Lessons

Lesson Info

Photoshoot Recap

We'll start out by asking something very simple. What have we done here? I don't know what radio. We've been a lot in leicester days, in fact, like, you know, ken has mentioned I've done eight of these, but this one was quite a variance of scope and effort and putting a lot of moving parts together on dh huge kudos to meg are produced her for having a lot of patients and a lot of ideas and a lot of drive to help do this time. Very appreciative of that, eh? So what have we done here? We started out in a urban courtyard and we walked out and I met this child in the exact same time you guys did, and she was like, what do you want me to do? And we didn't have much we warm up, we said, let's, just jump in and go exactly how a lot of people will do when they're on a shoot and what we started right out of the gate was, how can we employ these various methods, almost a system that you can keep things as natural as open as you want? But have you applied some sort of system to this? So that at t...

he end the shoot you're gonna have a lot of orion and a lot of things going on, but you're keeping that all important connection in place the whole time you're going, what we did is we built from there we started with a solid image where she was just kind of simply shyly there on dh you saw how we warmed her up and I stepped back and I changed positions and we changed backdrops we went into really bright, terribly glaring sun did we not and talked about the fact that well, let's, look at this whole courtyard there's a million beautiful ways to shoot in here let's find the worst lighting and forgot how to make in that space, and we did I love the before and afters in terms of showing where the light hits now spills across the forehead and will kill exposure versus just a slight half inch to the shoulder, walking through things like that, mixing it up, working with different not only different expressions in different poses and different looks and feels you can't not look at this boy without look smiling back right? The I put one of the images from this on facebook I get cured through just smiles contagious but mixing it up not just in terms of how you interact and how you pose, but also how you process when I'm delivering images back it's going to be a combination combination of the regular color black and white and some artistic toning um, adding movement, we showed exactly how you could take the same exact shot on dh feel like you got it, but when you really zoom in and look it's soft, you've got soft eyes, you got soft movement. What was the problem? Most likely, it was the combination of settings and the directive you're giving to your client and the way you're stabilizing yourself. When you take that shot, you can add on increase the shutter speed makes you available light have your client do it again, you're subject to it again and you nail the shot, andi changing angles and views based on where you want to set kid's up just love their suppression because you guys haven't seen a lot of days because while we were shooting a shooting, tethered and even while were shooting tethered it's right out there and a lot of stuff slipping through really fast, changing the angles and the views because it could be really easy as a porter photographer and I say this completely from experience to be like, you are so beautiful, I'm just going to photograph you again and again and again, just like this have you guys had that experience? I know I certainly had that experience so making sure you're mixing up the angles and the views and the way you're approaching your subject and it could be a simple is just ensuring that you're going to go around the corner a little bit and shoot from this angle you're going to go behind have them turn all the things we demonstrated and then after working with the kids, we went inside and started talking about self consciousness, embracing self consciousness and what a difference that can make that was a really important section now only for me because I love that topic, but I think in terms of being able to set that mindset, set that foundation for how you want to come at things we hold ourselves back in so many ways it's extraordinary the ways we decide we can't do this and we can't do that. I hear it all the time at the point where we're talking about business since you're chatting in a second, I know that as soon as I say it really helps to get assistant or get help, you can see people say, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. What else can I d'oh? You sometimes see that occur and it's the same thing with shooting in terms of that feeling you have like this is aj's just feel uncomfortable I don't know have this exchange they seem uncomfortable, not try to bring mother shell being able to just address it and have a very open dialogue about it what lily said when we were talking about this our little model lilly was so pointed to me and so powerful because I don't think I've ever heard an adult express this we're sitting on this was sitting on the stairs and I asked her I go how do you feel when a bunch of people are watching you be photographed and she feels? And she said that feels weird and when you probe a little bit further will tell me why sometimes they never thought about it sometimes you've never thought about why you feel uncomfortable are nervous before a shoot I still feel nervous before before a lot of shoots, but when you probe a little farther and you start to really think about it, you find out that there's often something underlining underlying whether it's the agreements they've made where they've already agreed that there smile doesn't work or the way they hold themselves doesn't look good no matter what they do so they have to hide behind somebody else or anything else that somebody has in their head. That doesn't seem at all true, but they've decided is all these factors in play and what she said was that she was afraid that the people watching her might see her do something wrong or embarrassing and then and then what? Well then they would they would go away, and they would take that. Take that. What do you mean by that? And at the end, when you really brought down the essence of it, she was you feel like something's being taken from you if you are embarrassed or somebody sees you do something stupid or weird feeling or whatever, as if you're a lesser person now that it's been viewed by another person, which of course, when you look at it that way that's insane, it's ridiculous. And yet we accepted as these truths, so really boiling down to that level and talking to her about that she immediately after that conversation warmed up. And maybe she was on her way to warming up. Anyway, I don't