Lessons

Lesson Info

Workshop Overview & Photographs from Shoots

I just want to do a wrap up in fairly quick order and then show you the images we shot live as we do just threw them down on my laptop uh so you know, we talked initially about posing kids versus those who listen and we showed the video with the little example simply because uh not to show illustrate how to pose adults in fact that was very awkward for me because I couldn't show her anything I was just using words but I want to show how that doesn't work uh and then we jumped into the posing rules the things you want to keep in mind the things that make sense the things you can break, the things you should never break that you want to avoid at all costs because no matter what it is awkward and it feels weird and image obviously we've gone for the ten steps system so many times that I that you could also say that to me backwards and then fords and then three times in a row while dancing uh we did our urban portrait shoot where this is an image from that shoot where we went all around po...

trero hill and shot a bunch of different ways and showed you some of the image we got from that I'm gonna be doing a block post after this that showing you even more although I've got a lot to show you now uh we did photo critiques and then our in studio shoot with the bedrooms that yielded significantly better images that it felt like we're getting at the time, which is a lot of how it goes and the amount of times I say the parents I swear it looks better than it looks to you right now um on the second day those relationship dynamics they had a big effect right? Emotional contagion we all affect each other and if one person is off during the shoot everybody it'll spread right here we were on the bed in the living room and ari was running away it was fine and it was silly but if he had gotten frustrated and didn't want to be there the other two would've started flagging their energy would've started flagging even if they were just frustrated with him or something they warrant it was fun and controlled but that could happen frame composition obviously a lot of variety we stepped through every single and angle and idea and then I showed you a lot of that when we shot what I mean but if you have those examples in mind especially to refer to it's really hard to turn around a shoot without that much variety um the session in the park what do you do when you photographed two kids who have no desire to be anywhere near you or to look at your camera uh, post processing the shoot, some really quick tips for taking images right at a camera, doing super quick tweaks and then showing them these images that I threw out a camera and write before I showed you thereabout fourteen seconds. Each of post processing is just a quick thump. Um, and then, of course, the studio portrait session we did up on the roof um, in the bright, bright, glaring sun, what you can do with that. And then today, the third day was today, the third day is happening. We're currently in third day. We're like a story within a story within a story we started out back up on the roof, but a whole different scene with the curtains and the cool backdrops and the moving humans that's what, that was you people but moving humans, we ran to the business scorecard ninety minutes of details about these six areas in your business that you want to keep going all the time to be able to stay in business and flourish and feel really good about your work. Um, and then, of course, we walked into a crazy, messy studio home and showed that within short order you could make a lot happened by shooting in different places and using doorways and windows and carpets and backdrops and on camera flash obviously, the final critique just happened, and I want to show you a couple of the images that we have been shooting over the last eighteen hours and and just point out to you some of the some of things we were thinking when we did them, so this was yesterday. Remember our master, this is not like I love how all of you just smiled like you smile back there like, oh, we loved master uh, but we did. She was very easygoing and very fun. I told you when I shot this image, I didn't love the way the catch was coming out right behind her from the angle I was shooting on, so I moved my angle so that I didn't have to worry about it. That was before I asked the couch to be moved. Uh, but that made that made a big difference in terms of not having anything cluttered behind her directly behind her, um and being able to have that rim light that hair light. We talk so much when we talk about the minimum three point lighting and we want to be ableto have that hair really pop because it's a dark color, and we have a darker wall and that's achieved by me adjusting myself to this angle on dh shooting with that light coming through here was another one where we had the heavy foreground in terms of our composition. It's a split screen that was one of the framing components I told you about framing mechanisms that told you about, um we've got beautiful, uh, bright blue sharp eyes again. She's turning a little bit towards me were showing off all those gorgeous freckles on guy like how the heavy foreground leads this in this was that cool red chair. I like the architectural element of it, especially when turned to the side and shot from the left angle. Uh, my goodness, she just really just had she was like, a megawatt like and so happy. Now, um, I change the toning on this obviously make it black and white and to give it a little bit of a vintage feel, which I think would contrast nicely with the other images from the shoot to mix it up. And this was shooting from a down angle up towards the roof using those great lines intersecting, moving her in the upper left hand corner. But we still have the reflector need to get that great catch light. We've got soft gray skies there, not a blown out light there, not a deep blue, um, there's a lot you could do from that place. And this was back to the wall. She was showing us her modeling with the, uh with the elbow it's a new pose that we tried again. We have a lot of sharp features. I love the freckles and at this point we'd move the couch so it's not a distraction behind her. It used to be a kind of a cluttered thing behind her. We didn't have to worry about it here. I had her change her expression a soft changed expression. Khun really elicit a lot of emotion, especially from a parent. This was where she was laughing and then she was due. And when I when I had a kind of walk through that you saw me walk her through how exactly we got this expression on dh I just love the kind of dreaming quality of it, the brightness in her eyes and how how high contrast black and white could really make the freckles in the eyes pop then we had the fuller children come in on the couch. They were wrapped in light, diffusing and light reflecting on purpose we have them move in together. Um, and then what I saw with our little boy was that his smile was very contained. I wanted more of it, um so I asked her to snuggle him and we got it and I love this so often as you see a lot of my images uh sometimes the children just overcome and they're laughing in their eyes closed and that is actually more motive than if their eyes have been opened on I like tio. I have a lot of that in there from a color palette. You know, it's a little bit of a