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Lesson Info

Natural Light Shoot Final Touches

So it's just a matter of making these minor tweaks over and over again and you're probably gonna take like 200 pictures if you were, if you really go after this, in that jar. What do you want the crumbs? Just sprinkled kind of like in a little pile here, nothing to define pile and then a little bit outside of that pile. So we're gonna get a little actually, I like the idea of actually putting putting the jar without getting any logos in here. Kind of up there. Take that shot. Yeah, just something there to foil a little bit. All right, so we can let's get this linen out of here a little bit. What else can we do? Can I get a like a chunk Bread, like a corner almost, I will put on top of that that pile. So let's get rid of, I'm gonna break this up into two more pieces. You gonna Put it away? This is gonna go, I'm gonna move this a little bit up cause it was a little. And so I've got this, you can use foam core, you can use, I can use me as a gobo. So if you can see this, there's...

a, I've got a gobo here, that's starting to block light off. And so I wanna exaggerate that a little bit, make sure I am but we are getting bleed from the natural light. So if you see what I mean about the natural light, if there weren't any natural light, this gobo there would be just a blackness in that corner. But because we do have these windows coming in circulating light, it's only suddenly doing its job. So it might be something that we you know, do you wanna put a little you can always do this in post. Just create a vignette or like a drag a grad filter over that. So that's one of the negatives about work in natural light is the amount of manipulation that you do the light doesn't have as much effect as you usually like. But I do wanna scrim that we're gonna get this over the set so it gets nice, can you take a picture and see if that's in the frame? Yeah. So these come in different densities. This is just a single density. The green oh this one. I'll just hold it when we take the final. It's okay to hold stuff but umh. So the red green and blue I think the red is dual layer, and then the blue is three maybe. But these are all different densities. You don't need all these and you can make these two. But I just find that they go into a C stand really nice. These are a little heavier. I don't necessarily want to use a finger. Or a dat or something smaller because I'm not running into any troubles that I see that are really my new. It's just that full corner. That's a little troublesome. So I might just use one layer, just to knock it down and see what happens. So we'll do that now. And then see how that affects it. And you could attach this to a C clamp, or a Super Clamp and an arm. Or I'm one of those men photo arms that bend in the middle, but I just tend to hold them because everything else is pretty much set. And I'll just hold it like this and say Jack take the shot. What are you seeing? How are we on the highlights? Hey, I feel like we're just overall a little dark now. Yeah, I am gonna use I'm not gonna back myself in the corner. Let's use a smaller. This has a pretty dramatic effect. So I need something shorter. So let's do that. But I think we're I like the developing of the light the light looks very without being streaky it has sort of a randomness to it almost. Here's my go-to I love this one. You can tell I love this one because it got food on it. So this one's lot more I need to be sure that I don't really over affect my data light. So I'm actually gonna go let's try that Jack. And then I'll go over the data light. In fact, I'm gonna go vertically because the vertical has a much more. Let's do, actually let's do this. Try that. How's that? So these are the two that you just did. This one on the right is the vertical and the one on the left was when you're headed horizontal. Yeah, so it's darker colored effect the center I'd like the spot this to the late I don't know think it's even but there's sort of these pockets of light that are going around and I'm not even really sure how they're coming about and I think it might have to do with a mix of whites but it's really kind of pleasing. It's also the surface that has something to do with it. I think we're there I think we're very close. Any changes you guys will make that you see cause a lot of this has to do with your thought process and the students thought process of how this to me is like 98% and I usually take it to like without being cliche but like we get it we tease it well we would you know, add a little glistening here and there on the grapefruit to get it really nice and delicious. That would take hours to really finesse it to the point but I think we're very close Are there any it's all about getting here and then figuring out exactly the my new changes that you would personally make so but if you have any questions also just about a gear that we've used as well that would be, I think, helpful as well. Let's take a hard look. I kind of just take a step back and close my eyes. Cause I've been staring at the saying and these little changes and you can start to get stuck in your own world. So you do need to step back a little bit and then kind of just look at the shot. Can you put that on for for me? Yep. Did you want, Which one did you prefer? The-- I like the scrim one. The second one? The second one. Yeah ummh so I'm always looking over Jack's head. Okay, the crumbs I need to break up the crumbs a little bit more. So you kinda get a list of things you need to do in your head and either direct the food stylists to do that for you or do it yourself on set depending