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Crazy Stupid Wedding Light

I have been a wedding photographer for 13 years. Okay? And you know what is awesome about this? This kind of industry that we that we kind of work in is that it was people see Dambe. She was amazing over there. Okay, Bambi, I I went to my very first workshop, like, 10 years ago because of Bambi. Okay. And some of things that I teach and I will probably be teaching you is some of those things that I've learned from Bandy. And so it's so I mean, I can't believe it. If you would have told me sit in that class 10 years ago, Bambi in your von that one day, I'd be sharing a stage. With that, I would have said, You are crazy. That's wonderful world of photography. It can take you anywhere in the world you want to go, and that's why I love it. It's an amazing industry that that were a part of. And so today, what I'm gonna I'm planning to do is teach you a little bit about kind of managing your wedding day and some tricks on had a give you a little bit Wow of wow in your imagery or just help yo...

u with your workflow because it could be very confusing. And so some lighting tips and then also at the end, I'm gonna be talking about, Ah, one small particular subject which I found very difficult to manage during wedding day. And that was groups. How do you photograph groups? And you know, when that bride says, Oh, what a picture of something fun, you know, like, what do you do? Right? And so that's kind of like the workflow, but we're going to see what to do. It's gonna be a lot of interacting and live type of presentations. And so who knows what it's gonna morph into? Um, but anyway, let's get started, OK? How to keep saying and an insane world. And that's really what wedding photography is about. Um, every wedding is different. That's what's so unique about it, and each have their own set of challenges. Every wedding that you go to is gonna be completely different somewhere indoors, summer outdoor. Some are midday somewhere at night, and you've got to figure out how to manage that day to be a great wedding photographer. You've gotta love chaos and thrive in it. Okay, so if you're going to get into this industry, you gotta love that chaotic state that it is in, you know, with the bride in tears and everything going on at the same time and be able to just thrive in that situation and knock it out of the park. And that's what it's really about. And that's the challenge of it. But you also the same time you can't be afraid of mistakes. You have to go and have a game plan and try things. And what I tell people is, don't worry about it. All you gotta do is capture 50 images that tell the story of that day. So, yes, you are going to miss shots, but then you are going to get some other great shots later, too. And once you go home and you go, you know what? I got 50 shots here. I can do this, so don't be intimidated by it To do wedding photography. Well, is very difficult. But actually, just getting into the wedding photography business. Um, it's easy. Anybody could do it. If you go by camera, get on Craigslist. Bam! You can you know, 200 bucks you can start doing wedding photography, but if you want, this is a career. And if you want this to provide for your family and so forth, then that is a different story. Actually, getting into wedding photography right now is a really good time. Why I feel that people are dropping out of wedding photography one because digital has been around for a while. So a lot of people who got into digital photography, they got all excited. All first thing is that oh, I'm going to see if I can shoot some weddings. Then they start shooting some weddings and go, Wow, this is really not Aziz. Romantic as I thought it waas and they stopped doing it and they've dropped out right? And now what I feel is there's the low end weddings. Uh, and there's the middle, you know, which is averaged, pricings say, anywhere from $253,500. And then there is the higher end, which I call the upscale ones, which are 5000 and above. Well, I feel that the middle category is dropping out. Those photographers are actually leaving the industry one because toe earn a living and beginning average rates is gonna be very, very, very difficult to do that. So those photographers air leaving some of the photographers who just get in it and then maybe they're just young. Um And, uh, maybe they're couples. And then they start to have Children and they go, Really? Oh, my gosh. Wedding photography and having a family that's very, very difficult. I've got to get transition out of that. And so I feel like this middle area people are just leaving. And in general, people are leaving wedding photography because I feel that, um, kind of the Leicester of it or the just the kind of prestige of it has dropped a little bit because it is actually really hard to do. And so I feel if you're getting into this industry and you want to kind of leap frog yourself in position yourself that you can do wedding photography really well, it's not gonna be easy. It may take you a few years. You might need to get mentored, but it's going to be there for you because nobody's doing it right now. So maybe it made this be an inspiration for you to perhaps even consider this taking your skills up to the next level. Because when you reach that upper hand, 5 $15,000 a wedding, I believe it will be there because no one's doing wedding photography right now. Not I mean, there's still lot, but compared to before Phyllis completely open. Okay, so let's get going. One number One question for creating wedding. Wow. Okay, is does baby got back lights? OK, when in doubt? Back light. Okay, uh, let me show you some examples. Back light is a key ingredient for creating romance and drama. Okay, so if you look at a lot of famous wedding photographers and the work, you're going to see a lot of back light in their work. What is back like it's that light that comes behind the subject. Here's an example here. Back like, OK, now I'm going to tell you, you like this photo, but I had to set everything they up here. This moments like this just don't naturally happen. Okay, Brian, just don't go to windows and just look this and the grandmother and the mom just don't automatically come up and, you know, fix her dress. You've got to have vision. And you've got to see this in your mind before you shoot it. Okay, but backlight backlight. Look at this, right? Every woman wants like to be how you know she feels Oh, yeah, I want my man to hold me and be loving and and the guy saying, Oh, mad Do I have to wear this shirt with the pink trim around my sleeve? I'm waiting to get out of here. Uh, but everybody you know, so many women want that feeling of being held by their man, right? That backlight helps feel that emotion this moment to wasn't created by itself. I had this shot in my head the half on hour before the ceremony. That's why I set up that light behind there to give me that back light there because I knew I was going to do this with the biting groom. But it's things that is your mind before and creating that light that helps set that moved. Here's another one using backlight kind of that Hollywood drama feel. And here's another one. Ah, that was just a nap of the other date of shooting the wedding. And, um, that light that comes in there just really gives it that feel of romance. Here's in Italy and if you can look at that, see P a photo. You can see how that backlight makes that person glow, and we love that feeling, especially with the bride and with her veil. If you see a veil, get that light behind it and it's gonna light her up and she's gonna glow. There's another one. Just a nice moment with the girls in that beautiful lighting on the dance floor. Back light if you have. If you hate shooting reception shots, if you set a back light on your dance floor, you're gonna love shooting it because it gives you this nightclub feel. And here I was actually looking at these photos again this morning, and something just entered my mind and I couldn't. I was trying to figure out why backlight looks so good. You know, what is it about? That like that makes things look amazing. And I kind of got deep in philosophical, so just kind of go with meal here a little bit. I kind of feel what light does is it's it's really kind of deep in spiritual. I kind of feel like what it's saying is that the divine one or our creator or God is shining light on you and blessing you. And so when you look at that, it's like they're being blessed by the divine one. And then I really intrinsically feel that that's what really liked does. It's something divine coming down and shining on you and saying you are blessed. Backlight by itself could be just amazing by itself, even just with it and not anything in the front of the subject. It could look cool, too. So here's a revolutionary idea on how to manage