Skip to main content

Shoot: Theatrical Headshot

Lesson 5 from: Commercial and Iconic Headshots

Lou Freeman

Shoot: Theatrical Headshot

Lesson 5 from: Commercial and Iconic Headshots

Lou Freeman

buy this class

$00

$00
Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2200+ more >

Lesson Info

5. Shoot: Theatrical Headshot

Lesson Info

Shoot: Theatrical Headshot

So what we want to do now is put those completely away and we're going to set up some of the speed light so I'm going to do two things with you actually, you can go ahead and go with that on let me have a nickel let me have the, uh, board the boards so this is john john has a really great face. I was looking for somebody that had kind of a cross ever looked like he looked like he could be an actor or a model or a real person that we know unfortunately he's a great size like thirty eight to forty coat that's gonna photograph perfectly like every guy that's a model their suits are in that same range and the reason why models heir of the sizing style that they are and that all that's predicated it has nothing to do with those people who named them as being skinny it has to do with sample sizes of the clothes only be made only being made in a couple different options. Those things travel all over for the shows and once they decide what's going to really sell, then the production begins. So...

I can't tell you how many times I've photographed in italy and milan and ella and atlanta and miami and I'm shooting the same suit and saying dress and it's being flown all over the world and then once it's caught on then the manufacturing against so men's coats are usually thirty to thirty eight forty regular women's dresses or attitude of four so that's kind of why the rules are they as they are but with real people one of the cool things about what he has on that I really liked is I wanted him to wear clothes that fit him and most people come to you for headshots and their clothes never fit men always buy suits too big so they can do this with their arms but photographically guess what happens it's like mara all over the place so you're gonna want to invest in some of those little home depot clamps that air thirty five cents that you see all around keep those on your apron or wherever you're working on your side table that you work with and you wantto see how his coat is fitted so beautifully around his tummy I mean you can see how fit he is straight through his suit, so if you can get the clothes almost looking perfect, then it make sure we touching quicker and easier when you're done just like we shot with lorraine, we're going to want to shoot him from the side. I hadn't put on the suit first and when I was talking to you about how everything kind of sits back from the neck, you want to just make sure that that's nice and tight pull forward and this ready to go so let's do just one or two natural lights on that I didn't show you the third point of light because we ran out of time with her, so I'm going to show you that on him so so you gonna come right here and again you're about I'm going to go back this way and see right? So you're going to come here, we're going to use the reflector just a little differently now so come around the other side of your arms in front of camera alright, so so for guys we're kind of shifted gears here and more of a theatrical field we're using natural light, but I picked a background that was kind of neutral there's something back there but not really I could have chosen to use just the brick wall, but I thought the contrast was too much for the suit. Light things and highlights move forward and highlights the shadow's moved back so in his case the white wall would have been more to strathmore attractive are eye catching than him when we want your eye to stay right here on the photo so things that kind of disappear and suddenly fall off in the background you're going to be good choices for theatrical and about this shade of grey to darker the more going on the brighter the light, the background, the more distracting okay, so he's wearing dark. So let's, move in there too dark. Right? So let's turn you two decide to start this way toward the light. All right? Awesome. Gonna move even more this way. Beautiful. So try to find the light in his face like you did and bring some up light. They're beautiful. All right, so for guys where I had her smiling is the girl next door you always wanted as for the teeth to be together in the back and had always comes forward and down if you ask for the chin to come forward, it usually comes up so the head forward and down. I know you've heard this before, but as you pull it around, it defines the jawline. If you do have somebody smile in the week underneath here with projected, they never have the double chan. So if you happen to shoot somebody this heavy through here, asked the makeup artist to come to our line for you. At least you have a place to decide where to start your liquefy. You know what I'm saying? It's? Like, sometimes you look at people you're like, I don't I can't even see the chin line we're and that will at least help you to find that a little bit. So just a good suggestion make sure retouching easier so turn your head toward me a little bit drop your chin down a little bit awesome all right let's get your eyes and everything around this way a little more trump my ho back down all right, beautiful turn your head this