on how things are working. I wanna see more of the knife handle. I think that's a bizarre way to kind of exit this frame. So I might have the we all seem to have dead space for your eyes to kind of go so maybe I'm I would edge the out as a peanut butter. Just like half a centimeter towards the knife. This guy the roughing? Yeah, how do you like the crumple of the of the napkin? It's seems a little horizontal so I might twist and scrunch more. Okay, so that and then I'm gonna I do want the orange juice. Let's do on a let's spritz the strawberries. Let's put this to work. Do you wanna put a napkin kind of on the side I don't wanna move it cause I really like it. If you wanna put a napkin kind of to the side of the place-- Another napkin? Just no just a paper towel so it doesn't get spritz on. And then that can be moved up. And then tweezers if you are a food if you're getting into food silent tweezers are a must have. I have a favorite pair I and know Molina does. This one's actually broken right now but it has a light that goes in In the middle of it, so when you're in like a darker scenario or you know, in a studio setting, you can actually have an LED light that shines where you're tweezing. So these are really cool. They're the perfect size too. So I'm gonna move this up, only the, just to kinda like vary the so it's not just side by side. Do you want me to put this nap underneath that second screen spread? Yeah. So a big thing, especially I've been guilty of this is when you spray something, you need to spray it offset and then place it usually if it's gonna be vertical, cause if I just go down and I spray all over this, the plates gonna have droplets all over it, you'll never get rid of in Photoshop, I mean, we have a frame that we can blend in. But if the framing changes or we make another decision, you're stuck with you have to clean the whole plate off, it's kind of a mess. So best thing to do is to really control as best you can. And I'll put my glove down here and just do a quick spritz. So that's the base layer, and then I'm gonna come in register against the base layer of spritz nuts. And I'm gonna come in and give, you can always test it. That's pretty randomized. That's looking good. There we go. Awesome. And that's my new thing. But when you spritz vegetables, thank you. I have an image that's like a spring image. It has morel mushrooms and spring onions and all this stuff. And I went through a lot of detail to spritz it when you spritz an image, it is suddenly just ummh it takes up a whole new level of freshness. It's really important and I'll actually go through and I'll use these clog like crazy, but you can get these at Hobby stores and they're glue applicators. And you can just create many droplets of water exactly where you want them. I've seen people actually decorate entire bottles with one of these. I wouldn't do it (laughs) But you can create hero droplets on tomatoes on this is really the applicator to use for that, but if you use glycerin in here you're it's gonna clog like mad it's such a small you know opening. I'm actually gonna find one that does work so I do wanna get a I do wanna try and get a nice droplet on those berries. There we go all right there we go all right so I remember that I need to scrim the side I'm not doing that right now cause we're fixing styling issues and I need to make sure I get the stay. Not issues but we're just you know we're working the styling a little bit. That knife needs to come in more if you wanna kinda push it and then twist it this way a little bit, so you can see more of the handle, I guess. Yeah, that'll work. Let's take that shot. So we have sort of the right amount of messiness without being crusty. We don't have rusty knives. We don't have forks, that looks like they came out of a garbage disposal. We don't have but there is an authenticity to it. It's somewhere in the middle. So we sort of kind of hone that in a little bit. I meant to break up that crumb. So we have three Crumbs I like to have one large crumb than two. All right, try that jack. And remember to take everything I've said that you were using on set cause it can actually block the light. I'm gonna move that glass off. Can you white crumb? Yeah, for sure. If you see something, say something. (laughs) Yeah. How are we looking on this? It looks very saturated on this monitor. How about toast placement? Actually just invert one of the toasts, so they're different directions. Do you wanna do that on the jelly one turn that around. Just flip it completely. I love, Oh, sorry go ahead. A little bit of space between the jam and the ummh-- And the cutting board? The cutting board. And maybe Can we get some bubbles in the orange juice? So it looks like it was just poured? Yeah I can show you my trick for bubbles. So you inverted that. So if you want to move the jelly jar down from so it's not touching the point of the just down a little bit. Overall I like it but I do want to be not touching that. So I use photo flow, which is this little jar, and if you're in the darkroom, you know photo flows. It's a common technique for coffee but I'll even use it for juices or anything that doesn't you don't want that rainbow effect of like soap or something else that you use when you create bubbles. This just creates natural looking bubbles. I can give it a shot just by using a straw. I keep straws around all the time. What would your thoughts be on that? What's your favorite? (mumbles) I use a chopstick. Sometimes I just make it harder than it used to be. (laughs) You can use a straw and you can cut it in half and then. For bubble in the top of the milk you mean. Are you taking with the milk or the