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Morning Session Q&A

You guys got questions? I got a question for you. All right, go on and do it. Okay, so this isn't about the lighting that we did yesterday, but and a friend of mine tweeted me and wanted me to ask you, do you guys pay for address? The new facebook thing that's going on? You paid tio have it promoted to have it be promoted, it's supposed to go to a bigger audience? Wait, do you guys do that? No. So what she's talking about is, you can now when you make a post, if you want to control and make sure a larger audience sees your post and has access to it, you can actually pay to promote that post, we have opted not to do that, so we make our post, we let it go out there, and so far, I don't see the value in paying for that very similar to the way I don't see the value in facebook advertising at all. I have yet to see that work, and you don't have to listen to sal on this. You can look to wall street, uh, facebook stock is getting hammered, and part of the reason is because they're add, um, s...

trategy doesn't seem to work or resonate with businesses, so until it works, until I see success, I'm definitely not going to encourage you guys to take advantage of it. So short answer is no. Okay, I have ah, quick question for you have a suit snappy. And mike a both wanted to know about your white balance used auto on in the studio and on location. If you ever change in studio, I'm more likely to actually try and set the white balance. So what we were doing in studio just inside is I'd set kelvin to about fifty, two hundred if I remember correctly off the top of my head, but ultimately it doesn't matter. You're shooting raw and part of the benefit of shooting raw is you are goingto correct that once you get into your digital dark room, so to speak, and so that's the way we work within our workflow, I am not spending a whole lot of time because the truth is, even if you had your white balance seemingly perfect on the back, your camera, your camera, the back, your camera's not calibrated to printer is not calibrated to your monitor, so it really doesn't matter. That's why I like raw, so will we'll do without way. Now we're out here, my camera set to auto white bowne, I just don't care. Everything's daylight balanced all the white balance is gonna give me that fifty, five hundred calvin, which is typically where I wanna be in a daylight setting. That's gonna get me close enough. The rest of you take care of imposed a good question, okay? And a question from I don't know you talked about you didn't show us all the different types of lighting that you used, but several people vega t to you and and matheson wanted to know about using a beauty dish and do use that one. Would you choose to use that versus the other ways? Yeah, and I do use a beauty dish, and we didn't have that attachment here. Or maybe we did. We just didn't get to it. We were moving really quick in there. I do use a beauty dish I do use, you know, broad lighting. I mean, there's split lighting. I mean, there's. So many different lighting techniques, and I think you have to experiment, right? I mean, that comes back to what I said before. Don't be afraid to make mistakes, and part of that is just defining your style. Finding your look, I love a beauty dish. I love the way it looks, so I think you've gotta figure out what you want your final image to look like if you're maybe a better way to ask this question or think about the answer is when you step into a photo shoot, if you're if you don't have a vision of what that final image is gonna look like, I would say you're just kind of wandering around in a dark room when I step up into ah, shoot into a scene, if you will at least have ah vision in my head of how I want this to look in final, so I always get there. No, of course not, but I'm shooting with the end goal in mind, right? We've got to shoot to sell, so you'll hear me say that over and over again shoot to sow think about where you're going, so just to follow up on that. So when is it that you? Is it the team that makes you decide to use the beauty dish their look, their outfits? How do you decide what lighting for what person? Yes, all right, so I'm looking at their outfits I'm looking at what mood are we trying to evoke out of that image? Right? I don't want to create hard light on somebody who's sitting there in this beautiful dress, then I want to create this, you know, maybe kind of maybe maura flat light, a beauty light, maybe I get that you know beauty dish out if it's a sports athlete maybe I'm gonna do something that's a hard light because that's the mood I'm trying teo evoking convey so it really is build your repertoire no what's possible you know my my rule of thumb is you can't break the rules unless you know what the rules are so you have to understand what's possible then go off and break those rules right and it's whatever you like you'll find that if I ever do ah image critique for students way get a lot of requests to do like portfolio reviews things like that I don't get hung up on uh you know this look I don't like that becomes personal preference if that's the look you like and you can sell it obviously that's the most important part then keep going for it there's plenty of tigers out there that you've nothing but black and white and they're known for black and white