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Lesson Info

Natural Light Bridal Fashion Shoot

What we did is for me a lot of times I would dio bridal sessions before or after the wedding and these used to be a lot more popular now they're coming back it's kind of evan flow over year whether people do over years whether people do bridal sessions um and so for me I really really pitched this as it's an opportunity to do hair and makeup you could do on the day lighting a set or an interesting story and you could do it before or after eso what we decided to do is actually samantha here she pitched to me for her too she was going to do a shoot on the third day and so she pitched two concepts to me and I love both of them I thought they were both beautiful phenomenal and she could only do one we only have time for one and so one of the things that she said she wanted to do a shoot with these laced kites you actually had it your wedding right um so that's what you see over here and I loved it I thought it was elegant soft and beautiful and so I said you know what let's do a concept ba...

sed around the kite so let's use the kites as a prop so what we're doing here as I'm showing you that you actually don't necessarily need a studio to do eh bridal themed stylized session so we borrowed a lace tablecloth as a background and hung it on the wall um I put it on this well because I don't mind if you can see that cream colored brick in the background is just another texture for me it's another interesting visual item um then we have her kites put one on the wall I'm going to have a couple hanging for deaths but because it is a natural light studio I'm shooting constant light I can shoot at narrowed off the field so I can give environment so I can have the kites in the foreground slightly out of focus and then have her crisp in the middle and then the background slightly out of focus so I can kind of play with that so that's what we're going to shoot here and we're going to play with someone's babies because for me this feels like kind of one of her favorite photographer's tim walker or another person I really like his pollo reverse e which I recommend you look up and he uses tilt shift cameras and bellows cameras which plays with varying the field of focus in a picture so I thought we'd try natural light kind of play around with that and just have fun so that's what we're going to do and I have a couple of guys shoot and tell me what you see for your vision lindsay could you name that photographer again that you just mentioned p a paulo p a oh hello and then r o v e r s I paolo reverse e thank you beautiful work you love it you see him in italian vogue and w magazine are probably the two biggest places you see him um tim walker you typically will see you do same in italian vogue ah lot of british vogue I would say most is the way you see him the most so okay so I'm going to grab the model perhaps or one of you may be around a little I'm going to give this a try over here I'm gonna get my camera set up so it's actually you did already okay we're tethering what has this to do okay hello how are you okay perfect so I'm gonna have you stand and back up just a little bit perfect okay so I'm I'm just gonna to like I don't have any necessary preconceived notions samantha set this up as well as her mother and lila and they set it up together um I am going to pay attention to the light on the face because it's natural light so I'm going to probably use some reflectors I'll show you what I'll use for reflectors here uh I have I'm going to answer a couple reflector questions that I regularly get um I use a whole bunch of different reflectors some are silver some are silver gold mix I never used gold. I never see it look good and gold but sometimes a little bit of silver gold next works well um for my choices either use saying that's a rectangular circle and here's here's the difference uh on a sunny day if you have a circular reflector and I catch the light and I bounce it up in the face okay we don't have a sunny day here so just bear with me I catch it on her face you guys ever had the situation where they'll be like ah hot spot like here and then everything else is in shadow um one of the things you khun dio is you can back up if you back up a little further from your subject you can try to angle to hit more of the body but if you want the full dress illuminated you don't want just a hot spot on the face and the neck um you're better off trying something like this and so this is california sun balance there's a variety of them that they offer there's four by six foot two by three foot one size white one side is a silver gold mix and it's going to allow you to have more of a full body fill instead of catching just part of the face the reason that these are really great is they you know they could get really small will god not to do this they can get really really small for transport uh these do break down but there's still metal pieces eso if you're doing this head shots, this is fine, but they have their different purposes. This will create a rectangular catch like this will create a circular catch late doesn't really make a difference to me. So for a shot like this, if I'm going to do three quarter length, I might use the larger reflector and maybe I would use white if I just want a little phil because this is nice and really soft back up um so a couple things I am thinking first you look beautiful a couple of things that I'm