Lessons

Lesson Info

Pose Children in a field

Kicking off we have this video we're going tio start out by jumping in this is around I think four or five in the afternoon and we shot toe late the light was dropping while we have shot so you'll see some that too but let's just go right into the video and then I'll stop it a few points to further clarify things all right so while they're doing that you need to come over here and do jumping jackson state ready okay you do it right but faced a good light well I put up my shutter speed let's see it this is all about the training yeah I think you need to do that faster go faster wait wait wait I've got an even better idea how that do it as fast you can why you're looking at me the whole time other mother right now the degree of difficulty doing jumping jack and spit in mid air before you come down way around that time wait wait when you land land like this but it's really easy ok ready wait the ice late all right so a quick thing I want to explain a little we're diving right into taking ...

this little girl and torturing her with commands instructions but there's a point to this we started out by having she was feeling a little overwhelmed it was a sense I had while we're doing the shoot and sometimes when there's a lot going on the response from children can be just kind of too slowly shut down and then just kind of give you a static look, we saw some of that yesterday, right there, the shoot, it's, something I see very frequently, you have a very static look where sounds looking at the camera, but they're not really with you, they're not present. I have found that moving children can help, but even more so than that is getting kids out of their own heads, so we discussed self consciousness. We discussed how important it is to not be lost in our thoughts all the time, and when you are feeling overwhelmed, that's usually it's happening, you're having this avalanche of thoughts that are hitting you about whether it's worries concerns, thinking about what else you want to be doing right now, and by doing something like this, where you were throwing so many silly commands at one time at a child, it works ends up being very effective because they can no longer. You can actually see the children thinking about the other things they're thinking about, and it works so effectively, because now you're giving them twenty commands, and if they're actually trying to do it all, they get away from being stuck in their head, and you start to see them emerge, even if it's them confusingly answering your questions and at the end of an exercise like this, what you have often is a sense of relief with a child that's, a very natural smile, kind of a fun engagement, and, uh, and then so to continue on, but I want to explain this because I think if you're just watching this, you're like, what are you doing? She s so there's only like eighteen instructions ready? You gotta jump in there, spin around when you land to this and also go high all the same time. It's really simple, everybody can do it. It's super easy. Ready when two, where are you? And then an image like that while she's stopping what I would do in terms of presenting it is something like, uh, this we've got to stop where'd I put these got a few sections of images to share with you here? Uh, I'm working in a bridge, by the way, so so as she's jump around and dancing and thinking and putting them together, this is this would be a sample image that I would present to my client of proof finished image of of photographs that I would grab while we're doing this silliness and she's thinking through things, I like the feel and the expressiveness of it. That's a really good I haven't don't say hi this type that is actually impressive I could not do that just you know we should we should if she could get you know oh, god, you can you do it? Okay, yeah, it was good. We like e e wow, I can't even do that. You're trapped woman yeah, okay s o a couple things happen just there one of the things I did is I made a point of whispering to her actually it's really hard I couldn't do that because if I push that a little too far that kind of do these forty things that once I could have the opposite effect where I am now truly over hooking them and they break down and so the idea of pushing them out of their own head enough so you can get those great moments because that's, what I need is thes stills these quick grabs but then bringing them back by making sure that they're aware that I know that I'm giving them something really silly command and I don't want them take it seriously when we ask danielle to do the same sort of move and then I have the subject light her that's again we're now in something different and changing the feel of it it's all leading towards something which is basically making the kid be more present with may and then this time just like just let it all go this is your moment to shine you know say hi dropped the high very good all right ready try this just like that without anything else uh love your new teeth brand new gorgeous like this when I was getting before when I was working her was having a problem getting her to on going I was having a problem getting her tio be able to stay till just directly look at me and be able tio just express a simple direct look at the camera that was more authentic and then I'm able to do that this way so that's what we end up getting while we're going for that all right so let's just keep on it makes a huge difference you examined all right you take a break you did amazing jump arounds what are you doing over here wait a minute wait a minute you guys stay there you're comfortable right right well you come over here the reflector because they just did something that was so cute what do this again betty you're doing the back to back things and you hold hands if you weren't now I say you are and did you favor going your tippy toes right here go on your tippy tippy toes good job bryce sorry just like say go and they do take the take the reflector back about four stacks yes and keeping it shining working with phil light right there, I mentioned this yesterday during the urban shoot. It is not unusual when you ask somebody to assist they're so focused on their job and doing a great job that sometimes they forget the line of sight that you have. I have a number of images that have clips to reflect her inside on dh it's enough on the edge. I don't really care it's a super fast crop in light room it's not a big deal, but for the most part, the instruction that you want to give to anybody helping out with enough reflector and again, often it's parents who've got the reflector and helping out is tio helped them set up the reflective first time, make sure they've got the good line, the of the light hitting, and then if you need the matter frame to make sure you reposition it when they move because it's easy for that, that reflection to slip cameron running if you can talk a little bit about thie ice light that they're using, we've got some people asking about that and using it outdoors on dh then of course, people are asking about where you are focusing and how you're dealing with fast movement, ok, so answering that order s so I'm using the ice light, what I like about that is it's, the portable portable window light in greater we've got some good natural light, but that doesn't mean that I'm getting the catch light I want, and I'm using the ice light very specifically to get the catch lead I want in all of their eyes with an assistant being able to kind of hold it overhand overhead and back up and be out of frame and I can I can move to wherever I am on dh shoot and just have her keep an eye on the ice, and so that is the instruction I get when someone's holding an ice light is if you're holding it with two people or one one person is just constantly make sure you've got a nice catch light both eyes and there's the speculator highlights in the eyes and