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Lesson Info

Fine Art Vs Fashion

Let me give you a little background on this whole class in this presentation we are drastically different people in most ways, but we think I think in the ways that count were the same we're both passionate about creating we're both passionate about photography we're both passionate about being individuals and seeking inspiration and so I mean there's a long list of things we are complete opposites but then we are good friends because all the things that matter as people were the same yeah and you like mary if I like you okay, yeah your birthday's way the thing about people who are inspired and who are passionate you know, if I'm on the internet and I have the choice to follow somebody who's a great photographer versus somebody who's really passionate I'm always going to follow the passionate person because I want to feel the love for what they're doing and lindsay happens to be both and so when we met I was really excited because it's not that often that I find a photographer who is j...

ust lives what they do and she does and she does it well, teo so I'm just I feel really honored to be here on her birthday and it's just I don't know I'm excited to celebrate quincy today I love you okay, well, the reason that I first reached out to broken a season actually yesterday about this is that I first reached out to her online and she actually was looking to come to new york to teach workshop and I offered up my studio and it was not because I wanted to emulate her work I've actually not shot anything necessarily inspired by her, but I'm inspired by her and so I reached out because I was like, this girl just she's got the right attitude, her works amazing she's passionate I want her in my life and then we were friends, so that is our little back love story and one of the things that were drastically different on is inspiration we do have some overlap and that's what we're going to start off talking about, I'm going to talk about where I get my ideas from my creative process she'll talk about hers, we have some overlap but like, for example were sitting this morning and I said, I love looking at all the photographer's work and she goes, I hate it she was no, not really, but that's something that we'll talk about in a second, so I'm going to jump into my presentation you guys and see over here on how I seek inspiration I remember several years ago um, I someone was like, oh, you're so creative and I was like, really like I didn't actually consider myself an artist the reason wass is I didn't get it? Because I had a creative process, I didn't feel creative cause I would go to the same steps every time, and so the's steps would lead me to a pretty photo, but it didn't feel like, you know, a bolt of lightning amazing idea I had a process, so it seemed more like more of a craftsman that knew what to do every time. Now, I think I'm creative because everybody's creative if they want to be, so I'm going to jump into that, um, creativity isn't luck, and I think that was biggest misconception that I had that held me back from being a great photographer for being a good photographer because I felt like once in a while and have a great idea. And then those were the photos I would proud to be proud of, and then I would just like twitter my fingers and hope to come up with another good idea and it's not creativity out of thin air it's not inspiration on the thin air, so I'll tell you where I personally get my ideas, the creative process and this just isn't me that thinks this it can definitely be a process, every single person's process is going to be different brooks is incredibly different from mine, but if you figure out what your processes what inspires you? What leads you to have new ideas you just keep revisiting that and it keeps you fueled on dso again it took me a while to figure out what mine wass and I started teaching about creativity and this is why I love teaching and this is why I could actually pick any day this week that I wanted to teach I think my birthday because you're supposed to do what you love on your birthday right? So I thought I would join you all here but one of the reasons I left teaching is I didn't understand what my own creative process was until I was asked to kind of explain it people have asked me where do you get this idea from how to keep being so creative and I was just like, you know I don't know and then when I had to articulate it now I'm more creative because I had to explain it all to you so we'll take a look at that right now something to keep in mind it's not about where you take the ideas from it's where you take them to and broke talks about this a lot and I've seen on her block and it's it's great cause I'll see things and it will ring true to me everything's been done before everything has been done before in some way shape or form and really most of time all the ideas that you have it's influenced by something you might not know where it's from it might have been a childhood nursery rhyme it doesn't matter but you're always being influenced by something and it doesn't matter that it's how you take that idea filter it through yourself and present it back to the world so I look I look at other photographers work other artists I absorbed the world around me and then spit it back out in my way so let's take a look by the way all the pictures in my presentation are shot with this kit I always get that question so I thought that I would put it out there for you guys and then up on my block right now I also have the gear list for what I'll be shooting today so if I mentioned something you didn't quite hear it you can actually check it out on the block which is blogged that lindsay out of photography dot com inspiration so all of the time it's actually really challenging as a fashion photographer all the time I'm asked to be creative and not asked to take a picture for say I'm asked like execute an idea I have to figure out ok this is what you want to achieve this is what I have to work with now I have to be profound to catch their attention and bring that all together so if I was just crossing my fingers over time I've bean deep trouble. So this is purely my creative process. It's not brooks. It might not be yours and might not be yours, but I thought I would share mine with you so you can take a look at my perspective. So where do I start? Here's how it works with me in a fashion shoot in a portrait, enough, whatever I dio any of these elements can make up a shoot hair, make up props, lighting, concept, location. I mean, any of these can be the main focus of issues. So what I do personally is every shoot, when I start, I pick one element like one thing that I know for sure. One thing that I know is the constant. So a lot of times in fashion photography, maybe I know the dress or I know the model I'm starting with oh, I know the location I'm shooting at, and so what I do is I write down all the words, all of the visuals, everything that comes to mind when I see that one thing and we're going to give you examples, but maybe it's, maybe movies that come to mind are key words that come to mind or maybe what kind of hair would look good with that dress or what kind of location to a envision that and like, what do I feel when I know that I see that one element so some big more sense in a second and then what I do is all those words that I've written down I look up online I look up on things like pinterest I look up on google images I look up on fashion gone rogue look online and I start connecting the dots between what wardrobe do I like based on what with this word I'm just going to demonstrate for you because I think it's a lot easier it's kind of break this down so let's take a look at an example where the wardrobe was my starting point so my wardrobe sat list lisa she's amazing and she sent me a picture of this dress and the dress was on a girl and she was at the end of a runway and she had flipped up her dress and she's kind of posing so I was looking at the dress and that's what I knew was my starting point so I started making a list of everything that came to mind so I said you know flowing movement wind kind of looks like a flower petal it's blue it's purple it's and so as I wrote these things down I mean right in front of me I had blue purple flower right there in front of me so I'm looking at this and searching those words some searching blue and purple flowers online and I come up with lavender and lavender fields and so okay certainly some of us don't have blooming lavender around us but that time it worked and I looked up online and I live in new york city and I looked up and I typed in, you know, lavender fields new york lavender fields, new jersey lavender fields long island and actually came across some lavender fields way out in the hamptons and so I shot it based on the fact that I wrote down the words that came to mind with that dress and yes oh maybe it won't be a lavender field maybe it would be something else that I would end up with but it's really nice when it works out to make something beautiful and profound or take another example this is from my some might think it's like right first few editorials ever shot and so I grew up on a farm in upstate new york and I was in a farm girl though it wasn't like that brucke like on the tree but um I was inspired very early on the everything around me so one of the reasons I got into photography is because apparently runs in my blood my grandmother was a hobbyist photographer my mom is a hobbyist photographer and my grandma said she remembered as a kid her father working in the dark room so I grew up on this farm it was my grandparent's farm and we would wander around my mama graham and I taking pictures of everything around us. And that was like our bonding experience. So that's, one of the reasons photography's been