way a little more kind of a name yourself right look right at me and chin down a little bit good beautiful get a little more light in there doing anything there can see it you see the light now hold it steady right now make interesting eyes kind of communicate with me a little bit tip your head here a little bit can you furrow your brow son good pull your balls together like you're mad at me turning head this way a little bit little more little more chin down a little more good all right, so what I was doing there it's finding since expression on his face beautiful good it's going to take me a little bit look at me like you're really pissed awesome chin down a little bit great now why you're pissed now start to smirk with just your mouth turn up the corners both sides last little bit awesome great turn around away from me a little bit here bring your shoulder this way following with the light on keep the light in the eyes good all right now what you two look down toward my shoes leader chin there and the raise up your brow and wicked may good now a little bit of a mad face again beautiful not alright so reach toward me put your hair up all of it so I'm touching his hair on I know him so I can actually touch him and he's not scared but you always want to ask before you touch the body just say do you mind if I just jews your hair a little bit I just kind of wanted it moved so it's not all hanging here if you don't know anything about hair and you shoot the whole head shot and you get back and you're like what was I thinking if you have a question you makeup ours theirs they look do you think this hairs okay for which hell will shine to it? As for that's when you're less likely to have a reshoot if you asked what why you're doing moving along so you want to take a peek you want to scroll through those a little bit and let us see some of those look how pretty your eyes are there so we got to get to the point where we believe the seriousness this one or two more that's a good one all right now I'm going to turn your head in a little bit is we're looking this way great so what were you doing now is we're seeing that's starting to get a little bit of something going on in his face other than just blankness keep going all right let's try you lane ing here might be a good beautiful bring your head in here down chin down toward me give me the same eyes again that's really nice there beautiful good not start to spark like you're up to something good then you head toward me laugh a little bit there goodling your head in a bit here good awesome relax for a minute so another thing that I dio is I use my hand to direct tip your head this way down reaching down toward my hip they put their chin down with hit they can tell him to look at your shoes and then look up and for men you're looking for the edge that vural look, you're not looking for high smiling ear to ear I'm an occasion you're gonna have somebody that's going to hell to that but he's more of an interesting look so you want to try to roll through those personalities shot him on an angle give him a softer look so you john is noticing of ears let's have him can you roll through a few more of those but he's given me a real smile now it's not so controlled I think it takes twenty pictures to get started once you have the twenty pictures and you see where somebody's best expressionist that's when you start really shooting s o you have to know when you see the magic and trust yourself and that's the picture, you show them, so can we kind of go maybe back and forth just a tiny bit? I just kind of wanted to see his face and see how he's changing you did a couple serious ones that's nice all in natural light, so this lights on the side of his face, but you can't tell that completely on the side, actually up in outside, really? We're pulling it back in with how close that reflector is, so life in eyes, that's a terrific one. All right, so you want to go want to go your sweater on and come back on this, bring the jacket with you so I could just talk to you guys for a few sex while we're going to change up what we were doing so theatrical had shot more serious, he could go out with that picture into a you know, any kind of television role audition, a nicer guy. They'll tell him what the role is. He might pull two shots from that shoot for himself when smiling when serious when sexy guy he's going to come back now with just a black eye sweater and sometimes I might choose something like that is just really interesting lines, but playing so he can use it for a long time. Hair on the face for a man, I always ask for it, but I don't want him to look like they've been out on the farm for two months and haven't seen the light of day. I want them to look groomed with it, so I'll ask them, can they shape the beard in the tram around their neck? And then I was make sure their hair is cut, but you have to be careful. Some people will cut their hair too short around their ears, and it does the opposite of what you want. Instead, I'm looking meet cheek suddenly their ears show up and things like that. So you have to be careful what you ask for work the face straight onto the sides. Commercial head shots were usually straight on with smile at the camera, theatrical ones you can get away with a mood that we just pulled from half, so when he comes back, I'm just going to pop him over here with amore, interesting background and darker