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Images from In-Studio Shoot

We're going to show you a little slide show. Now, talk about composition, okay? We were trying to get different shots of this little guy. Oop! He's stretchin'. These are all of the images, they're just straight outta camera, some might be a little crooked, the way Lightroom loads. So a lot of these, what I would do is crop down. And so what I'm going to do, this one was shot with a 24 millimeter lens. Do you guys remember this series? And we ended up switching over over the 35 millimeter lens to get rid of some of the distortion that was happening? We're not gonna edit this particular shoot live here today. But I will be editing it, I'll make a little video, so make sure you're following me on Facebook. And I'll show you guys exactly how I edited these, as well. Okay? Is he not the cutest ever? (laughter) He was a big baby. So sweet. I'll move through some of these. There's Ken in the background. (laughter) Okay, so we talked about back lighting, remember? We don't want to have any lig...

ht on the baby's face. Okay, there we go. This is when we switched lenses. All of these detail shots that we got yesterday. This is fun see, 'cause when we shoot live, they hook you up, so you don't see it in your camera. Aw, he's so sweet. So all of these, I will edit, and show you guys how I would edit these, and how I would crop them later in Lightroom as well. Okay? Showing just different composition. Remember, all the little moments that we have to capture when mom's holding that baby. Okay. Anybody have any questions about these while we're going through? Mm-hm. Just continuing to hear what was in your thoughts, what you're looking for in the different ones? Why you captured that angle? So this, in particular, I was aiming for the hand. When you see a baby stretch like this, you need to aim for any of the, you know, the feet, the hands, the ears, any of those types of things. So, for composition, I'm looking for connection and movement. Remember, we talked a lot about, earlier, about how babies don't do much besides stretch, yawn, go to the bathroom, sleep. So those are all the movement things that we need to look for. So this is a really good example of that. The baby stretched his arm out, so I tried to get different perspectives of stretching, okay? You're gonna see that quite a bit when we move into the live shoot, with a little bit, you know-- this example here in the studio, it's a little bit different situation, 'cause we're not in the client's home, right? So it's a little bit, trickier to get the exact things that we're looking for. I always do pull backs. Whenever they have this stretching moment, or whatever moment they end up having, we need to make sure to pull back, because what are we trying to do? Tell the... Story. Okay, so we're telling the story. This is all story telling. Okay? He woke up, remember? So this is after we swaddled, and I actually teach you guys how to do this wrapping technique that actually gets the babies to go to sleep. Okay? Although he just decided to wake up, but he was calm, right? All of these crib shots that we're doing, we're talking about composition. Do you guys remember, I walked around the crib? So I stood on the side, I stood over, we do pull backs here in a minute. If the baby's awake, do you want them facing towards the window, or away? Towards. Okay. We talked about back lighting, if there's back lighting going on, you do not want that baby looking at you, 'cause you're not gonna have any light in their eyes, okay? If there's a window behind you with back lighting, we're gonna get into back lighting here in a little bit, quite a bit. You just have to remember that that's why you guys saw me physically turn the baby when he was awake. So if you have an awake baby, make sure they are facing a light source at all times, okay? And then I got the pull back. These we would turn in Lightroom here, but for the sake of the slideshow, you guys can see how it was shot, okay? This happens quite a bit, when you guys pull your camera up, this high, it'll turn, do you guys notice how your images turn within your camera? That's easy to turn in Lightroom, okay? So we're gonna go through some of these. So he's looking away, so we ended up turning his eyes. Remember I kept trying to turn his head, and he kept turning away from the window, right? Because baby's heads are round, okay? Hopefully, okay? Especially little C-Section babies. And there we got him looking up at us. He did have a little bit of conjunctivitis, so his one eye didn't want to open a little bit, but... And we kept trying to-- Oo! That's a funny one. (laughter) Picture it the other way. Okay, so now we're moving onto the siblings, okay? So we want to figure out connection. So we want them looking at each other. So you have to place yourself in a spot where you can actually see both faces, so you know what connection is, kind of, going on. And that's what we did in these images here. Okay, so we did the pull back. And then we did the overhead. Okay, so you guys can see. See I'm just changing perspectives on all of these? Okay? We are gonna go into detailed editing at the end of the entire class, and that's gonna go over the live shoot that we did in the home, 'cause that's a lot harder to edit than these nice, well lit images. Okay? I was trying to get the kids to interact with each other, so the baby was kind of placed in the lifestyle, remember? Okay, so we have a lifestyle thing going on, and we've placed the baby within the lifestyle. Infused the baby. Okay, and so I focused on the kiddos. It's always important to focus on the kids too. 