really close to me. It was a way that I bonded with women in my family. So stepping that bank is I was inspired by our farm and by our land early on and everything, I had it logged in the back of my head to some day come back and shoot as a fashion editorial. I shot as landscape a shot as nature. And so once I was able to have real models and hair and makeup, I plan to shoot. And so one location was this one, and my grandfather had planted christmas trees all in a row and never harvested them. So they grew up and they were just long leading lines and repetition. And so when I did is when I looked at this location, I wrote down everything that inspired me about that location and the things I liked best. And I think you would say that the same are the repetition, the leading lines, the symmetry. So if I were going to create an image that really plays this up, okay, wolf, I want symmetrical, maybe center the model. And leading lines have it shooting down those rows and then what about picking clothes or oppose that's really symmetrical it's like when I write down the things that draw me to a piece of clothing or the things that come to a minor movie that it reminds me of that gives me a starting point and kind of helps direct the rest of the way that I go it's not luck, it's based on looking at these things in front of me a couple other examples so I found this prop they were thie glasses air called cyber glasses, cyberpunk classes or something like that they're seventeen dollars on on ebay and I bought them and so I'm looking at them and you know, why did I buy them? Like what? What compelled me to go ahead and order these off of ebay there had to be something that I was attracted to, so I broke it down if you know me well, now I love red and so I knew I loved the color, so I love the red and white and then I love just that really graphic pattern about them. So if I were trying to break down what I liked, I liked the color and the graphic nature, so the best picture I could create that fits me would play off the color and the graphic nature so that's got to be all about color make the skin white make the lips red make it graphic by not including hair, not including poses just make it about those glasses so that's kind of what led me in that direction I have a couple more examples relating so I look at all the photographer's work all the time and I'm going to end talking about how I do that and how it's the fills me and how it guides me and inspires me on dh there's this one photographer that shot paint with light photography he is his name is patrick rochon if you look him up it's crazy, he actually doesn't consider himself a photographer. He considers himself a painter that uses light, and then the camera simply records it. I think that's fascinating syncing clearly is using a camera, but he kind of supersedes that. So I was looking at his work and just drooling, you know, and I saw that he didn't really have any fashion or beauty work. And so what I did is I decided to take what I liked about his work and I liked the color and I liked the mystery and I liked the shapes, and I like the way it picked up highlights and so it's a little bit of quote, unquote luck, you know the inspiration of the moment but of course I was going for dramatic and theatrical. I wasn't trying to go for real or reality this's actually done with two led lights like led penn lights, a blue one and a green one on dh when you're shooting for long exposures with paint would light. What you want to do is on ly go over each part of the face or body once because if you look, here is a forty two second exposure, if I go over this part of her face and then like a couple seconds later, five seconds later, I'm thinking all way and get enough light. She's moved like I guarantee she's moved and that's how it gets out of focus, so I was inspired by patrick rashaan in this one, I'll also be inspired by photo shop, so I am always like online looking at you two were looking at other tutorials or books, really little things I didn't know like, for example, six has this new color lookup tables, which is really, really cool color look up, so check that out for adding mood to your pictures. Basically, they use in movies to tone a movie for a certain feel, but I will look up these new tools and let that inspire me. And so brooke I mean for both of us one thing that we unite on is we don't think that the artistic process stops at the click of the camera I mean absolutely continues on into post and so what I realize is you can double process images I don't know if anyone ever didn't landscape photography like before hdr like way back when what I would do is it shooter raw image and then I'd process at once so I had all the detail in the sky and the night process it and other times at all the detail in like the lake in the trees and I'd put the two together and photoshopped and so I'm you know I'm shooting and shooting fashion and I haven't used it will double processing thing and then I realized well why what what can I so this picture what I did is this is one photograph and I shot it like in the middle of the exposure she's not super lit she's not super silhouetted it's hideous flat ugly picture it mean is this flat boring light is possible but I double processed it and I did it once so I underexposed and added so much contrast that she turned solid black and then opened up that raw file again and I exposed it so that the clothing was all sparkly and I over exposed several stops and I mean all they really didn't photo shop is larry and race but it's because I knew what I could do and photo shop I would never have shot that if I didn't know because that's the whole idea behind it the thing that's good from me and I think brooke does this sometimes is key words or like a single concept and letting my mind just wrap around and I make those lists and which nice isn't fashion photography fashion magazines every magazine has a theme so the theme might be read the theme might be into the future I mean it it could be anything and so that's where it really comes into play using my technique for my creative process so I write down all those words and I make the lists and so this one is very random if you're not in my head the theme of the shoot or the issue of the magazine was holiday that was it's just like a holiday so I wrote down all the things that came to mind things that came to mind for me were like snow christmas tree candy cane and so I do another opportunity that use red that's my favorite so I kind of put those in the list and I wrote down ice and ice queen and so first I was going to do an ice queen shoot you know maybe make it look like she's frosted eyebrows and make pale white skins I love to do that with blue under two tones and things like that but what I realized is that I've seen it done a million times before and I know I can offer something new but one difference between she and eyes if I'm submitting to a magazine if someone else also submits ice queen and theirs is better in the eyes of the magazine that mine doesn't run so like I'm just going to I'm just going to stay away from something I think is obvious let's go completely other direction so I wrote down rudolf I wrote down a whole bunch of different, you know, like frosty the snowman and then I wrote down this one cartoon for christmas that my sister likes and it's called a year without santa of you without santa claus and if you know it's, like when I people no, I said he was okay, yeah, I hear people that's right? Okay, okay, people know, do you ok? So you know what? This is ok? So there's a villain in it and he's trying to ruin christmas and he's old grumpy and he has fire for hair and white skin, and so I'm like, ok, I will explain that in my pitch to the magazine, we're going candy cane were going heat, miser, fire red hair and white skin, and so it doesn't need to make sense to anybody but at least if you have a process that helps you get somewhere on, then it allowed me to look up pale white skin and red hair and look up inspiration and it led me to this so I also look at other artists and I'm not just talking about photographers because obviously I get a lot of influence from them, but I look at painters I did a shoot recently where the entire thing was inspired by an installation artist there's a sky that would fill balloons with thou are fill rooms with thousands of balloons like endless and his concept was as you enter the room with other people, you are interacting with them in their space and a really intimate way because the balloons air moving and even if they're across the room it's still going to affect what you feel, so it was really interesting I've loved his insulation are and so I did a bridal shoot recently where I fill the room with balloons inspired by him. So in this particular image I found this guy on tv in art deviant art is a social network where there's artists there's digital artists there are people that are sculptors and painters and photographers and everything, and I found this one guy that what he would do to his own photographs is he transformed them into paintings there like half photo, half painting and I consider myself an artist, but I'm not an artist that can paint or draw like not even a little like I'm really bad at anything other than like concept and photographing s I found this guy and it was like, you know what? When I'm working in fashion photography all the time, somebody else is doing my hair and makeup like they're an artist and I'm collaborating with them and like, the wardrobes us there, bringing something to the table so there's, nothing wrong, it's still my art if I reach out to another artists to collaborate with, so actually research this guy, his name is jared koubriti, and I said, hey, you know, I love what you do would you collaborate? And so he did all the special effects for me, it's still my art and