tones. I'm going take it a little bit different approach and let's bring in speed lights now, and we need a speed like to test, um yeah, let's start with the umbrella that was easy enough. Just make sure the other one is off way. Use this chair with the leather coat will do this with the sweaters and just pull that chair that way for me. So again, so I usually keep apple boxes everywhere or I don't know if you remember in school when you're in the library. Remember those little stools that you could climb up on that they have wheels, there's a really great to have in the studio so you can just screwed around on the floor with your subject. If you want to move your angle constantly, do not pick one spot one position and shoot all of your pictures. What if it was a bad decision? Then you spend all that time not moving the subject so justus quickly as I moved him from here to against the wall to find a better angle for him, you want to keep doing that? The more variety you have, the more you're going to learn about yourself as a photographer and we're going to see in your subject. So we're using on this shot the eighty four inch umbrella with a silver inside, I have my speed light powered up with quantum turbo pak. There are lots of pax available that you can use I use I'd prefer to use a lithium battery inside the body of my speed light and then having additional pack on the side that I work from this particular paco let me take up to nine hundred fifty pictures uh with, you know, without changing the battery I can shoot an entire wedding with one if that's what I choose to do so I usually keep several of them in my bag powered up so that I can use one, two, three, four, five I have two roller bags now one with my cameras and one the same size with just my speed lights in the packs. And then I carry one kit with all of the scream gyms and the umbrellas and things in it. Can you guys just turn that around so they can see how that's put together? This is super simple. If you use this outside, the winds going to catch it is goingto go flying away. So you want to make sure that you have a couple breaks in your car, sandbags or something? If you're going to shoot the umbrella, you also want to make sure it's tight in the holder because it'll take your speed like with it, the little battery pack is heavy enough to hold it steady in the studio, but outside it's probably not this is thie this is one of my favorite tools and it's one of the least expensive think I have it's like ninety dollars for this little umbrella but what that does is it we have the flash set so it is completely wide with zoom to twenty twenty millimeters so that it completely spreads out amusing as much of the lives possible and we have a trigger here. It's all set great. All right, so I had to set on e t t l right now and we're going to work with what we have and then I'm gonna use my plus and minus if I want to amend the situation so I'm going to drop my eyes so back down to about six. Forty. Do you want to attest pop in the chair here? So what I'm doing is I slide it this way a little bit. Would you mind positioning that so they can see the screen? Actually, I could probably just bring the whole light and set it right here. Luke, we actually have john here ready? I want him to sit in if you want to come on over him. So what I like to do is I have, um I have several backgrounds that air rough. I have several backgrounds that are beautiful, like this one's the opposite to me and feel of this shot and this chair kind of has the same field and it's okay, to use this chair here on the hardwood floor, even though it doesn't, the floor doesn't quite match because I'm really shooting headshot so let's have you sittin straddle it backwards and then I want to put your arms like this over the chair. Great, eh? So now we have interesting texture in the background. I'm sitting at eye level let's, bring that right on over towards may kind of come toward me a little bit, so and we have your little reflector bring that all right. Awesome. So as I said, there's, no modeling like you're going to make a wall like this. Just walk right up to him. What I'm hoping to gain here is to fill in the side, put a sheen on the jacket. So the texture of the jack it has some life to it. The leather is super complimentary for a guy very soft, sexy but crunchy is a good word to describe the texture to me when I shoot. Man, I always go for texture, cloth, fabric, interesting leathers, and I try to get them to send me photographs of themselves so I could see them if I can have something sent me pictures today. Of themselves while I've been here and I looked at it this morning I've got it down pat you could write it down or you could just tell them from the pictures but you really want to be able to give them inside and what to bring they will go get anything you need if you tell them but if you don't tell them you end up with a bad suit and that random golf shirt to shoot and there's nothing interesting about that, right? So I mean I love golf shirts and certain guys but you know this look how much more interesting this would be then if I ended up with what probably you might even wanna wear every day although he has great style what you brought to wear yesterday he had lots of cool letter jerseys and things like that there's a grate in real life but for photography with be too distracting so this is going to flatter his hair, flatter