your light. Okay, here's the number one. Here's your subject. And here's your main light or the light in front. Okay. And here's your backlight. Okay? And what you want to do, This system creates a freedom for you. Okay, maybe you've been taught ratios and this than 4 to 1 and 5 to 1. And you know what? Forget about that. You're just gonna go. And what you're gonna do is you're going to create a light sandwich. And what is that? Is that you have a subject? This is your meat. And you have two pieces of bread and you sandwich that subject. Okay, so when you go out and you're in a situation and, like, how can I sandwich this person with light? And one of the rules that I kind of rule set is if you get this main light right, if you get this pretty much kind of like whatever the light meter tells you or your camera says it's good or you look at and go that I like that front light that's perfect. You can do whatever you want on the back. You can color it. You can make it strong. You could make it week. You have freedom, Freedom to go ahead and blow out your highlights. If you want to go ahead, it's OK. You might not score very well when you put it into competition. But guess what? Your client might really love it where it might start to become your signature style, too. So have this freedom of experimentation. One thing that I feel that the limitations of being educated so much like programs like Creativelive and things like that is that we feel like we can be educated on everything and so we can go out and we won't ever make a mistake. But some of the best ideas that I've ever had were happy accidents going out in trying things and that if I were toe, you know, give one suggestion to a photographer is you know what? Get away from the monitor. Of course. Watch this program first. At least then cannot care. Just practice. You know, when I grew up, like shooting 10 years ago, Uh, the internet was just and its infancy, okay, We didn't have internet. We didn't have video streaming. All we had with those, you know, magazines that came and you'd see a picture when a band, these pictures in there and go Wow. How did you do that? You didn't know. You just go out there and try doing it. And along the way, you learn things. And that's what I want to see more of that in our industry, because that really allows you to develop your signature style. Okay, so you got the main light. And if you got that right, Hey, if you're overexposed, under exposed, evenly exposed on the background, that's cool. Just do whatever. Okay, Now you can even do this. If you under exposed this main light. Make sure you just overexposed that back light and it looks cool. I do that a lot, actually. If you watch a lot of movies, they do that a lot too. Is that they'll under expose the exposure on the face and do a lot more backlight? Why? Because it makes you what's going on that focus more attention on that dark area. OK, so these are ah, you know, of course, you can always break these or do something different, but in general, I kind of take on these ideas. So basically, for me, my a little bit of my signature style is have it evenly exposed in the front or maybe a little bit under exposed and then overexpose it 1 to 2 stops. And that's kind of like how I do things. This is about as technical as I'm going to get today. I may not even talk about the inverse square law today, so don't worry. Just relax, okay? Okay. This is what I call kind of the classic textbook lighting where you haven't evenly exposed front, and then you have backlight that is not over exposed, but just right. So you kind of see the highlight on the hair. OK, so this is kind of like that classic textbook lighting that were kind of trained to shoot like this. Here's more of the Motte what I call the classic modern. This is kind of what wedding photography today looks like where you get that light behind the subject, and then you just overexpose it until this subject looks good to you and you see a lot of that. Now, this looks a little bit different because I put kind of ah ah, yellow cast behind it because I just don't like showing blown out highlights. So it's just part of what I like. So I didn't want a blow out there and be completely white in the background. So I put some yellow back there just to have some information back there and to give it just kind of this kind of Yellowstone that I like. Um, but that is really today's modern wedding photography. You're going to see a lot of it looked like that. Okay, here is a different idea, and this is using back light on Lee. Okay, so this is overexposing and just using back light on Lee, and there's actually no ambient light, no front light toe. Light it up. But when you want to create a great outline, let's say if your groom is has a hat or he's, you know, smoking a cigar or something like that and have some nice shapes, then it's kind of cool just to create an outline. Here's another photo where you're actually, um, that was over exposed, and this is more evenly exposed on the edge of light. As you can see, the it's not blown out there on the edges. And so if you're interested on how to create this type of silhouette, get your notebook out, I'm going to tell you how to do it. All right? So and we can actually try to do it. Um, if we want to Yeah, we could try to do it right now. After this, so one place subject indoors with moderate or low light. Okay, so if you're going to go outside in the bright light and try to do this, it's probably not gonna work for you. But if you're kind of like in here where it's moderate light or low lying, especially low light, it's gonna work rate. Set your camera. I s O toe 100. Put it at F 11 and set your shutter speed to about 100. Take two flashes in manual mode and put them in half power and put them about 6 to 7 feet behind your subject. And bam! Take the picture. You should get somewhat of a silhouette, right? That will work Where I took this, this was taken in China, but it worked here. It will work in Paris. It will work in anywhere in a motel hotel wherever. If you need a quick shot, you and you want to kind of do this type of lighting. You can just ripped this off and do it anywhere. Would you guys like to try and see? See it? Okay. Where's our beautiful model, Joseph? Now, ladies, I said I wanted a male model for my lady friends. So you girls happy? Let's bring em on out. Oh, my gosh. If only If only. Okay, um, let's get a chick and we get like, a cherry can straddle a metal chair. How about that metal chair over their sexual? And let's kind of get him in a lower lip. area. So it's about right here. Good. Okay. Can I get to assistance? Who wants to help me? OK, All right. Let's see what we got. We got one. Who else? Okay, I'm gonna set my flashes toe half power. Okay, um, you want to just sit down here and just kind of straddle this, Okay. All right. Um, what you're gonna do is you're going to stand back about you move up Lizzie and captain, can he move up? Actually, a little bit. Go ahead, move up. Because we're running out of room here, so I want to get about six feet back. And if someone could hold it here and then if someone can hold it here about six feet back and what we're trying to do is kind of like this outline up, okay? And yet right about there. All right, Now forget this going. I'm gonna have to frame it through the monitor, which is Thea. What am I looking at here? Turn it on. That's good. Huh? Um, we see in anything. Oh, OK. This is weird, because I have to shoot this. Um, Okay, let's test it. Want to OK, good. All right. So Let's wait. Okay? So look it. I'm gonna turn my I s so who I like this. I can show how I'm doing my settings. Okay, then, um that's good. And then I'm gonna take my f stop two f 11 like I live you on. So see, now I've made a black boxy that is completely dark in the room. Okay? Actually, I can't even see anything. I don't even know where I'm focusing at. Okay? I'm gonna take a guess. Want to Ready? Right. Okay. You get the old. Yeah. Turn your face to the right more. I want to do an outline. Okay. If you can come over this way a bit right there. Good. It's hard because I can't even see what I'm doing because there's no Okay. Ready? All right. And so that gives you that kind of look great. Um, good, thank you. Thing is my class. I can do whatever. Let's get some options on top of that, let's stay there. Okay? Can we go back? If I could play, will it play that picture? Okay, so see, that's how that kind of doing an outline right there, and we could actually come in a a bit closer. Yeah, there's some and be like, OK, so now let's do a little trick. Um, let's set my camera to tungsten or the light bulb. OK? Which means when you do, you set your camera to that. What's happening is a little light bulb right here. What? It's doing it saying there's a lot of orange light in the room. So I'm gonna put a blue filter over everything to