it's artists all the time collaborate depends on how you like to work, but I think most of my well, I know most men portfolio wouldn't exist if I wasn't working with other artists and that's how I work, I'm not solitary by any means. I use other people's strength to fill my weaknesses and I help pull it all together wait just happening. I love you for key um, other photographers, so we're gonna talk about this in a second, I look at all the photographer's work all the time I don't let it devour me and I think I know I listen to part of your class earlier I was working with an ignorant but you might have mentioned this is I think a huge problem that I fell into I know that I had a problem with that look at other photographers work and just swoon and say oh my gosh it's so beautiful I could never do that put it over here and then put my work over here and just I can't do what they do and there's one thing to admire and there's another thing just let it bring you down basically and I definitely felt like that for a very long time but what I realized as I started getting a little better and a little more confident in my own style mint on work you know I might love your work and it could be totally different than mine and you could love my work and it could be totally different were different artists we have different styles it does not mean one's better than the other I mean let's be honest if you look at some of the photos in vogue and g q they're not necessarily better than any of our photos but maybe it's a style or it's a feeling that's applicable so it doesn't you know money or prestige doesn't mean anything it's about being true to your own style and so I look at other photographers and what I do is I really really try to talk to myself about what it is about their work that I love is it their models is it their composition is that they're lighting isn't their color pat like what is it about their work that I like and what I do is I'll take that piece and get rid of all the rest like you take what fits you and your style and you can build on that and it could be a particular technique or maybe there's a photo that just really speaks to you because of the mood and you try I give myself assignments to emulate that not try to recreate the photograph but try to take what I loved and redo it myself so there's this photographer who he did a project called soul and I don't speak french it looks like an english terry lake going somebody is these french would know okay but I have actually on the list coming up here and he had these three shoots where there's his women that look like they're covered in like black paint and latex and they were stunning and I love the light it was all about highlights and there's no reason I can't do that same technique and I'm not trying to recreate everything that he does and so maybe something you like about brooke you like the levitation photo you liked us she doesn't own the coffee right to that you guys can do that as well it's all about experiment sing maybe you take a piece of trying to recreate that technique maybe you don't take a piece of that and it completely changes your photography so I think that's the biggest thing for me is I'm constantly experimenting based on things that inspire me about other artists and then I just take away little pieces and that's what built the styled I have today so here a couple people if you're interested in will several okay? Listen oh, and there's that guy the second the last on the list is the one that that last shot was based off of, um here several people that are considered like the masters of fashion photography that people that have made the most influence on the images you see today and really on photography in general a lot of fashion photographer set the mood of a lot of photography in pop culture and commercial and everything but for example, like I love some the lighting of albert watson and I have no no problem ripping off his lighting I'm not going to copy like trying to make the model look the same and the same pose in the same everything because there's no point in recreating exactly what someone else has already done but his lighting has made a vast difference in how I shoot and in the work that I dio, I'll take a lot of kind of graphic composition from her brits, the photographer that I like want to be when I grow up solvej sons though I love his work tim walker has fantasy and props and I love his storytelling I've done shoots that looked nothing like his but have been inspired by his storytelling on paula reverse e is really romance it down the line there's always something that you can kind of glean from other people and it helps you figure out what you're attracted to if you don't quite know that yet. So if you want to see a list of some of these photographers, this is earl where I've listed a bunch of photographers that inspire me maybe you're feeling starved for inspiration you want a good place to look, I mean confined it. There's it's blogged that lindsay on the photography dot com ford slash creative fifty two all right, so this is what I would kind of leave you guys if you're looking at other photographers, work other artistswork, analyze it and don't do the whole pedestal thing don't smooth and so that's a perfect photo that's beyond me, but what is it that you like? Is that the dresses of the movement? Is it the motion? What is it that that draws you in? You keep what you like and be true to your style and so I know that brooke will be talking about this but ideally what you want to do is try to define who you are as a photographer and if you don't know right now it's ok like you figure it out that's that's what I did and I still shoot everything like I just don't necessarily put everything out there in my portfolio but I'll shoot everything an experiment so for me I say my style is clean, bold and graphic like all the images that really defined me that you look at and hopefully say ok that's a photo that she did our clean bowled a graphic break colors draw your attention so what I'll do is maybe I'll look at tim walker's work it is not clean bowled and graphic but maybe there's a dress or oppose or feeling around one photo and I take that and interpreted through my own style and brooke and I both have books coming out in october right is october on inspiration and creativity and so my book is created fifty two and so it's fifty two weekly assignments to help you reinvigorate your portfolio on you can take it and use it however you like and I'm excited to see brooks book and you better sign it for me but uh I'll leave you this if you steal from one author to plagiarism if you steal from many its research so gather as much information as much visual inspiration is you can from his many artists movies tv shows it doesn't matter music videos let it inspire you take pieces and infuse it in your own work that's what I do and that's my creative process you are now going to see a completely different approach to inspiration thank you thank you I'm never going to talk about it inspiration before and I love it I remember when I first saw you teach at my studio there were some things you did that the exercise where you take like right down the colors and write down elements and I was like oh that's kind of like me yeah yeah way have some overlap we do so yeah I'm gonna talk about inspiration my way we are quite different in some ways like for example I have an idea there is no way I'm going on google like I will not go on google and typed anything in because I don't want that to spoil what I am thinking about in terms of my idea so I don't see anything wrong with that too I want to point that out right away that lindsay's approach is great it's not like she's stealing people's photographs she's taking it for herself putting it out in a different way I just don't work like that I tend to think more in the beginning of my career just like lindsay was saying I would find inspiration on the internet and then get really discouraged by it, and I would see it and I would just say, oh, my god, that's really good, I can't do that. If I do that, then they'll think that I'm copying them, and I get really, really worried about these things until I realized two thing that it didn't actually matter if they thought that because it wasn't true, and the second thing is that I just don't have to look there for inspiration because I can find it for myself. So, you know, in my ideal world, I would be like living in the middle of the forest with no computer around me, and I would want to still be able to find inspiration so my approach is different and that I believe that you should start from the ground up to find inspiration and look within, and that is pulling from personal experiences, things that you love and what I like to say is the world that you would like to live in. You know, if you could imagine this world in your own way, whatever you would like to put out there, you know, if you want to see purple tree's growing in the forest or if you want, you know every everybody to love each other and take pictures of people hugging all the time use that is inspiration obviously, this is this is not your old, ok, yeah, this is like me in real life wishing that not in my photo, right? It is so not in your photo world, you know? So I want to talk about inspiration, and I'm going to force two guys to repeat this oath of inspiration with me. Okay? So I'll read it first and then or beat it together, I will not wait for inspiration. I will search for it. I will not wait for inspiration. I will search for it. Okay, if you are constantly searching for inspiration, then you will always be inspired if you learn how you become inspired. So the important thing here is that if you just sit around and wait, then you're never going to know what to photograph. You're going to feel panicked. Your clients will be very upset with you