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Shooting Portrait of a Mother for Double Exposure

Lesson 4 from: From Shoot Through Photo Editing: Creating a Double Exposure in Photoshop

Aaron Nace

Shooting Portrait of a Mother for Double Exposure

Lesson 4 from: From Shoot Through Photo Editing: Creating a Double Exposure in Photoshop

Aaron Nace

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Lesson Info

4. Shooting Portrait of a Mother for Double Exposure

Lesson Info

Shooting Portrait of a Mother for Double Exposure

we're gonna be actually switching up our lighting and adding some gels to our lights And this we're gonna be shooting a mother daughter portrait, and we're gonna be doing some really, really cool stuff using a long shutter speed to get some motion in these portrait's. And then we're gonna be combining those. So I'm gonna take about two minutes to kind of change are lighting set up, and then we'll bring our talented and we'll go from there. All right, so we're basically in turn our soft box off here. Um, now, what I want to do with this double exposure is something totally different. I wanted to do something that brings a little bit more life into our portrait's. And with that, we're gonna be shooting at a longer shutter speed to get a little bit of a motion blur with our subjects. And I'm also gonna be using these modeling lights toe. Actually, light are subject as well. So I'm actually not gonna be shooting with strobes this time because, well, they are studio strobes. That okay? It's...

like right in your face is make sure to get it right in your face. Here we go. perfect. So basically, I'm using them. I'm gonna be using Oh, that's right. I'm gonna be using the modeling light. Delight our subjects. We have a couple of jails here as well to make things a little bit more interesting. Now, you guys want to be super careful whenever you're using gels on a light with a modeling like because they totally will melt. So that's just gonna maybe happen. Yeah, with gels, things like that. They're super easy to attach. Generally, I just grab some gaffer tape, tape it to both sides and, like wrap it around our modeling light. So have a nice red like there now and so a lot less bright. You can see that depending on the density of your gel, it will cut your exposure by quite a bit as well. All right, Cool. And with a strobe light, the light happens so quickly and that it cools off. It's not going to heat up your gels, But any time you have a continuous light like this, um, you do definitely have to think about how long your lights are actually on because they will definitely start to melt the gels and if they do. It'll just kind of like crinkle up, and then they kind of start smoking, and then it gets pretty gnarly. You want to turn your lights off? Uhm, All right, we're ready for our first subject. The net. Come on in. Blue. You look awesome. Come on in. All right. Yes, please. Yes, please. All right, so the idea here is look awesome. Uh, the idea here is we're gonna be using a long exposure to get movement in the shot. So again, I'm not gonna be using the pocket withered on the camera here. We're gonna be shooting this as a, um just by using the modeling lights here, basically, So I'm gonna change my shutter speed here. We're gonna shoot. I'm going to see if I can get down to, like, 1/4 of a second or maybe even a little bit slower. Let's try. Yeah, let's try 1/2 a second there. I want to switch my eye. So from 100 down to 50 which is just going to give me a little less light is going to come into my camera. Um, this is a five d mark three, which has, like, a you can shoot it. I so, 50. I don't think every camera will let you do that, but it's kind of nice. If you do need a limit the amount of light that comes into your camera in another way, you can use a neutral density filter in front of your lens to limit the amount of light that comes in your camera. Um, which allow you Teoh shoot a longer exposure. Um, so we're just going to see how the folks I honestly have no idea. All right, now, we're gonna go ahead and take away the overlay here. All right? Cool. So we're shooting a little bit. Um, I can actually shoot a little bit longer. Shutter speed. All right. Cool Internet. What I'm gonna have you do is kind of your gonna be looking this way. So if you wouldn't mind? Yep. Perfect. And I'm gonna have you actually, like, move in the frame if you don't mind as well. So I'm gonna take the picture, and I want you to kind of, like, go from looking like this way, Like looking towards the camera. Yeah, Yeah, if you can. Um, So the idea here is to capture some movement in the frame. And again, I have no idea how this is gonna look. But my head, it looks really cool. So we're going to try it. All right. Let's see how we look there. All right, so we're still a little bit