thinking is maybe like using this one as a prop that she hold because for me this is the dress now ideally, it would have had a vintage dress but let's just assume that your bride didn't have a vintage dress you know when she wants to wear her wedding dress that she wore on her wedding day. So one thing I can do to kind of pull it together as I can have her hold the kite and I don't actually want to street in front of her I'm gonna have you hold it out the side nice so she's kind of pulls it off to the side and is holding it there um I am going tio you probably have you move those two stands out for now and then I might have you move one in the foreground at some point let me just give this a try and then camera so where'd we are tethering actually ok, yes ok, so make sure they're go with that. Um all right? And I'm just going to give us a test. I have no idea yet I'm just testing no still tethering still thinking about it. Um how these lens baby lands his work is over how we were talking about can you get a close up this road what we're talking about before about the composer versus the lenses that is an attachment is an adapter. This part right here, the bottom section that's the composer and then the things that go inside it would be like the sweet thirty five or the edge eighty and so that's just basically the focal length or certain qualities of lens whereas this is actually you know, the main, uh, element is the composer sure. No problem. You get a chai just again, let's see if this works no, no funciona say practice my spanish. Um let me think of a couple other things I might dio sure, no problem. Um, so let me get the light right first what we're working on this who wants to my assistant okay, go thank you, um for this it's actually pretty good because the light is from one side but soft you have to have a camera or facebook like so if you look straight at me if she looked straight at me of the lights pretty nice I might do a little bit of phil you have kind of a little highlight on this side the let's kind of soft wrapping around. Uh but frequently, if I'm shooting natural light and the light's not quite working for me, I can use a reflector or I could just angle their head a little bit so I can have her just kind of turn her head this way turn your head that way just a little bit and see how the light kind of fills the entire face. So if that's the look you want if you want to be softer and filling, you just don't have them face straight on you compose the person to make use of the light a little bit more. So that's why? I think it's important to really pay attention to light on the face so that's good. Um, let me bring I'm gonna have you with a big reflector it might get in their way, but we'll see what have you stand on that side and try the silver for a second, okay gooder this over gold makes etc angling to see how much lights maybe right there and you could just hold it down a little bit so you can see I can move in and fill in the shot is a tiny bit that's good that's really cute I like how you're holding that she took the the end of the kite and holding in her hands thank you course that blocks totally like all you guys can you kind of see you could move if you want to do it on camera can I take a question while we figure out camera question from uh mark kelly's from rochester new york how do you keep from lining your subject with reflectors especially when outdoors in full sun and trying to eliminate raccoon eye shadows okay, so this is something that is is all about seeing the light and not shooting in direct sunlight whenever possible. Um so my tips for that is if you're shooting in situation we have raccoon eyes put him in the shade do anything you possibly can to get them out of directs unlike er the other instances if it's not high noon if you can turn them around so that instead of trying to catch suddenly and bounce it back up you can put the sun at their hair then you'll actually have the raccoon eyes it'll just be heavily backlit and so then you're using the reflector to fill in the light on the face instead of trying to overpower bright highlights on the head just to fill in the eyes, so put him in the shade or put their back to the sun are you're to go two solutions and a question from what's up doc home from holland when you say stylized wedding shoot, does that mean that the photographer and team fake issue or for the shoot or the bride and groom um, that sexual there riel it could be either typically what I would do is I do affects you. Um so it's not actually on the wedding day I would do I do my style, I shoot before after and then it could be on a much smaller scale first, if you want to do message in the bottle that's the theme of your wedding it's a lot more investment to make that the theme so I would do just kind of small shoots otherwise, but what's great is there are many photographers that team up with stylist that do stylized shoots it's for these high end clients that have the wedding planners and they have the stylist for the shoot and they bring the photographers on and they'll have the style do appreciate and also stage something on the wedding day but it was the time I was just planning faking before and after you do small scale thank you shannon larry from washington d c would like to know where you got your ring and so many people have commented on your ring okay uh miss use an eighth and thirty eight on thirty between thirty ninth and fortieth on eighth on the uh east