his skin and make him really jump out at you so again cropping in and making sure this is part of it this is naturally happened but I love to style the scarf and everything see how that's laying beautifully in line around his body there so let me jump in here to start drop your chin down for me so these are his this would be hiss theatrical headshot turn your head into the light still bit bite down on your back teeth for me and for your brow just a little bit awesome so we have a little bit of shadow working there and I think I'm going to turn that down just a tad that's even better let's pull you this way let's get away from the background little more great beautiful right let's slide you this way so you're in front of the background that's great beautiful see how great wheels are controlled around there so when you're shooting women you want soft pretty hands when you're shooting guys you want fists just from the masculine take on that so turn your head in this way a little bit so I'm going to close down just a little bit beautiful awesome when you had a little more this way great beautiful great furrow your brow forming again great beautiful to head back toward me again bring the reflector right up to him like sitting right on this leg great maybe fulda piece underneath his jacket too that's great beautiful smile with your eyes for me good. Just a little happy good turn into the light when laugh a little bit eyes at me let me hear it beautiful awesome the other lovely thinking relax the other lovely thing about shooting with the battery pack is how fast you can shoot um when I go to do the actual set ups of this, I can show you how to set it so that it completely draws off the battery pack, which is an awesome thing. You'll appreciate that later when you're shooting, and you can just kind of move through your whole photo shoot and have to not have to stop worry about the batteries. So those air great right out of the two, you have a great look. So you're looking for drama. Um, it's always a good idea to get the serious one to find. When will he looks really kind of disturbing. And then grow into your smiling. All right? So let's lose. The jacket was just shoot a couple with just the sweater. Well, he's changing, we got a great question from fashion tv. How do you decide where to position and umbrella of that size? Is it always like level to the subject's face? Do you have any practical tips in terms of angles and direction when I'm shooting men? I remember when I gave you guys the description earlier how all women want to be young, smooth, thin and beautiful on guys wanna look rugged, tough and sexy, and along those lines, I think that light coming from the side and shadow shadow makes interest. That makes men more interesting and their faces especially there's beard can handle that texture like we really we almost could see the hair on the beard looking at that and you the texture of it is really kind of nice to me so where I wouldn't want that to show on a woman you go for that for the guy so if I think about taking that stuff lighting a person if I was going to let a piece of fabric and I wanted to show texture where with the light d slightly to the side on a little bit harsh so when you're using a shiny umbrella, what I've done is I've taken a hard light from here and spread it out softly so it's really just redirecting it it's not pushing it through a soft box south bucks wouldn't give you that crunchy texture that we see across this beer then the shine you see on the coat on dh when I'm shooting glamour shots this umbrella puts that sheen all over the body so I asked for the make up and styling on that to give that glow and that glow comes across in some of the glamour head judge who saw from that makeup that was applied so angle of the light from men I usually put the light slightly high and to the side there's a shadow following around his nose but it's not distracting because she's filling it in with the reflector underneath you don't see it but you see all that yummy texture on the jacket from all the silver coming from the shine so that's why I would choose this particular modifier when we shoot laurey with the site with the orb will be a totally different effect all right, so what I'm going to do now very quickly I'm just gonna have you stand let's switch out light and switch to the orb and while you're moving that just exactly how big is that particular umbrella that you're getting eighty four inches twenty four inches and I was really surprised when I got this umbrella I never thought I would like it as much, but to me everything is quality is about the quality of light so if you want something that's gotta shimmer sheen or you wanna have that yummy texture you're gonna want to achieve something that's able to give you that in this umbrella does that is super inexpensive to work with your speed like all right, so I'm going to keep you in the same spot and let's put the orb over here right beside me turn that back on doing a little test shot let's switch up chairs just so you get a different picture so you're gonna put that and about the same spot great let's turn it to the side here I just wanna make sure it's completely filled out same thing again with the phil I think I wanna have this above my head and down so this is a wonderful little tool I just walked all the way around just gonna show you guys it sits inside and I have it all