Lessons

Lesson Info

Audience Before & Afters

I'm going to come back to something that really resonates with my whole brain and that is the before and after so when I decided to shoot the girls that were in the audience we decided to do it before shot of you and we actually did it is alive capture because we wanted to see you talking with no makeup on and and see you and get you to experience you know being in front of the camera and which is you know naked my face and vulnerable and we talked about what beautiful means to all of us and I think this is a really important aspect of my brand in the message that's inside my brand and so before we photographed each of the girls we set them down and spoke to them and this is our before growing up I never saw myself as beautiful you gotta feel beautiful inside so when I have a little bit of time for myself I do for the most beautiful beautiful feels like confidence to me growing up in nigeria there's a perfect picture of what a beautiful woman is she's a particular complexion she's got ...

curves in certain places when I grow up I was never ever that woman it's an inside experiencing not just on the outside but knowing that I can project that to the world and knowing that yeah I could be confident that could be beautiful that's what it means to me no matter what size they are or whatever if a woman is confident she is just beautiful being a being a photographer and being on the other side of the camera it brings up fears is the extra pounds I've had kids um I'm not that perfect skinny model that you think you see um and it makes me realize what it's like to be photographed I told my clients like you know just relax just become and all that stuff and then yet when it's my turn I'm just like oh my gosh I can't believe it's gonna happen you know and it's very exciting yet it's very you know I'm just very nervous I said it I started to embrace the things that I got teased by gotti's about my eyebrows I got teased about you know my hair I used to get two will go shave your face so you go show your face because I had so much hell my face but I think with time I um I have learned to embrace that I could give women a message about loving themselves I would say love yourself now not when you lose the weight okay and this one's emotional for me when you not when you lose the weight not when your twenty not when you're in the perfect genes love yourself today because you you are a gift you are special and you are someone to be valued and are as beautiful as the next person uh huh that's great so you guys told me that so that's pretty cool because that's something that I believe in everything that you say um I'm just intrigued by one thing most of you preferred tio a time stop crying okay the vault there looking at me and crying okay most of you referred to a time in your teenage life with somebody said something to you that you still carry and I brought it up with the boys because I think it's a great listen for the boys why doesn't message that you hear when you're a teenage girl still hold to you when you're thirty forty why and why do woman have a direct connection between how they feel about themselves and how they look is it our media is it our society is it how we bought up I don't know but all I know is that it does it does have a direct connection to how we feel about ourselves because otherwise I wouldn't have a business and I think whatever that connection is to the emotional self why we have that perception about ourselves is a really huge part of my brand it doesn't have to be a huge part of yours some people might dismiss it and say I don't want to go into that with my female clients but I find it inevitable that I end up speaking to my clients about self esteem because I just do so if you're going to photograph women if you're going to shoot modern glamour ifyou're going teo do the makeover then you have to really I think be prepared for the fact that you could and and this is something that I highly value in my life and my values are in my business and in my brand which makes a brand more successful all right so what we've ended wass we photographed each of the girls and each of the girls got tio experience the before shot I asked more to bring exactly as I would in the studio a couple of outfits each and we prepared them with here and make up and we photograph them so I guess the difference being is when it's in my studio you have the security of being in a private room when you see your photographs for the first time not in a public one so anyway amanda I photographed you fear so you have to go first it's just the way it is s so let's have a look at him I feel like I'm and these were your shots still in the running to be america's next top model wake up call oh my god beautiful I said I'm not price and no one is allowed to cry sono so your boy ugo eyes that coke so you know I mean that's it really isn't it I mean oh it sounds I think everybody has differently something that I see in them is everybody brings forward a certain not a character but differently something that I can see you just look like a little bit of fifty starlet to me I just saw that bombshell here and you know I just really love that so I thought it was really beautiful t y the idea with you was I'd list loved obviously you have magnificent here which is the most striking thing about you until you get in front of a camera and then I didn't care about your hair because your face is so beautiful and I just enjoy so much my work I didn't know if I like that in color or black and white so I had to show you by because I just think that is so beautiful oh no oh wow oh my oh my is that me you bury my work so yeah I think that's differently uh what a woman in nigeria should look like mapuche you'll smile iss saw abuse form I just about photographed every single image of use mine I love the way I love you I love you I feel like I just looks all slim in there like you know and you have no slimming and post everything you did was hemmed