Lessons

Lesson Info

Street Location Shoot with Bride & Groom

Okay, we've finished with location. This is when Yervant says you're not going anywhere. What time is your reception? We have to be at the reception 6:30. Okay, so we have a bit of time. It's 5:30 to 6:15, we arrive to the next location. I want to capture a bit of street photography also. We are doing this beautiful picture. Okay, we're done, but let's get a bit more. Let's get a bit more Dani. And here it's me looking for location before Dani arrives. So this is a hip type of a place like Soho in New York. It's all restaurants, cafes. I'm walking around trying to find something that's gonna be interesting. I don't know what's there. There's plenty of places. Sometime you go to the same place, but I want variety, so I'm walking quickly to get. And you see the mood is quite nice. There's all these tungsten lights, it's dark, it's evening. So I looked at few places and eventually I found one place. It was an Indian restaurant. So, so I like it. I took Dani there. Dani was worried her dre...

ss was gonna smell Indian food, so she said, "No, Yervant, I don't want there." i said, "Dani, it's so beautiful." there was beautiful paintings, you know, wall paintings, graffitis (mumbles) Okay, quick change. Across the road there was a pub. It was a pub, you know what's a pub. It's where you drink beers and drunk people in the background, but I loved the mood of the place, so I took Dani to that place. It was quite. The place was dirty. There was beer on the table, I think, but I have to take those pictures. So I walk Dani in, quickly I clean the table because I'm not gonna wait for a waiter to come and clean the table. You see there it was quite messy and if you see the furniture and everything, it's not a big place, but when you see the picture, that's what makes the difference. Because I saw that window, that light in the window, that tungsten light in the background. It's all cinematic, you know, and put them in the table, that table, get them a drink so they're drinking, they're enjoying themselves. Shoot from the side, there's a side light coming but now the tungsten light is working even harder because we've got the tungsten light right on top and lighting them. So here is Yervant getting busy. I have to widen then, "Come on, hey, guys." No one worries about those things. Bridal party, they're all drinking their own drink, so I have to go and buy them a champagne and make sure that it's a nice glass, not a (mumbles) You see this is where the light is coming from. Now I am brought another tungsten light so I have two, the ProFoto and the tungsten light. Even if you see I put the orange filter in front of it. You can't see it there, but now I'm shooting outside the pub. I'm shooting outside the pub. You see how warm the light is, it's dark. But the picture, look at it how good it looks. How good it looks. I don't care what's inside. I don't care what it looks like. It's the moment and I've never been there. It's original for me. This is what excites me. And you see the tungsten light hitting from the back. And I want them to be in the mood. This ugly tape, but I'm framing it in a way that I can retouched it out. You have to think all these things, you know, you need to retouch it up and look at me, guys. You know, I have to talk. So we're right in the streets, in the streets of Melbourne. This is where I get so much fun because this is where I find something that I've never done it before. It inspires me. You know, I have a bride, that's my subject, but okay this bride wants beautiful picture. It's evening. I have few minutes to do it. Where will I do it? How would I do it? And that's what I try to achieve. You see the light is quite warm if you see on the video. It's quite a warm light. This is my friend Andrew Esposito. He's a great photographer. He helped me on the day. He shot the groom's wedding. And look everyone is there, even the bride, but I don't care. I don't mind it. I want them to be involved because that could create also a beautiful moment. I have about 10, 15 minute, 20 minute to achieve what I want to achieve there. And you see I do individual shots. Come behind the groom and take shots of the bride with his back, and then I move around on the other side, take shot of the groom with the bride's background. So I'm creating the mood of the place and different angles. Now I did some shots from the outside, some from the inside. The street lights are beautiful in the background, so it's anything. If I use flash here, I'm gonna kill it again. There are gonna be reflections so that tungsten light is so important for me, and once I did that, I moved the bride. You see that reflection, there's candles there fed into her face, no light, just the candles, and when we see the picture, you see how high the ISO is in that picture, but it looks so beautiful. You see I'm utilizing a bit of video light also into the picture. When I say video light, I mean the tungsten light. I like that warm light. Okay, we're blocking the light also because it's too strong. I don't want it to be strong. We're blocking with our hands in front of the light. So it just gets more directional. You see it's getting light and dark. We're blocking the light so it just more moody, more, more and after this, this is happening really quickly. This is actually the time you're seeing here, I'm gonna get so many pictures out of this. Then I move them outside, take shots with the streetlights. How gorgeous. Old buildings, streetlights. And now I know that I've given them so many varieties. I'm nearly ready to go to the reception. Again, the ProFoto there. This was not the time, i will use the flash if it's daylight and I want to fill in a little bit, but this one, I want to keep that mood of the street, to feel that we are on the street. Again, a lot of movement, a lot of dancing, so I can capture. When once we see the slides, you'll see what ISOs I've been using. Usually I don't have so many people helping me. There's three video guys, my two sons because we were guests at the wedding so they were with me. Usually it's me and an assistant, but this day we had so many. And now we're walking back to the reception and I did shot also while they were walking away. So let's go to the first picture. Look at it from the street. It was just an ugly pub. And let's look the next picture from the outside the window. You know, it looks so messy when you watch the video, but this is what I wanted. This is what I. You know my clients don't know what I'm trying to do. Let's go to the next picture. From behind the groom, there in the window. And then move on the other side. Get the shot of the groom. You know, I'm not seeing ugly tables here. I'm not seeing anything ugly here. It's beautiful, it's romantic. You know, those bottles handing on the wall, they're outside, it's creating environment. Look at that. The streetcar looking at them, you know. Suddenly, I've created something out of nothing. It's an ugly pub, it can be anywhere else, and I've created, you know, the signs here and things just darken it a little bit to get rid of them, but I want the mood also. Inside, shooting inside, everyone is having drinks. Dani turned towards him and then, and then using those lights. 