orange? You want the orange juice Right? Yeah, Oh the orange juice umh. And it's good the audience being kind of like the art director. I've never actually been asked to-- To what? I've never asked (mumbles). I think it does create bubbles that when you pour it. So I'll create a little photo flow. I actually don't use a straw for this cause they don't wanna drink photo flow. Last time I checked. So I use, do we have in there? What are you looking for? Do you have a eyedropper. Okay, I use an eyedropper for this. And just like you do in coffee, when you do coffee and you do the little bubbles around the edge, you just use a little bit of photo flow. And then you squeeze it just in that corner and it will create that little mound. Thank you very much. Let's see if this translates to orange juice. It should this is where do we want this? We want this in the upper right, okay. (dropper squelching) (laughs) Fail. There we go, try that. And also, if you shoot fast enough, you can do it without photo flow. You can just use you don't have to go overboard on that. But those would be those are actually being hidden. I wanna get more cause they're being hidden by the side of the glass. So let's get more flow in there. Let's see. We can actually drag them out a little bit. Take it take the shot, hurry. Okay. Yeah has a little rim going on then a distinct pattern where the pour happens so I like that. Any other suggestions about the image? We could do this for nine more hours. (laughs) I was gonna say, we can't go on all day. But what we have I mean, this is a good starting point. I would take this I would continue to nitpick. I think we're there as composition goes. We have some dynamic things going on with the toast. But generally speaking, I think we're very close. I think we're there. Umh lighting, I'm gonna do one more shot that's final with some scrims. And some, you know, ways to block the light a little bit. And I'm gonna do a better reflection shot. So let's do that. And I'm gonna angle this down a little bit more, so it's not as high on the linen. Alright, you're good to go Jack. And that will be our final. We're checking focus again, just to make sure nothing moves or nothing. You never know what happened during the course of a shoot. So we always check focus one more time. And then what I'll do is if I shoot an image, it's important. I learned this with a kind of landscape photography. You'll put your hand in front of your lens and take a shot. So it's a black frame, so you know that whatever's coming after is important. He's taking notes, but if we shoot a final, I'll usually just put my hand if you want, take a shot jack. Especially if you're alone, and you just need a reference. We're not taking notes in a little bit It's a little bit looser. I know that That's the final right there. That's really good. (laughs) No, take the Yeah, take the final shot and it will be there when we do the scrim. The scrims already kind of there. All right. There you go. You've got the reflector in the in the-- All right, there we go. Make sense? Hopefully we'll learn a little bit at least. We just start to finish this very editorial as. And this is what you want to pursue. This is a good place to start and they start adding your flavor to an image like this, let's say cause what I would do personally from an artistic standpoint, the last 1% I would do is actually I would black out we don't have curbs installed in the studio cause it's still new but I would blackout the light I would put a reflector in but then I would really edge the light along this and along that, and if you you could probably do that in post if you wanna-- I couldn't see your hands on that-- Just create two gradient filters one that has a little bit of highlight reduction and just basic exposure reduction but really mild, especially down here. Coming from up from Coming from here and coming down from there so the light looks like it's really been through. This is something you can create and post to if you want you don't have to buy. What you wanna do is when you create gradient filters that make it look like you've cut it with a gobo you wanna make sure and preserve highlights luminosity in your milk. So you'll break down the exposure and possibly reintroduce highlights. So what you're doing is you're reducing the exposure of the actual surface but it doesn't look muddy or gross like sometimes happens when you do a vignette. So what you'll do is you'll just preserve the hopefully preserve the nice white in the milk and the shadows and the peanut butter too it might need to be painted in but umh. I love light that just kind of comes through the night. I just love it. Or you'd go the complete opposite direction, cut this down to F one, four. And just have and find a way to just have the toast and focus and everything else, even though it's a flat surface, go like buy a one, two lens from Canada some crazy thing like that and just go overhead. I mean, just kind of have fun with it. Don't let this is like the starting point from which you branch off. So you need to look at this and say, What would my signature on this be what would be how would they know it's a me shot or it's a so there's things you can do with the silence, but also really with the lighting to make. I love to go really deep depth of field and then cut light a lot. But you could just easily do a really shallow depth of field have just the toast and vogues which would be really cool. So you can have really tall stuff on set or really flat stuff on set, not a lot sort of competing on the same plane as the toast and then just kind of balance it. Yeah, and just do something really crazy and fun like that.