side of the street there's a little shop and it was eleven dollars that's right it's not it's not actually it's plastic you said you were big in the spikes like I love this place I also have a giant spike necklace I was going to wherever I thought it was a little too aggressive for today um I also have shoes with giant spikes on them like they're cool I think your bedazzled all right cool so I have a question we'll just take some from earlier katie uh coward from india we were talking in another room about the fine line between inspiration and copying have have you ever dealt with a client wanting you to copy and other photographers image exactly how do you feel about that what do you do so thankfully I have not ever come up on that situation uh and what I would typically tell them okay, so here's an example I had a client uh mesh and I see so that was a shot and there was she had that the hand up in the ring on so she said we like david yurman we want to do a david yurman style shot um and I love the david norman shots they're absolutely beautiful and so what I did is I broke down to them what they liked about the shot and how we could put that into our own version so said ok, what I think you like is that's kind of natural um style izing it's natural light it's kind of soft poses it's not too much hair and makeup it feels kind of romantic but not in the love romantic kind of way but romanticism so I broke down the image and then said, okay, so these are what I think you like about it? How could we incorporating that to our own shoes? So that's what I would recommend doing that's the closest I ever said to someone just said, all right, I'll be like what david yurman does? Ok, well, we don't you don't look like david yurman ad because then people recognize that visual on just think you're ripping it off so let's see what we can do in our own direction. That's great idea quick question from jason lee why's the lens baby better than post affects uh it's different I mean it's it's the same thing as why would you shoot a tilt shift lens to get that effect versus faking and post you can and if you're really really good at it, then go for it but for me I like to save time and I can actually visualize it and see in camera the effect sometimes for me seeing in camera, it changes the way I shoot. For example, those images I had all the crystals you likely could fake the crystal effect in photo shop. I'm sure somebody's good at that. But for me, the way I was composing and the way I was having the model posed was very much based on that final effect, so I needed to see it in order to be able to kind of bring the whole shoot together, so I prefer it you can't fake something so cool. So a question from six going backto lighting would would you rather shoot with natural light than lighting setup if available, do you have a preference? Um, okay, I actually don't have a preference because it depends on the purpose. So for example, if I am shooting something that needs to look really commercial and highly produced, then I want studio like I can control every highlight I can make it so they pop out from the background uh, I can make it focus on the jury. Uh, but if I'm photographing something that I want to be soft and romantic, then I want to shoot naturally on location, um I also find anybody who's a little get ish or uncomfortable in front of the camera I preferred to at least start with natural light so okay so here's a tip for how to get your client's comfortable actually always do this even if I'm doing a studio section session I'll take this the clients and start them with a window light shot because it's not kind of cameron from their face and I'll find a way so they can lean against the wall or sit in a chair even that's that's nothing like we're doing for the session I think I'm just going to get it get a nice natural light shot first I know that those aren't going to be the images that I use uh but I'm just getting something casual so then when they're on set there once we have every hair makeup wardrobe every ready ready to go there already more comfortable with me so I'm not wasting time at that point it's okay so how it works with lens baby is you when you can't tell the actual exposure you have to actually set it you can't set the average on the camera you said it on the front of the lens and you're actually dialing the size of the opening of the whole um so I am going to set my camera to ice or two hundred and let's take a look here give us a test and it's manual focus okay that is closed down too much let's open up to eight like really knowed off the field look there okay so I kind of I kind of guessed around of roughly where it wanted to be this is the edge eighty five um and I'm shooting I said two hundred an eightieth of a second on by aperture is at two point eight and it does affect like shooting at two point eight is similar like shooting two point and regular camera it will affect how much is in focus so I'm going to pull you out a little bit the reason I'm pulling her out as I want those kites in the background on dh so it's too wide of a shot for what I wanted if I'm shooting like that on a few guys could actually do this that so I'm gonna have you right there I'm gonna back up guys sorry okay that's your good we were just like that time you head back that way perfect kegan I don't think I saw but the kite fell off in the bathroom oh, I didn't even don't really bother you it's just find our cook up a perfect