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Lesson Info

Fashion Portrait Part 1

When I teach college, I try to make my students, at least for a month, she with a tripod, they have to shoot with a tripod, it forces you not to just randomly click it forces you to, like, look and frame things um, and you start to learn he start to see these things and then go back and study your images see what's working, see if, like there's things that airframe see if there's stuff growing out of your heads look for a repetition in like a seal, these buildings, becker that's kind of a cool, repetitive thing with the squares maybe I put, um, a lot of, you know, she's got a dress on that kind of is structured, so maybe I want to photograph her with a clean line. I feel like I'm looking right here and I've got these horizon lines from my point of view that are on the top of the building, I drop a little bit and now they've become kind of a graphic and themselves, so maybe a heavy standard here and and kind of do like a kind of a structured like, maybe a like very yelling kind of just ...

like this, right? So we've got lines, we've got lines back there now I've got a wind going through her head right now I could put on the top of her head or I can drop it a little bit come a little bit closer if I need her to there you go now, the line of the thing is resting on her shoulders, it's just it's little things like that just to pay attention to how does this the stripes work with what's going on in the background? Um, so anyway, and now I'm going to try to take some pictures usually want it joins a couple questions for you, ok, so now they're coming in about what you were talking about. Good, no matter eleven is wondering, are you using a fifty millimeter lens? And is that? Does that add to the distorted perspective? Well, I'm not trying to distort the effective yes if you're close enough it as of the distorted perspective, like if I'm photographing right here it's a little wide yeah, you know, I shoot a lot of people that can handle that, you know, if I'm not I'm going, I've got my seventy two, two hundred over there that's, a little busted in the barrel kind of falls apart, but it still works and it still takes a fairly sharp picture, but yes, it does distort as I moved back, that distortion gets less and less um so I kind of switch up like I'm doing just ahead shot I'm going to use you know, eighty one hundred something like that but a lot of times all do this with models and stuff because I kind of want that kind of weird type of work cool and a lot of ah ha moments about this still shifting of the lens in the in the chat rooms q t mousey asked from boston massachusetts how long did it take you to get used to just really steadily holding that camera at that plane that that ninety degrees I think I've always done it so it was I don't know if I can answer that question yeah I look back at some of my earliest photographs and it's you know I grew up looking at her brits at you know david bailey uh avedon I mean my daughter is named after having on um that you know norman parkinson those kind of its most everything I always looked at in fashion I was the kid at eight years old I was drawing um you know, guess ads or back then I think it was called paris blues you know, we had this in jeans and a kava reaching and stuff and then I looked at rock album covers you know um aladdin saying bowie there it's underneath he's looking at you uh it's so many things is just like constantly my whole visual history has been from this perspective, so it kind of came naturally I didn't started thinking about it until my boss made sure that I shot that way and then told me about the putting them in, you know, a submissive or an authoritative role, which then I started thinking about it but the actual tilting it never really was an issue for me and I understand that I can do this and I can do superhero, which I mean and I'm saying I'm not saying don't do this I'm not saying don't do that but it's got its own specific look, I know a lot of senior photographers want to look like fashion well, there's one way to do it is to do that perspective and shooting from that it's gonna look more like fashion than shooting above him it's great, you know and put him out of perspective fantastic happy shutters from irvine, california says do you often have to crop out a lot of foreground when shooting at waist level in fashion perspective know what? I don't quite understand the question I think it's it's concerned that when you lower the camera you're going to seymour ground right? That becomes part of it picture and I position, you know, that's kind of where I'm going from that um yeah it's a distracting back around we'll get rid of it or you know I'm getting all of them in right now his feet are c m a move into position to get a better composition and his feet right now are at the very bottom of the frame so there is no foreground at all he's just stand and terrible exposure I'm just going with it but there you go if I want yeah I got recently did a photograph I wish I could pull this up maybe pulling a player of phillip sweet from little big town where I've included a lot of the there's like a river and he's standing there and it's kind of shot from that angle but I've chose to include the foreground there I think we're going to move all right cool what's on what's like these guys up so using all that now you understand kind of why I'm shooting this way now we're just going to apply what we learned downstairs in the first segment and pull it outside and we've got a pretty good day with some good cloud cover I got some nice clouds I'm gonna have we're getting is built in guys that cool so I want you to be actually sit this way and you're going to and I'm gonna have you sit down kind of like this looking all studly you know and I'm gonna have you here sit down get you back into that you kind of like you're reaching across these intothe all right I'm just guessing something and let's use the seventy three hundred so is in seattle way got to shoot the space you're right I've never seen it before us so let me change lenses why am I changing lenses? Thank you got it got it I'm going to try to compress it I'm also going to back off so I can kind of shooting from a fifty millimeter perspective just in that let's see where I'm at I'm busy again along I got to turn it off and turn it on I think oh my god there we go yeah that's cool we'd into him a little bit more like perfect like really get into it yeah but not like that don't cover him up too much and look yeah perfect and kind of looked down here daniel just kind of like off that way no just get pull your leg back up and then just yeah you're just looking over here not right at the camera there's a disconnect between you two I don't know what it is right? I don't think you're gonna last much longer here's what I'm doing what's my eye or so guys right what's my shutter speed right what's my aperture I don't know yet it's whatever I want to right now I'm going you guys wanted you armani area for apology let's do our money first armani ad very dramatic dark right? So I'm going to get my aperture oh my let's say f fourteen s you have thirteen here we go yeah that was cool so what I've done first is and I've got a c in here I've got something sticking out of your head there you go three two one got it okay so if you guys can see that but he was gonna come here career this's why I like doohan street my ipad using kind of see they're pretty