because you won't be prepared. And on top of that seat, I always feel a little bit I don't know, not terribly genuine when I say something like that because it's not about the clients to me like I'm not telling you this. So then you please your client. I'm telling you this is the new liver really happy life, because my life is happy because I am inspired. I guarantee you I find inspiration in everything in you know the nature that's all around me and my husband and being able to spend time with him in my cats in in happiness you know and so many people say to me you must be depressed to take pictures like ugo and the opposite is true I mean I am an extremely vibrantly happy person and I think that that happiness is where I pull my inspiration from that's where I have the confidence to find inspiration and believe that it's good enough to act on so the next one I will not let others inspired me before I can inspire myself I will not let others inspire made before I can inspire myself okay, so what this means is I am not going to go on the internet and search for other photographers to inspire me if I am not very clear about how I become inspired so if I don't understand my process, what makes me happy what I love that I'm not going to go on google and type in, you know, like let's say this picture that's up on the screen here red dress I'm not going to go in and type flowing red dress you know, in google if I am not absolutely certain about what my vision is so I might not have the whole idea I might not know where I want shoot etcetera but I know what I like I know what personally motivates me so if you don't know that yet if you're not I don't have a very very clear way of finding inspiration for yourself then I don't recommend going on to the internet to find inspiration from other people that's when plagiarism starts to happen and that's what we want to avoid all right I will believe that I am worthy of being inspired I believe that I am worthy of being inspired that is the most important one in my opinion it comes from confidence it comes from understanding that no one person is better than anybody else I believe this so much that like it makes me shake when I say it because if I didn't believe this I would've gotten nowhere in my life and not just in photography but in my life you know if I when I was sixteen years old I met my husband and I was inspired by that love and if I didn't believe in that then where would I be I would be without the most important person in the world to me so you know this ghost of photography is well if if you think if you're looking for inspiration and you think oh I saw this amazing dress but somebody else could do this better or I learned of this concept it's really great a new technique but somebody else has already perfected it then you're never going to get anywhere, and I want to make sure that everybody who's listening to this believes in themselves enough to just take that inspiration and run with it and feel worthy of it. All right? The first step to finding inspiration is being willing to fail if you believe in that sort of thing, so I don't believe in failure. I think that failure is a myth, and that is one of the best things that I can say to myself to say, you know what, there's no such thing as failure, and I'm going to show you some of my failures, and I'm going to start laughing uncontrollably, asia, I mean, try to control like it's up. I think these pictures of already good going isn't thinking about them, but these air, literally the pictures that, like, make me cringe when I see the them, but that doesn't mean that they're bad pictures unnecessarily. Well, I mean, you're probably going to think that they're bad. I I thought a lot before him when I was putting this together, about if I was actually going to show this, because it's embarrassing to show your work that you know, is, like really far from where you want to be, but I started photography on flicker dot com. I was uploading pictures and sharing everything and I was sharing the bad stuff to it's not like I had a handle on what I was doing I was creating in the moment and I loved it when I did it and that is true for every image that you see ever on the internet that I have done every single picture is something that I loved at some time and that's why I will never go into race those pictures from the internet because that's my journey that's true to who I am and so even though I'm going to show you these pictures and they're funny um and they embarrass me now that doesn't mean that I am ashamed of them there's a big difference between being embarrassed and being ashamed it's something that was a huge huge stepping stone to my learning process is just trying new things not knowing how I would feel five years in the future so I think the awesome so this is a woman with him this was quite early on in my career and I was still playing with the idea of being like a funny photographer like you know so I wanted to do something sad and I saw these oranges one day and I was really inspired by that and I found a magic marker and just went at it and so I created this scene and I mean you should've seen me when I did this I was like, oh, man, I just took the best picture it's so funny and it's so awesome and like, I was really excited about this picture and I look back on it and I'm like that is representing my photography oh my goodness. So I mean it's not on my website it's, not like I would like put it in my portfolio or anything but it's important to show your progression, you know, to know where you came from, no, where you're going because if you can analyze yourself in that way toe look back at your portfolio and say, wow, this is where I was that used to inspire me know where am I going so important to know where you want to go? So even looking at this picture you know, I I recognize it to not be one of my best pictures, but I'm not discounting it because I can look back to this and say I still had that element of sadness that I still have my pictures that I love it has that voyeuristic feel that I love shooting I love shooting behind bushes and through trees and stuff like that, and so it still has some elements that I worked towards and that I took from it and I had the courage to put it out there and that's the important thing is that if you're creating an image and you're not sure about it or you want feedback or you love it right now but you don't know how you're going to feel in the future it can't hurt to put it out there because it's not always going to determine you know your whole career so I'm going to tell you the next one okay? So that's me in a george milk and uh yeah that's that's an interesting one, isn't it? So when I did this my husband was like, oh no, no don't put that on the internet please don't do that and I was like this picture is awesome it's going on the internet and then it did and I look back on it and I was so proud of this picture for technical reasons I was just proud that I could do it and I didn't know how to do it I was just experimenting and it was so much fun to dio I learned so much from it and for a long time this was like my most viewed picture on the internet and well if you like it that's awesome but they got to me looking back on it this is not where I want to go this is where I came from and I can still be inspired by the fact that I tried it okay, now this is the most very ok anyways so yes, this is my most embarrassing picture I'm sure my face is red right now and but I mean, I can't even look at this picture to be quite honest with you, I'm just gonna link standing, but this is just another example of taking a picture that I look back on and I wish that I could just push the delete button on it, but I will never do that this will remain up on my flicker site as long as it can people can go look on you, khun write a comment saying how ridiculous it is and that's fine, but to me it represents the most amazing part of my journey the part that makes it lets me know that I'm still learning and I still do this I mean, there are times when I love a picture, I upload it a month later, I go back to that picture and I can't believe it I just did that recently, like very recently I uploaded a picture about a month ago and then looked back on it and I thought, oh my gosh, what was I thinking? Just looking at the colors and I thought that's not me but at least I have the inside to be able to look back on it and say, ok, I know that's not me, so I'm not going to make that mistake again all right, so you have to turn every failure into a success by learning from it and that is what I'm trying to show with these previous slides is that yes, there sort of ridiculous pictures and yes, that was long ago. Well, not that one I mean, I shot them four years ago, but the long go for meek's eye started photography four years ago and, um you know, it's just it's just so good to be able to look back on your work and save it and say that was me it's not me now I'm going to try things differently. The greatest inspiration comes from understanding that you have the power to be the artist that you want to be so many people don't believe that and this comes with confidence and creating a picture that you love and not worrying about the pictures that you don't love. I had to grow into that as an artist I had to learn to be confident and I started realizing mostly from meeting other people that it is just unattractive not to be confident and I didn't want to be that I would meet people all the time who would come up and say, you know what? I'm not a photographer but I take pictures then I would say, why are you a photographer if you take pictures and they would say, well, you know I'm not a professional I'm just an aspiring photographer and I said, you can't call yourself an aspiring photographer if you actively take pictures like it actually doesn't make sense, and