just like that I have him in the background this is good behind the scenes shot thank you. Okay, cute so right there I'm gonna be a little bit get a little lower oh it's not wanting teo so how I focus it's okay it's no big deal I don't really need it um I will have you pull that stand pull that one up here I'm gonna put it on like maybe the left the right hand side is a foreground elements all right so how len's babies work um when I'm looking at a shot when I'm looking at kind of this shot here I figure out what I want to focus and I can actually move this element this front element moves left and right and so what I'll do is I'll say okay if I want this subject on the right hand side in the top right hand corner to being focused I moved my lands to the right and up you're moving your lens towards what you want to be in focus and the new manually focus so that's how I would work in this instance and so perfect can I have it on the other side and then oh look at that ok and had told that kite on your other side so the reason I just had her move is I want I don't want to block the kites in the background and then I didn't want there to be too much kite on one side in the foreground some kind of moving everything right so that's good and can you turn the kite it's it's said you guys could hold the bomb okay all right that's good okay so I'm pushing my lands left and up and then focusing on her take a look and little overexposed. So I'm going to close down on the lens to maybe five six and do you have the edge? Thirty five are the sweet thirty five available. Okay, so for me, right now, I'm going to do a close up head shot, but I kind of like the scene, so I'm going to switch the lands in a second, so let me just do your head shot first. Kind of the close shot. Okay, tuna head that when can you bring the reflector in closer. Good. Right there. Perfect. Right. So I'm going to head shot with the eighty eights, like, eighty five millimeter. I'm gonna switch. I can actually get the scene. So just like this perfect. Moving the lens right and up so I could get her eyes and focus. Take me back up a little bit. Okay. Good focus again, I think right there. All right, so this will be just kind of this next shot. Just a pretty soft. You have the kites in the background. I'm gonna have her look at me. It looked right at me. Good proof. Um, had just a tiny bit that way, yes, changing injected, change your exposure. Good I'm gonna turn your shoulder so she's not right now she's kind of straight to me so the brightest part is this could be kind of a light colored chest so turn um not like the other way so when she would turn this other way with her protest it turned it away from the light which meant that it went to shadow so my eyes would go to more tour face and said sure chest especially the bridal shot you want the eyes in the face obviously um good perfect enter your head back that we look out the window good pretty nice and I am going tio grab grab other system high can you get that kite that other kite I might just have to hold it next to my lands we'll see if that makes a good foreground element or not decide okay, I'm just going to hold that can rape their good that's probably going to be way too bright so we'll just test it probably really bright you could do it though. Okay so now I have an idea. Okay, so does that mean building? I'm going to sit here so I like the idea of the two in the background if I may be see two stacked in the foreground sits repetition so I'd see like one kite to kite and then another two in the foreground so can I bring this one for I don't have that yeah you estimate they want hold something for me some actually can you take that kite off yeah and I just want the cream colored so you see where I'm going I can kind of feel kind of where it's gonna go um and and and the reason also want the cream in the foreground as I knew the white was going to be too bright I can tone it down and photo shop um but what I'd like to do is I'd like to have kind of weight there but then put the cream in front of it so it cuts it down a little bit so be kind of stacking kites behind it so yeah typically you have more time than what we have here you kind of set it up beforehand so I think when have you hold this here yep and then you come closer all right let's see how I can stack it all right so samantha coming closer john coming closer good good will try like that first wasn't like that okay now I think I want this see that loads all right so the white is still really dominant in the background so do we have another cream with another cream hanging? Okay let's grab another cream if that's okay see, I'm difficult but I'm working it out we're working this I think it's great for for the internet to see the process sure mean you want that note through really always perfect up totally cheers. Okay, let's try those two in the foreground only just rotate my poor kite back here so take it back to what needs to be these kites are beautiful but so samantha and her mom made them for her wedding and you are selling them online. Okay, great. You're so smart what's the name of your etsy store we'll find out or it's like rocket bodies okay, well let's get the linge later because people always want to know where where they can get items cool I'm gonna keep my perfect they're good see, I might need that quite moved a little all right and can you samantha can you bring us down just a little right there right there getting listening, moving