awful in them right? Ok, but look at the scene tells the scene don't go out I'm tryingto uh top left hand area okay, okay the scene I've got good clouds and I've got this right that's what I'm looking for when I first do this is composition and what the ambient light is doing so I mean during my scene this time I wanted to go a little bit more dramatic so yes, I darkened it up a little bit what's going on okay and I was reading it f thirteen okay, we've got lines we've got everything composed correctly I used the seventy two hour and you know what? I'm shooting out but what it felt like I'm bringing that a little bit closer so it really becomes a counter subject and here's you know, this cool seattle couple, you know, because that seattle on we're cool seriously this is a great city but that in that is iconic you've got a focal point that's it's something else it's something else just to look at something to give the photograph more than just here's a couple layers I like that layers yes now I'm going to try to do things the sun's coming out can I see this? Okay, we're still working ok? I'll see you get is this possible even I don't know if it's big enough to do this we kind of need a flag because the sun's shining directly on him you know what you guys were looking away from the camera so that work so you don't the squint so if you can look that way are you good with that kind of looking at about right here daniel just kind of look down and you keep your eyes open I'm going just gonna have you look like maybe of him like your yeah like ok, so I'm doing that just to keep him from being that way I want ad let's just shoot it with one life sound good sound good. How about this shooting with the speed light he wants to be valve. Ok, val come on now you want you this is val ready? We're going to take this and we're gonna go like this because I wanted vertical okay make sense this is horizontal, this is vertical and let's get what did I say let's get close let's try about right there I want to light her morris I'm going put him more dramatic like all right I am using radio poppers I know people are gonna tell ask me that and I'm going to be able to control the power from my camera so if I can find my trigger where did it go it's probably in my pocket or I laid it down set up there okay the trickiest overshoot enough their team so what do you think I want to try to mimic ok that's a good place to start I found that at the same level it's going to look a little flashy but let's start there and figure it out let's see what we got way firing the first let's yeah that's on that's on that if I I heard it okay that's sixteen nine so I can turn the power down right here eleven four so that's about thirteen eleven four third stops kind of tripped me up a little bit um we have the camera yeah yeah and cool we're gonna why I said anthropology versace armani it's just a good anthropology is got kind of a more airy look you know it's a little fresher it's a little brighter it's more natural looking light where our money is definitely got that harsh blue so let's see what we got and bring that over and this is what I'm panicked and she watched my light position this way I want to have it about right there it's gonna light her up more than just gonna light him up and we're pretty close hey chuck so there's been a lot of talk today about the light meter and the need for one and I know yesterday tony pushed the need you're pushing the need I think it's great on dwi already talked a little bit about what do you do if you don't have one you talk about maybe an inexpensive one yeah one that people could get their hands on or you know let's just talk about that light meter for him than anything that meters flesh is gonna work you know I like psychotics but psychotic makes a whole range of stuff but there's a time of flash meters out there um what craigslist amazon ebay just flash meter I don't care what it is fantastic and I mean as long as it meters as long as until I push the button and I could go bang and I get a reading fantastic to go cool and one to chaos what other essentials do you have for a typical shoot? You're looking at it this is exactly what I shoot with of god an alien ba hundreds and a speed light that in my camera which is in an expensive camera and you're pretty much hacking the rest well that's it that's what I need you know a nice a nice day find the fun subject were not so fun subject we'll make him have fun that's ryan wants to know if you have any opinion and how good the meter aps for iphones are there are ok here's a story now here's the thing I don't think there's a flash meter app for the iphone is there if so, I've never tried one I don't know how that would actually work out would see light, but I'm working on one of my personal projects about five years ago and I'm shooting an older being in building of your mama mia c two twenty out in the middle of nowhere like literally the middle of nowhere I got my gods and light meter and it's out of batteries and that's a weird battery and I'm like great no light meter I have no white you know my camera and I'm thinking there's an app for it right that that was the the tagline awhile back there's an app for everything white meter I found an app called light meter I wouldn't used it I found it was about a third stop off my sick connick and I got great pictures so and now there's a title like nato rounds so I yeah they seem that worked really well for ambient light I haven't seen a flash meter like I don't know if I I don't know how that would work so cool so crackers are asks rock is our rock is chuck with a speed light is impossible to shoot with a high speed without high speak sink set up to set up with low power say that again let me say that again is it possible to shoot with high speed without a high speed secret secret ization if it is set up for lower power? I don't quite understand the question I think what is he asking? Can we shoot over our sink speed like I speak saying it's sounding like that without using high speed c s you know if you've got your set said the high speed sync that's what it does is impulses and you've got to use your in camera stuff like that now do I ever use high speed sync? No can overpower the sun with the speed light yes, we'll do it oh did but yeah it's like if I let's say and photograph in this couple and I want to shoot with the sun in the background, which is gonna be hard to do, I'm gonna have like in f thirty two like setting, but if I'm just shooting clouds, which I want to be in focus anyway, because that looks real, my flash is gonna be pretty close another question from thorugh can a light meter reading change depending on the angle? You're positioning of that? Yeah yeah, because it's, you know, right now, I've got it kind of the dome where it's taken in, uh, everything like in, I think tony talked about this. The percentage of it is, especially on a day like this, you're going to see your flash percentage, and then you can kind of like, how much ami atlanta my getting versus how much flash of my getting, like down in the studio, we're going almost one hundred percent flash, but out here, it's probably gonna be like, sixty, forty year someone. You kind of tell him achievement light is coming in, and then how much of that is sometimes when I'm outside that I'll take it off of this and pointed directly at the flash. So I could just kind of see what my flashes. And I'll point it. You gotta point it right at it where you're not getting anything.