh I can push up off that I'm saying she's gonna get tired really quick doing this so we're gonna get this shot quickly oh okay smile you are so strong my greenie I was just kind of leaning over like that yeah and she started getting tired ok go ahead they don't last long on this especially at this age they kind of leave it going oh my god this is really hard to do and you know mom is doing this at home with her all the time I'm sure like teaching her how to set up so she can learn to get those abs strong and do it but that was super cute she was adorable so really the major images that I get the stage are the tummy time the on the back grabbing the feet the cue ball head shot and then if they're older like this I'll try a little sitting up andi this would have been matched to what we're creating so if this was the shot for the siri's that we're doing over the course of the year we would be doing this setup on almost every single session okay it might very just a touch but it would all have to match and go together at the end of the year so you can see how you're gonna have to plan your sessions, my, um, floor at the back there kind of dipped a little bit on me, but we can fix that. Uh oh, my gosh. She is cute. Delicious little time. So yeah, so that those are the basic shots that I would get at the stage. And we're running into the exact problems that I thought we would baby, who hasn't had a long nap. Who's a little bit overtired she's super sweet, though, and has a great personality. So, you know, she's she did find for us. And if I was in a real session, I might not me. This is a real session, but if I was in a session at home, I might try. Teo, give her a break and then come back and try another set up at a later time. That makes sense. All right, so you guys are studio on ants, wants to stand up if they have any questions. Was I supposed to do? All right, I'm gonna fix your hair for you. Alright? So and keep your questions coming, folks. So, but first question, just a basic one for people who are learning from us at home from tom locos when you're shooting your studio, are you shooting tethered? No, not at all no and I just do that here it created by men and that is a little awkward because you can't when you're tethered you can't see the back of your camera you have to look at the screen so sometimes I'm not used to it so I forgive me if I seem a little awkward because I'm I'm not used to meet each other that also so wanting to explain that to everybody here cool so a question had come in about some of the technical question eric come in about what since we now have the lighting set up sure you showed us in the beginning of the session how to white balance and kim had a question do you have to reset the white balance when you shoot from above or different angles with no set up no you don't so white balance has do with the color temperature of the light so and once you want to turn this light on the color temperature remains the same correct no matter whether I'm shooting above or shaving the side color, temperature and exposure are completely different now when I move my subject further away from the light or closer to it than yeah, my exposure is going to change but the color temperature will not and you guys raise your hand let me know if you have a question up there felicia has a question okay, great you do if they want to go outside for some of the baby plan session is that's a really good question? I don't typically do these younger sessions outside on, and I live in a place that has winter pretty much eight months out of the year, so we shoot most of these in studio, but the family session that I offer and your two, they have the choice of doing outside or inside, but you could do baby fun outside there's no reason why you can't. If you don't have a studio, it would just be that would become you're lookin your brand and how you how you do it. I am a studio, but I finally wear ones after six months, they wantto buy apart so they want to do they want to go outside in the part, like, how do you balance? Uh, I guess we could do studio and then go, yeah, you could you could do both if you want, but I'm I'm all about time and efficiency, and to me, that's two separate sessions outside and inside, because they require two different setups to different, you know, it's, like a whole different animal to go outside than it is to shoot a studio, but then also, what you'll notice is that if you produce an annual product line that has incremental steps. You'll have less and less of that of people requesting to go inside and out because they want the images from the first session to match and coordinate with images that you do at the last session. Great. Thank you. Yeah, your questions didn't don't have what I want done for the I get your do you have a different workflow for each age and stages you go through? Do you do all of the styling for the baby? Do you allow parents to bring outfits, clothing options or do you handle it one hundred percent again? Really a question cause we're doing something kind of out of the ordinary here. Normally, I tell my parents, bring a suitcase full of stuff, but I'm actually, you know, as a business owner, and I hope you guys will be okay with me admitting this is my business is ever evolving and changing, too, and I have been in the mind set the last year to just let mom and dad bringing a suitcase of stuff and we'll match will coordinate, but I'm finding it is with this annual product saying in mind, it doesn't always work as easily and so if I can style the shoot. Like I do with newborns, I'm going to have more of a consistent look I'm going to be able to control everything and produce a product at the end that has that incremental look to it and and, you know is more um is more like why why what I produced for newborns, which makes my brand more consistent so I'm actually switching slowly, switching over to doing one or two style looks on my own and then kind of bringing in the client's outfits as well for this here we decided to style it all just because with the model situation and, you know, bringing in people whom I had never met before and models we decide okay, all style and then that way you know, we can have that consistency here on set and just little bit more planning, but normally in the studio, what I would do is do a couple of style and