so I didn't want to be that person that would talk myself down before I would present my work. I never want to give my portfolio to somebody and then say, oh, it before you look at this, just I didn't mean for this to be like that, and this wasn't quite right I don't want to do that, I'm going to present what I'm proud of and then afterwards if they want to ask me about it, I will let them know what I don't like anymore, but it's about being able to present yourself in a way that inspires you and inspires other people. If I were on the internet on facebook putting my pictures up every day and every day I said this, she was terrible, but I'm going to show you anyways, why would people want to look at it if they know that I don't even like it? I mean, I put my work out there and I'll let you know how proud I am, and I'm not afraid to say that I don't think that that makes me a narcissist or anything like that I am simply saying, this is what I do and I do it because I love it and I love it because this is just everything in the world that if I could photograph anything this would be it. So why wouldn't I say that? I love it I'm shooting what I love okay, so I want you to just think to yourselves right now right down one word that encompasses what you love most in the world just think to yourself and this is truly you not even thinking about photography just if there's one word that just makes you the happiest to think about what would that one word b it's a really difficult thing to dio to think you know ok, well I love this and I love that and what's one word that joins everything together and so this is my word nature it's probably pretty obvious but I love all things nature I love everything that is natural I can take this way further than just standing in the forest like this picture shows I love anything that is genuine and unique and is natural in the world. And so nature is my word and this is the word that I go to all the time so if there is one common thread in my portfolio it's that there is always and nature element in there and, you know, like I said, I shoot in the sewer, I shoot in weird places and that's okay but I'm shooting because it's a natural environment for me, so I'm shooting in the stew or not because I like the concrete all around me, but because I like the dark background, it makes a very mysterious and natural, so that is a lot of the difference between lindsay and I think with our styles, just I'm sure her word would not be nature. I'm pretty positive no, yeah, and mine is. And having that one word that you can go back to creates a theme that creates a concept for you and you can always go back and say, well, ok, my word is nature I love shooting in nature I love, you know, experiencing that I love everything about anything natural, natural fabrics and natural locations, and so that's how I'm going to shoot. So what does that one word represent? Peace and mystery to me, that's what that is to me in nature is peace and mystery. And so if you have your one word, then you can write down all the things that that means to you. So maybe the one word that represents you know what you love most isthe family, and so you can write down family, and what does that mean to you, maybe family is a sense of comfort. Maybe it's a place that you can photograph in maybe it's a person that you can photograph, maybe it's the way that two people embrace each other so you can really take one single word and really run with it quite a lot, and then can you photograph it? So literally is this something that you could turn into your photography and that's? How I started my career? It is I did not pick up a camera and start taking pictures of rain and things. I did not like photography. I didn't care at all about my camera, and I'm not afraid to say that, too, because I mean, I would I would have been very happy just putting my camera on auto and never learning anything about it until I realized that I probably should, because that could make my pictures a little better, but but that wasn't my goal. I wasn't taking pictures so that I could impress the client. I wasn't taking pictures so that I could learn what f stop was and stuff like that. I had key words, themes that I loved, like life and death. I loved photographing people dead in trash cans sorry happened, um, I love photographing people who maybe aren't living life to there. Fullest, and so I'm capturing the in between moment of not understanding where they are in their lives and things like that, and so I had a lot of themes written down that just to me, we're like the pinnacle of inspiration. If I needed to find a concept for something, I could go back to those themes that I had written down, I could always have inspiration and that's not to say that every single day I woke up with a new idea, because it's not that easy to figure out a different pose for one day and address the next day and things like that, but it will eventually come together into a very streamlined process and that's what I love about about working in this methodical way, which lindsay does is well, we're very similar in that regard that we both start with a single object or a subject or a dress, or whatever it may be, and we're working with that, too, then expand from there, it's, about being honest with yourself, and this is something that I think that a lot of people struggle with, because we are so often working for other people, whether you know it or not, and I'm not just talking about the client that you have, I'm talking about the internet presidents, I'm talking about your family and your friends and you know, if I'm photographing a model which this has happened many times I will be photographing a model and the model will say, oh, I don't like that picture can we can use that one to edit and I will say absolutely not because even though I love you and you're my model and you're doing a great job it isn't about what you want and yes, that sounds mean I understand that I don't mean it that way but the point is that you know, this is your craft you are creating for yourself and not for anybody else and the best thing about that is that if you're creating what you love than the people who also love that will gravitate towards you it was not about reaching out to somebody you know, maybe I'm going tio decide that I want ah whole bunch of people who love fashion photography to come be into my work well I'm not going to do that I'm not going to go into lindsay's network and say hey lindsay, will you promote me someone I could get some of your followers because that's not that's doesn't work for me that's not the kind of person that I necessarily want following my photography I want people who happen upon it and genuinely love it too then stay there and look at it more and more and that's how you build a network you don't build a network from gravitating to other people and then trying to pull them in. You do what you do best and what you love. And then people will come to you understanding what you love translates into shooting what you love. So this is what I've been talking about all along being happy, being yourself, knowing what you love and why you love it. That could easily turn into a photograph and that's what I do every single day I shoot almost every day I go out and I say if I could shoot anything in the world, what would that be with no limitations? Just a couple months ago, I said, if I could shoot anything in the world, what would it be was brainstorming with my friend and on dh? We were talking about the idea of going up in a hot air balloon and taking pictures and a hot air balloon started looking it up, and I said, oh, no it's going to be eight hundred dollars, if I want to do this, so I haven't done it yet, but does that mean that I won't do it? Absolutely not. I one thousand percent guarantee you I will be in a hot air balloon one day shooting a picture from a hot air balloon because even though yes it's out of my price range right now there are things that I could do to make that more attainable and so I'm going to do everything that I can to shoot that okay so let's get into shooting yeah do we have any questions in the meantime? Er and we'll keep going okay well and I just want to add one thing to that on def we could have my little model one thing that I want to make sure people can kind of unify the two or take what you want from both I was already before I decided to figure out what inspires me or like do I have a style I was already shooting with a full fledged biz snus before I cared whatsoever I knew how to put someone in front of the camera click the camera and get paid you know before I took a look at any of that stuff and so you can still do that still get inspired figure out your style developed as an artist even if you already have a full such business what I did personally and it is why I wrote the book was I from me I picked sunday every single sunday I shot something from me where it was for no one else for but me, because just like brooks has a lot of times you're shooting for this client, that client, you're thinking about what they want, what is what is this community usually like for portrait's that's? What that got me a lot because it was a very stringent standard, like headshot look that people liked, so I shot my portfolio on the side and I did the exact same thing. What is the type of work I'd like to be hired to shoot for people? And I started to find myself, and then people started to ask for that work. I see for me personally, I started introducing it as a separate portfolio. I start putting the prince up in the gallery, or I started introducing online, letting people know that I also do this work and eventually all the stuff that just paid the bills that I hated chested and the people are hiring me to shoot what I wanted to do and granted, I don't I don't always shoot what's that fills me, I absolutely have to do portrait and and miscellaneous things that, like, I don't even have much creative say over how to shoot it, and it pays the bill, but then I can do all the stuff that I enjoy, and I can pay my bills. You know, support myself and so in the end it's about kind of transitioning and so don't feel like, well, I'm already shooting it's too late for me you mean you absolutely can challenge yourself and experiment and learn who you are is a photographer yeah definitely and something else that's good to note also is that just because you know, I'm out there shooting what I want and you know, I'm working in a different field than a lot of people a lot of photographers are we're I'm doing fine arts so I'm shooting for galleries and I'm putting my work out there in that way you know, you might have a business you might be shooting something else that brings in the money that's great. You know, everybody has different different amounts of time that they a lot to shooting personal work and my only point is that you should amount aa lot as much time as you can to that to fulfill yourself. Okay? All right. So let's talk about what? Our challenges here. Yes, the man borrow you. All right, so what I did is I reached out to this this designer had peace maker person online and I said, ok, do me a favor I want you to surprise me, okay, I want you to look at brooks work I want you to look at my work I want you to create a prop or head piece or crown or something that you think it's halfway between both of our styles, and so the challenge that we're going to take right now is I'm going to shoot it in my style and explain what my inspiration was and she's going to shoot hers ran into a little problem of because the designer sent me a picture of the headpiece as she was going to ship it, and I freaked because brooke is vegan, and I didn't mention that toe headcheese designer because I didn't think I didn't. I wasn't thinking about it, so just blame me. She wouldn't just because she's very true to her beliefs in our morals, on that she wouldn't shoot this or wouldn't have it commissioned to do that so well, the same is it already died for me, so she can chew it anything to add to that? Nope, you covered it? Okay, I start so all right, so I looked at this headpiece once I saw, and I actually the first time I saw it was a picture of it on saturday, maybe maybe friday or saturday was the first time I saw it, so I actually didn't have much time to press, and so the things I write down, I wrote down things like nature animals, queen tribal and so for me, it just those air what came to my mind and so what I'm going to shoot and what inspired me is I'm going to shoot as if I'm like and explore in, like, eighteen hundred and I come across this tribal queen and so what I'm going to do is the picture that you'll see in my camera isn't going to look like like what? It'll end up as I'm going to make it look like it was taken with an old fashion, maybe view camera I'm going to there's some techniques for adding texture, pulling out the black points, making it kind of sepia tone, so I'm going to shoot it, knowing where and when and up in post so I am the explorer discovering this tribal queen and, uh so while I respect brooks need or desire not tio shoot antlers, I also found some first shoot for me for may I don't know, not that I just felt bad for those monks. Sorry. Okay, so I'm gonna have you take a seat and I'm just gonna pick up my lighting and then I'll pass it off to brooke, okay, so when you guys see this perfect right, by the way, I forgot, by the way, I am going tio tonight, um, do a screen cast of this retouch so what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you exactly what I did to make it look like an old photograph and for anybody that purchases the course you we'll will be able to access that that will be included I'll talk over it if you don't purchase of course if you go to my facebook page just lindsay other photography um then you'll see the final images well, so either way you can kind of see where ended up as so have a white beauty dish twenty inch white and I'm thinking the kind of old fashioned photos wouldn't really have, like super chris blake didn't have strobes the way we did then, so I figured I'd soften it down a little bit with diffusion panel and I want a little drama and a little bit of shape, so I'm looking at her face here and it's like for those of you who knew kind of loop rembrandt, look here, I'll probably go kind of loop and I want a little more shape see if this reason a bit right there good and what take a look can you turn a little bit to the side good and really head back at me? So I'm what I'm just trying to do is that we never move her head so I can see what angle looks good so chin down and head towards me a little bit so there I can actually see her eyes without the horns like getting in the way another thing is, if I photograph someone straight on, usually if they're straight on on the lights from the front angle, my eye goes here, especially was a bare chest because it's going to be a lightest color. So either I turned someone away from the light, or at least try to reduce it. So it's not so broad that's why I turned her to the side a little bit and the other thing is I'm gonna have you just slightly lean out with pull your chin towards me just a little bit and turn up a little I'm trying to make it so that she's sitting there she's not sitting back because when you sit back it, touch your chin in and it gets rid of the next. This is supposed to be regal. Would you hear there? Okay, don't look, brooke, don't look don't look okay, and then we also I said, it's vintage and like usually people are ok with that. Because it's not it's, not new. I mean, I could I could have totally lied and told you that was cast and this is like fulford, but it's okay, could you wrap this around you a bit excellent? The next thing that I did is I put that silver reflector dish on the background because if thank you, if you look at a lot of old photos that house like that crinkled background look to them and all they had because they didn't, you know, see and know my concept ahead of time, I just had a black cloth background I didn't have anything more to work with, so I've got that raking across, I added the wrinkles and made sure we didn't smooth it out. I've got to beat it this year and I'm gonna have you pulled up just like a little bit on the shoulder, having her put on her first shoulder because it's going to be kind of a light of great highlight towards the camera, so I think that's it shoot a few frames and I'll pass off to brookie okay, there you go and shin just a little bit that way that, hey, um, I might do something a little weird to I'm going to take some pictures with strobe um, but I'm also probably take some with natural light as well of the ambient light and she really wide aperture, but we'll just try you look beautiful by the way you can just let me white cell, so I don't want it to go to solid black on that sign. Can you start really straight perfect and lean towards me just a little bit good nice long neck and I'm getting down really low to down a tiny bit I said it looks good for thanks and now look your eyes up on off like to delight perfect and there shit one more over here and keep head right there and look your eyes up again and I'm just your eyes to me just right there, okay? Cool and I'm just saying turn off my strobes and take a couple when the ambient light and then I'll pass off the rock and when do one like that one trojan untether her good, same thing and look your eyes that way sure perfect good and I'm just making sure I can see both of her eyes and they're not have steered away let's change my exposure here that would be helpful again and I'm going to shoot at two point eight I so one thousand good's not super bright in here look good and one more and now eyes right at me. Ok, brooke, you returned. Ok, so what? Lindsay on uh, my thirty five okay, so when I am looking at this scenario which, by the way I was pretty caught off guard by yesterday, so I walked in I saw this headpiece and I was like, oh interesting like my hype it's trying to be nice voice and I like this it's not that I don't like it, it's just not something that I would shoot. So I'm really challenged here because I've got this fashion piece that is very fashion to me that, you know, I don't like the glitz and glamour and stuff like that in my pictures, so I am going to basically take this and have that juxtapose everything else in the shop, so I'm gonna have you just step off and take univision, you're not dress, yeah to the other dress that I have there for you. So I just have a really normal, simple white cotton dress that I'm going to put her in, and if somebody wouldn't mind grabbing my dirt and water that I have over there, which is great, uh, because we're going to smear her with mud and my concept with this is yes, we're going to see is a head case. Yes, she will have the jewels and everything, but my thing is that she's sort of like this's, like, I feel like I'm so classically weird sometimes it's ok? She yeah, yeah, so she's going to be sort of like a deer princess who is forlorn and lost and muddied in the woods? And so if you guys watch the last segment I dropped the model into the woods and I would use that same exact method here of putting her into the wooded setting I would change this background to be a piece of woods forrest whatever and uh and so I would have her more in place and so it wasn't just a black backdrop so first things first I'm going to put your camera there and not get mud on it it's ok it has a protective cover help me do this are we just making them yeah yeah ok so we're making mud ah free prop what do you know ok and what I want to do is I'm trying to create texture with this so I want tio half the model be as integrated into the scene as