my lens the left and up focusing on her okay, little overexposed and I think I also want since this isn't in the shot I might how hard is it to make this stand stay on it is hard, right? We've let me see I'm gonna be engineered it here but you're which will fail miserably watch okay you know cues we just tie this I can take a question while I'm setting stuff up I like talking clearly let's look for one one second on the question from the jew who asked what's the most frequent of stop that you use when shooting with the lens baby I find it quite challenging to get good focus I shoot at four o our five six the key is one of the tricks that's good um one of the tricks to this is that you don't want to push the lens as far to the right and as far to the top as you can because the further you are to the edges the harder it is to focus so the more essential you are the easier this actually find a sweet spot as soon as that lens is really, really far off access off the plane of the digital of the digital sensor you can actually get stuff and focus so if I pull it faras right I cannot father's up to the top I don't even know if I actually get real focus at any point so just don't take it to the extremes just move it a little right and a little up okay here we go and so I will be kind of recherche instead of turning keep turning that way a little bit more keep coming good yeah I'm gonna have you two shot like that and put your back arm like this the other one the other there you go and pop it out a little bit and then drop that front shoulder good and I have her facing away from the light so I'm actually gonna switch to the other way fishing face towards, like, cool and I'm gonna pull up your dress a little bit because yeah, I don't have a photo shop if you don't mind good it's the same thing pop the bubble out good and look up and out great and look your eyes so right now I'm gonna take a shot look your eyes to the right can we show you what you don't want to do first? Okay, so you don't want to do this first, um, which is she's looking far? So I want to tell people like looking profile if you zoom into her, I, um you see just whites of her eyes it's, pure white and it looks kind of creepy. Is this a little I mean show? She said super creepy. So wasn't me on dso instead, when I have somebody look kind of up and out or look profile, you're actually having them look more to the front closer to you, so I'll actually tell my subjects instead of saying, look out the window, I'll say he'll be here for me, something like that, but people chin looking out the window more and so actually give them a point with my finger of where to look all right, so you guys get tired of holding those eye you're like, we're going over there, good good no look back at me and drop your back arm instead I thought that was a little too kind of fashion e so I'm gonna actually have you just put a hand up yeah and then real soft don't dona bend the wrist instead of like soft okay keep it nice and soft and put it closer into your body and in this instance I would do something maybe if I had to put the other hand up if she actually had a wedding ring on um so it's showing the wedding ring good and what flowers just a little bit so moving the lens a little bit further over for the focus okay do one more and drop her hand for me good and just hold like that and I'll look over me and had a little less because I'm watching right now is she turned her head straight towards me turn straight towards me again she has that pocket of shadow next to her I some having your look with your eyes at me but not her entire head and relax your shoulders a little stress there you go perfect you'll see the difference there relax your shoulder she looks a lot more relaxed then look happy okay so I'm gonna switch it up now for a second and do probably the shot that I would do as a fashion photographer ready for my fashion photographer shot okay um I'm actually gonna switch tio of fifty one for mamie yeah of different lens let's search here okay sanchez real centered just like that and just hold it right in front of you good and I'm going to move this kite behind moved over more and so this is probably how would shoot this if it were a fashion shoot moving it ok good right so I may have you jules I may have you move stuff in a second so try to make those tilt the correct way okay? We're almost there. Okay good teeth this uh and I was this piece of tape back here holding up this kite but it's not really adding anything so I'm gonna take it down okay? All right, so I probably to shoot this and I may have you come in the foreground has a gun exposure okay yes, totally so now instead I can actually shoot aperture priority I'm shooting ice or two hundred uh two point eight steak take two steps closer just like that good. All right, can I have you? Can I have somebody rotate the kite in the background for me really knowing it's tilting funny. Ok, yeah, good right right there kind of kind of coming here you go say all right, so I'm gonna shoot this china had that we're just a little bit good I'm getting that kite in the background so I can show what it is look good so instead of shooting two point eight thought the backgrounds a little two and focus so maybe I'll shoot a ant one point four or let's do one point eight and I'm going to focus my focus point on her face perfect um cameron eighty five okay all right so when right now because I don't have anything on the ground I was shooting