you know is that my personal preference no but it works as a business model so again explore and figure out what you're looking for don't we have some questions here? Great question so we're outside now and I always struggle with overpowering the sun do you have like a go to setting or a starting point that you know if you set your camera at this this and this you're going to get that shot that you've always gotten to overcome a son yes and I do when we step out into a scene like this there's several challenges we're gonna do we're gonna be dealing with one is of course the hard sun that that's out here right now I mean it's about one one fifteen here local time sons very high most photographers would not even want to come out in a scene like this and start photographing but we're going to shoot in open shade we're going to shoot with um off camera flash and I heard some of you guys out there are doubting that I'm going to be able to overpower the sun so uh game on we're gonna be able to do that we're gonna overpower that son and with and I do have go to setting so I'm not gonna reveal that yet but I definitely in my mind when I trained my staff I know that we step into a scene like this here's your launch point for your settings it's simple it's easy and you can replicate it so I think you'll appreciate it I'm gonna come back to you for it later I want you to tell me that it's good or bad thank you um this out here isn't that bad but if you go to some place like times square something that you've got people all around is there any good go to tech nicky back for calming them balance they don't get nervous that everybody watched them yes. That's a that's a great question, actually, s o you saw when I was working with kendra, I was getting her like, hey, just you know, half on be yourself, but now you step into new york city times square and I'm speaking from experience I just had a photo shoot there two weeks ago way step into times square we step into grand central station and I could see the look of panic on her face and what I said to her was I said, okay, I need you to focus I need you to stay here with me don't worry about what anybody's saying to you don't worry about anybody looking at you just stare at the camera and not immediately relax her so I got her to focus on me and not what was going on around her because when she started posing, there was guys hooting and hollering and cars honking horns uh, and she's got to be able to stay focused on you. So that is the piece of advice you have to give her or she's not gonna know what's going on all those hand signals I was I was teaching her clean split I do this frame your face with your hair if you're if she's now twenty yards away from you in the middle of new york city those hand signals coming to play like rob's teaching her pop your hip, right? I'm earing and I'm showing her what I'm looking for. Because when she's far away from me, verbal communication is not gonna happen. So you've got to be able to get your message across, especially if you're using a seventy, two hundred. You know, you part your hair, you know that she can't hear you. So, uh, definitely that's what you gotta do? Okay? Question from earlier mimi it had asked, and there were a lot of people that had asked about driving to the location with your model if you drive them with you, if they take a separate car, these are great questions, my ability, yes, these air great, great question, because I think we're showing the audience a lot of stuff, but then there's all these little things in between, they don't understand how to get from point a to point b way up not to have the model driving the car with us, mostly because not because of a liability perspective, although I would assume there is we have insurance for all that stuff, but we ought not to have him in the car because I hate to say this, but I don't really like anyone that much, I don't know. You know, I mean, it's, nothing personal. I just don't want to be in a car with you for three hours. That's a long time. So I need that level of just separation, even if it's only five or ten minutes so that I can move onto my next spot. Clear my head. Uh, you know, complain about mom driving me nuts. Whatever the case may be, I need that separation. Now that being said, when we're in a city like new york, chicago l a and the family has travelled there to be with us. We have a rental car or rental suv. They are, in fact, with us. And that all leads towards the experience when that scenario, they are with us. So, sal, not everybody was with us yesterday, and so and they've been asking over and over and over again. So maybe not the full story, but permits on location. Yeah. Okay. So permits on location. Not the full story. Uh, no, we do not go after permits to shoot on location. I would rather shoot first. Ask questions later, right? Maybe pardon the analogy there, but I'd rather get my shot, move on and beg for forgiveness. Then sit there and get caught up in the bureaucratic red tape of trying to get a ten dollar permit so it really has nothing to do with the money aspect of getting a permit it's more the red tape to get that permit just to shoot on a street corner, you know, like here if I wanted to take my senior and put her in the middle of st technically I would need a permit, but I'm not I just don't have time for that to take two shots