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Lesson Info

Shoot: High Fashion with Cross Light

So let's go and I'm gonna take this off normally have enough speed rings in my studio that I don't have to keep doing this but um and by the way these are um speed rings that break apart so they make the big cocteau's all that really easy to set up so just and this is all on my way I don't even know exact manufacturer to this but it's on my blog's joel grimes workshops dot com it's under equipment and everything's there the link straight teo be able to purchase these so this is a is a cute little system to use to help set your uh lock those up really fast so we always do and I'll do it over here so basically I start and I do the counter one all on the two biggest slots and then I just take and I'll set make sure it's this one here I'll take the top half put in here so I'll take the top half their top path there then I worked the bottom half there and then I have to pull it through here but I know that as I get older I get weaker gets harder set these up now watch how easy it says hopef...

ully all might well this is kind of hook there I don't want that catch but basically that's how I set it up so it makes it a little bit easier todo is getting really having okay so why don't we do this? Let's let's let's move this is fast we can we're going to take and we're going to slide this out the way I think that's enough and we're just gonna unplug it that way it's not an issue and then we'll set this up and we didn't put that there the backdrop up um well you know what we'll forget it we'll just do the grey will do great I was gonna put that other campus background up so once you swing that toward me to get it out of the way there you go. Okay cross light so did you hear what john just said that's really hard for her to hold and you wouldn't think that right? But even I've had models that had you know use a hand for a hand shoot and they're back starts hurting you know, because you don't realize how much your muscles are doing something so yeah turn that one off and I can't remember what we had our setting on hiss before but we're gonna go quickly to across light and so let's try this right here same settings right now and so until we get what we want okay way too much power so let's go down a full stop and then one light it's all gonna be in great right now, okay? You tell me when you're like ready that your next ready to fall off there okay, so fill card fill card let's get a fill card in there if you want to just hold it you can do that too so we're gonna put it right there, okay see what that looks like? I'm probably just a little bit over still someone knocked us down one, two, three, four five I want to really soft like then step that way just a little bit so that'll soften it just a little bit beautiful beautiful, beautiful ah, yeah bring your chin this way right there I love it okay a little bit crooked means straightness up there that's good, I love it so if I the gray I'm stuck with it I mean, I can't do too much right now but let's just bring it in here like this and I get a kind of ah usually don't put my post up this high but I'm hurrying here already right here beautiful lips a little cooking like kirk because I gotta get that one feather bring your chin that way right there. Focus. Yes. Now the only thing I would do let's just try this I've got my seventy two hundred is where seven, two hundred I want compact this a little bit and hopefully what I can dio come on red to red tell me when when you're just done you say joe I'm done because that I'm serious right there okay so I got that one feather going way off but so this compact her a little bit so that headdress is going backwards the longer lands makes that headdress he stand up a little bit taller so that's kind of why I'm doing this right there okay and then I could zoom and has just do really tight one beautiful thea queen of sheba okay almost done I'm gonna do is just a couple horizontal because his eyes look so amazing right there beautiful I john pull that out a little bit right there okay one just looking at a life so you turned the whole thing right toward there we go so what that looks like well look at that that is a killer that is beautiful right here love you look at me you'll do that right there okay so oh so good I'm gonna see if I can get just that one little section right there of the of the uh top feather part right there yes yes okay I get john's hand in there but we can clean all that up and photoshopped look away again try one like this if you could hold your neck just lift the chin a little bit see what happens right there okay who now let's give her a break because I know she's like holding that thing up look at that. Is that not amazing? Oh pens just took him straight in the head, huh? Um okay, so this is also a good a good thing to think about when I photograph celebrity athletes or celebrities you don't have much time, so here I have a bit of a time restraint because she's like hold that thing up right? So I got to move fast I don't have time to you know, I think too much, so I know that I have to just do my thing and make sure I get it and I did right I pushed it, but I can't go there's a limit I can't go too far otherwise she's gonna literally you know, throw things at me start screaming what do we have left to do in terms of, um, to play with this let's? Just just do this, okay? To be fine because we've got enough time to do it, I'm gonna put you against the white so you go against the white and this is going to block a little bit of the hole camera angle stuff, but I'm going to swing this thing right behind me on a shoot in front of it and I'm just going to really over the top soft look so basically that just gets swung right over behind me my camera's gonna be right here, but I have to get my other lens on, so we'll do that and then I think we've got this taken care of this is actually an extremely amazing soft look and I'll explain something here in a second this is a seven foot octo it's not a cheap modifier and I don't know the exact price but it's around six hundred bucks yourself I can achieve the exact same thing with a seven foot a seven foot umbrella white with black on the back or white all white, whatever even silver with that diffusion the front, same size, same exact, in fact, almost all the portfolio shots I've done with this. Look, I have been with the umbrella, so I've done a side by side. You cannot tell the difference. Now, why would I go in and purchase an octa box over the umbrella? Well, if this was my go to light every if I was doing it like every day in a studio or even outdoors this is probably gonna hold up on blast me ten, fifteen, twenty years if I treat it right, the umbrella is a little more fragile, but think about it. Umbrella is about a hundred bucks with fusion's about maybe thirty bucks. So it's, a really inexpensive big light diffusion source. I have him here, I could set it up, but I set this up because I kind of like, you know, just this looks pretty cool bagel, octo, but any rate either way either way they worked in the end result is the same so just let you know so I'm gonna shoot this real quick you'll be able to seat over here gorgeous soft light and what's happening is that there's a lot of bounce off this white background here and so that gives me gives me a lot of the softness that I'm looking for all right so let's just take a look I'm gonna zoom in a little bit here right about there let's just take a look underexposed by quite a bit so I want to blow her skin so let's go a full stop okay so ten klicks ten clicks and think about this I know this sounds crazy but I am throwing like against the white the whites bouncing back and hitting this it's like just like a like a chamber off of bounce and so it's really kind of a cool look here we got ready okay so go straight on and just come straight at me right there focus visit is amazing look I love this look so let's see what happens here I may have to go a little lighter okay so that's not bad um I can try to push it so let's go let's go half a stop and see what happens but look at her skin and that gorgeous you have to stop five clicks you got it here we go so that's ah my monitor and like camera it looks perfect so that's kind of look I want all so good okay so now here's let's go back to this if I want to get a little more definition I look I look at my chin where's the shadow my chin where's the shadow my lips when we shot in my nose where the shadow my eyes if I want more shadow what ideo raise it up raise this up and we're gonna go about maybe eight to ten inches something like that okay and this has got to go right behind me here too so it's dead dead over the top of my head okay, so this should give me a little bit more shadow under her chin and a little more definition there didn't see that and hold her cheeks a little bit more so there's a limit of how high I want to go but there's a point in which I go my intuition tells me I'm right on that maybe different unite may end up in a different spot but at least I know that if I want more definition a shadow I know how to do it for simple one light then look, that looks amazing look how clean that is okay? So let's go and I'm gonna try to let's try to give me myself a little bit more room here on that was shot at a fifty millimeter roughly okay, so I'm gonna go back a little bit wider and obviously I've got a lot of dead space between my size but look at that that is absolutely amazing. So now let me flip my camera because I'm losing all those megapixels let's go back here I'm gonna drop the camera down a little bit because I want to make sure that I'm not I want to come up just a little bit okay summer zoom in right here and we just take a look yeah, yeah you know there's there's photographers that I've watched behind the scenes you know they say they like to look down, huh? I'm just telling you we all look think differently I like to look up because I did all those athletes maybe you know I like that you know? So let's do something with hands can you see that monitor? Okay, so let's do something with the hands sorry little early trying right there. Yes, beautiful. Beautiful now she leaned forward just a little bit so I gotta make sure I focus again. Beautiful gorgeous. This is perfect. Exactly what she's doing is all I need just a little bit different each time and there's here, let me let me explain something in the end what are the odds that were used two of these that's that's the beauty of what we're doing here all I need is one image so as I go through letter my editor and I go no no no no well that's the one and so I don't even take a thousand but didn't take enough that you know at least I got one and so when you're doing you have a client shoot where you have a celebrity shoot if she's you know let's say she's the next greatest thing that's on the planet up and coming musician or something whatever and they say julia got five minutes I got to make sure that this look would be really easy to do but I got it I know that I have a limit we go pop, pop, pop, pop and all sudden I know done out I got my shot or sometimes I'll even say they'll say you got five minutes and I just got in my head I know pop up up, up, up and I know I got the shot and I just say I'm done I might even in four minutes because I know that I got my shot I look good the publicist or who was handling her said joel did a great job he didn't wear this poor subject out so that's the confidence that you gotta have as you're shooting knowing that okay, all I need is one shot so this gets back to the understanding that it's nice to be able tio have time for white balance and have time, you know, to sit there and these light meter, but in rial working situations when you're doing sometimes, you just gotta move fast. Okay, so let me ask you a question with white balance educate me here. Why would you want to do go outside of the daylight white balance? What would you want to do? What would what? What if I went and customized a white balance on her? What advantage do I have in that scenario? That's what I'm asking you? Because I don't know, because I see all these people trying to do custom white balance is if she has a red sweater on the custom white balance is going to change and then her face it'll be adjusting for that red. Why do that? I don't understand why someone would do that now again, I'm color blind and I d saturate my work, so I never think of that, but just I would like to know someone that could please educate me on why you were taking white balance now and video I can see it if we had a life source that was changing, you know, yes, I could see where, but in this daylight strobe daylight modifier she's on white I don't understand why I would spend the time and even waste on white balance I guess that's just me now again susan maybe we can have some people people educate us so some of our listeners could educate me but the point is is I don't have time for that you're right I want to get that shot daylight balanced daylight strobes daylight you know a modifier I don't have to fiddle with that asked that aspect of it at least for me I don't and so I shoot everything on daylight unless I'm in a situation where I know that my life source it is not day light then I would go and if I'm in a beautiful warm sunset environment why do I want to clean that up and change it to white balance and not take out the warmth I don't think I would want to say I want to say that good look light that's me that's the way I think let it go now here's the crazy thing do you know that I the image over here uh vince sent on the wall right? Ok so that I added a gold warm filter later in photo shop and I'm color blind I just added that warm golden yellowish and went bink and tell my intuition said I like it is that white daylight balance no not even close to it well how can I get away with that because I'm an artist, I have a vision that I'm in a brandy that I'm going after, and people accept it right? If I wipe color balance that it wouldn't have the same impact. So that's why when I say you're right and that I don't have time to that, but listen not over complicate the scenario let's get our shots and get out of there and get make sure that you know, your vision is an artist has been fulfilled. Now there are some people that are shooting for client red ferrari has to be the red ferrari and that's a little bit different, and that was the feedback from the chat rooms really is getting the colors exact there, some corporate colors that have to be royal blue and you have to pull it off, but in that situation, you're probably going to have to at least have someone in photo shop do it if you could do it, but it's not even just on the camera, you've got to really nail it later and so that's that's a scenario that and I've had clients I've had clients that I've shot for that said, I want a purple background purple holding purple just shot crown royal purple now, how did I solve that? Did I share this last time? Maybe not, so I know what makes purple, red and blue right, so I put a blue filter on at a little bit of red, many j peg sent it off. The art director he said, okay, I need a little more a little more purple, little more ready to take my slider so ana just layer right, set it up, nail the joel boom I'm done. Did I hire re toucher to do that? No, I did it because I know the basics of how to get purple. I just can't see it boop purple and almost the same to me pink, I don't I can't see the difference, but I know the basics of how to get there and I can just simply by two e mails, I've got it nailed. So I guess what I'm saying is we tend to as artist sometimes or as photographers, we tend to overcomplicate and I know people that little take a mite meter and go and go head to toe I don't what that accomplishes, I really don't understand it, but some people worked like that, but I would say, loosen up, let the chains fall set yourself free. Do I sound like I'm preaching? Yeah, set yourself free and let it just take it scenario and also the closer she is to the wall actually, the better it isthe now there's no wall there, right she can't lead to get what there's a wall behind her but the closer you get your model of the white the better it looks because that white bounces back so I love a white sheet rock wall that our models can lean against that's the best scenario or I take a piece of paper like this life I'm on location I'll totally cut that piece of paper off tape it to a wall and then have my model lean against it just just you hurt her you're back just touching it and then it gives you a lot more relaxing feel to it and so but that balance is really important okay so let's I think we got our I think we've got our um height right so let's just do a couple more and again maybe the hands just move the hands a little bit okay so let me try I don't know if I can put this off and I'm gonna see if I could do fulling just in case down the road I e beautiful beautiful because they know you're okay um so that I've got that that's about a thirty five millimetre so it's a little bit of distortion and not much I mean how could I do have you jump in the air and kind of like do like a ballerina not just kidding actually move that way a little bit we still want to be dead center over this thing here no and in fact sometimes a photograph of a model that is a ballerina and then you say let's try something a little crazy right so see how easy I make out and this is like I said this is pretty darn easy it's how far away is this big seven footer about seventy ready right there oh yes so this is gonna be a little bit what more little bit wider feel for her but that could be good mama zoom in right on her eyeballs right there gorgeous got it very nice thank you again so that is so much fun look at that that is just amazing that's before photoshopped right before I go and do my magic so all right what we learned way did but edgy three light okay um way mixed that up a little bit we did across light which is really soft with the feathers that look good that's another chord progression right it's and then we did this soft that's another chord progression it's a different moods playing jazz you're playing country you're playing rock and roll all these different fields that's the beauty of what we do and not everyone's going to like every scenario one scenario may go I want that that I love and that's something that resonates with you so that's what I would say make sure that you begin to pick a look a a light now how did I learn this lighting trailer one day, I thought, you know, it's, a big source. What if I put that behind me? What would happen? That's, how I learned.