in camera yeah which is actually very important to me I think a lot of weight hee hee hee hee hey you know what you're clapping it's you your photo it sounds to the internet is clapping the internet is going crazy just what I want to do is I just want to show everybody how I shot each one of those shots so I want you to go and sit in your position that you were in I want people to understand that even though they couldn't watch the shooting other and next time I won't let them watch um because I wanted to have their private moment with you I don't think I could have had that with cameras and a crew um but I just want to show people that we shot it the create at the creative life which we house and that we have a high window with a brick corner and where we shot them so it's really important to me and after we show them um where we were for those ones said that people can understand the scenario with the reflector words with the light source is coming from well show them each one of those hot ones there okay so um I'll start with um t y we shot t y on this black v there's no mystery here in terms of attempts of how we shot it there's only one light source that creative life and there is the set of windows along here t why we're sitting on this little spongy thing here yeah and all of her shots were taken right here um I didn't need to reflect light back to here because there's a nice even blanket of light coming in here but what you'll notice with all of t y shots is the light is hitting the upper half of the black backdrops that puts a nice mid gray tone around here here that looks like a halo so it looks very studio lit this image of her but it's actually not the image that we took off her hands were standing up um and she was literally standing in the center here I'm standing here and she was holding her hands up like this that's exactly right so both hands up but end and then looking back through so this hand's actually hire let to go and you're looking back through this way and I should've horizontally on to that black so just using that balance of light if you have a look it's on the screen now um you can see the little halo of grey blue around here that looks like a studio lit but it's not and there's just a perfect amount of light now because t why is got dark here she was wearing a black out that and she's on the black background I was shooting that two stops under because I was watching the camera get confused and it was saying I need a bit of light source but I just went with the camera so if you trust the camera it'll not work and if you go with what you can see on the back of the camera I shot up to full stops underexposed and if you have a look here it's so beautiful but none of those highlights had to be brought up in camera they all just bounce straight up from her face and there was a white reflector here just coming into this corner but not enough to actually make a significant difference it's the only thing I had to do in post production on this image was to lighten the mood lighten the bottom of her eye around her iris because her eyes had no catch light because because your hands were covering the only light source there was no catch light in her eye so I just bounced a dodge into the bottom of her eye so you could see her dark brown aikawa okay so that was right there if you just turn the camera this way you get to see where I photographed both matthew and it's amanda so made to come here amanda's shot was um sitting in front of this ottoman so she sat down on the floor and so did I the idea with this shot is that we can bring her arms up into play s oh it's a beauty shot and I'm shooting out horizontally so her arms were just leaning upon her knee and it here so at this point simona sits to my direct right and she sitting with me with a fan now we had the two big white reflectors so if you turn these around they become white and they were here in here so to large white reflectors now the reason I have my two reflectors here in here and I leave a space in fact somebody said I think it was t y I should get a reflector and cut a hole in that so that my limbs continue support through because it would actually make it's easier I'm trying teo um take a reading a light reading off her face bouncing light from here to the reflected back to her face her hands attaching we've got big sixty here in samona sitting right here like this with the here dreyer and she's often right in my space here shooting that shooting them with the hairdryer right there because we want that beautiful action we've got to mess of reflectors a man it doesn't know what the hell's going on sue keeps telling and put a bloody ten foot and down one more time push it forward and why do I keep saying give me the ice amanda give me the eyes give me the eyes amanda give me the eyes and she's like a my not getting it right but the thing is this this beauty shot relies solely on the way she's looking at me and I think you can agree that we got her if you look at her expression the way she's looking at me is so perfect that without that look that shot does not work so when I keep saying to give me the ice give me the eyes give me the eyes also I'm not really big on lots of jewelry but amanda loves flew daily so we put this beautiful uh hearing is there and her beautiful braces here and I just think those close up shots of their absolutely gorgeous thank you then what I did is I photographed map you without moving anything I photographed map wanna by pulling this away from the wall and then I pulled the reflectors back and map you lay on her tummy strike down um from there exactly the same position lifting up nice and tall three neck and shoulders this hand goes across your body line here I shot this entire sequence here chin around this way member lifting up nice and tall reflectors were here in here so minor was sitting to my left she's hitting that straight away with the fan and we went through all of her scenarios there this one here such a beautiful pose it's