know, but she doesn't look very self conscious to me. Here she looks nice and comfy and cozy. And that was with a lot of different setups. We photograph this, of course, with the pro photo. Btu's is the first time we brought out the strobes. And we work with those the all the various lighting setups as we went along. This is what I wanted you to be left with the most from that segment was that if there's anything that most limits you from freeing others from their self consciousness. It's you being trapped in yours? It is very, very difficult to get somebody to feel very comfortable if you're not feeling that yourself. And so being able to better understand what holds you back helps you to three other people inside and out and and that works not just the shoots, of course, but work so well for these consultations, these cells, indoor lighting and temperature. This was great. We did not plan for this, but it got so hot inside the georgetown ballroom. Just this one section when we moved in the heat said in it was right after we ate to show that makes it even worse, and the kids are drooping. We've got what looks like simple sweet expressions, but you guys know from being there, that was just a millisecond. How do you shoot in a way that you're really quickly captured expressions? If you don't get them that easily, how do you boost the energy when it is clearly gone, whether it has to do with external circumstances or just how long the shoot's been going or whatever else is coming into play? We worked with shooting inside a dark indoor above this job it around and competing ambient light's in that exact set up we had were shooting at thirty, two hundred. I'm backing up. I'm backing up. We're finding issues. We see that there's dark shadows going behind the couch as we're shooting. How do we solve this? The whole thing here was shot with constant lights indoors in a much darker location. How do we move the lights around a little bit to manage the shadowing? One of the solutions we found in this situation was pulling the couch out and having daniel my assistant hide underneath and then back to make sure that he caught anybody who fell. Just coming up with creative solutions at the time that can really ate you subgroups. We started moving into this idea of how you break a family apart and what you can get with that. And what this one of my favorite things to do in family photography. I think a lot of people feel like family photography is the whole family the whole time and all that we know that's not true there's such a such a beautiful thing that emerges when you change that dynamic. When you switch it up, make it just mom with this daughter and just mom with that daughter and just add or just add with a daughter what I love about that is we are different people when we're with different people. We respond to each other differently apparent with their first child is actually kind of a different parent than they are with their third child simply because all those children have different personalities and you see that emerge you'll see you put one little sub group together and it's a little bit more like okay and said here do this again next next sub group and they're just laughing together another one there more dreamily snuggling up you see these dynamics emerged all the time and if you can get in a position where you can capture it not everybody the same but they're specific dynamic together then you have really compelling family photography and this effort focusing yourself in these subgroups khun really pay off in the long run not only in terms of these relationships but of course selling the prince when you're done and mixing it up way pulled the same family had outside inside outside change their clothes, changed the look and feel change the pose and had to work hard remember dad telling us that he wanted to golfing there's a lot of work to get to a smile you gotta make it happen all the lighting we opt options we chose we had worked uh okay asia how did that change wasn't that working yesterday for the right light for the right occasion reflector diffuser scrim portable strobe speed light continuous lighting video lighten ice light those air, all the lighting options we used in in all the situation that we were out shooting in and there is certainly a time to use one over the other to keep things as simple as possible and that's always what I'm going for us. How can I make the lighting? I need as simple as possible. I don't ever want to use everything at the same time because it's, just not the way I shoot, but everyone has replaced based on what we're doing. Then we jumped into kids. I love this little boy. This is the little boy that said to me the second I met him, we laid the whole family together and he was looking at me like this this really painful hold I said, what are you doing here with this thing going on? And he said, I don't smile good or something like that. My smile doesn't work my smiles no good that's what he said, and yet look what I mean is this not the most arresting smile? Figure out how to grab those moments and be playful enough and have those exchanges which again, even though there's a magic in it, the actual act of it is not magic it's something that can be learned and practiced and used to great effect um, fast moving subjects getting in the water and creating some situations where there's just a lot more fun, where everybody's loosening up and you can come up with a siri's and a really playful experience with everybody. I this part I just love so much. I know I'm just jumping through this kind of really excited to show all these, but keep in mind if you have questions as we go, given that you haven't seen a lot of these definitely let me know I'm happy to answer them as we as we speed along. But what do you need to keep in mind with fast moving subjects so often it has to do with your lens choice, your camera choice, but often your lens choice and your technical settings? If you can get a lot of practice under your belt shooting with fast, fast shutter speed and understanding what that does to a light and how you can shift things by changing your light, you have so many more capabilities when it comes to photographing a whole variety of situations and creating a lot of fast moving things. A lot of action in your shoots can really change expression. I have kids move all the time, I have adults move all the time when they're following asleep and they're getting tired because you can really change the way people express himself in the image and then fast forward. Three weeks later. And you're sitting down with mom and she's looking at the images. She'll see an image like that because that's, his real laugh. I love that, and it will pay off it's worth it.