bright here. We may need to bring down the house lights a little bit, if that's possible. Just for a few minutes. There we go. Perfect. And the blue here in the front. There we go. All right. And I'm gonna change the modeling light here. There we go. To get a little bit brighter. OK, cool. We'll try some exposures here. Um, there we go. That's really cool. All right. I'm gonna have you move throughout the frame, if you don't mind. So go ahead and start there. And as you hear the shutter clicks just kind of, like, move towards, uh Yep. Perfect. All right, ready and go. So you could move a lot more than that. And you can kind of, like, look into the camera there, too. Cool. And then look back the other way. Cool. Good job. This is cool. All right. I'm gonna make our shutter speed a little bit faster here and bring up my There we go. Bring up our aperture as well. Yeah, we have a question. Can you handle the mic? What else? Stop. Were you shooting at her? This does it matter right now? And I'm not I so 50. So, like, it's really not letting a lot of light into the camera. And that's why we're able like it's pretty bright in here still, but were able to get a lot of motion blur in our shots as well. Yeah, we have a question from home, too. Can you Can you just explain again for us how it is that you're envisioning combining the mother and daughter like, what are the aspects that you're that you're going to be replicating with the daughter? What is it that that we're going to see A good question. Basically, the idea was to have like to like, kind of like a little bit blurred. Portrait's combined together like back to back. So again, creating more like a piece of art than like, you know, like the super still portrait I'm basically imagining like color blurs that also looked like faces and also look like mother Tirso I actually have no idea what this is gonna look like in my head. It's just like, Oh, that would look cool. So we're trying that, but to be honest, I mean, I have no idea. That's quite a bit of the time when you're doing this sort of stuff. You know, if I wanted to get something like I knew exactly what would happen, then I would just use a soft box and, you know, she just standard portrait. But in this case, I wanted to do something a little more experimental. Maybe they'll have their backs back to back, like their faces start in a similar position. But as they turn their heads, it's almost like they're looking away from each other. And the heads kind of Yeah, the head. They're gonna be combined together in the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I hope it's gonna be awesome. I mean, that's kind of the whole point. So I'm gonna have you kind of that. I'm gonna have you start here and then, like, you know, kind of rotate back around towards the camera and just kind of like, go back and forth and you can move a little bit faster, if you don't mind. Perfect. All right. And we're ready whenever you are. All right. And you don't have to smile. If if you just like, yeah, do a total you like. I can't not smile. What do you think? I'm a mom? I have to spy. Cool. You can move actually a little bit faster if you want. And the idea here is I'm just gonna continue shooting. Here we go. And then kind of looked through my images here. Cool. You're doing great. All right, we'll take a quick pots. So again, the idea is, you know, I want a little bit of motion blur here with our subject and then something that kind of, like brings those exposures together. All right, this red is like, super super red. It's like, Wow, that is a lot of red. I'm gonna bring this back in. I might actually bring it down a little bit, so we see a little bit of white there as well. Is that okay on you? Okay, cool. Just a little bit of white there, and that's going to help us get, like, a little bit less of that red color. Alright, Let's try it again, if you don't mind. Cool. And you can move faster, actually. Yeah. And move for your shoulders as well, if you can. Yet. No worries. Cool. Yeah, because we kind of want, like, a decent bit of like, Oh, yeah, that's awesome. Just yeah, your whole body. I think that's actually a little bit better. Yeah, Pull. And again, this is totally experimental. I We're just kind of getting what we get here, which is kind of fun. Alright, let's try something with the red here, Um, kind of removed. There we go. Sorry. Super bright Here we just lower that down and then we'll try to get some shots without Thea without the red here. All right? Chester explodes right here. Yeah, we'll just do the same. Cool looking good. You're doing great. This incredibly weird photo. Shoot it A. It is not what I signed up for. It'll be really cool, though. We'll get some really cool shots and then combined them together. So you guys are gonna be looking like back to back in it again. It's gonna