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Behind the Scenes: Getting the Shots

How about some behind the scenes stuff no closer pretty crazy right? We'll see you again he knew this was gonna happen. I'm gonna watch tomorrow twice pretty cool, huh? Okay, so in that split second time what do we have to create so for them to get here right? I'm here. You saw that for us to get this they have to come down and jump line they get a little piece of air right there and then come cruising through here and then exit this way another jump right there. Okay, so here's the sequence pretty crazy, right? Ok, do we see anything else going on in the frame things out of my control ready the dog thief dog comes into the scene now after I shot this one notice overcast light very even exposure what happens? The sun comes out so I can't get that shot ever again unless the sun goes back in it in fact did not so dogs right there. Okay, so we'll look at it one more time. Do you see anything else in the frame that may be distracting? Yeah. There's another guy somebody I get something move...

d in the bottom right corner came out just a little bit like that could have been a branch, I think from the wind okay, so there there's my shots, okay how what do I what am I looking for you know this isn't going to make it right ok so look at it one more time that could make it that could make it and that's about it there's this now I thought was really cool now remember I said notice a dog ok we don't see the dog because it just looks like black so did not clone the dog out did not clone him out okay now okay I'm looking at this I'm like in color yeah me aggravates me that the dogs they're aggravates me that I didn't make him move over right so he's filming me this is the guy filming me doing that shot right okay so he's across the way is shooting me here some like I should've got him to move out of my frame but I didn't seem because I'm looking through tiny viewfinder the dog just was on a leash but the leash was insured enough the owner you know didn't have the the dog wasn't related to us here so the dog had too much of releasing popped out you nose under the excitement of these guys coming by because he's on the other side of that jump line so what happens if I turn into black and white don't really terribly notice the dog still because the form of the dog is a dog right but look at what happens to the guy filming he almost disappears so I'm like ok it works is a black and white remember we were talking like you've got to get it in the fields and then you got a second opportunity to make it work in post now if somebody really wanted to use the shot because they like the scenario that's their option to clone that out that's an easy clone out and it's an easy clone out to get him out too right if they like the shot enough to you know use it that way if they noticed it if they don't notice it they may just run it does is you never know but I'm not taking like I said I'm not taking the things out that are there so I'm not trying to pull the wool over anybody's eyes I'm not going to tell you it's there in this scenario right I'm full disclosed here there's nothing for me to really hide I'm looking pointed out to you but in this teaching environment yeah that's those that these air details right you want to be really good at what you do you gotta pay attention to every single little detail yeah going through all that how how is that approach taken here um I guess I'm not really getting it so as far as you know what you brought to the table a ce faras the design the color the tester wait what element of kind of elements from yesterday did you in court parade here yeah so uh here we've got what shape right we also have curvilinear lying here we also have what implied motion pretty cool right uh turning into black and white we've got what else contrast pain would you say this is light contrast to medium contrast or dark contrast it's kind of middle zone right maybe a little bit to the light side but okay what's really cool is I like his face notice where his eyes are looking he's fixated on the pace that they're keeping because what happens if he messes up he doesn't want to crash into him right kind of a cool experiment ok so we're going to show some stills here I am in the tetons last year my wife smith may takes kind of the turnaround honey let me let me show where you're at and I'm like oh do more of this right because I don't I don't typically have people following me around so it's really hard to illustrate points like this when you're trying to teach a class so she takes she takes a couple stills of me with her iphone so you know there's me here's the scenario unfolding okay skier comes around the bend hits the ridge line of snow and then pretty much kind of comes to the to stop right by me he's got to go down a little valley and then but dumping so much speed here as he comes around the zone uh, I'm shooting away. Ok? It's looks really flat in this perspective because she's just shooting with an iphone, she doesn't know how the angle the camera and things like that to make it look the true steepness, right? But I do, right? Okay. So, here's, where I start shooting there's where I stop where's the shop we know it is not that shot, right? It's? Not that shop it's somewhere in the middle, right. Okay, so trees grow up right? Right there. Vertical. You make the tree. Vertical slope is obviously very steep. That's how you highlight things like that now? What if the slope war as steep? But you wanted to make it look steeper? Well, if you don't have a vertical tree in your shot you know, if I tilted this to make it steeper this tree's growing out the side of the hillside noticed how this one is kind of growing out that decided the hillside. Well, that's just been beat over time by probably slides and whatever. So that's my focal point. So if I tilt this thing to make it look steeper than it actually is what happens? That tree grows out of side of the hill, right, and it doesn't look realistic, but what if they're new trees? I can tell the camera a little bit more to get more steepness if I'm gonna really flat zone. So if it's like a dangerous avalanche day, you know, those were the kind of things I focus on put the two hundred on there, put the two x on there, get in tight to my subject on days like that when things like this happen, I'm golden yes, with the fish on would you could you use their innocence? Kinda like, yeah, I could have used that and in a scenario like this, but really I would only use it if I were, like, standing right here next to that tree because in a fish eye perspective from where I was standing, we'll just go back real quick for months real quick, so notice how close I am to the subject I'm shooting over twenty four one o five lens if I were fish, I hear it would just be it's too it's using is using that kind of wide angle lens improperly, you know, we're just showing everything like we don't want to show everything right there's a composition going on here trying to create something for me it's about the point at which the sun came out and highlighted was highly behind that tree, you know, and that's what I'm looking for right there if you can let's, talk a little bit about your settings for this because you're shooting right into the sun. I am shooting right into the sun again. Digital allows you to check your exposure. Make it perfect, right? It's probably maybe one stop under exposed just because the brightness of the sun is just so beaming into the camera but again making sure that I'm kind of to the plus side of my history. Graham why? Well, this isn't a silhouette sister situation for me right here. We want enough detail in the skiers so we see the colors he's wearing we see the goggles, all that kind of stuff now there's another shot forward where? He's more into the turn. But he disappears completely and all you see is a poll. Okay, so that shot works too, I think. But on the same point I want you to see I want you to make eye contact with ski or two. Yes. So in a backlight situation like this probably under exposing um just because there's so much light funneling in, but here's, another key is I put the son behind the tree as as as behind the tree as I could, okay, so I'm trying to get the right body position that's why I'm kind of on that weird slope I'm trying to get the right body position to get a cz much of the sun behind the tree too, so it kind of flares out, you can see that I couldn't get it all the way to the other side, right? I had to it had to be on this side just because of my position and the problem. If I went higher, I wouldn't have the same composition if I went lower, I wouldn't have the same composition and we're talking here just from where I'm standing. If I went to feet down or two feet up, it would really change it that dramatically from the perspective I was at and for claire, how about some best practices for shooting in the snow in general? Yeah, shooting in the snow in general, you're going to add lights your to your shop because snow is brighter. All cameras there kind of created equal, right? They all meter to a middle zone everybody used to call it medium gray or eighteen percent gray um, but you don't have to think of it as gray. You know we have dark green think of colors, as you know four screen kelly green, lime green right lime green is going to be a brighter color, kelly green is going to be a middle color for screen is going to be a dark color ends because the camera is always going to middle well if we're shooting something like what's gonna happen to it it's going to get dark remember the first film shots I showed you that we're all dark right cause I didn't compensate and add more light if you're shooting darker subjects like maybe gorillas or something that has a lot of black in it what's going to happen blacks going to become gray so we underexposed darker subjects digital cameras air way better than it ever was with film film in a scenario like this I probably would be adding plus one to two okay but because it's digital and it's really kind of figures it all out pretty awesomely I don't really ever go beyond plus two are plus one or minus one for those darker light subjects that good perfect here's me you're going to do this I need you to go here come this way okay ok I'm going to do that so here's me ok ready count three yugo he's skiing down towards me right where's the shot in here you know this was all shot with an iphone so obviously you're missing frames in this element, right? You're also missing the perspective that I'm seeing right notice? What did they say pack is on me right polls air in front of me this is all mental conscious decisions here I've got my gloves on too okay I'm ready to go should anything be a problem now I'm kind of tucked in the trees there's a lot of trees behind me I feel safe slope kind of goes off this way he's going to kind of ski right towards me ok here's the sequence ok it's about this white pine I love it that's what I chose do you guys think good yeah so again we saw shots where he's completely buried we saw shots where the poll disappears all that just a little bit of face I mean that shows that it's a really truly deep powder day right? Okay so I'm not you know it's not we're not really faking it here you know it's like you need to turn there and he's like ok I'll turn there and that's the way it goes down questions yes on a site like this if you have a one run because it's like part of it has not been going through yet and if you don't feel like you got the shot do you find another spot? Do you haven't come back through the same spot again you can't have it come back to the same spot tio it's all or nothing here you know mountain biking it could be fifty tries you could miss it a million times and still keep doing it here it's not happening you know so skiing photography is definitely a lot harder than mountain biking photography also it's harder because you got this blower powder field here with very few to any markers right so you're like twenty feet from the tree how do you illustrate twenty feet from the tree to somebody who may be thinking you're twenty feats his ten feet kind of thing you know so there's a huge communication thing that's got to go on in order for the placement of everything that happened since king photography is really hard and once you do it you know if he falls if he missed earns missteps all that kind of stuff will stun turned out move on you know okay same day so after we shot that we moved over to a different zone in the trees ok so we just traversed we didn't have to hike back up moved over found another zone where nobody had skied yet still you know on a deep powder day in the trees in the scenario of the safety of the trees uh here's here's kind of the sequence going down an iphone being being pink right there he's gone okay here's my perspective all right so he's he continues this turn skis passed on this side okay final shot becomes that very high contrast e why did I choose a high contrast these scenario look at how flat politis how do we get you more into what's going on in that scenario right look at how much snow there are on the trees like the limbs of these trees have like eight inches of snow on him those air limbs that don't hold a lot of stuff right? The trees lose leaves in the winter and there you know these guys were actually dead but this's why trees lose their leaves you know aspen's because all the snow would collect but there's so much snow coming out this guy with no wind that is stacking up on branches like that so after this scenario goes down my thought of processing it is to really make it about blacks and whites really high contrast ing out that that shot works because the polls right there okay questions no good ok doesn't look like much does it? I see something I always see something so we've got this heavy kind of overcast light happening and we're in the mountains of thailand's and there's these unfolding ridges below me that you guys can't see okay, but let's watch the scenario so there's there's a point at which we're gonna we'll look at it real quick so now we look at it right? We're looking at what's going on and he's like, ok, I kind of get it see how I get to see where you are here there's a reason I needed to review it with him because position at which he was in the air affects my shot, okay let's look at it again all rights to see the tabletop did you see the point in which he tells the bike up? Okay, what I needed from him was to have that thing in this open zone okay, so we talk about that he's like ok, I could make that happen totally I just my body position and here's the scenario notice how warm under exposing this this scene okay it'll make sense when I show you the process do you see that? Okay one more time. Okay, so it's when he's fully extended sideways that's the shot I want that's the final image processed out added a lot of contrast to it got that sky darker got these little bit of ridges you would never know where we were based upon the scene that we just set up right there's the corral over here the garden it's the garden fence line doesn't really matter to us in this scenario does it? Because the shot is about his body position in that little bit of an opening cool right looking all the nastiness army thailand has a lot of bugs okay, completely screws up here watch body again he's like I totally screwed that up when I lean too much what he said to me was when I lean when I'm trying a lean that much I overcompensate and go the other direction so he looks down and I'm like, I think we got it actually so I'll just do it again I'll do it again so scenario watch it here he comes into the frame screws up right there you know does that thing okay ok so here's the sequence do we think there's a winner in there yes so it's right before he screws up twelve frames per second allowed this to happen and for shooting five d we would have to shoot again and it's about this dark canopy so we come out we're riding up in these hills fifty k of riding this day I'm exhausted sun's going down I'm like oh my god the mountain that ice that we just came off of is right there it's in this perfect light it is time to take a photo I've got to take a photo so we're in a rice field at the kind of trail eggs it kind of does this and comes out there is the road the driver's right over here waiting for us and I'm like I got to take the shot I'm exhausted in the rice paddy this time of day billions of mosquitoes and some kind of crazy fly that every time a bit me it gave me a streak of blood coming out of my leg like that long so there's about fifteen of those guys on the legs right now he's got the same problem going on we have to just pull off a quick shot because the light is just so perfect right, he's. Like, ok, I'm ready. Camera here's me home. I got to get a bit over there to bugs. Love me for whatever reason. See what's going on the background here we see a little bit through the iphone. Okay, here's, the sequence notice my body position. Ok. Hello. I am. See how close I am to my foreground stuff shooting sixteen. Thirty five lens. Right. Remember he said, use a wide angle lens. It's. Not about this it's, about getting into your subject. Okay, what's important to me is there's a point in which he pushes down on his crank and he's actually kind of talking like just a tiny bit. You may not notice it or not, but I notice it because I've been kind of looking at the way the shots setting itself up. Ok, so here's, my perspective, kind of in the weeds and I just see it was hand holding. That was a question earlier. Where's the holder for graduated neutral density filter. I don't own one. I hand hold that puppy right in front of my lens allows me for speed. I don't have to carry that extra miscellaneous things. I just kind of balance that there, get my shot, take it. And it goes back to the pack okay so I use that filter here notice in the raw shot there's not really a lot of content up there and you kind of worry about that right but the filter is actually working ok, so here's the scenario I just shoot him until he runs into me ok wait wait do we know notice red green so it was crazy we got down to the truck and I'm like I'm gonna take the shot and he's like I should put red on should night I'm like yes reading greens that would work perfectly so he changed his clothes ok there's the final image so I was able to dark in that sky in post because I used the filter there's enough information there even though you don't see it on the monitor and even though I didn't really see it on my laptop when I got it under the five k retina display I mac I saw it and you process that and you know I'm going to dark in that sky it's about kind of the way the beams air coming around that mountain right kind of cool remember I said it's about the point at which his foot is up in the air ready to do a pedal stroke at that point the bike is leaning a different way see there's a bit of a kind of gesture going on there right it's all intentional I teased you with this one, two hundred forty frames per second iphone just one you should respect the water out of my mouth like you'll be taking antibiotics for that one. So we did this shot, you know, it's it's seven twenty that's why smaller frame here, but that's pretty cool with a hand held device, right? Two hundred forty frames per second and love the way that drops or just carried, edited in phone and then just exported. I do idea did air drop from my phone to my eye. Mac put on and dragged and dropped the thing into kino, so they didn't didn't even do any kind of post operation there from that shot. Now we did it that way, and then I pulled out the one the x, and we did it that way, okay, so here's two hundred millimeters notice I didn't choose quite as fast of the shutter speed that the iphones ramping up that to get two hundred forty five as per second, so of my water droplets aren't, as you know, defined as they were in that kind of two forty five per second coming at me, but tax sharp right logo for his bike sponsor, helmet sponsor clothing, you know, all this kind of works together so here's a day of shooting in two seconds there's only like one hundred frames that we took that day but I just thought that was kind of cool like a time lapse this whole thing questions chris over here how do you get the snow out of your camera after we let it dry and then wipe it up like it off? You know, for the most part nothing gets internal with the cameras and lenses that I'm shooting because I'm shooting those ellen's is they're all gas get id the cameras are all gasket id so pretty much nothing gets internal it does get on gets you know the camera body the lens itself gets covered if in some of those shots were it's like blower powder coming over maine just covering me up I'll just take my jacket or one of my under layers and wipe all the snow off before I pull the lens off and put the cap back on and put it in the bag. Ah and then when I get home, you know you're out in fifteen degree weather and you go inside what happens, everything fogs, right? So I'm going to shoot the next day everything needs to be dry so I don't leave the pack closed in those scenarios I open it but I typically don't take everything out so I kind of let it air and dry out on its own there have been times when I forget and I've got an icy mess the next day, you know, fighting fogging between lens elements and all that kind of stuff, so I'm pretty I'm pretty religious about doing that at this point greece ski swami would like to know that we'll get to you. Lorenzo, do you normally use a polarizing filter when you're shooting in this? Now I keep him on, so yes, I keep the polarizer on my lens, knowing full well that if I'm shooting directly at the sun will the polarizer isn't going to really do anything now, if I can't get the speed that I want out of the further shot, then I'll pull the polarizer off, but for the most part, I just leave them on, and if I'm shooting, where the polarizes working, I'm adjusting the polarizer to make the effect to the desired kind of amount. Great! And then a few questions yesterday and today about are you paying your athletes? Are these folks you're paying? Are you getting sign releases from them where you were, where and when do you grab a release and window nia so that's a multi part of a multi part question I do not pay any of the athletes I photograph, which is kind of crazy uh the way it kind of works for them is they're sponsored athletes, so they have these companies are paying them you know, a specific amount based on kind of their ability and what their goals are you know these guys have resumes its is pretty pretty unbelievable and the way it kind of works is if we get shots published between me and then will they get more money from their sponsors so their sponsors of paying them they need material to market themselves as professional athletes you know think about it as any kind of business would you need marketing materials they need me I need them to get published and you know, my payment essentially comes from the publication of the product they're payment comes from the sponsorships that they get so I don't pay them they're already getting paid and it's kind of a mutual benefit you know where we get along to like I don't shoot with people that don't have similar personalities to me so we're friends you know I would in a heartbeat with andrew go drinking bourbon at any given moment of the day you know? Well, maybe not sunrise but you know, like we hang out we have kind of mutual of likes and dislikes and things like that so we get along as well so there's there's definitely a personality thing going on there to uh and then the other part was releases I yes I almost always get a release to anybody I shoot in this kind of scenario and that's pretty much because I want the ability to sell that shot anywhere I wanted to be in an advertisement it could be in a catalogue then without further contact with that now for somebody like andrew who I shoot on a regular basis if I need a specific release there's actually a magazine is going to be featured in a tv show. The production company came to me, they needed a release for me to allow them to use the magazine in the tv show on and then they needed in the secondary release from the athlete to allow the athlete to be seen in the production because they were on the cover of the magazine. So then I have to go back, right? So I can't I can't just say I don't need to release, you know, sometimes I don't get releases in scenarios where I know people that if all it takes is a text message, I need you to come over and sign a release and they do, you know, so I just explain it to him. But if I'm traveling somewhere and I shoot somebody in a scenario that I think could have potential being published outside of the editor of marketplace, I get a release, I have, uh, a nap on my phone call these release it's his easy is putting their contact information in my phone they signed with their finger, so I have to carry a pen and I have to carry a crazy two page document for them to freak out about. And I just explained to them that by you signing this, you are not going to get compensated if that runs in a ford ad, you know, they're just that's this the bottom line. But you do get the promotion of being in a ford ad. So that's kind of my spiel when I asked him to sign it. And I have not had anybody ever refused to sign a model. Elise, you do not need it for editorial content. You needed for advertising content. Third party. What kind of similar to that kind of two questions? One do you have them? I know there are athletes in the most pro athletes, and they understand what injuries could happen. Do you have them sign a physical waiver saying they won't come back at you or anything? But I know, you know, and here's, the way I look at that, too, I never, ever, ever force an athlete to do anything there, absolutely not one hundred percent comfortable doing it's their choice, I do not ever make them go off a cliff. I do not make them get area do not make them do anything that they're never comfortable doing I suggest it I'm like hey, could you do this off of this and if they say no I'm like ok, well we gotta figure something else out, right? So working environment I'm trying to be creative they're trying to get exposure so yeah, I don't ever make him sign anything like that bands umm but I'm not pushing them to do something that they wouldn't want to be doing or aren't capable of doing and that's the other thing and I learned the limitations of specific athletes, okay? You know, some guys are really good at doing backflips other guys can't do him so that athlete doesn't get asked to do a back flip the one that does and is really confident doing it you know? How does this look for a back flip? No, I don't like the way the jump is going to kick me in a position you say ok, you move on second part on the same course that was when you traverse and down you know when when skiing when you get to the bottom, you kind of traverse back over open and go back up to the top and come back down again or we just much one shot down the mountain and you're done for the day it depends completely depends on scenario location environments whether all of this kind of goes into it but there are times when I'll spend an entire day shooting well skin up some line you know, four five times we'll hike up something boo pack up something for five times uh or but the other thing that we do a lot of is we use the chair lifts to gain us access to the gate points in skier is right so we could use the chair lift or tram at jackson we get two gay point we exit through the gate we head to our destination take shots in specific places sometimes sometimes there's only one shot I want this crazy tree I know the lights could be good there right now we're going there take that shot, go back down to the tram and then go figure something else out you know? And we'll do that based on schedules and all that kind of stuff yes blends hood didn't seem in your pack to use him I actually I have him in my pack yeah use them in snowy, rainy times I will totally throw the lens it on yes, I don't always use the lens hood lynn sweet is really good if you end up dropping something because that's typically the first place that thing's going to hit and so you can save your theories and lynn said for sure it just slipped my mind just f pri brain preplanning or preproduction on ships like this do you do a lot of it? Was this the fact that too done it so much, you know, what's wearing depends who the client is, what the job is, etcetera. You know, I shoot a lot of photos just kind of on spec. I'm going to go out on blower powder days and I'm taking photographs and I don't have a place for them sometimes. There's a story that starts unfolding between relationship of an athlete and okay, well, they've got character. Well, now I'm going to start focusing on character, too, so then I can build this kind of portfolio of this athlete from, you know, the beer drinking phase all the way to backflips stage of, you know, professionalism and depends personality wise, you know, there's stories start forming there, and then stories start forming about locations and about morning sunrises and things like that so it's kind of a progression, you know, every shot I take is potentially a new project for me, a new place to go and within that then there are people that I pitch ideas too, who have got a core group of shots on or about and we try and further dive into that kind of focus.