the way out why does it'll go so the flashes sitting all the way to the front of the head mess with the zoom features does by that I'm getting its most out of the lightest possible, so I'm going to tilt it it's what a lovely little thing comes into play tilting head and because of the radio, the actual transmitter I'm using can reach the strobe through this package doesn't have to see it in our line of sight infrared systems you had to see the transmitter. Nicole, can you raise this up for me place just a little bit? Just raise up the stand a little bit, you guys said they're kind of slouch down in, so what I'm doing now is we're gonna put the light I'm shooting from kind of low angles with him now, won't you lean upon our like you're gonna come talk to me and you're gonna be beautiful so I'm still I leveled out if you can see measure where my eye is to him, all right, you're going to come in around and kind of build a you get right up to a beautiful turn your head in this way a little bit keep kind of squint and I if you will beautiful tough shot no, this is a much softer light can you show this shot when it comes up side by side so they could get an idea of how different the texture is? So this light's kind of in a paramount position and the orb is a beautiful soft box coming can you talk about the difference between these two types of modifiers lou? Like what? When would you use the orb versus when would you use the umbrella? If there was an inordinate amount of texture that I wanted to eliminate on the skin like let's say somebody was telling me constantly they were worried about looking older I would consider a softer light than a harder light. You know the young usually the harder light goes with makeup or with somebody that can actually pull it off eso the more mature the subject softer the light I use in the more of it from actual circle really quick cause you re take the photo yes, absolutely absolutely good great to head into your shoulder just a little bit for you proud just to touch beautiful hang on one moment it's really nice you know what might be nice to is to try it without a phil card at all beautiful so that's a whole different can you pull your sweater up over your shoulder on just that side pull it down in the front of these kind of sitting in your column are smooth over your shoulder here beautiful turn you head into the light and a little bit beautiful awesome right no turn you head straight at me beautiful teamed up a little bit good foryou brow again you know fall raised brow a little bit good turn your head to the shadow side for your brow again awesome now sit down in the chair and kind of slouch down in cross your arms so if we could compare one of these to the other I'm actually seeing just a fair amount of the available light but what I'm seeing is a softer light much softer kinder lite if you show the very first one he's going to be all filled in around his face so that's more of a commercial look so you could take this orbit emulate natural light if you saw the image and I didn't tell you what I shot it with you might think it was a natural light correct nice soft phil and the shutter speed is sixtieth the second time in six forty and the beautiful thing is I can see what's going on the background it's interesting but not really distracting from him and I'm shooting four so it's kind of broken up back there although the thing that's distracting me here is the way the shirt sitting so let's kind of scroll through after I fix the shirt just a few more minutes on without the shirt strike now I'm working with the shadow to give him more of an edge so the guy doesn't have to have all the phil back in his eyes if there's nice light is falling on him all right? And I thought I'd do one more and then I want to pull a ray in so all right so slide down into the chair just a little bit so I could see maybe a little bit more of the chair good, beautiful alright let's sometimes it's easier for me to move than it is for him, so I'm going to kind of shoot down that you turn your head into shoulder good we should head this way a little bit great awesome pro you brown with a little tough beautiful it seems a little dark to me great beautiful awesome let's try to with your hands up by your neck here both sides with your elbows down and forward them on your chest and kind of get your chant over that little bit beautiful awesome goods going to rise again beautiful now drop this one down to your elbows on your tummy on this arm I'm good maybe even put your hand here like so good make a fist with this hand turn it on the side of you grab here that's great, beautiful awesome turn your head the lem or into the light a little more great beautiful so for guys who are gonna want to work with shadow and for women you're gonna work with phil so if all of you had where your speed lights you can still take interesting shots if you can learn how to manipulate the light for women I'm going to want it straight above the head for guys work it to the side so let me move on issued a couple of lorraine with her straighter hair so let's have you here on the great background so I'm gonna go back to our natural setting that we had here can you guys see okay you grab all these years I'm going to start you standing come over this way a little more come toward me and bring your fill card back can you raise the stand up for me? You're going to be right underneath the