softer, muted color part of that is to manage the future in the sweater. We have a very high contrast. High saturation. We can have some chrome a pop if that's really, um and I want to be able to control for that this was pulling her up if you see we have the feet. Like I said, we had this one shot where the feeder right up in there, right on the camera. But I don't mind it because of the way she looks. What we do have some issue with is the crazy wind that was swirling her all around so I stopped this shot, jumped forward, cleaned every hair, jump back and shot it again. Um and I like this a lot better. We still have some crazy here but that's really easy to clean up in post uh, I love the composition of this and we still this nice bright eyes and his great expression sweetheart, sweetheart we have a little boy up against the wall black white a little boy in the back seat just one switch right? A vertical black and white ah horizontal um and then a little bit of shifting where shoulders go and it makes a big difference is that one of things I want you experiment with a lot shift shift uh tell me does it look like a little man here to see you? Um I like this very much. I like the obviously the texture on the wall contributes to it greatly. I like the way his he's flowing I have if you notice with oppose I had him tilt forward a hint because it adds this s curve look, if he'd been straight up and down it wouldn't have been nearly as engaging, so that has an impact as well. Way have our love them initially when we came in I started just with him and I felt this quick resistance uh that's not unusual at all so I quickly said mom, come in she was so game for it so fun, eh? So we threw him on her lap and had her kind of hold them in a little bit on dh then initially she was right on, like on top of his head and I had our move and tuck him in so we didn't have that kind of stacked head look um so much sometimes that can actually work really well, but other times it kind of takes you away from it then he threw down he said, how about this super pose what? You like me now? Um he actually gave us this I did nothing for it was the way he threw himself down and I love his hair moving up like that in the wind just very vibrant uh probably one of my favorites I love this one very much. Um this image is interesting to me for a couple reasons one obviously he's just so alive and I love that way had him clutching the best, which is a really cool pose, but it's, the way it was interesting to me is the angle from which it shot we just got it and you see that mean, if I had been a hare to my right the perspective of into off it would have been uncomfortable, but here we just got him right in his head in his body's kind of leaning in um I love this and then this one I actually just threw this on facebook and grabbed it from facebook just now to show you guys um this one is where we were playing and we were engaging him through anticipation to be able to get the expression and then the look everywhere else that we wanted um again I don't want to sacrifice the look in terms of posing for expression or vice versa I think we can do it all together so this was the end of the first morning then we're like uh let's go back up there so this was from this morning laying down with the little things in the back we had the reflector underneath I'll show you how you can use reflector yourself and I did for this image I had her kick your feet to the side so we didn't have to worry so much about them coming out of her head um we pulled mom in and just got some lovely shots right here um one of the things you may notice it step back just enough so we would have those cool colors coming in with the wind moving those curtains if I'd gone right up on the white I wouldn't have liked it as much they had a really kind of compelling feature to it um and these two are really lovely together anyway they should walk around together all the time like this uh here again we're just asking for a super quick hug and then the way she just pulled her in close and and then at that moment I look for that moment when the eyes are closing I don't say go close your eyes now and be expressive uh but I do look for those moments this is our lovely rohan and keep in mind by the way none of these air retouched at all obviously I didn't have time uh but this one obviously didn't need to be this is this like stunning eyes love the backdrop um the expression was always right there use it to dial it a little bit to get the full expression just a super cool super cool image in general we had shown shown you up on the roof the difference being shooting with the reflector anything without was really dramatic even though we had a nice diffusion of light and I was giving us some fill it wasn't nearly a striking as when you put the reflector underneath because those really light eyes is really light green eyes just popped um with the reflector and that's something that could be a real advantage and be very cool I love this this was him literally kind of coming back to me this is his future rock star cover shot is that not what is going on? The posters in the lockers like for all the girls um I think this one is just fun and silly and shows a lot of character and then him kind of stepping forward and again another pose another idea another look uh you know before you finalize this you'd be the crop in so it's all blue background or show it just like that and take out the hand and I thank you how cool is it that the background was moving with me? I love that I love this. This is up against the wall. We did a quick outfit change again we have that reflector those eyes just I must with his hair. Um, so I could change the field to change with look, I do that sort of thing a lot, uh, before printing an image like this, I would tone down a little bit of the brights in the checks just because I don't want it to distract from him. Um but there's quite a lot of love about this image and just a moment later um, just a little bit of a different look, a little bit of different expression, I didn't get a chance to put any of these in black and white, but when I were delivering these, I'd have one of these in black and white and one of these in color, with different tones, different expressions, and I think the combination of those two together I would be very interesting mama and baby thrown on the ground. Um, as you saw, we put the pillows, replaced the pillows there for a reason to be able to position them a little bit better, I teasingly joked that juliana it didn't quite matter so much, but her expression was because you couldn't see it from where I was shooting, but that's kind of true you can. You can kind of pull back a little bit, make the emphasis if I'd shot up a little higher and then back the emphasis would've been so much on mom's face loving her baby that that the baby's face with a little bit, a little bit of frame and this is something you can do if he's not into it, um, and still be fine, um, s o this was her looking back towards the reflector, and then we had her job, which we did. She jumped up in there. This is like out of camera. One of things I would do on this, of course, is have the reflector come up here, but the question is, could be captured her sharply, and we did. I would have the cap, the reflector come up, have her do it again, hold the reflector up and bounce that light right off.