take out that warm light and do the opposite, so it looks normal, but I'm using it. Not for those purposes. I'm using it. So I want a color. The light blue. Okay, so let's do another picture. I am totally guessing because I can't even see where I'm focusing. So and so now you can see that's perfect. Uh, that looks blue. One shot, uh, versus that And you can get different effects by playing with your wife is not cool, Right? Okay, now let's go. I can't. Sorry, I can't. Once I get on lighting and showing, I can't stop. Sorry. Do you forgive me? I want to keep going. Okay. Can you grab that? Let's get another somebody else to help and let's do this. Now, let's just add a little bit of front light, right? So let's stick this on a 32nd power. So that just gives me a little front. And if you can turn sideways that way, But you're gonna kind of look at me more with your eyes right there. And that dude is a good looking guy. Okay? Who's Yeah, A Yeah, right. All right. Yeah, kind of right. Where? The nose. And so I always put the light where the noses and I'm gonna turn this sideways. Why would I turn it sideways? Because the light is going long this way, right? So I'm gonna go right about here, and I'm just gonna add a little bit of front light to this face. Let's see what that looks like. I'm totally guessing I can't even see anything and see how I just give him that. Just a hint. I love that style. Now, let's say that's not your style. You want more light, So just come in a little bit closer, a little bit too much. Come back, Come back. Where were you were about there. Okay. So Okay, let's do it again. look at me. You know, nobody Joe does not take a bad picture, all right? And so that's a little bit stronger. Uhm So you've got that. Well, it's a little It's about the same. So let's come in a little bit closer. Yeah, right there. Okay. And you're gonna go where his nose is gonna pull out right there. Okay, Chill. Looking me. You just do whatever you want, but you're awesome. Want to ready? Hope? Sorry. Let me do another one. I can't. I can't. I don't know where I'm going because I can't see because it's on. Ah, live you. So Okay. So that gives you a little bit more light. It just depends on what your taste is. If you want to bring it down and have some mystery to it, you can do that. Or you can take it up now to actually to even out the skin. Let's just keep going with lighting here. I'm sorry. Ah, if we want what? What I have to do to make his skin not look blue, I would have to jell it with the CTO jail or color temperature. Or is that you have orange? One of them has orange on it. No. Uh, is that red? Yeah. That's the red. So that won't work. Wait. Yeah, Here it is. Look at that great assistant here. So we're gonna do that. We might as well get it right in camera. So this is gonna warm it up and let's go the same thing right here. One Let's see where my focus that run to. Ready? Oops. Sorry. Let me go again. I gotta go higher. 12 ready. There. And so that evens out the skin tone with that, um, and so that's how you do that. All right, Good. All right. Thanks, everybody. So that's just a simple demonstration. And once you use the app, Laurie. Sorry. Thanks, Joe. Once you use those settings, Um, just like I said half 11 I also 101 half you saw how done you could These could actually just be two stands. Put your groom right there. It's a shot that you could have in your back pocket when all chaos is breaking loose. And you kind of feel like I just don't got anything yet, right? We've all been there shooting weddings. It's like you go the whole day and you're shooting for an hour ago. I got nothing yet. I got nothing yet. You gotta always fall back and do something like that. You could always have. You can make up your own recipes. Okay? You can spend a whole day practicing. You can have Joe. You can make him take his shirt off. I don't know, girls. You can do whatever you want and just mess with different things and come up with your own recipes. And then you'll have something, something. You have a go to move that will work for you. Okay, so that's how you do that. Now, here is another shot where I kind of actually screwed up. I wanted to put a little bit, actually wanted to create a silhouette first, but I didn't realize I had another trigger on my flash and it was firing off and it was giving me a little bit of a front line, but not quite enough. And so all I did. Now the ratio is still backlight is a lot more than the front life, but in photo shop, you can come through and you can get it the way that you want to do it, Okay? And this is the reason why I don't shoot raw because I can do that in J. Peg. And so that's good enough for me. And I just shoot J Peg, especially for weddings when you're ripping off 11 1314 100 photos. Um, just to manage everything. I just shoot JPEG and J. Peg is really, really good. There's a lot of information in shape. Okay, so that's that look. And here's a completely different look where I'm adding Mawr backlight. What I did was I raised my camera higher on, and I used my live you so I could see it has a flip down display, which I love. So if your camera has that, that's cool. And then because I'm sure so I live because it makes me taller so I can shoot like this. And that's what I did with this particular photo. And then I allowed more backlight to come in to give me more of that kind of lens flare type of look. Okay, here's the easiest way to add back light. This is the world's easiest way. Okay, one, expose the subject with natural or available light. Okay, That's what we do know now A lot of us, right? That's the easy thing in natural. Like we're going to do that right here in this class. Okay, So you picked you. I don't know what you know. Whatever you look in your camera, whatever the camera media is, you just expose your subject. How you want that person to look. Second, all you got to do is make sure that you keep your shutter below 2/100 of a second. Why do I say that? Is that I recommend using a manual off camera flash system. And when you're in manual, you've got to be usually below 1 2/100 of a second in two years or three years when technology progresses. We won't have to worry about that. And I don't want to spend minutes. Why? But just trust me, flash Sync will be history. Pretty soon. Ah, but for right now, we've gotta worry about this in manual mode. There's other ways to get higher, uh, shutter speed. But in t tl, which I don't particularly like me, I'm Emmanuel guy because I have more control. But in manual, pretty soon, flash sync will be disregarded, but and then you just add backlight with the wireless flash. Now question. Why do I say add back light with the flash versus? Well, Scott, you can just use the video light. Why don't you just use a video light toe? Add that backlight in there? In fact, some of the lecture Scott, you said that that's what you use, which is true. But why in this particular case, why do I say flash? Anybody know? Yes. Is it because the constantly will overpower your exposure? Um, no. In fact, it's complete opposite because constant light. This is really it's It's not even powerful compared to flash. So when you're outdoors and shade and you're trying to get a backlight, this will be like a blip on the radar. Scary. And it won't even affect the picture that much because this is so weak. This is like 100 times less powerful than a flash. So in low light situations it's great, and we'll get into that a little bit later as time goes on. But just generally, flash is a little bit more versatile for backlight, because you can make it a lot stronger if you want Sometimes it's too strong, but, you know, it doesn't really doesn't matter. So, um, the first thing is, when you use that method, how do we find great available light? That's the first kid. And so when your wedding photographer you're looking how to find great available light, the key is, is you look for cash lights in the eyes and that will tell you that you're in a great area and you learn to find those areas. A deck give you cash lights, and those catch lights are usually created from a large diffused light source being narrowed down into a smaller space. So, for example, outside, What's the light source outside the sun? Huge. Right now it's coming, and it's being narrowed down to this area here. And this is a huge soft box now, So the light coming in this way, I guarantee you, if you put a person right here, you will see catch lights in their eyes because it's being diffused down into this area. One thing you have to watch for is like contamination. And so, in this particular photo here I did this technique. It was almost exactly like this situation, but darker there was light here and coming in. And I had the girls posed right here, but was very, very dark because what's my I s o 3200? So, you know, it was pretty darn dark. We're in here. I'm