chin I'm going to do two versions and you would be totally serious. Okay had to get into actress mode get the giggles out now. Yeah, okay, all right that's great let's come you come this way and you're gonna put this under and like like straight into a you beautiful d'oh just really quick two versions can you place this for me right in here? Just a little bit so you can put your head that way love it you beautiful great you really want to push your head out and down good beautiful let me do one little test shot beautiful great beautiful serious again awesome. So I'm going to raise I had closed down going to do the office I'm gonna raise the power beautiful. So you're leaving the settings on the camera the same? Just reading the power of the flash. Yes, I'm leaving I'm adjusting the flash power from the top of my my trigger here, which is one of the cool things about it. I have it set up so that I can make the adjustments right from here. So I'm raising and lowering output from here where I wanted less for him. I'm going toe add light here because I really wanted, like, blast him here and smooth everything out so that so let's put that up nice and flat right like that and what? Your head beautiful, beautiful. You know what? Getting somewhere turn a little bit back from me like that. Put your shoulders back, actually try that. That was nice good chin over, chin down to your shoulder phone all right, now let me get a little bit more of you in there good, beautiful straight at me now don't you turning straight out put your hands on your hips could bring your head down like this a little let your mouth were like some touch good smiling eyes though no now beautiful turn in this way a little bit beautiful and let's try one other version with you sitting there putting your arms across the back of that all right, so now we want to lower this guy down I think your hands look really pretty in your fingernails look great once you kind of poem all the way up to here and just keep everything let's go see? So I'm looking at the pretty side of her hand as I told you earlier about soft pretty fingers flexed and relaxed and usually khun shake him, replace them shaken replacing it just kind of keep working theory that yeah, the shaking it out kind of thing keeps it soft and natural right? So you're going to come won't you come stand on this side? Yeah great. Put your head forward and down beautiful hope's gonna blink brendan money playing tiny on all right good, beautiful and one last one so I'm shooting it about four here to get really broken up background and eye shadow on everything that I requested with give her just a little more serious, edgy look um totally relaxed all right, so any option I would have done here, why don't we do a couple natural light with you right against the background and we stand on the stand and go ready get him we can remove this guy did I turn this off? You can take this with you. Thank you. All right, so let's get you right up against the background, right? And this is the one time when I would put it right against the background because everything is so subtle with what she's wearing the color of her she's really going to pop in your life is going to come straight from all the way on top over so I'm a really fidgety person. I always want to do something with my hands to have what use your hands like along your body what's the wire from your mind what you turn sideways here so we gotta find your life uh, right jiggle it's more there get right up to our way too far away keep going and keep moving it I think that's what we have right there. Good. Keep your shoulders kind of down but you're going to use your shoulders like rolling through because your shoulders are going to give you the power and keep your neck relaxed beautiful all right, so now we're going to switch over to natural light so I'm going to drop my push my eyes so up to about a thousand beautiful that's so pretty well, that that's great. Drucker chin back down again. Awesome. Try one more. Beautiful. Awesome for your forehead this way and down. Great, same thing here with the greys. I wanted her to look a little more serious, a little more edgy instead of going with a soft, pretty baby blue. I wanted to bring her over into a little more serious thing for her roles. So it's just that simple working through the different lights is phil on dh finding light when there's just a little dab to work with and then filling in the face of the lights and the I and then commanding the expression that you want. So hopefully, when we get back to retouching, we're just kind of fine tuning things and not completely reconstructing everything. So I did ask the makeup artist to do a couple things for me that she didn't even really even wasn't even aware of. So there's a way to do all that. You can relax now, right? Thank you so much. She lose you guys her hand. Thank you, thank you. Don't cry so there's all kinds of things that you can ask for to make it easier for yourself. And you're you're on downed pilot of your own ship here, so I just hope I inspire you to ask for more from the subject you're shooting and from the makeup partisan your team asked for before the clothes you want to see if you see something in a personality on dh, they could be more than the way they see themselves that's when you're really going to grow this and make it special for yourself and for other people, and remember three