Let's, take a short little break that right? Begin. Uh, slow down. Watch the details. L s see, what does alice see? Stand for stands for light subject and camera. Okay, the three things that were going to use basically to refine when we analyze our image, those are the three general areas that were going to modify to refine and get to the right look into the right light quality for our subjects. Now, what is the whole purpose of this cause? I mean, we've we've talked about it, but I want to give you the whole thought process in the philosophy behind this and granted, I know I talk a lot about philosophy. I'll try to make this somewhat brief, but here's the thing in lighting one o one we taught you all these amazing techniques of how to take your on camera flash to modify and create tons of great different images. This is lighting to one. We're going to get even amore advanced techniques, getting the flash off the cameron, creating even better images. Three one we're going to add multip...

le lights and constant lights and balancing the two for one we're going in the studio strobes and combining everything together with all of these techniques, it kind of comes to this point where it's just like technique overload and what ends up happening, especially with newer photographers when you're new and you're jumping into this stuff, you get all this gear and you take it all in your chutes and you kind of have this I don't know how to say other than almost like this technique vomit right where you get onto a shoe and you just start splurging these techniques out and throwing them out on the set and what ends up happening is you're moving from shot to shot image the image you're creating these cool things like, oh my gosh, the lights so amazing it's so fantastic and you're just excited about all these techniques that you now know how to do that you forget toe look think look at all these images closely and to refine and to slow down the process remember that each one of these shoots it difficult because on every shoot shoots her fast pace when you're at a wedding it's fat, but when you're doing a portrait session is fast paced, you're dealing with time restraints you're dealing with the sun setting, you have to coach yourself and train yourself toe learn to slow down the tempo so that you could do this and it'll take time but is one those things that we hammer into the heads of all of our shooters to slow down, slow the tempo of your shoot take the time to watch the details because otherwise this is what happens you get on the set and you start vomiting all these amazing techniques out you start going through and just shooting and billion images you get in front of a computer and then you go home in the pose is off they're oh man the lighting's kind of off right there I can see a big shatter their own man this has a problem too and you end up going through an entire shoot day and you're not happy with any of the shots that you got okay? Because we didn't slow things down so that's the tip that I want to give you right now is it merits saying enough that I actually created a slide for it so you know that if I created a slide to slow down, that is probably something that you might run into in the course of your photographic career or your journey so slow things down and when we look to correct things I generally look in this order well, the most obvious thing is of course the light and what we do we look at the lights position as faras the light direction that we're creating on the subject we also look at the light quality is the light speculum is it defused? We wanted to be speculate do wonder more diffused do you want it to be softer or do you want to have a harder transition edge you look to those things first, obviously because that's the first have to look, but what I actually like to do is I typically will look at the subject first and in particular when we're shooting a couple or when we're shooting a group. More often than not, you're lighting issues can be fixed by the couple's pose or by the groups pose you could actually fix everything in relation to you know, where they are in relation to the light. The third thing to look at is the camera's position in relation to both the subject and to the light source is, well, so let's go through a few of these examples. So an example. Number one, this is a shot that we're going to demonstrating in lighting three oh one were basically using multiple off camera lights toe like this entire scene to create a really nice, soft kind of lifestyle portrait of nicky who's, a nutritionist and she's sitting in from our computer holding an apple in the very first shot at the top. Well, I have two dramatic of a light, okay, the light is just simply there's just too much shadow on the face. The correction is literally just a simple saying, nikki, turn your chin into a life just a little bit more, turn your chin to the left just a little bit she does that and now we have a beautiful rembrandt light on our face and we get just the right amount of shadow that was a simple that was basically a subject change, right? We change the subject position in relation to light and it's the simplest change possible that's why it's the first one that I always look to? Can I just adjust the facial position to get to the life that I want? Now keep in mind one thing when you're shooting portraiture, you generally want to shoot flattering angles and if someone doesn't like a certain side of their face, you need to keep that in mind when you're adjusting the chin position, you also need to keep in mind whether you're short lighting or whether you're broad lighting so by moving her chin into that light now we're short lighting but we're lighting up maur the face and we're leaving the broadside the face in the shadows just a bit more on dh but it's not too much shadow where's over here it's just too dramatic oven image okay, so let's go to this image now this image was the one that we talked about when we're overpowering the sun with our bare bulb lights and now you can see close up if you zoom in on her face right there you can see ever so slightly that his face is casting a shadow right onto her nose and eyeball area now look at this image even at this size on my screen that is barely noticeable and if I'm shooting quickly and I'm just looking at the back of my cameron I go that looks fantastic! I love that okay, great let's go on and I didn't take the time to actually say let me zoom in hold on one second and zoom in to the image and so you know what there's a shadow right there only adjust that if I wasn't slowing things down and taking the time to do that I would completely miss that because even on a larger screen it's very difficult to notice what do we do here? We made a minor change once again in the subject position on this one I think we actually brought the light over a tiny bit, but we brought the light over a little bit. We also opened up his shoulder just a little bit, just pulling a shoulder back a little bit and turning her a little bit more so it's a very subtle change. We only need about one inch of total movement and we can get that light off her nose but again, without that slowing things down we would end up with getting this back and being like, oh man, this is a portfolio image zooming in being like either we messed up the shot to the point where we can't fix it or we're going to spend thirty minutes and photoshopped trying to brighten that area to even it out. Ok, let's, go on to this one. This is one where we kind of made several different adjustments, so number one the light is in a bad position, so when we look at this top shot, you can see how there's a highlight spilling onto her eye onto the side, that cheek it's all over her face and kind of its highlight your face in a very unflattering kind of a way. I don't want that, so what I did was I moved the flash further behind the subject and I also move the camera angle, so we put the flash further behind and then we move the camera angle so we are not shooting mohr of like into her face, but we're rather shooting morva profile into both of their faces, so here removed both a camera and the light position, and now we've eliminated basically whatever that rim light here was and now just became an edge on the side of her face and we've also eliminated the highlights on the eyebrows or on the eyelids and on the on the other side, the cheek as well, so we get a much better angle get a much better shot overall it's these small changes in the light in the subject and in the camera angle that are going to make all the difference in the world between an image that could have been great. Verse in an image. That's, actually, great. Okay, so sloth things down. Take the time, remember that it's, your shoot, you control the tempo, just like chris paul controls the temple when he's bringing the ball up the court. And I'm sure probably only ten percent of u got that analogy. That's okay, it's going on next video now.