probably gonna use I s a 100. Okay, so it's really, really dark, but it was the same situation. Now what happened was that I was looking at ago. Something is not looking right with this photo. What's going on? So the situation was like this. I had the sliding door. I had that light coming in. I noticed there was another chandelier or another light on, and it was contaminating my scene. First of all, it was creating a different color, right, because the outdoor light is bluer compared to the indoor light, which is a lot warmer. And so you're gonna get a mixed lighting situation. And sometimes it's so mixed of we have all been there. Like who? I can't get the white balance right, cause of I just this skin. Then this looks bad and you go vice versa. And then you end up making it CPR black and white. Right? But let's say he didn't want to do that. So what happened was it was flooding that area and was creating too much and even exposure. And the shadows on on my subjects worked as quite as defined. And it didn't have that one source Look, So you have to turn off the lights. So a lot of times when you're especially when it's a bride getting ready and you want to create great light, use the window life. But a lot of times I turn off all the other lights in the room so you can really have that cool drama effect. I don't know if we could possibly do this, but there's a light on here that is actually creating more even, like, just for a second. Can we turn that off so they could see the drama and how it effects the if you just look at me. So this is kind of contaminating the area right now. Don't I look amazing in this? I can't see myself so, but I'm sure it has more drama to it once think, find great available light, which is right here. We found it. Okay, we got rid of the contaminating light. So we've got one light source. We're going to keep our shutter below 200 we're going to use an off camera wireless system and let me talk a little bit about that. I know. I used it before talking about it. Um, what I use is a wireless system. It's a system that I developed myself. And if you go to scott, robert photography dot com, you can find it there. It's on sale. If you type in the word creative life, you get a discount. But anyways Oh, yeah, give one away, too. But anyways, remind me I'm gonna give one away to people. So, uh, how it works is you have a transmitter. Okay, this transmits a signal. Okay. A radio signal. So when you pushed down on the shutter, it will transmit a signal. So you have a transmitter, but you need to receive it by something. And that's what this little guide down here is. It's a receiver. This receives the signal and tells the flash to fire. It's very, very simple. It doesn't calculate light. It doesn't do any of that. It just says fire when I tell you to. You are going to control your own light when you're in manual mode. And if you're not sure how to do that, you could buy my other creative live course, which was three days. And I get all in tow F stops and all that kind of confusing stuff. But for now, I'm not going to, so it's simply transmits a signal. It receives it, and it tells it to fire. It's very simple. That's what makes it very reliable. Okay? And we're going to control our own life. Okay, Um, so let's do that. So can I get somebody to help me out? Assistant? Anybody who? Yeah, who is fearful? Yeah, Go ahead. Yes. Come on out. All right. And let's get Joe back in. What? Do you like to be called Joe or Joseph? Just fine. All right. Break. Okay. So let's do that. Let's have him here, okay? And I've got some great light on him. Right? So if you can kind of turn, you actually turn your You see, if you turn your body this way a bit too much, just actually, just face me, okay? You can just kind of cross your arms, right? And I'm gonna have you put the nose towards the light a little bit, but you're gonna look at me. Yeah, right there. Okay. So come out. Can you come out? You got it. Like tracking you guys up. I'm able. If somebody looks good, you just like, you know. OK, come on up a little bit. I want to give some distance here. Okay, So I'm ATS f 11 which is not gonna work. So let's see here. That live. You actually on. Okay, so you Oh, man, I This is hard because I gotta focus looking at that. Right. Okay, so now look it. I'm at 56 I got live you so I can see exactly my shot. Okay, that looks pretty good, right? At 1/50 of a second. So I'm going to do a test shot. Right? So let me put the focus up here. I got to go opposite I do this. I'm no good at this. Sorry, I can't go opposite. I tried, Teoh. Okay. Okay. Now let's fire some flash behind because I don't think I could do this again. Get that flash. Is it? Turned on. Actually. Put it point right at his head. Put it I up there and go high, go higher and go back a bit more to go behind. And let's just do this and see what happens now you're in the picture. Oops. I got him blinking anyway. Questions. Just a couple. A ton of people have been asking about this for a while now. And we Can you just tell us a little bit about? Okay. Couple things. One your optimal height for flashes. Like, do you have? Ah, magic height area where you aim it a particular angle or you angle it down or up or around. What do you like for the flashes or you have a height. Try gonna simulate it like the sun. OK, so it's usually above the nose coming down. Okay? Yeah, cause that's because that's huge. Right when we're doing something like that and then that that angle, same kind of a thing, right? You'll just that angle. Yeah, and it kind of goes with taste, and it kind of goes with practice of what you like. So it's very easy to figure out what you like after just practicing for a day. But in general Yeah, I kind of just remember, you're trying to simulate the sun or some kind of light source. That's usually a lot higher up. And just think of it that way. Okay? Fantastic. Because it has to be believable. That's the whole thing, right? OK, so no one more so got kind of a big picture question for you. And this has to do with a couple of things. One people are asking, How do I get started? Right. So they're asking, Do you Do you think second shooting is the best? Do you think meant getting a mentor is the best? And I personally would love to know. Tell me about how you got started, how I got started. Way back when? Okay. Way back. When? 10 years ago. The landscape was different. There was a film. Okay, so imagine you have to shoot a wedding and you can't look at the back of your camera. That's going eliminate. How many photographers in this industry? 90%. Maybe even more. So therefore, anybody who is a wedding photographer was making money and we didn't want share that with anybody, right? And so it was really hard to break into the industry. I remember writing, uh, e mails to about 100 photographers in my area. Nobody would want I would offer my services for free. I'd show my portfolio what I got going. Nobody, um, stepped forward and said, Hey, yeah, you could help me out. But one person, some very grateful that person that said that. OK, so when I did my first wedding, I have never shot second shot because I couldn't even get hired as the second photographer. Wow. So I just went out and did it, and I know, and that was with film. Now you have digital. So I said, you know what? You don't need toe. Just go for it. It's good to maybe go to a couple a few, but you don't have to go to more than thought Second shoot more than five times. Really? Because what? Your wedding photography, you're gonna learn it by doing it, okay, and that's what I recommend is going out there and doing it I recommend may be assisting a few times and then doing a wedding at a low cost. When you got to lose, put yourself on Craigslist or go to a friend or whatever shoot the wedding charge. I don't know 500 bucks or whatever you can get and just shoot it, because the expectation the lower you charge, the expectation is also lower, too. So and then we have digital. And then, like I said, on top of that, all you need is 50 photos to tell the story of the day. It's easy to do it that way, not and not easy to do it really well. But it's easy to actually shoot a wedding and get paid a low amount. That's what's easy. And then you can build up and start from there and then as you get better, the way the wedding industry works is it's all by rave. Okay, so once you get better and you do a better job, then, um, people will just start referring you and then we'll build after that. If you don't get any referrals and you start doing this and you're posting right away and you get no referrals, that means you're not good enough. The market is telling you to get better, because the price that you are charging is not equating to the quality that you're producing, and it's not a value, so either you got to go lower or you got to go better or you got to do both. And sometimes even