possible and I want to take as much emphasis off of the headpiece as possible so yes, I'm going to shoot for the head piece but I'm actually going to cover up some of what I wouldn't naturally shoot so I'm going to have her have her hands up over her head so she's kind of covering the top part which is the most fashion a part for me because it's clearly a hat that's sitting on her head so whenever you're ready you can come out from behind the magical cloth and I'm just going to start smearing her I'm gonna eyes out okay are you okay are you uh modeling for someone else after this well we're gonna right you don't work with good perfect and you can take your boots off a swell yeah if you're going there fight we're shooting the whole body so I'm going to have her curled up on the ground sort of in a very upset position covering her head mud all over her she has just been so rejected from her royal life as a queen you so no one remove this sand yes it would be great okay I'm going there u k it's cold okay let's see your arm first yeah thiss is awesome we're going to cover up her purple nails it is seeing nature I know my words okay now I was a little bit torn about getting this all muddy but I think that it will be just fine so I'm just gonna spotter you'll yeah and it works really well if you like it's like do that it looks really cool so of a mud expert people come on on your feet yeah you're gonna need a shower pretty bad ok now I'm going to your face okay okay don't need help okay I'm doing I'm very gentle and not that that's coming oh there's a stick on you way go ok so now if you close your eyes I'm just going to spritz you okay okay okay okay there we go okay all done then spread thing so I am going to set that there well I want to do is get you into your pose so if you want to go ahead and just take a step back you let me know if you need more kneel down great yeah you look good I've got to say quite pleased so I have the light coming from over here so I'm gonna have her head just sort of airing to this side and I do want to make sure that some of her is in shadow because I love that highlight in shadow play not to mention now we have to think about the forest setting that I'm going to put her in later the white is coming from overhead slash slightly behind in that setting and the white in this case is coming right from the side so the good thing to do here would be to just move this backdrop but I'm not going to do that I'm going to shoot it like this and then later on when I edit this for you guys which I will release later you will be able to see how I've changed the waiting dynamics in the actual picture so by doing things like selecting with the lasso tool feathering that selection and then changing the light I'll be ableto hopefully make it look like the light is coming from a slightly different spot okay two hundred bucks one focus if no this button here she's teaching me how to use a camera now you just hold this button that's what focuses? This is what takes a picture. Okay, this one got it. We were sharing camera this son I've never used this camera it's very intimidating. Okay, so I'm just taking a look now if you guys remember the four shot that I had before extremely important to match perspective so if I stand up here, it will not match, so I need to just kind of crouch down awkwardly sort of like that. E well, it's about that height they work I don't know. I took a picture with someone check the focus over and other land. Ok, so that is my test shot and I'm just going to zoom in on that and make sure that everything is ok can you see me and not for any ceo who knows? Uh okay, that's good. Yeah. Hey, looks good, ok? I can't tell. All right? So I'm going to get you in your pose and what I would like from you is you can sort of sit your butt down on the the actual floor and face this way so swing your legs out to the other side great good and then you can curl them so they're both both your knees are facing me good and set them on the floor good okay, so now what I want you to dio is hunt yourself over as far as you can towards me so bring your head forward and just let your whole body collapse onto your knees good just like that now I am making sure that deer in the mud and making sure that there is light on her back because I want to see the curve of her back in this image and I'm going to make sure that she has her head turned so that I am seeing white on her face so go ahead and drop your head down a little bit more good and then turn your head towards the light is that really heavy? Okay, we will make sure it doesn't okay, turn your head towards the light even more good and now hands and go ahead and cover your face okay, so she is a model model I am not used to model models, so I'm going to show you how I'm going to direct her out of this, but you're doing the right thing for lindsay ok, so I'm going to have you covering your whole face there you go just like that and then if you can just sort of like pushing to your face with your fingertips if there you go okay, so I'm trying to create that intensity because I want this to be a very powerful image now like I said before, I didn't really want the jewels showing and stuff like that so I'm just going to move this hand on here and I'm just kind of place it right up in between there you go and then if you can pull this part around over here more there you go yeah just like that we're just going to cover some of that up now if you can turn your head even more towards the white yep there you go just like that ok, so oh yeah that that would be great. Thanks. Okay, my trusty a trustee tripod ok, so now I'm trying to focus great. Okay, good. So I'm liking how this is looking I want to see a little bit more of her back so I'm just going to reposition her slightly here and so yep yep she goes she's got it so keep keep rotating there just like you were I know you have not an easy situation here to do it I'm just gonna now we're good I'm just hearing more of it, okay? They're just hearing some more but that's all totally normal day I think you ok? And now I'm going to shoot this again perfect that is exactly what I want know if you can hunt over a little bit more, get there you go you know elle showcasing great good. Now that is exactly what I wanted. I like all of the little jewels hanging down like they are. So that is exactly what I was calling for. Not a breath from, like, doing nothing over here. Okay, you can relax. Thank you. Ok, so in the end there will be a forest. It will not just be her sitting on a black backdrop, but the thing for me is that, you know, you watch lindsay work and she is a master at light. I mean, that's like lindsay adler and light go together and I don't work like that. So, you know, I know enough to know that I want the white to hit her in certain places, but I'm not shooting her, so then she looks flattering, you know, in the light that I'm working with, I'm shooting her to cover her face she's a beautiful face, but I'm just going to cover it right up because that's not the point of my picture. The point is not the headpiece it's, not her face it's not how beautiful her body looks it's about this story. And so I want to cover her in mud and I don't care the distress is like this giant thing sitting on her body because it's not about that. And so when I put her into the scene, hopefully it will be, you know, come off in a way, that's about the story and not about the dress or the headpiece or anything like that. Yeah, my favorite things for brooke, as I would say, that's, the weirdest normal person I know. Wait, so do you mind if we take a couple questions from you guys first? Do you have any question? I mean, it could be about technique, we're about inspiration, anything you'd like. I watched an edit that you posted recently that had a technique that I hadn't seen before. I was wondering if you could talk about it with frequency separation, yeah, so absolutely anybody that does beauty or fashion photography police check this out it's called frequency separation, and basically what you do is you go in and you separate out the colors and tones of the face and puts that on one layer, and then it takes out all the texture and puts it on another, so what that allows you to do is separate to retouch them separately. So what I'll do is I'll like reshape somebody's faced with the tone will smooth out watching this, I'll add in the highlights as shape everything and then throw that texture back on, that is on the two creative lives that I did on retouching but it's I also have it on my retention dvd, but you can also just search frequency separation and pretty much the basics of it are the same for every tutorial you basically got to get the setup right to separate the two hour if anyone's ever done high past it's similar to that for pulling out the texture um and there's a bunch of things I do for beauty photography to them like cloning highlights in the top of the cheeks to make them look raised clone in shadows if anybody does make up, I'm basically doing what a makeup artist would do to shape the face, but I'm being in post and I don't have to worry about losing the texture to do so right back there that is a model model there's some things you wanted her to temporarily learned. Who do you like to shoot? And how do you find the models that you would use for your shots? Well, quite honestly, I like to shoot anybody like I don't care if you gotta get me that I have made me believe you didn't hear that story, okay, but yeah, please okay, so is the middle of the night and she was having me model out in the woods and it was pitching way and we didn't have a flashlight so I walk out on the sunday I like, I can't like a thorn or something, and I'm like, you know, really? And I go like this and it's just gushing blood, it was just a point, but so I'm, like, broke nearly wiped off. No, no, no, it adds to the