look like a piece of abstract art more than a couple portrait's. But with that it's gonna It's gonna look really cool as well. All right, cool. Let's take a quick break. I think I like it better without the red. The red was just like too much, but the blue is nice there. It kind of gives us something to work with. Um so shocked like that is kind of like what I was looking for. Like something that's it is a little bit blurry, but then we can have mother daughter kind of coming in together. So ideally, you have something like that where it does have a little bit of blur to it, But you can still kind of, like, make out mother and daughter. Yeah, this is looking great. I like them better without the red gels. So you guys can kind of get an idea. They look a little bit more like abstract paintings rather than, like, super sharp tack sharp portrait. And then we're gonna bring daughter in and have these combined back and forth. So you should be able to see, like, a lot of really interesting similarities between mother and daughter, because it's kind of like it. It blurs like ages. Well, you know, it's a little bit like, because none of the skin is super tack sharp. It should help, Like, bring mother and daughter towards, like, the same. Like, their skin's gonna have the same amount of detail in it. So that's that's kind of what I was imagining there. Yeah, these looking really, really cool. All right, You ready for one? One more little round will just do this again. All right. Cool. Yes, please. Yeah, you don't. Great. Cool. I feel like I'm making, like, a David Lynch film right now. Hey, you David Lynch fans at home? Yeah. This is one of the creepier things I've seen in my life. Good job. But it it's awesome. Yeah, And this is just one of those examples of, like, you know, the the camera is just like a tool, you know, And you can use it however you want, like, you know, play around with lights and color and shutter speeds. And, you know, photography is not always about like, capturing like a perfectly in focus beautifully lit shot of like a portrait, someone smiling at the camera, like, honestly, some of my favorite photos, or not, like, perfect in any way. They just kind of capture, like a feeling rather than, you know, just something that's super technically good. So, um, yeah, I would encourage you guys to just kind of play around there. There we go often. And it thank you so much for your turning it a great thank you. Yeah, we had one question. Yeah, Aaron, you mentioned movie and movie making, and I think that too, provide. I mean, sure, this is a more of an artistic style portrait, but something like this wouldn't be that far fetched of an idea for a movie poster, even if it was a story about a mother daughter? Yeah. I mean, there's definitely commercial applications for even styles as abstract. Is this? Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, and that's tends to be the stuff that I like. I mean, you know, provided we combined the portrait's together, like, you know, in a really interesting way, which we will be doing in section two. Um uh um yeah. With a movie title in front of their I I think we get something for really cool, So yeah, thanks. Ah, good suggestion.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Final Images and PSDs

Ratings and Reviews

Pamela Richardson
 

I LOVED Aaron's presentation style, his wonderful humour, his gentleness and humility, his creative eye, and his extensive skills with both the camera and with Photoshop. I learned a great deal from this class, and highly recommend it. It was both fun to watch, and very informative. Aaron's friendly and casual presentation style was a delight, and helped to make a very complex subject seem quite approachable. I appreciated his willingness to share his knowledge with his viewers. I understand that it is a huge challenge to create something in front of a live audience, and maintain composure, but he managed it. Aaron's use of motion-blurred images of the mother and daughter for the composite was just very creative, and was something that would never have occurred to me. I also watched Aaron's compositing class on Feb 22, which was truly remarkable. He paid close attention to every fine detail in the scene that he was creating through compositing, including size and color tone of the light source, scale, perspective, and every last detail of the shadows to make a believable and magical image! He was very good in directing and encouraging his models during the shoot on both days, and very courteous with all the assistants. I have been involved with photography on a semi-professional level for almost 40 years, and have been doing photo editing with Adobe and Corel products since 2002.

AmandaReese
 

Super inspiring, great class!

Student Work

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