in my career, I've had to do that. Even experienced photographers sometimes have lower the price, retool themselves, reinvent themselves and come back stronger than ever. So don't be afraid of that. But you must get the mo mentum going and get jobs and keep going. Fantastic. Awesome circuit. Thank you. We're good to go. Seo. Let's try this. OK, so we just said it on 32nd power. I didn't compute anything. I didn't figure anything out. I just said Okay. 32nd power. Okay, so now I'm going to raise this a little bit higher because I'm short Chiltern head a little bit this way. Yeah, like that. Nice. OK, so I think the exposure is pretty good right there. Want to ready? Go. Oh, my white balance is, um what in the world? Oh, what's the next shot I like I know it might be having a bad day, but I didn't think I was that bad. OK, so I'm gonna send I have this on tongue student, so I'm gonna set this back to daylight. Okay? So I am on the daylight, Flash. Okay, I'm gonna keep the CTO. And so let's try this again. Right. So want to ready now? I'm a little bit higher than him. My position. Shoot it. This looks much better. Okay, that's come on through. Lo. All right, Is now much better. Okay, so that's at 32nd power busted up tomb. Or do you know how to do that? That's why I love my flashes. She's never Have you ever seen one of those flashes before? D exactly Look it using that is okay. Just depressing twice. You're good. OK, now let's look at it. All right, So let's do another shot. It's focused in right there. 12 Ready? Go! And now that's a completely different look. But as long as the front light is correct, whatever you we do in the back can be whatever our taste. Is that freedom? Who knows? Eighth of power. Let's let's go crazy. Bump it up. Another two. Who cares? Crazy, stupid. Well, like crazy. Stupid. Okay, Crazy. Okay, Ron, Sue Ready? Ooh, I like that. So here again, this gives you that modern lens flare feel. See how it's starting to soften up, right? Especially if you use a low aperture. If I put my 85 millimeter on and shot it a 2.0, it would look even more creamy. Um, as who? Hey, look at that. So, um there it's up to you. What? Thank you. Thank you. Great. Sick. Go ahead to have a seat. It's whatever you freedom. This is what this is about. Don't get hung up on ratios or whatever. Be free to create. Get that front light, correct, And then do whatever. Now you gotta be careful about, um if the lightest firing and reflecting back somewhere, then it's gonna mess up this front, light your exposure domain light. So But if you're outdoors, who cares? It's not gonna reflect that. But if you're indoors, it's might start. See that that light is still strong. It's reflecting back at the subject, so it's kind of throwing off the main exposure. But you might like that because it's kind of less contrast. See, this is ah, higher contrast, right. This is technically right. You know, this is when you that this is how we were taught to have it like this. Nice contrast and colors. Slight edge. Okay, this is more of the modern feel. You can go in a photo shop and kind of or move that flash. So it is a hot spot right here. You can take that down or whatever, but that has mawr. That this is more of the classic modern, which I call now, and this is more the traditional style. But you can do whatever you want to do. That was awesome. Okay, let's move on. Okay. I talked about the wireless system here. Okay? This is the type of photography that you're going to get doing this method. If instead of you had a hot guy, you had a hot girl. And if you happen to be in China, then you could actually do this. Okay? But this is what I'm talking about. You just meet her. You see some beautiful cash lights in the eyes. You meet her for it. I just took us one of these strobes back there, and I, uh I'm not sure if I put a gel on it, and I don't think I had time. I just threw it behind. See this red rail here? I put it behind there so you can see it. Just I didn't even know what I said. It I said the 16th power, Whatever. Fired it off. It look good. It opened up this whole area here. See that? And then it gave me that open field kind of that classic modern. And to make it more classic, modern and two views it I in photo shop bam lens flare right there just to add some more. Because that actually doesn't look right. Right? What We're doing that, like, come from but because that lights coming from behind and it's from that direction, you kind of believe that there could be some light right there. But really, it's not right. But I just did it to accentuate that Maura, that classic modern feel that brides love right now. Ok, any questions on this? Yes, I noticed. You seem to use a lot of gels. Is that correct? And sort of your thoughts behind behind using a lot of gels in kind of the work that you do? Yes. Good question. Jails. I used jails because I like the color light. And one thing about the wedding industry is you can't be. You can't just do what everybody else is doing. You have to be one up on it. And I'll talk a lot about that when I'm starting to critique photos tomorrow. Um, I think that is gonna be there. Me and Sue, we're gonna talk about photos and my whole idea about in photography. If you're gonna do something, don't do something just like everybody else. And so there's a lot of strove us out there that will actually do that lighting and so forth. But I want that extra edge because I want a color my light and make it a bit different on top of that, So using gels is my like, Okay, I got one over you. I'm gonna use this jail, okay? And that's really what wedding photography is all about. It's like being creative and innovative. Just it's OK to copy, but then when you copy, you got a and add your own signature style on top of that, to really give it that edge to set you apart. You want a signature style, and so I want my lining to look different. So when people look at my photos, I don't want to look like everybody else. so I have toe one up it. Do something. That's your question. Question. Yes. It looks like you're typically using 2 to 3 lights and RG one. Okay, so if you're at a wedding, you're just doing it yourself. Or do you have, like, I always I always have an assistant with me. Okay. And it's very easy to get assistance nowadays. Well, I suggest get a buddy and trade because let's say you're on a budget. Whatever. And you can't afford to pay somebody 102 100 bucks on your wedding. Especially if you're only charging 500. It is like that. Cool. So I would just trade with somebody said, Hey, I'm gonna shoot for you, and I'm gonna assist you. But when you're up, then I'll you know, do you a favor. And so that's kind of how I suggested any other questions moving on. Uh, eso Anyways, this is that Look, Did I showed this on creativelive before this? I just did the backlight with the blue jail. Here's another trick that I do for wedding photography Is I actually amplify? If I the back light a lot of times in wedding photography when you're doing the getting ready shots into the room, and it looks all dark in there. Like, uh, What's going on? It's really dark. Why? Because a lot of times the makeup artists will turn off all the contaminating light and want to just use window light. And so there's hardly any light in there. And but wedding photography is what light, airy, open. So what I do is I place another flash where the window is toe amplify that light coming through. So I'm just simulating what's already there, but I'm getting more of it. And so that's what I did in this particular case. I said a flashback there and hit it. And what happened was it completely opened up this area and made it more white and clean. And so wedding photography is about backlight with clean, white, light, open and airy feeling. And so that's one trick I do. During the wedding day, I I should have actually told the sister to move, but it was a moment she had a right expression, and I took it, and there it was. But I could never recreate that again during the day, so that's what it was. Okay, here's another idea. Okay, Number two is video light through a translucent umbrella when you do not have available, like the very next best thing is to take a video light and put it through an umbrella. Okay. I use this killer video light that I use. It's really small, but it's like 800 Lux. It's very part powerful. And I shined that through a shoot through umbrella. And you can get images like this with just one video light and one umbrella. And that is it. Okay, so what it iss is this video life is and then you have I like to do this and old This is my wedding day set up. Okay, One flash on one side. This is called a big boy bar. You go to scott, robert photography dot com to find that, um And so I put one flash here and one video light here, So I am ready to go. I am by. I could go either way. So flash video light, right? Like low