'Cause they do have lots of kids, these are so cute. So cute! So picture these in a bedroom, you know? Not in the Created Live Studio. Oo! There's his tongue. Movement, right? Movement. We're looking for movement. Okay, here's where we brought in the family. Remember, when you were doing family pictures, the biggest thing to tell them is don't look at the camera until I tell you to. Because it will not seem natural. We did get somebody asking, "Do you ever feel like "you're giving your ideas to the family, "and it's not their ideas, so it feels, like, fake?" I don't feel that way. These things organically tend to happen in people's homes. Dads interact with their little guy, or mom will interact and snuggle the other sibling. Here in the studio, it was not a natural, you know, home situation, so we did a little bit more directing than normal. You guys will see, coming up here, in a little bit, in the live videos, how I actually directed the families within their home. So we had to, kind of, give them activities to do. Because actions cause reactions. Okay? You guys were listening. (laughter) That's good! Okay? We'll move forward a little bit. Yeah, they're sweet, I'm excited to edit these. Any you guys can see the ambient lighting coming up from above. Remember those lights that were up there, they were orange. So when you're in a client's home, just make sure you turn off all the lights. Aw, those are really sweet. Okay? So we're always trying to engage people, okay? You guys can see how I did all this when we look back. Yes. Emily, when you're looking thorough these scenarios of the same action, how do you know which one it is that you're gonna choose? Like, are you making sure that everybody's face can be seen? Or, does it have-- can one or two of the faces be then. I will show you. So this one in particular, we wouldn't pick it, because look at mom's eyes. Right? So I would scroll through everybody's connected. If everybody is connected, that makes my first round of cuts. Okay? Everybody needs to be showing connection. See how he's not connected here, the little guy? Not a fan of that one, okay? 'Cause he's kind of staring off into space. Not a fan of this one, 'cause he was looking at me, okay? And it was a different situation too. We had a lot of-- a lot of times the siblings were kind of looking at all the cameras around us, which isn't a typical scenario. This is why it's so important to let the family know, he was looking at the other camera. It's so important to let the families know, please, do not look at me, look at each other, okay? And they will, until I tell you to. Because you're gonna have one, it's normally dad, you'll have one person not paying attention, and they'll look at the camera, okay? So if you feel like, in your image, everybody's connected in some way, for the most part, it's in focus, right? We talked about focal planes in great detail earlier in the class, if everybody is really, and you feel good about it, that makes the first round of cuts. Then I'll go through again, and I'll make my second round of cuts. Okay? Based upon, what I feel, gives me the most emotion, okay? Like this one, that's a great-- that's a beautiful shot. Everybody's connected, everybody is looking at the baby, they listened, right? So during, when I'm directing parents, I typically give dad a job, and I give mom a job. "Mom, I want you to snuggle the baby, and snuggle your son. "Dad, I want you to be the protector of the family." and I use this a lot, "I want you to wrap your arms around your family, "and you're, like, the protector." So it kind of gives him a job, right? 'Cause men just have longer arms, so it's just kind of-- see how he's doing that in all of these? Remember at the beginning of this, his hand was dangling down here? And I was like, "No, no, no, we need to put that hand somewhere. "You have to be connected." You never want to see hands in pockets, just doing nothing. Everybody's hands need to be doing something. So after you naturally direct these family moments, look for that, okay? If you see a hand, stop what you're doing for a second, and redirect. You're not changing the moment, you're just redirecting the moment, okay? This is a wonderful shot, 'cause they're giggling. Remember what I said to them? "Let's see who can giggle the loudest." And they naturally laughed. We do not say, "Say cheese." If parents say, "Say cheese." We cut that, 'cause that that, eh. Elongated E vowel. It's like cheese. Not good, okay? Giggles, see natural laughter, okay? So with a shot like this, I'll probably crop down a little bit. I aim to crop within camera, I try to crop as little as possible after, you know? But sometimes in lifestyle situations, you're not at a place where you can back up enough, or you're too close, sometimes you're gonna have to, okay? But just be mindful of that. Do the best that you can to get it perfectly straight out of camera, okay? This shot, they were doing this on their own. Remember dad and his little guy were doing that on their own? And I was like, "Freeze! "we're gonna shoot this, "'cause this is what happens at home." They were being sweet, so I directed mom, daughter, and baby, okay? 'Cause they were already doing their thing in the back. And you have to watch for moments like this. This happens quite frequently, especially when you're transitioning. So when you're going room to room during a lifestyle session, if you're in the nursery, and you see dad in the background, sometimes with the two year old being cute, throwing him in the air, dad's are always trying to entertain the toddler, let them keep doing that, have them as background story telling. Okay? Does that make sense? And those are thing you don't recreate, remember? We talked about this with posing, you can recreate it. You can never recreate a moment. Don't lose that moment. Let that be the story. They don't need to be in focus. Let go of that. Remember, let it go, you don't need to be perfect. They can be out of focus, have the focus be what's happening right in front of you, and that's gonna help untell your story. Then, what we can do, is we can selectively focus, okay? So you can, all of a sudden, be focusing on what's in front of you, then you can let the foreground be the story telling piece, and focus on what's behind, okay? So you have both pieces. Does that make sense? Okay. Does any body have any questions on that? So, a question that came in from Sarah Alvarez was, do you actually bring a step ladder into the client's home? I do, I do, I do. And those are things, and we actually talk about in preparation, so if they have a larger step stool there, then I will just use theirs, and they'll have it out for me. That's one of the things that I request that they have. One less thing for me to carry in, but I always bring my little short stool with me, 'cause that's just how I wrap, and it just-- I need it. It's like the perfect height for me knees to push the baby on my chest. But yes. Is there anything different you would do if you only had one sibling to work with, what kind of interactions would you do to make that connection with the baby? Um, same thing. I mean, there really isn't-- you don't change much, one kid or two kids. The only difference is I wouldn't have the siblings interacting with each other. I would have the sibling interacting with mom or with dad. That's the only difference. And we're gonna see that coming up here in a minute.