when I'm finding is that the clients want they buy the style images because they look better so just keep that in mind and then so now there's vendors like natural spring wonders producing these, you know, gorgeous little keep sets that look good and we do it for newborns, why don't we do it for baby planners? And then you create that consistency in your client's so happy with the final product that's truly an art piece which is really great question because that had come in and many people have voted on the question of do you use the same product for every baby session would use the same bucket? Yeah, a lot of a lot of questions and I have, you know, several different buckets you know? I only brought I drove here from ben, so I only brought what I could get my car, you know? But I brought the bigger buckets and stuff that we have this suit, but I use the same ones for newborn is I do for you baby plan and the parents loved that I mean, if you shoot this with a newborn innit similar set up and then you shoot him at three months the same thing that you know, one year the same thing the parents and standing next to it instead of sitting in it I mean, you create this this look that oh my gosh, my child is growing and so quickly carmen do you have a question? How long does it normally take you for a session and what happens if, for example, you have a session, they go smoothly, do you overdo it? What do you do you do you do you know why you're saying these age is you can see we didn't mean we originally had two babies for this I got two babies because I thought their last twenty twenty five minutes at the most. Because that's kind of my gage in my head. Now, could I? We just took a break. Could I take this baby back and shoot more with her? You betcha. And I could probably get more out of her. It would take longer, but as faras continuous shooting most that this age can really only handle about twenty, twenty five minutes before they start to go like, you know, I mean, so I will shoot enough to get twenty five to thirty five beautiful finished images which if you think about it, we didn't quite do that here. But if you think about it that's two or three different looks or set ups close medium far, so, uh, and then black and whites. So if you do five poses or five looks with five shots each that's, a lot of images, right? That's. Too much. Okay, that's one hundred twenty five images. You don't need that many. So if you just d'oh four or five different looks at the most with five images each that's going to give you twenty thirty with black and whites in your session and that's what you should be planning foreign shooting for. So when I say, create a system what I mean is plan your shot list and you know and you won't have to do this forever when the beginning yes when you're first starting to kind of figure out your system but as you start to get your system in place sorry when you're first starting out make a shot list even at the beginning of session you've done the conservation the client you know you're going to do like a bone backdrop this is the bone color with seems paper and then you're going to switch to the fur rug and then you're going to switch to the pink or kind of brown creamy set up think about which different poses you're going to do with each of those set ups and which shots you're going to get close meeting far feet, you know and then that'll kind of plan the session so that you get exactly the number of images that you need that are all different and unique to the client but at the same time can produce that annual product at the end. So say for example, the nursery has like cream furniture with a little accent a pink this is classic for the stage, so she may want to shoot, you know used this as her starting point for the annual product now I have some album annual products to which I'll show you when we get into the product development when that's the case you know you want to shoot the session so that it coordinates together in an album you know you want don't want looks they're so wildly different that it doesn't tell a cute story of the session you want a consistent look, I guess what I'm saying and a lot of photographers say mi ho but that stifles creativity and I can't know it doesn't you're going to have a style, you're gonna have a look, your clients are gonna want to come to you for that and ones and that's what makes you different? So if you just kind of granite, like I said, I hope you guys don't mind me admitting my errors and that I used to just let the client kind of bring in whatever theywant clothing wise and now I'm come transitioning away from that and it just happened, like in the last month or two, I'm going, you know what? I really can't I mean, I can create a new product that's a lot harder or if I just stall it all myself, that would be so much better for me my client will be happier and, you know, I just started recently doing like one set up that high style and the clients I love that shot that's the shot they pick and so that tells me a lot too fantastic well and when you say I hope you don't mind telling I mean that's what we want to hear it it's a real deal, julia and how your practice is evolving so thank you so wonderful segment we have now seen the four month old this week, so shoot, I really want to hit home about that point that you just made about figuring out what the parents want and giving it back to them because it kind of comes back to this theme of our moms and dads who have these little babies have so much going on and what julia is teaching us is to create those systems so that and to make it easy for ourselves as well as for the parents. So what a beautiful look this is if that's your brand in your style I'm just having flashbacks of baby's coming in with, you know, stripes and all these things and now that's not it could be fun. Yeah, but it's it's just it's hard to plan, you know? And when it's within that set of the baby plan, you have a year and thinking about those forward products. Now tell students to sorry I mean, now that was tell students too, that your clients can't see it they don't have that visual literacy that we call it they trust you to do that for them so if you just let them bring in the clothes and do whatever, then it's. Just it's. Not going to come together. It's. Just gonna be a snapshot, not our peace.