light. Bam. I'm right there. Then I like this she to stand because this also turns into a model pot at the same time because the legs automatically lift up. OK, so you put this like this through here, okay? And I'll show you right now. Um, this light here, um, is it possible if we just kind of close this off here, Teoh to just kind of create a little light situation in here? Um, okay. And let's get our Is it possible to turn those off for a second? So I could just show them, uh, let's get Joe up here and you can see this light that it creates Is this really easy way? If you can just stand right here, okay? And face there or what? You want the cameras right there and then see that light right there? It created. Now, we actually do so have a lot of light in here. Still see how easy that loss to create that light? Let me see if I can make this even darker in here. Does anybody know how to push that? All the way? Is probably a trick to that. Is there any way to take the can lights off, or is that just gonna be like, no light at all in here? Can't do that. Okay. All right. Anyways, just come out here, Joe. Okay. And so you can kind of come out here. You could see the catch light is the camera got those cash light so you could see it, and I can't even see what I'm doing. See that you like What? You see a all right there. See that? And that's how you create instant amazing like thank you. And I love doing this technique. It's so fast and easy. Um, but I get that beautiful light that I like. Um, now show you examples of this. Okay, here's same thing here. Okay? Just doing that. What? I And here's how you do it. Here's the method. Okay? I'm not gonna get into his here. This use a little f stop like 2.8, maybe four, but around 2.8 or lower is even better. Okay, You have to be in such a low light situation where you're using. Probably I s 800 above. Okay, so you're in a very low light situation. If you're in I a so 100 it won't work because there's too much ambient light throwing around the video lights. Not strong enough. That's when you gotta go to flash. Okay, so this is in the low lights at night time. Did you ever do night sessions? This is amazing. For night sessions, you don't, Because with the cameras nowadays, you could turn your eyes slowed to 60. 400. Not care. You can do your entire night sessions with just the video light through an umbrella. Okay, I s 0 800 above. Keep your shutter above 50th of a second. Why do I say that? Anybody? No, because we're at constant light and the flash is not gonna freeze your image so you can't use your flashes your shutter. So if use, it's gonna see shake if you shake. And so the general rule is your shutter speed should equal the millimeter that you're shooting at. So if you're shooting at 50 millimeter, then you should be 1/50 of a second. Now, I know for myself I could usually do about half of whatever my millimeter is, and I'll be OK, but that's because of practice. And I just know my own and image stabilization Nowadays, Um, you're cool. You want open this? Okay, on set your background exposure first, so whatever you want your background to look like you set that up. And so, in this particular case, the back See those lights back there in the stadium, in the theater. I got that the way I wanted it. Okay, Of course. My subject was dark and then I simply brought in. I used distance to create the strength of like, my video, like Does have a dimmer on it. But most likely you're going to have to put it up full because what happens with an umbrella, it takes two stops away, or which means it reduces your life source by four times as much light. Okay, so that's why I adjust by distance. And that's how I vary my strength of my life. Now the closer the light is to your subject, the more beautiful it's gonna look. Okay, so just remember that try to get that light is closest to subject as possible. Here's another one that I did, and the little wrinkle on this is a lot of times when I do video light. I used to like to shine that light from above, which is creates that kind of ah, butterfly lighting, see under the shadow under her nose. But what that does is a lot of times it makes it depends on the person's eyes. If they have really deep eye sockets, you're not going to get a catch light. So to get a catch light here, which I did, what do you think I did? I just used another video light to give me a catch. Like also up. Light always makes your subjects glow. If you want that glowing field, doesn't she look like she's glowing? It's because up, light up, like always gives it that glow. This is another reason why I like using to video lights is because this video light acts as my portable reflector and it even works at night time. And that's what I used this for as a lot of times in my portable reflector. Okay, and that's the actual set up there. I had another person in the back firing the flash, Um, and that's the shot that I ended up with. Now two is better than one equipment wise. I always like to go smaller and multiple more than just one big light source. For example, a lot of people get this type of set up well they'll use like a larger strobe with the battery pack and so forth. And then maybe they'll use a really nice light source like this. Ah, light stick. Here I slight become which are really awesome lights. But I like my style is if I put two of these together like these, video lights will actually clamp together. I don't want to take it off, but you can string together these this light source here is 1100 lumens. Well, both of my video lights are 800 lumens. So together two of these will do more output than this particular light source here. Okay, So if I want Teoh, I could always put to together and give me a strong light source. But because I like sophisticated lighting a lot of times I don't want one, but I want multiple life sources so I can go to also maybe for catch the hair light and main light and so in versatile. So I rather have multiple of something. Then just one strong light source There's and so small like this is only 12 inches. That'll fit really easy. And with an umbrella, as you can see, I can get some great light that's like 20 inches long. That's, you know, here's some reasons smaller, easier to pack. I do weddings all around the world. I've got to keep my stuff down to a minimum and has to be packed easily. Two. It has equal, like put. So if I add two of these flashes together, it's going to give me the same strength as, basically, as one of these types of flashes that are expensive and big and bulky. And have you have to have a battery pack with it so I can always put to together Well, I could use them independently. It's more versatile that way. More light sources, which I talked about versatile power. I like this because I can put batteries, which I can pick up at any local 7 11 store and power up. Let's say you're doing two sessions in one day. Let's say you're doing a five hour session in the morning and at night you're doing another eight hour session and let's say you're going hard and you did this this situation here and you're just firing it all day long, then guess what you got to recharge it. It might not recharge in time for your next shoot. Or let's say you're doing a back to back wedding and you're tired. And instead of staying up all night recharging your batteries, you rather just pops and new outlines in there or some other batteries in there and get going. And so that's why I always or you're in an area that doesn't have power and how you gonna charge things up? So that's why I love to have versatile powers. Very key with the wedding photographer back up. If I got this system and that goes out, I've got new light, at least when I have multiple sources. If one of my flashes goes out, then I have more. I have something else. One of my video lights go out. At least have another, and that's very, very important on Wedding Day is to have back or any job that you're going to do, for that matter. OK, another thing that this is 1/3 the cost 1/3 the cost of something like that, so it allows you to buy something else. So I would rather have this and a nice lens or something like that, because I can do all my work through this. Okay. Fearsome samples of some work they have done just with the video light through an umbrella. Here's another one. I meet her for the background. First I brought the video light in Same here. And my settings There is 1600. I s O okay. Ah, and I meet her For what? First what did I meet her for? First in the background. And then I just brought my life in as needed. And I added a flash in the back to give me that edge. That edge right there. That's just with a flash. What power? I don't know. I probably always When you're doing video, light and flash, start your video light at 1 64th power because your video lights not very strong. And let's go from there. Okay, here's another one. Same