that's the main goal, because often, when you're working with reflector, one of the challenges of working reflector and something I hear a lot from photographers is that god, they had perfect light and now they don't just it just keeps moving, it keeps slipping on going to see footage of that later on today, we're going to show exactly what the differences in the shots when the reflector slips and when it does it it's a dramatic difference on dh when you've got that whole human error aping and the lovely thing about the ice lights, that's just portable video light and you can hold it up, get some great catch light in the eyes and remain there pretty steadily and so it's not overpowering the scene it's not having any sort of overexposure issues it's just adding a nice soft additional light to the faces and giving a good pop in the eyes. The other question was about fast motion it's a lot of the photography I do when you want to have a lot going on and the kids were moving and dancing or you are we're going to show some footage right here of me physically moving with the children them running at me and kind of what you and then we're gonna have some running around in a lake and a ton of splashing and in all those this is the same technical specifics are true I want to make sure have a very fast shutter speed I'm at a minimum of one one thousand of a second when I'm doing that kind of shooting and I'm shooting anything in manual so that means if things were getting even faster I'm going to bump it up even more I'm going to make sure my eyes so is up to support the additional light I now needed the scene because the higher the faster shutter speed is is robbing me of a little light on I'm going to be really careful to ensure that my apertures there I love to shoot wide open naturally, if you looked at the sheets tweeted yesterday that urban shoots most of those a lot of those right a one eight a one one six I think we did, you know, two, eight, three, two that's more the way I like to shoot because I like the look of it, but I've got to be very calm visit if I've got action happening that I have to extend my field of focus that f stop has to go higher and so now I'm all right maybe a three, five, four o etcetera. So those factors I'm keeping in mind in terms of where I'm focusing in this exact situation when I'm focusing with these girls, I'm choosing one of their eyes, but my concern is mostly because there's obviously the height differential here, my big concern here with these two girls is that I am far enough away that I can have that wider feel the focus I'm going to need to get them both sharp as I get closer and closer and closer, I'm going to lose that window of focus and I'm gonna have to be a lot more aware of getting that those soft looks, those soft eyes, so this keeps things sharp as long as I'm in a distance with the fashion her speed couple thank you, right? You know absolutely right there it's like you're back, yeah do they say or kick her back a little bit? This is a good example by the way of by making the little girl andan using my voice a lot and my voice is it's like its own separate entity, but and I'm aware of that, but by using my voice to kind of ratchet up the situation, children respond really well of that because it's silly and it's weird and but by doing that, I'm actually creating shape because I'm making a go taller and taller and taller, but what I'm what I'm doing is I'm kicking her out of that straight up and down line and I'm giving some shape to her body because it's an exaggerated to towing that is a great posing tool to do with kids because they don't know they're being posed, which is probably one of the better ways to pose children. The other thing I'm seeing here and I saw right while I was shooting is it's a little hot for me, the brights, the whites a little hot for me in terms of exposure because we've got the brighter side, the reflector on them but again, every time the violin range of I'm a half stop it's such a simple fix I'm not blowing anything out of water it's such a simple fix for me to do in post everything I delivered to my clients and go through posts and each and every time I have the option of delivering on image that in camera is shot technically perfect in every single way verses and amazing emotion response great expression, lovely connection I'm going to go with option b always because I know I've got enough of it in control that I can still deliver ah proof image that has everything in range and that's what I care about I'm not caring about the fact that I can turn my camera to anybody in time and I can get a award winning competition for it that's technically supposed perfectly I want to care that when I turn around what I deliver that people are like oh that strong you've got it there so that do you see him saying to me it's a big distinction and I hear a lot of tigers put a ton of pressure on themselves to get every aspect so exponentially perfect in camera that they're so obsessed with getting it right they're missing the people in front of them and I encourage you to say ok, back back to the idea of self conscious lower the expectations I have a lot more fun doing it and know that you're you're shooting in a good quality range that you're still delivering good quality work tim I think that's a really important point thank you and we did have a question that came in yesterday or early in the class about compositing and do you ever go to that extreme in your post in terms of especially with multiple people in their positive images to get what you want? So the the idea of compositing images, of course, is putting together multiple images to create one image and to steal together and composites is it's kind of a broad definition because technically ahead swap it's a composite right, but also so is an image that has four thousand layers of all this incredible art that delivers this fine art peace at the end on dh so there's quite a continuum of what a composite khun b in terms of that elaborate multiple things going together image I don't really do that at all I appreciate and I admire it it's just simply not my style my style is more simplicity it is more about the heart of who we're talking to and the expression but a zit relates to if I'm doing extended family shoot and there's fifteen people in it and everyone's perfect but this one kids looking away but the shot beforehand there great. I have no problem offering ahead swap to my client as an additional service that will do, and so I'll do it in those cases if I have an image that is editorial speaking, we did a cover with meb because less conflict ski med kozlowski border, the boston marathon, anybody someone will pronounce it correctly for me. I should men go mad. It was two weeks after he won the boston marathon and we had a fifteen minute window with him photograph him for the cover of endurance magazine, and we were in car, bro, north carolina, and the spot we had the window we had was between this book signing and this public appearance, and that was the shoot, and I was going to be in this one alleyway that I selected over the course of a couple blocks that would work for us. And so I photographed him leaning up against a wall, and I made sure he was positioned in a way that it just looks like he's leaning he wasn't squashed against the wall, and I took that image and I can show you that I'm sure I can find that or you can just google it tomorrow, lackey, comma, mid your play find it, but that image then took that and put him against a really cool backdrop to make it look like a cooler shot for the cover. So things like that all dio, but for the most part, is it's more kind of what I'm shooting camera a little bit of a little bit of pick post fix, which I can show you. In this exact instance, I would be going into the highlights, bringing them down to more manageable level, controlling the exposure a little bit and that's. What I'd be delivery in post