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SLR Lounge

SLR Lounge is a free online resource created by photographers for photographers featuring tutorials on Lightroom, Photoshop, Shooting, Lighting and much more.

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Pye Jirsa

Pye Jirsa is a lifelong learner who has made a career out of creating frameworks.  These frameworks have helped millions learn languages, develop creativity, master photography, succeed in business, and even improve their communication within personal relationships.

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Lighting

Ratings and Reviews

Lê Tiến Đạt

I'd like to say thank you to SLR Lougne, Creativelive and especially Pye for creating this wonderful Lighting series. Pye has a great sense of humor and he is also a great teacher. He expains everything in tiny details. I love his creativity, all the tips and dedication. Recommended!

Colin

Pye is a god. His teaching style is really engaging, breaking down everything you could want to know about each example in a fun yet detailed manner. The course is absolutely jam-packed full of great information and fantastic inspiration. This course, as well as Lighting 101, give not only a perfect foundation for anybody learning about flash from scratch, but also have more than enough tips and advanced techniques in them to help experienced flash users seriously up their game. Cannot recommend it enough.

Karen Ruet

I'm watching this live and am seriously considering buying this course. I really like the examples and all the information. Pye is super generous and easy to listen to. I also appreciate the talk about gear and am happy that Pye is giving us options for different price ranges. Thank you, Creative Live.

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Slow Down! Watch the Details

Slow Down! Watch the Details

Lesson Info

26. Slow Down! Watch the Details

Lessons

Chapter 1 Introduction

Welcome to Lighting 201!

OCF = Anytime/Anyplace

Chapter 2 Introduction

Wired, Infrared or Radio?

“Pocket, Medium, Full Strobe?”

Our 3 Favorite Flashes “Pocket Strobes”

4 More Flashes “Pocket Strobes” Worth Looking At

Our 2 Favorite Medium Strobes

Understanding Radios Part I: Channels & Groups

Our 2 Favorite Radio Triggers

5 Simple Steps to Trouble Shooting Radios/OCFs

Fantastic ND Filters at Any Price Range

Our Favorite “Sticks”

Our Favorite Ultra-Portable OCF Light Modifiers

12 Mounting and Must-Have Lighting Accessories

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Light Stand or “Stick”

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Monopod Light or “Boom Stick”

Gear Setup - Setting Up a “Medium Boom Stick”

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Manual Flash “Big Boom Stick”

Gear Setup - Setting Up a Full Feature Flash “Big Boom Stick”

Chapter 3 Introduction

8 Steps to Perfecting Each Scene & Image When Using OCF

Over Powering the Sun - Part I

Over Powering the Sun - Part II