method. I meet her for what? First? That background. That light up there. When that looked good to me, my subjects were dark. At that point, I brought my my umbrella in to give me the light that I needed. I fired a flash in the back. I think somebody's standing back there actually holding it for me. Um, and that's how it got that picture. Okay, so that's any questions. Mawr, how much time do we got left? About 20 minutes. Okay, great. So any questions? Short questions on that? Because I want to get to this section here. One thing about wedding photography. One of the hardest things. Let me take this away here some reason that's bothering me. Okay. One thing I noticed going through weddings is how to manage group shots. You know, you're shooting a wedding, and all of a sudden you got to shoot people and they stay. Do it now and who knows where you are, and that's very difficult. So I want to go over some some rules or some things that tips that I've learned. That's helped me a lot. So group shots are easy to do. Terribly hard to do creatively. Okay, Everybody can do the okay. Bride and groom stand here, Guys, line up. Here, girls, line up here, put your own camera flash and just fire it. Anybody can do that, but to do something creatively, something unique, something that's going to set you apart is gonna take you and make you think and make you actually work and do something different, and it's hard to do that. But if you commit your mind to it, you can come up with your own signature style of group shots, which will really set you apart. Okay, so Number one rule Number one rule is the post subjects than even lighting. And I liked if outdoors I like to find shade where there's no hot spots or areas of sharp like contrast. Okay, now, this was a wedding I did in Napa, and she wanted to do her shots outdoors. That wasn't really an option, but we were in a vineyard and there wasn't a lot of trees around except for one. So the and I had to do group shots and it was so hot it was 12 noon. It was about 100 degrees outside. What am I going to do? All I could find with this one patch of shade by this tree and a bench, and I had the work my magic there because that's where the even lighting was. And as you see, it wasn't that great because you could see there's some hot spots still coming through right here, right and like on him there to. And so they were still hot spot there. But sometimes you can't make it perfect because you're there. You just have to do the best that you can do. So make sure it's all even lighting. And then, um, find some shade and then pops and flash in there, and it will give you a nice look. Now, this is the This is a a great situation you want to be in. See how this is, like all kind of overcast. We were in the woods, so the light wasn't coming down that strong. And it's within Canada, so the sun doesn't really shine there that often. Right now, it was perfect lighting, right, diffused light that was coming down in complete Sade. And then you pop the flash. Why? Because the flash will give you richer colors and we'll give you sharper contrast. Ah, group shot a lot of times is not about you being artistic, but documenting. So it's a little bit more formal. So you want to make sure that you show everything is true to what it waas Okay. And another thing is, is the longer the lens the better So at this point, I had my 24 70 on. And so what I did was I zoomed out all away at instead of 35 or something like that. Why would I do that? Anybody know? Yeah. I'm going to get a better ball. Que In the background. I'm going to get more blur in the background. And so that's gonna be one reason anybody else have another reason distorting people on the edges. That's correct. If yours and I done this plenty early in my career. Okay, let's shoot that group shot put 17 millimeters on. Yeah, everybody's in the frame, right? And then those people on the ants look like twice their weight. Not good. So if I shoot longer, it keeps the proportion of their body type the same. Okay. And so that's why longer, the better. And then what happens is the longer that you shoot, it compresses the image. Do you know what that means? Let me tell you. OK, here's your camera. Here's your subjects. Okay. And so what? If you were to shoot 24 millimeters, you'd be up here. Okay. If you were shoot 70 millimeters, you'd have to get them the same size in your camera frame that size, you'd have to move back and then zoom it out at 70. Okay, so what happens, though, when you're shooting at 24 right here, the background looks like it's this far away, way far away. When you zoom at 70 what happens is that background comes in closer to the subjects and it compresses the image. So if you have something important that small in the background, the more you zoom it, it's gonna move up that image and make it larger. Why is that important? One thing to it cuts out the angle, and so you see less so you can just kind of narrow win your subjects. So it's less distractions with other competing elements in the in there and another. You might want to do that because that image back there might be important. For example, here is in Paris. They wanted to walk on the other side of the lake. When I got there, we walked on the others. I don't like that mansion in the back was so tiny, so I had to take it at 105 zoom all the way in. Run back. Yell. Okay, 123 and shoot it so I could pull up that mansion and make it bigger. Okay. Use interesting structures to very height. And a lot of times, the most classic one is to use stairs. Okay, that's a given. If you see stairs and shade, go for it, that's gonna work for you. But if you get in a situation where you see a prop I loved architecture. I love structures. Because then I can use my creativity to kind of pose them. Now, I just want to let you know if you're going to do this, you're gonna have to pose every single person which I did. And you're gonna have to do it quickly, because people are going to start to get the word they're gonna move out of your position. You're gonna put start on this stand, you're gonna pose her by time to get over there. She's walking over here somewhere, doing something else, so you have to do it quickly. So if you go down that road, that takes a lot of practice to do that. That's why I said group shots can be very hard when you got a damn. You gotta knock that out. You gotta do it within a few minutes. Depose everybody, Come up with the idea, the arrangement in your head. Start doing it and then nail it out and get the lighting right at the same time. It's not easy. It's a lot to manage in your head, but you can do it with practice. Okay, So you something that's a structure like this. I love this. I love seeing something like that. Okay, I can arrange it. I could see everybody because it's got different heights. I had to pose every single person in here, every single person, because most people on wedding day, they're not models or anything like that. They've never taken formal pictures before, saying, especially guys, you got to tell because your mom tells us to what? Stand up straight. So everybody takes a picture like this, especially guys. I don't know why we do that, but you got to tell a guy. Just relax, but all your late weight on one leg, okay? And it makes him look a lot more natural. If you can try to get guys to lean on something because it's easier for them to do that. Okay, This is a rule imposing. If you're having a difficult time posing something, someone get them to lean on something and it will ease them. Okay, so 105 zoomed in. I could bring that background closer. Here's interesting section for it was a shack. I put them over there or say fired it. Bam! Okay, let's say you don't gotta Interesting structure. What you can do is get some chairs. Chairs are your friend. If you get one roll of chairs, you can create three levels. Okay, so I got the chairs. So you put the kids on the bottom, the girls on the bottom there, sitting there. And then you got the upper level for the tall people on the back. So simply with how many chairs to I got six chairs there. And how many people can I handle there? A grip load of people with just six chairs. And I do that a lot. So when in doubt, when you've got nothing, look for shade, look for chairs and you're ready to rock and roll. Same thing here. What do you think? I said to get this reaction, make a funny face, but that's it. Here's another situation where I saw chairs. I saw this scene over there. I had to set every single person I had to pose every single person because they're not gonna do it for you. You gotta learn how to do that. If you want to be a great wedding photographer, you gotta learn how to pose. It's just part of the game. That's why it's easier for just the line em up. Shoot it and move on. But if you want to get to that next level, you need to learn how to do shots like