fifty and I was getting a little bit too much on the ground there so I'm going to shoot in eighty five so I can shoot kind of mid length and up and then I'm gonna get low get great here okay perfect take a look all right um keep voting could bring on it yeah okay so you get again all right right here that looks great and then head back out the window all right, so let me leave that so that something actually load so I really like this shot because it plays with a lot of repeated patterns she has the lace not that it'll load kind of the last one um I have the lace kite creating that that kind of ah the kite shape in the foreground and then it's repeated in the background a couple times and how I probably will light their tone this is I'll probably turn it tio a cream tone so it would be black and white but with kind of cream or warm undertones so it'll load eventually say it wait for its alone um you know I just met him tied this but I'm think I'm light switch this kite okay so something like that I think it's what I like it's a really soft and very girly um I might switch that kite have decided I'll shoot a couple more frames and len we only have ten minutes to lunch all that somebody else shoot um but I think I'm going to rotate this saying okay I just want the nice repeated lines in the background all right so samantha I'm gonna have you in a second hold the kite in the foreground as a foreground element they can get these to stay I'd probably use little pieces of tape yeah little double stick tape but it did for right now it's fine. I might just have you like garden yeah making him sanders I ok so I'm gonna have to come forward I don't know if I like it I might actually hate it so never know ok let's bring it this way and put it in the bottom left and come down closer to may good let's try that all right and then can you and he's gonna take that kite so wait for him to shoot that uh the one that turned sideways now yeah, you saw me shoot her quick can you bring us a little lower so I'm gonna create a foreground element good um can you reach that kite in the background robin can you reach it? You know okay that's good all right, samantha drops the uh make it higher actually right there good and squint your eyes a little bit for me and I looked right at me. Okay? Now if you drop this and get rid of it on this one good moving tried a little bit different composition stew a little bit critical think I want that kite big in the background okay, look out the window for me, okay? I think that's good. I like this one. Okay, so for this shot I have I have the kite with the edges in the foreground and then I have fight with the edges in the background and the kite edges and you'll see lots of edge is repeated over and over again. Okay, um you wanna shoot me? Shoot okay do not good in the camera and you that's an eighty five and you like fifty but okay, so this is this is kind of shot something like that so I like her holding a kite you see kite in the background kite peeking in from the corner um so I see something like that go ahead. What are you wait for me in different lens two hundred um ok, the question was did I why did I bones the ice so to two hundred um basically it's easier for people might teach that have nae cons because they usually at two hundred so I'm just like typically issue a two hundred for people in icons when's he can ask you a question yes and just watch the shadows on your face so you might need to have her she could still have the kite up just watch how it's casting a shadow she might need tohave it hold kind of slightly further back instead of in front yeah quite a few people over the last couple days have asked if you listen to music when you're on a shoot do usually so I right now I listen to dub step yes I do um but a lot of times I actually let the client set the music because I can work it out with anything so it doesn't really matter so is the client or such the model of over the subject is I'll say to them okay this is what we're going for in this shoe we're going for really soft we're going for really romantic so what music would fit um or I would say uh I want you to be really aggressive and I want you to give me a really strong poses what would fit jennifer did you want me to fix something what's up oh do you want apple us um no I'm okay okay so I think that's pretty and for me I like those close of shots and I like that one better because you can a little bit more see that it's a kite you put it together in your mind when you conceived multiple angles versus when you just see like a little bit of the blur in the background you see in front of her face you can't quite tell what it is yes, you can I think we're okay thank you. That looks really pretty like that shot a lot. So here's your fifty I'm gonna do this okay? And he can um I can have him move it's this season the shot you don't need the reflector but yeah, I do like that shot that is a cute beauty shot. I like how all those lines are framing her face so everything is kind of lead you back to her face oh, and for the shot that she just took that shows up so you can see the ground. What I would probably do for those of you that want teo out either crop in the squares to make it look like you were shooting kind of, um like a square for my camera or you can fake it in post you can, um, blurt out if that's something you want to do or you just don't shoot in here or you had a grunge texture so you can't tell what the ground is totally fine