so slimming on the arms lifting it up what we did was we open their arms up and they bought this one in in their elbow out so when we put triangles in they look more interesting she's lifting up nice and tall she's working her shoulder and her body's not kicked out because it doesn't need to be you know I think the body can be kicked up when it's a sixty shot but when it it's a smile like that and it's that pretty it suits being exactly where it is and it's just a beautiful line for the hand the arms of muslim they're away from the body you can connect this chin to the shoulder and pushing forward and down and you were another one went you tenfold and down love important down my boot chin pouring down mother so you do get really sick of hearing that because I repeat it multiple times then without moving that thank you muffy I got sandra to come in and with the white reflectors we pick up the white reflectors and we dragged them this way and we put them here we grabbed the couch and we pull it forward to the because I like to shoot everything at forty five degrees man to lay down in her tummy and she's long it's and the couch is short so I got out to push right back until he needs touched and that's why her feet are up in the air again she didn't need to have the sixty hip going on because she's in jeans and a top she's lifting right up through the neck and shoulders this hand is relaxed that one's over there here right tyner's around this way nice and tall I'm sitting right here and we don't shoot this with a fan too big white reflectors exactly the same shot perfect so as you can see the light source is quite high here but it's a large light source and even though it's high on we don't have a lot of room to move in terms of you know I was really worried when I first saw it I was like always hard in the evening is there going to be enough light it is not a really bright studio but it is such a perfect studio to bounce because thes reflectors are so large that the light just bounces straight down and catches them so potentially we have all of the space and I used these four meters I then use this wall over here so if you go to the next slide let's go through this again t y is back in here again this time t why is here so I didn't want we didn't have anything to lean on with just improvising we found these so we got t wide to neil and I sat down here she put her elbows under here and the idea is that we just moved around to the whole of the beauty shots right so see how the backgrounds got a nice gray tone to it that's the same black background it the lights just bouncing straight down to hear I'm shooting it to under the albert comes across this way and then we swapped over we did are different poses here and this was our beauty post just like we did on the white ottoman before then you came out map wanna came in mapo anna's in fishnet stockings and her underwear and a lace top and we need the little stories to me sammy the little store so the idea here is that map is sitting there and she's in her fishnets who foots up on her store because we want to shape the legs this knees together because we wanted our glass the bottom half of the body this hand goes up right across that one goes up and she was cupping her face and doing what she does based smiling at me okay so the idea here is the boot were pulled back so we pulled back to here because it's nice and slimming creates space and we have directing from the front with directing her elbows down towards her waist which tapers here in if she pulled your elbows out that would make it go out we wanted to go in so we bring her elbows down and that connects to the diamond so then you went out and then we bought amanda in and this was really interesting because amanda was getting dressed behind this because people were watching and I had this pulled away from the wall and as soon as she went in there I saw the light jump around this corner like that and as soon as I saw it amanda came around to here except for those lights are off and she's right here and we instantly went into a cover girl here okay and so straight away we were in there we have it back light I did not have a front light source in this image so I just exposed for a face and pushed it and roar and there's no slimming and they're in postproduction either there's no something in any of these images because what she's doing here is she's kicking forward and she's working here oppa body towards may okay the hat is pat weight on your other foot the hardest part about this was to get him to roll his shoulders forward but to keep her chin predicted forward because when people rollie shoulders forward they predicted nick out so I had to push forward and she was working at there and obviously some minor standing right here like this hitting her with the fan and then lastly sanders was over this way so I wanted to shoot sander and not on the brick wall because I felt like we'd already done the brick wall for you amanda and I wanted to be a little bit different so I have one light source which is coming from here and so I hit this wall here so sandra came in and she stood here all right so I put this little v here tio block what's going on so I could shoot down the line she had all of the weight on your back foot she was leaning down with your left shoulder this hand here was touching the back of her bam this hand here was on her thigh slide up elbow back bring your chin long and foreign and I shot that right there just above the eye line so if you have a look at that image you can see I'm just above her eye line but I'm not shooting down on here I'm just shooting above here and it's a perfect little slide down the wall here and the more she slides the slimmer sheila six come on um I repeated most of the scenarios for each of the girls and swapped the tears over used the brick wall used a different couch use those little spongy things but other than the two big reflectors and the flat ottoman the chair and the two spongy things we use nothing else