food and I this is a vote of, like, ok, and that I never even used the picture. Yeah, but the worst thing is that she was going around telling people that I cut her, so yeah, anyways s o yet with my models, I like cheese, anybody who's willing, quite honestly, like, who just wants to be part of the process and who enjoys that? Because, I mean, I've I've hired models before from an agency very infrequently, but I have and that has worked out just a swell was, you know, like my neighbor down the street or something because of how I'm directing them? I think so, it's a combination of, you know, whether they know how to model and they're doing it for fashion or they have no idea how to model I'm basically going to go up there and move her around and put her exactly where I want her and then say good, stay like that. And so, you know, I don't care if you're like, fifty pounds overweight or you're, you know, just like the standard interest industry model it's all the same to me kind of just matters what the character is that I'm trying to create. I'm kind of on the same lines, but if you have a client who hires you to do a portrait, do you have an agreement beforehand that says, you know, we're going to do my idea even though it's for you or do you let them have a lot of them? But it depends. I don't take a lot of commissions, and I kind of base what I take on based on how much they'll let me do myself. And so for a great example is I just shot a book cover, they contacted me and they said, ok, you did a picture before that we would really like you to recreate, but your picture before was way too creepy, and we need this to be, like, a teen novel thing, so they really would you be willing to do the same thing but then make some concessions for us, you know, using a brighter color in the picture and stuff like that, and it was something that I was willing to d'oh. So it just comes down teo, you know I will never say yes to a commission unless I fully agree with what their vision is and making sure that it's in line with myself yes, because it's like this we'll shoot in a plane that god and then almost never really yeah, almost never it's a great thing to know how to do and I find it very useful from time to time but I am so incredibly inspired by going out on location and being there and really feeling in the moment and so that's what I dio I mean I will travel like I just booked tickets to france which it was like a really terrible comm impulsive decision but but I found this place that I wanted to shoot so badly and trust me it's not like I like have the money just book a trip to france. I'll be hosting a workshop there, but but it spoke to me so much and, you know, I could have just said, well, I could hire a photographer out there to take shots of the place and I could draw people into it but then that's not the adventure, you know that I want to be there and I want to experience it's, right? I would say maybe one percent of the time I have dropped people into a background and I would say I composite all the time but not that way right? So what? Well, first all one of the things I do for composites is if you look at like, any commercial shots with athletes and uh, reality tv people they're all shooting pretty much the same thing generally it's a beauty dish in the front with two room lights on either side and I believe joel grimes will be on later this week and that's kind of his signature three point lighting will pretty much and all the commercial photography when someone says, hey, you're shooting reality tv put that's what they want because it's really easy to drop into different backgrounds usually when I'm doing something like that, I shoot it and then someone else's compositing it based on what they're looking for. But the other like the flip side of that is that composite all the time where composite like where she she flips address and composite sat and I do that all the time because sometimes it's like her pose for shoes jumping was perfect, but her face just wasn't right. And so what? I put the two together and I used to do family photography I could never get like the third smallest child also look when everyone else was, we'd always go ok, now everybody you know pointed to me making laugh and then put that one in yeah, I like a lot something else that I want to note also about this process, because, like, I know that I was editing before and it looks simple enough to just, like, drop a background and but that's, because the situation was right for it, so, you know, I would never, ever, you know, take a model, photograph her just in a studio somewhere with random things in the background and then try to put something, you know, a different background and would never do that because that is way too much work for me, and I'm not into that, so I want things to go nice and simple. I want to make sure that it's not going to look very strange in some way, so especially with hair, I mean, we all know you don't want to have to cut hair out of a background, so that and anything that I'm thinking about and have two things to add to that if you do want a hair out of the background, don't have to do it yourself. I outsourced tio time, and I believe it's called clipping past asia, and they charged four dollars and cut the hair oh, so I would much rather pay someone four dollars to do like, I know how to do it, and I have, like, on one perfect mask and all that stuff it's four dollars so someone else did. And the other thing is, this is not trying to simplify her work, but one thing that's that's really interesting is in general she's always shooting the same like, ok, this is when the light but in general it's after sunset there, actually, or before sunrise there actually is in a direction of light. So if you're always shooting your subject like that and always shooting your background like that, the light's gonna match a lot more than if you're trying to match directional life from the side from a window with something you shot at noon like that's. One way to make it easier on yourself is to shoot the same type of light. My question is for both of you, when you're looking for locations that are quite unique, how do you go about finding them? We both have one benefit that I know of social media, friends that, like that's. One thing I do for sure I put out there in the world, I need whatever, and then hopefully people help me out, but most of the time, most of my location scouting is searching a whole lot on google I'm doing a lot of like I did a boudoir shoot recently, and I wanted like a castle around new york. So I just seems like our home. I'm gonna fake that look. So searching like victorian bed and breakfast, like, um castle hotel, castle, manner mansion, long island ligaments majority of it. I do. I do that as well. I do a lot of google searching, but if I know that I could go in with a group of photographers to split crossed. I use location scouting agent she's a lot. And that is fantastic because it's all organized, you know, you're not going to get kicked out by the police, which is a really nice feeling on dh. They have all the really cool places. I'll lock down a lot of the time. So s so that's what I do, I use I do like street views of things and stuff to find abandoned buildings and stuff like that. Um, yeah, that's, that's mostly I should drive a lot too. And there's an app that I'd recommending. Check out the gesture several of them, but once called sun seeker. And so what you have the ability to do is if you can scout your location before him, it's the states on the ipad, you can have it so that the camera is seeing the location and we'll tell you at what time of day where the sun is so you can actually just go with it yeah it's really good yeah makes it easier because I don't shoot before after something I love the oohs and aahs going on way we'll have them all right so one of the biggest questions that I am seeing in the chat rooms is people would love to know who made the headdress ok, if you look up there the person that I commissioned to commission someone was tear reagan of it's I think it's free bird is the name of her company and she is based in oregon cool, thank you very much and did we do you have a question on how much of the creative process to share with your hair and makeup and how do you get the conversation you have with creating something you've envisioned that is the best question ever because that's what my whole next segment is uh oh, that would be the perfect baby did I even pay for that? You get I mean so I mean I have a lot of things with mood boards and trusting people and testing people I'm getting comfortable with them and and making sure that in the end you're the boss so that you you know everyone's on the same page for your vision but broke on the other hand well, I just don't work with anybody but like today, I did, you know, talking with hair and makeup artists and actually was kind of awesome because I got to walk in today and I worked with the hair and makeup artist in florence, and they're like, we know what you want, but because I'm very predictable, so, so typically, I'll just send I mean, typically I just I don't even have them brush the hair like I just say, leave the hair down, put natural makeup on on ben, if there's something more a couple times, I've worked with the makeup artists where I needed something more he said, make her look sick. I remember that time you look sick and dying, I did, I did this with lindsay, telling makeup artist, I was like, yeah, I won't like it red under the eyes to make it look like she was crying and really pale face, and yeah, it was yeah, so I just tried to be really specific, and I'm not very good at pulling sources, like, okay, this is the makeup that I want. I'm terrible at that I could never find what I want, so I just sort of stand there and say, ok, do this and I like po people's faces and stuff.