levels start of the all american and build up to the iconic all right, one from mh b x who says, I noticed that many of the shots have a framing where the top of the head is cropped or cut up? Why is that? And why not have the entire head in the shot and if needed, crop down later in post? Well, that's that's an option that you can do? I've just found that I always end up cropping it into that, so I've done this so long that I actually crop it as I see it now, I try to be as efficient as I can with the space that I'm offered to take the picture, and if you're unsure in the beginning, it's better to give yourself all of it and make that decision, but as you see how the image is there used for print magazine covers all the way down to model cop cards or head shots you may see that it's different in your market then what I'm showing you this moment where the crops are definitely in her out sometimes you will kowtow ella and you'll see that the headshots air suddenly to the knee like that's an I had shot to me but that's what it changes sometimes you'll see it zoomed in and cropped from here to here and then you see the print laying there and the person his hand is bigger than it is in reality so it does the styles of the photography do change so I have a tendency to just make the composition is interesting as I can sometimes that float the person over to one side or the other but I'm ultimately looking for the best angle where their hair falls the best angle of their face so that their features air flattered and where I see something magic coming from there I are there best side and in everyone's face is slightly different on one side then the other so the good news about moving it isn't let you see that the more you see in the person in the beginning you know go dump your pictures and look at your computer and sit down to study the face and they say oh I like this angle the best then take the person back and she had twenty more frames of that angle and work your expressions through that angle so then you really make it it's harder to do that when you're doing executive portrait because they want to tap their foot until you have fifteen minutes but you've got to get to the point where you can make those resolutions about someone while you're shooting them pretty quickly sometimes in the beginning I used to go in sit across from them in a chair while there make it was being done so I could study their face and I could see the flaw when I wasn't behind the camera nervous about how I was going to get myself so and the crop very so just it's really good idea since you guys are from so many varied places that you study what's going on in the market where you are and what's acceptable some people want to see the entire head on dh then others you're going to say you can get away with a little creativity and the creativity comes with a more theatrical and an iconic headshots obviously s o when you are choosing with your scrims with reflectors with umbrellas, what are you doing to choose between the silver, the white gold what's what's your thought process when you're choosing that depends on how much phil or how much light that I actually need like when we were in here you would think it would be not the best conditions for shooting a headshot, but we were able to move the light around really well, because we had this super shiny boards is that the shiny phil and we have the shiny boards themselves, which can move shadow light up there with a little bit of light is available, and it was closed in I feel like a box around the subjects had so whiteboards come into play when somebody's of squint er when you've got full sun and you're trying to fill in the shadow of the full sun. One last little note I wanted teo talk about really quick about the backlight when you I used the white board when we were shooting into this light. If you've got this camera set with the wider lands and you've got all of this light, you're taking a reading through your camera, it's going to take a reading for that light at the window and not what's on the shadow part of the face. So what I had to dio you noticed the exposure's changed. I zoomed in and took a meter where there was no light from the outside affecting because I was concerned with the exposure on the front of her, not what's coming through the window, so in the beginning, you'll look at these shots and have to make those assessments based on that.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Commercial and Iconic Head Shots Slides.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Dianne N
 

Awesome class! Well worth the cost for advice and expertise from such an amazing photographer. Lou Freeman is an excellent teacher. She explains and describes in detail how she is photographing, why she is doing it that way, the equipment she is using and how to interact with your subject. I can use these headshot strategies in every aspect of my photography. Thank you Lou!

Kent Youngblood
 

Really enjoyed the class and thought Lou did a great job explaining her process with headshots. I've used her headshot approach with natural light on numerous occasions and came up with stunning shots.

a Creativelive Student
 

I love Lou’s teaching style and genuine desire to share her deep knowledge and experience. Absolutely my favorite instructor on Creative Live.

Student Work

RELATED ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES