Lessons

Lesson Info

Frozen Themed Shoot: Mother and Daughter

This is our lovely family this is kira and it's kelly right here a and kelly you she looks just like elsa doesn't see oh my god, you're so cute! I love it so I was going to let's go ahead and take off your jewellery for me if you don't mind I was going to do just as a backup just simple this way they were telephoned at eight o'clock this morning as a backup so just keep in mind that there was no preparation here at all but I thought would be fun to do little miss beautiful cure here as elsa and let her kind of live that little fantasy for a minute so we're going to do a family portrait with a mother and an older you're how old she's nine years old so we'll do a quick little shot since we have some time but that's you know, I just played guys I got was not ever done before. I've never rapped ramona tool it didn't look that great on set, but when I did it where I wanted it looked okay, I know I'm going to be able to play with it and post and do some fun things to it so I encourage you to...

play around and have some fun, make yourself vulnerable to yourself and do that he was a gorgeous okay I would love to get a posing stools possibles up and down one if I could hear it is right there would you go grab it for me lauren please I think we're done with mama I want to give her a break I think we're okay you guys pretty much saw I shot what I aim to shoot we could work on a different pose with her but I want to make sure she's comfortable and I know I could tell that it was starting to hurt yeah so let's go ahead and shoot miss kira and kelly and we'll do a neat older family portrait in a more conceptual way and go from there is that's not good okay okay mama I'm gonna have you go ahead and sit down here you know what's high but I have a high on purpose because your daughter's gonna be between your legs here okay so don't you go ahead and face me okay and spread your legs and then your little daughter's going to kind of come I want to measure the height here and see what that's perfect that's exactly what I wanted. Okay, so are you guys from here also doesn't she like seriously looking at me like wow that's awesome. So cute okay, so we're implying a theme here but not really directly do it's still not it's not disney you know I'm saying but it's implying it which is kind of a fun fun thing to do so what I'm gonna have you do, sweetheart is can you like really spread your legs and let her talk actually yeah that's what I wanted so that she could be like really close up against your against your stomach but I don't want her to lean back if that makes sense yes you're going to have to to shove yourself forward what grade even kitty fourth grade very calling you learning multiplication and you already done that is it long division now not yet hey, word problems they were mine. Okay, so let's see here how do we want to do this let's go ahead and have mama turned to the side just a little bit you're gonna follow her? Okay, perfect. Now miss elsa turned destruction for me face me beautiful I just want you put your head on your mom's chest or me perfect and we're gonna do connection here I'm so such a sucker for connection. Okay, so actually, miss kira I want to put this harm behind your mama if you could do that this one perfect beautiful gorgeous this hand down low and I want to see it too much beautiful this is about kira. Do you see where I'm going okay, so mama, I'm going to have you this is gonna feel about to demonstrate it this will make you learn how to sit on the camera so when we normally pose people standing up a woman especially we want to have her hips away from the camera put a weight on your back foot when they're sitting it's the opposite okay, because let me show you you guys are the camera if I stand in my way the back foot my hips go that way, right it's what slender rises me, but if I sit and put my weight on the back cheekbone oh, twenty pounds hello? But if I do this and put it on the front of my goodness, I just dropped twenty pounds. Okay, so I am going to adjust kelly a little bit even though her sweater is coming her covering her. I know I can make this better, so I'm gonna show you this, kelly so you can see it is if you're the camera. So if you're sitting with your weight on this seat on the one away from the camera, that guy towards skinny guy perfect. Yeah. So I'm just gonna have you shift slightly now, my dear, I want you to scratch your butt into your mama's clothes as you can. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Okay. Oh, my gosh, there's so such beautiful family, okay, so straighten things out a bit and they just literally brought the clothes that they had, so we are improvising based on but I think it looks great thank you guys look good okay so I'm shooting at three twenty eight f two point two okay so mom might be a little out of focus because I'm gonna focus on kira okay cura sweetie when I ask you to make small movements teeny tiny okay your chin up just a touch good girl and snuggling to mommy just a little bit more chin up just a touch gorgeous now mama I want you to just turn your nose towards your daughter and pretend you're looking down gorgeous beautiful mine ear so that right hand mama can you drop it down behind her waist the right hand your right hand yeah I know has happened to me all the time and gorgeous beautiful the light is a little flat we're going to go like that she's such a beautiful girl shouldn't that monitor is not accurate correct kenna for me correct I'm such a chipper now that I'm digital camera right and film I like the way we had to trust what we were doing and you just get so reliant georges miss kira do you have a boyfriend? Do you have a boyfriend? No you have a crush you like a boy who'll know she's like stop talking about that your sweetheart thank you for putting up with me okay mama, I want you to can you rest your head on your baby girl sweet, beautiful and close your eyes mama kira shut up! Just a touch sweet girl awesome sauce I want you to close your eyes, girl on the count of three your eyes are going to come up to me one, two, three beautiful. You have siblings. You have three older sisters, huh? Two or three older sister to do. They give you a hard time? They don't, they don't. They don't tease you. Do you steal their stuff all this time or borrow it? Yeah, I used to do that too, huh? Good job, sweetie. Beautiful. So this portrait is about the child, but the mother and her love for her child is the is the theme. Okay? And really, I mean, you could take this whole frozen theme, teo, wherever you want to go level thaw because it really will. It will thaw. A frozen heart is gorgeous. You are such a the helper. I appreciate it. She just looks just like el cid, isn't she? And by putting elsa in this vulnerable position near her mother says so much as well. Ok, so you can infer all kinds of things from an image and I think that's the funnest part and of course, we got a cute little smiley one of her two so that's good, awesome let's see if we can come up with a different actually gonna go and get one of both of them looking at the camera so that we can get that for them awesome you're doing great kara it's not too hard is it being a model good okay mama shin forward and down just a touch good girl knows towards my light just turn your nose towards the light too much too much back towards me beautiful I want you both to close your eyes okay close your eyes mama I want you to listen to my voice okay kelly I want you remember the day that miss cure was born close your eyes she's like I can't close my eyes I'm taking you away from this place sound good I want you to think of the day she was born okay and the way she looked and miss kira I want you to think of the day a time when mommy helped you maybe you had a bad dream and she came to your room to help you if you had a bad dream before I have yeah and mom comes down in the middle of the night and gives you a big old hug I want you guys to think about that moment and on three at me one two three eyes on me both of you eyes at me mama here we go she's like I'm thinking about bad dream oh gorgeous beautiful big bright eyes big bright eyes both of you gorgeous beautiful okay, it takes the matter once you get it all done and ready it's you know you get your shot in a matter of seconds it's a lot of setup for one or two things but power they were left and so kid awesome you guys were so huge helper thank you. You look beautiful, miss dear. You look just like elsa kind of fun to be also for the day, huh? Okay, thanks. You guys that's fantastic. And I love that this the second group that well, that came in maybe a little bit more relatable to some folks at home that could be done with bringing her ally and oh yeah, I'm a huge proponent of opposing stool and you know, kira was old enough that she could stand between her mother's legs, but one of the one of the things to dio is especially like with a newborn family is to get those little wood blocks that you have and like put the baby and mama's arms let mama spread her legs. Who cares what it looks like down below? You're not photographing that anyway and put a put a box on the wood posing boxes so that the toddler or the older child can stand up on it and can can cuddle with the baby and the mama okay, so by piling in kids here are just really like I got my legs spread of the world. This looks really great, but by putting boxes next to and then piling the kids in, they can all connect with their mother. And all you have to do is think about heads and hands. Okay? Are the head's not lined up both vertically and horizontally? And is their connection with the arms and the hands? And what you'll notice is that you can see a circle in your image between hands hit like lines in your image, the hands and the arms going up to the head going around to the next child that hand leads up here it creates these interesting lines of human touch, which is a very symbolic and the image when your eye looks at it, you go wow, there's, all these lines connecting everything, using body parts, body parts are beautiful lines and that sinuous, continuous line an image is connected. Does that make sense? So by simply by posing, you can create a visual sense of connection. Yeah. Where is your point of focus? And ru illuminating? One point are multi points in your camera. Good question. I have fifty one point autofocus. I do not use a wraparound bright drives me crazy, I use I'm constantly khun see me you see me moving around with my focus points I'm usually focused on the child now I was shooting f two point two with his two so mom's going to a little bit out of focus but I'm okay with that because the portrait is about the child now if I wanted everybody and focus it's your classic you know make sure it's a christmas in a hundred million the camera smiling then I probably should have five or like that and yesterday I had my camera in like two thousand s o and I was totally an accident not thinking we've all done it right that was the camera that I had used to shoot thomas and the that's the last time I had used it and thie room was extremely dark so I was on so two thousand for that shoot to change it you know that that's the bane of being a studio shooter is usually leave you're so where it's supposed to be and you just never really change it and so I went out in the field that a shoot came back in the studio just make sure it's exposed right? I'm not thinking about the numbers and so the the classic artists in me so I did not mean to shoot I so two thousand yesterday I could have shot lot lower but today's full fame cameras it's not that big of a deal anyway especially since we're going to be doing, you know, just conceptual work with stuff and pulling things out so yes, there will be some noise and those images but not a ton on on a full frame camera some extensive answer question I focus usually on the child, the child's eyes or the child to know so right in here, if I'm really close it would be the eyes if I'm backed off and I know I have more depth the field even though I'm not a water after all d'oh the I'll do the like right in the nose because sometimes your subject is so small that the focus point just fits on their face you know you can't get it on their eyes specifically so that's what I go for but I still get I mean I get stuff out of focus all the time I mean belinda and I will be calling images inspect this one's shock julia soft soft stop getting soft go there so it happens to all of us. So speaking of belinda, I want to remind people actually that belinda and sara are in the chat rooms there's a lot of questions that are specific about what you use and all of that and so you've been jumping there in the chat room. There is no point out that this is not my normal light setup I use this light the westcott t six this is the westcott seven foot parabolic umbrella with a cover on it so it acts like a soft box but I actually have a jimmy rig soft box at home unfortunately westcott does not make an octo box for their light, which I've been asking them forever to do and they just seem to think that that a square box is sufficient here's why I don't like a square box number one catch likes I prefer around number two the radio quality of the light helps to throw light on my background if I had a square light up here there'd be a line shadow on there and on seamus paper that's the death of you because you get awful banding have you guys ever experienced banding that digital rainbow effect? The better lit your background is the less you'll have banding. So this is what after a lot of trial and error this is what I discovered works the best because it helps this is totally jimmy rig light I mean I'm not lighting I should have to perfect lights in the backdrop I don't want to have five lights up in my little studio so I have to one that helps like the backdrop and access the kicker and then this one which has that radio quality so the light spills out in all directions helps like my backdrop and my subject so I'm basically get away and getting away with to light serving as four or five.