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Production Hurdles and How to Handle Them

Lesson 11 from: FAST CLASS: Lighting, Logistics, and Strategies for a Life in Photography

Joe McNally

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Lesson Info

11. Production Hurdles and How to Handle Them

Lesson Info

Production Hurdles and How to Handle Them

production hurdles. We're gonna talk about that. Lynn. The magnificent Lynn will be with me along with Callie today. Be unafraid of your imagination. Ever have a hard time explaining to somebody what you think you want to accomplish with a photograph? It can be a little embarrassing, right? Because you're basically standing in front of people taking your clothes off because your imagination is part and parcel of who you are and what you think. So a picture out of your dream state can take a lot of hard work to make real take the plunge without guarantees of success. Run off the cliff, camera in hand. I did that yesterday. You know, in front of I don't know how many people. I mean, like, I didn't know that anything was gonna work out. I had never shot in that bar before. Nothing was pre produced. You know, um, I was like, Okay, let's take a shot in the dark. You ask where I start. How do I start? I throw a dart at the wall, and then I start clicking away, and that's what you have to do ...

when you're on location and you're building something. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Basically. Okay. Toolbox has to be varied and complete. Okay. It's our job to find the beauty in. Everyone said that yesterday. Okay. From that face, which is a one light picture, five foot Octa off the camera, right? Done. Little. Well, there's a wind machine, you know, because she had the hit kind of hair that scream for a wind machine. You know my friend Donald, my dear friend Donald in Santa Fe. This is where the one by three Pro photo strip. He's looking into it. I am shooting this at about F 16 f 18 somewheres in there. Why would I do that? Because I want the background sharp. But I also want to drag my shutter speed down. So I shot this. I don't know. 15th of a 2nd 8th of a second somewheres in their The new Mexico Storm is coming in. The wind is up. I don't need to win machine out here. I got a natural wind machine and his hair blows wildly around. I'm just on the edge. See? See that governance of the flashes right on his eye. The eye is sharp enough. It's not completely tact. But it's there. Okay, he is sharp. But as it rotates, this is the area of governance for the flash. It has flashed duration. That's helping me stop and sharpen him as it fades. His ear is not sharp. This hair is not sure all of this stays sharp. This kind of gets sharpen here. But back in here, it's all blurry because you lose the governance of flash. At that point, it rotates out of the domination of the flashlight into the governance of the ambient level of light. I try to ring the allocation dry exhaust, the possibilities. Same bridge, different shutter speed, different f stop. Different white balance, different lens. Okay, so it before you move from that location, try to get the most out of it. I mean, she's a lovely model. Um, she worked with us often on for a couple of years. Yvonne Tan, based in, uh, Malaysia. And this is in 85. This has got you can see there's a little inflection of warmth here. See the catch light right there. That is a gold Phil board on the floor and a secondary flash bouncing into it gives her a little tiny. A little bit of warmth, but not too much cliff. Right? Okay. Not too much gives just a little bit warm to that. And I kicked the angle of the camera street at 85. 1.8. This is with a 14. 24 at a fairly substantial f stop. Because when I'm trying for here is the vertigo of the bridge F stops. Shutter speeds are a bunch of numbers, but the numbers add up to the look of the picture. They just do. This is and this is a lovely picture. Isn't it horrible? This is a 24 millimeter, 1.4 lens, and I'm shooting it at about 8 11 somewheres in there. You know, nice and sharp. The dumpster is a nice touch. I thought, um, you know, on and all of that available lights you can see hardly any catch Lights in the eye at all. Little soft catch light from the sky up there. Um, all right. Available light s 0 260th at f 11. Then I try to light her badly. Okay, That's a soft bucks. The camera left. Not a good effort. And that is 200 at 1/60 at F 11. 24 millimeter lens with badly handled flash. I needed to Really, I wanted to emphasize that I didn't just didn't need to remind myself by looking at the pictures like, Yeah, um, I go to that. Move the move, the light down, push it in closer to her. So it's more wrapping and nicer fills their eyes, and that's 1.4. Then I switched to my 72 200 and I'm shooting that at 4002.8. Now you have no idea where she is. She's no longer in an alleyway with garbage and dumpsters. This could be the French Riviera, or I don't know what that makeup would make. You think that she might be some place. I'm not sure I'll leave that up to your imagination, but But then I can use this lens. OK, Right? 4002.8, My 72 200. I look down the alleyway and I didn't move her. I saw the ah, the grid work in the alleyway, the cross sections and all that fought well, that's kind of graphically cool. So I backed off and shot my lens at 160th F 11. So the model never moved. All those looks came from me. Just playing with F stops and shutter speeds and the position of the light. That's it. We stayed static right where I waas.

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Ivan
 

Oh. Wow. This is a must-see class for everyone who is passionate about photography.

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