in the middle of the street, so I'm sorry if I'm giving you bad advice right now because I'm telling you to break the law, so to speak, but just, you know, photograph first, use common sense, ask for forgiveness, all right? And if you, um and if you want teo to hear the full story, you have to buy the workshop by the workshop. There's a good story behind it on how we actually shoot on location it doesn't require you got to get a tailor you gotta buy yourself a tailor to run interference for you, but it's well worth it and so less just wanted us to let you guys know we do have a permit to be outsiders, right? So last was good about him and she was by the book we came out here on thursday and she's like okay, where do you want to shoot? Where do you want to be a michael? I want to go in the middle of street I want to play in traffic she's like no, you're not playing in traffic she's like I will let you step into the middle of the street and we'll get a permit for that. So celeste did really good that's our select yes, she doesn't mess around gold stars. Okay, I have a question from matthew kun's from cedar rapids who asked you convey to the senior you're experimenting or just this is normal for this session, so when you're talking interacting, are you telling them all let's go over here and I'm gonna try this just speaking out loud with everything that you're thinking? Yeah, just verbalized everything you're thinking. I'm very verbal same way I'm teaching you guys, I'm actually in a way communicating with it with the client, so I will tell them you'll hear me announced two things over and over again test shot because I'm shooting in aperture priority. No one's really asked that question. I don't shoot manual unless I'm in the studio esso out here, I'm shooting aperture priority on the reason for that is is I would like to control my depth of field that's mostly what I'm concerned with and yeah, of course you could do that in manual mode, but I move very very quickly so I don't want to waste a whole lot of time looking at my camera adjusting exposure that way because you know, you got backlit situations instead I should kind of hybrid aperture priority mood so I'm using exposure compensation to go up and down plus one minus one to get the look I want so I'm kind of in a hybrid mode, but I'm shooting aperture priority, but the whole time I'm communicating to the client tess shot letter no yes, I like it here we go, then we start running through it and then if I'm doing experiment where I asked her with her hair around or something like that, I'll tell her hey, I got what I need but let's just experiment let's try something new and they usually respond to that because they love the idea that they're gonna have something that no one else has. Absolutely so should we keep going with questions? I'm not sure or way got questions here. Yeah, I wanna pick your brain a little bit self so you have your in italy and you got a great backdrop and there's one hundred tourists yeah, you want this edgy shot you brought you three speed lights and you want to control it but you want a blur? All the people out there and act like they're not even there. Yeah. Do you have a technique for that indie filtered here? Use that. Those kind of stiles? No, I don't use a an indie filter. Um, if I were trying to blur the tourists out right now, we've got to really start getting that shutter speed down to about a twentieth of a second. I would make the argument. You are gonna have one hell of a time getting that shutter speed down a twentieth of a second in broad daylight. Not that it can't be done, but you're gonna have to you're probably gonna have to ratchet up your aperture, so you're going to have to be shooting. That thing is like f eighteen twenty two on and get your ice flow down as low as it'll go maybe at fifty. But ultimately, what you're looking to do is get your shutter speed down about a twentieth of a second, so the way I would pull that off, that would immediately go to aperture priority mode and just start dialing up my f stop, uh, to see where I get to drive that down, so if I'm pointing at you right now, I can get at f twenty two I get a thirteenth of a second shooting on you that would be my starting point so very easily I could get to that point take that test shot and then use the off camera flash to fill in and give me the light I'm looking for so who knows? Maybe we play around a little bit with that today so it sounds like a challenge sounds good. I'm going I was gonna see if you can do it yeah, I think it could be done. Okay. All right, well, it looks like our model is ready so awesome she's looking she's looking beautiful let me set the scene here so this is pretty typical when I step outside um you know, some people see junks on people see garbage I'm seeing a shot and so I'm thinking outside right now this is my landscape I move very, very quickly uh I did have to switch back we were shooting small j peg in the studio but I know that's going to give me a nightmare in postproduction so tomorrow I want to be able to show you how we're editing these pictures and so I switched back to small raw on the camera. So what that's gonna allow us to do is I gotta slow down shooting speed because they've got to keep up to show you the images that air coming in but ultimately that allows to do some post production on these images