this. Create a scene, take a higher, a low angle. Let's say let's say you've got this. You've got nothing. You got no chairs, you got no structures. You're out on the beach and you say, Shoot something. What do you do? Or you're just out on the street? Well, I got to create different levels. That's the whole key is you've got to create different levels so you can see people. So you get some people. You take a low angle, get some people on the ground and you get some people standing. Some people kneeling and you can create that look. Same thing here. This is a little bit different. Look, if you ever shoot, this is a 24 millimeter lens shooting at, like two point. Oh, or something like that has a cool look to it. I know those lenses are expensive, but, uh, you know, it's a very cool because a lot of times we're not used to seeing shallow depth of field at a wide angle. So that's why it's so cool. If you take low a lot of times, you can take high. It's like, Now, if I was going to take a picture of you guys, I can't see half of you guys first ball cause I'm short, right? But if I lived my camera up here, it used it. Then I can see everybody. And this is situation here where it was a school bus. She was a teacher. She wanted a school bus to take everybody around, and I just as high as I could. I mean, my camera was hitting the roof of the of the school bus so I could get everybody in there. Same thing here. You're on the beach. They want to do a shot. What do you do? You just go high. Have them huddled together. Take it high. You can see everybody. What do you think I said here to get them to do this? There's only one girl really doing it. And I think give me an air kiss. But somehow I guess my English was bad or so they didn't understand that they gave me that instead. But anyway, it worked is emotion. Uh, it works. They give me an air kiss. Here's a lower angle with stairs so you can shoot down on somebody, right? Instead of putting your camera up if you see stairs going down, you can use that question when you're shooting. Guiza's supposed to girls. Do you go for maybe more high angle with the women or more low angle with the guys? Do you do either one good question with guys I would normally like to do if I can go low to go up, Why is that? It's going to give me that hero effect, right? Especially if you shoot Asian weddings. And the guys are short, right? Well, you got to do is go down and go up. It gives them that like I'm a hero, feel to it. And so that's what I'll do. I'll try to do that. I look for architecture that has, like, straight strong lines. That's my first thing. Give me some architecture as straight strong lines put him there. If not. Okay, I'm going to give a hero feel I'll shoot it that way. Make a man look like a man, Make a woman look like a woman. That's the key to posing, right? Math, strength, confidence. Okay, this going opposite of just what I said, but I didn't. OK, First of all, I'm shooting this group of Caucasian guys, So naturally, they're all three feet taller than me. And I gotta go. I gotta shoot them. Right? It is the worst possible situation. noon. We're going to shoot some shots and we got I want to go outside. Okay. 12 noon. What do you do? There is No, it's a vineyard again. Vineyards air crazy trying to do. I'm going to get them down. I'm gonna stand up on a chair. Now, Aiken, spread them out. And then I've got one flash in my hand firing here, and then I have my assistant over here firing another flash to evenly like them up. OK, but I got them down shooting down on them here again. I'm creating a scene. I take in a high angle. I'm making them walk towards me. I am telling them to pretend they're having the time of their life while they're walking. Or else you know what if you tell? Okay, you guys, we just walk over here, there's just gonna go like this, right? You have to tell them what to do to create that vision in your mind. So I said that and I got that again. What's gonna happen? They're gonna tell you. Can you take a picture of everybody in the, uh, wedding party? Just spring this on you and they're gonna tell you, like, right there? Um, you tell me this earlier. So you look for shade, and then you take a high angle, and then even on top of that, you might get up high. And then on top of that, you might want to even do this or stand on something or whatever get its highest possible. In that way, you can see everybody. This was a wedding in Bahamas. It was nice. Okay, Worst nightmare. Okay, what is that? Worst nightmare is the ceremony starts at 11. It ends at 12. And now you got to do the group shots. You're doing it on a sunny day in Seattle, and that son just doesn't set. It's out there till 10 o'clock, Right? And, you know, like, great I got to do group shots. Well, when you do group shots and bright son, you're going to need a lot of power on. What you've got to do is you got to get to light stands and put them to the side so you could move that light closer to your subjects. Okay? Because when you're shooting and bright light, you've got a lot of power, or else you're gonna blow out your background. This bride shows a spot because she wants to see the water. What good is it if I shoot it and it's all blown out in the background? So therefore I have to match the power of the sun with my flashes, and so you need multiple lights to do that. If I put my lights on the side, I can put them closer to you, right? If I were going to shoot you guys. If I put us two lights on the site, I could move them a lot closer to you so I could gain more power and how this works. I know I wasn't going to talk about the inverse square lot, but I can't help it. I have to. Okay. If you reduce the distance by 1/2 you gain four times as much power. Okay, so just moving your flash a little bit is going to give you a lot of power in order to overpower the sun and get a good picture also. So you could have two flashes on light stands this way. I could also put a flash on my camera to fill it that way. Now, I got three sources going on. Okay, so that's how you manage that. Okay. Use an umbrella when outdoors or at night. Okay, I got one minute left, right. We're getting close here, OK? Eso outdoors. And I talked about this group shots when you're indoors, the key to do in this is simply just to put it at ISO 1600. Okay? I don't even go into this. Just do what I say, Just do this. I also 1600. You're about 12 feet away. Put it one flash on the umbrella, F 56 at about 1/60 of a second. Damn. You can nail it. One flash. That's it. Okay, I so 1600 is the key. So you could get plenty out of your flash, okay? And then if you're at night, the reason why a lot of indoor shots look good is because the light can reflect off the ceiling and so forth, But at night, you can't do that. So that's why I use my umbrella here to give me soft light anywhere. And so now I can take a shot like that anywhere without any ceiling to reflect the flash and give me a beautiful life. Okay, group shots reflect your positive energy. Okay? You cannot get great foot group shots without you being animated. You being positive? You being confident on the way you act, You can't get it. It's so important to have that. And when I look at a photo like this, I actually see myself. I see that you know what I am that type of person, and that's reflecting back at me your subjects give you exactly what you put into it. And so if you can't give that, then you're not gonna get this. They're not gonna buy into you at all. They're not gonna give you that shot. If you're not positive, have a confident attitude. J. These are the types of these are the shots that they really like When they say I want something fun they don't want Put sunglasses on and hold up the bride or something that's still do that anymore. Okay, Speak more creative than that. I air kiss. You see it in their eyes. You can feel it. It's true. It's sincere. That's what they love. Okay, group shots can make you or break you. I know group shots are boring, but why do I say that? It's the group setting where people see you the most. You get the most exposure. When you're telling a group shot, they see your positive energy. They see how you handle things. It can make a huge impression because that bride's maid who's getting married next is checking you out. You don't know it, but your on a job interview at every wedding that you do And when it's the group shots, it's your time to be on stage and shine. And I've gotten so many weddings just by the way that I've done that. The group shots. So it's very important. Don't disregard it. It can make you or break you. All right, So, um, just a couple things here if you want to get me All my stuff and me is the Scot robert photography dot com My Facebook is Scott. Robert Lim You can you conjoined my group Scot Robert Limon Creativelive Instagram's got Robert Lim Twitter Scot Robert Lim. Okay, very easy.