6,400 ISO. 812 a second. And then introducing the video light a little bit to create more pictures into it, more light into the subject. All those redness and things coming is from the pub lights advertising the promotion. I don't mind it because it's part of the environment we were in. And look at the background. The slide doesn't show you the correct. When you see the picture, it's so beautiful. There's so many textures in the background. If I didn't use that tungsten light, I would have never got to it, well, there'd been a black background in the back. Groom coming into the picture giving her. Ah, this looks terrible over here. It's a beautiful picture. Outside the pub, a bit of sepia. It's the building and take a shot. This is all available light. This is street light. Then I introduced the video light, just gave it a bit more more warm and Dani moving, walking forward, bringing the bridal party to have fun. You see it's street photography. It's all, I don't know what they're gonna do, and it's gonna happen. I don't care if I cut a person out because there's gonna be so many pictures in there, so many varieties. I'm taking shots of them having fun. And them dancing. I love to put them into dancing because when you put dancing, they're moving and they create beautiful expression. Look at here, she's serious all day and then she comes with that expression. Let them do what they want. If they're creative, they can do. If not that creative, I will suggest something. You know the street, street signs. We are right in the middle of a Soho type of. It's a rough place. But it's a beautiful place, also. It's romantic. Amber asked, "How do you deal with business licensing "when you shoot on location?" Business licensing? Yeah. (audience laughs) I think maybe. (all laugh) I think maybe what she meant is. Okay, that's a very good question. Permission. Yeah. And the older I'm getting, the more I'm aggressive about it because this is public place. If we go in a pub, and if we're gonna have drinks, they can't kick us out. Who makes the rules that I can't take pictures in there? I'm not doing anything wrong. I will take my pictures, and most of the time, they are good, but I said this before. We abuse places. That's where we need to respect. When I go into these pubs, I spend good money, and whenever they see me, they give me a big smile. "Come on in, come on in." So you have to pay back for this. I'm buying drinks. I'm giving them good tips. Why should they not want me? But if I go there with my own drinks, abuse the table and do that. You see, I was walking around to buy them things before I start shooting. I want to make sure that the place is okay with it. So other places, you know, if there's a big cathedral right in the middle of Melbourne. It's a popular place, tourists, homeless people. Everyone is there. It's on the street. When you take a bride there, they ask for license, permission, $300, but my bride wants only a picture there. You know what, a big deal. You're letting every tourist take picture, everyone is take. But people become when they see bride, they see money. Everyone want to take. But on the other hand, if we go, sometimes there's this nightclubs and beautiful places where what we do is we prebook. We prebook, we order a course of meal or something like finger food and if the bride want to be photographed, then the bride will pay whatever they want. It's what the bride wants, I do. I do what she's desire. If she want to go somewhere like that, it's okay as long as she organizes with the place. I don't abuse. Therefore, a minute and you see how fast I move. I am always moving, always moving. My idea is to take a lot of pictures. Like i see you are really like demanding or you are really focused in taking the photos and sometimes when the brides go through like a long day, they are stressed and sometimes they don't want more photos. They're like, "No, let's do it." So how do you work with that with they don't want more photos? Look, if I see that she's stressing, I will say, "Okay, you want to go, let's go." But you see this is the secret, this is the secret. I attract the clients that want to do that. It's the way we promote, the way we show. My clients are so happy to do that. You know, the hugs I get, but there's a lot of break also. This video is not showing break. There's a lot of break. They're having drinks, they're having parties. You know Dani's day was a little bit shorter because winter, she got married winter because we don't have any weddings. In summer, it's longer days, so we can have more fun. But for me, they hire me because of this and sometime the list is big. "We want to go there, there, there, there." "Okay, sweetheart, we can't go all those places done, "but we're gonna drive." You see there was a lot of driving there. We're gonna drive, so we're gonna waste time. I'd much rather go in one location and take many pictures, but if she want to go to the beach, to there, they're young people, they want to do that and if you give them. You know the only person who's gonna be bored is the groomsmen. Give them a drink, they're happy. So what I do is when I take them to a bar, I take the bridal party aside, buy them drinks. I said this before, but I'll say it again. I take the bride and groom away for a few minutes to capture these romantic moments without bridal party. "Hey," you see the comments at the back and things like that, so I take them away so they can feel more relaxed and I capture it. So it all depends how much time I have. I was pushing here a little bit because I was running out of picture and then Dani's gonna tell me, "Boss, you haven't done enough job," you know. So I had to deliver. She wanted everything. She wanted this, this, this. She organized everything, so I had to record it for her. The only thing I wanted her to do was go on the pub. She wanted to go into the city and I said, "Dani, we're gonna lose so much time and it's late. "Let's go to this street. "It's colorful, I'll get my shots." And then okay, we went there. The Indian restaurant didn't work, then the second option. So always I go somewhere where I can have a lot of variety.