Lesson Info
16. Live Edit: Q&A
Lessons
Class Introduction
16:58 2How to Find Good Light
06:57 33 Common Types of Light
24:27 4Directing Your Clients
06:15 5Posing Pick-Up Points
28:00 6Engagement Shoot: Assessing the Light
09:38 7Engagement Shoot: Storylines and Pick-Up Points
50:02 8Engagement Shoot: Q&A
08:12Lesson Info
Live Edit: Q&A
Question about cropping. We kind of saw it, but do you sometimes tend to shoot wider knowing that you might need to crop or are you trying to sort of nail it anyway? In general, I don't. Like I do try to get in, like I get the crop in camera how I want it. Occasionally I do go in because I see it later. Like sometimes in the posts I'm like oh I should have, like that one where I cropped in because I didn't like the way he looked here. Like I didn't see that in camera, to be honest. I probably saw it in the sense that I wasn't satisfied with the photo, but I'm moving on and I didn't take the time to stop and analyze what's wrong. So that's why I went in for the crop on that one. Sometimes I might want to get a really close detail of something and I just didn't bring my macro on me at the moment and so I get as close as I can and then I come in and crop a little bit. I don't recommend depending on that because you lose, one, the size of the photo, but also like the depth of feel, like ...
the bulka, you lose that too. So if you're shooting bigger and you crop in, you don't get the pretty buttery depth of field, as opposed to had you done it in camera with the lens, then you would have gotten a lot more like pretty buttery bulka with that. But sometimes, you know, it's just thrown on you and you didn't have the lens on you and it's alright, let me just do this and then you crop it in later. Great. And specifically Marianna was also asking about like if your client, or if you're not shooting with medium format, but say you know your client's gonna wanna print 8 by 10s, are you kind of considering that in the way that you're shooting, the way that you might be printing? I do consider vertical versus horizontal in how they wanna use it. So for example, if I'm shooting for a company, I'll make sure that I have something horizontal for their Facebook banner, for their website banner. So I'm thinking of it in those terms. If I'm shooting editorial, like for a magazine, I want the cover. So I'm shooting a lot of portraits 'cause I'm trying to go for the cover. So it depends on. So yes, I do ask what they're doing. Sometimes some clients are like I have this mantel that I really need a picture on top of. So I want them to buy that print from me and not from something else. So it's like alright, how can I create that image for them that would go there? Is it something that needs to look like this? Is it three that looks like this? So if it's three that looks like this and I'm already thinking of what are that trio of photo that would look good together. I was just wondering if you had anymore tricks for culling faster. I'm a really slow culler. I use Photo Mechanic when I cull. It's fast in the terms that you don't have to wait for it to like render the image. And I'm just control one to give it one star. So it's just left right arrows and control one and I just control the ones that I wanna keep and just do a quick pass through. I do control four for anything that I want to blog or submit. My other question is, you talked about the number of images you give for sessions, but what about weddings? Weddings I tell them 600, but it's anywhere from like 600 to 900. Actually, I think I tell them 500. Is that for like an eight hour wedding day? Yeah, yeah. Like the weddings that I shoot are like typically like seven hours long. Like seven and nine hours. Thank you for that question 'cause I was asked online as well. I usually estimate like for myself, I think it's about 100 image per hour that I shoot. No, that's actually on the high side. I think it's like 70 images per hour. I have a super specific question. If you are shooting a wedding with a really long aisle, are you at the front or are you at the back? It depends. It depends on how easy it is to get out of the aisle, 'cause there's some weddings and actually the one that I just shot this weekend, and this is fail on my part that I didn't like notice that I chose to be in the front of the aisle, but what I didn't notice was that once everyone filled in the seats, there was no room to get out. So then I eventually had to find like a good opportunity to escape to run to the back 'cause I don't wanna be stuck up there the whole time. So it depends. I usually have one person in the front and one person in the back though. So it just depends on and it's always a dance and so it just depends on how quickly or easily I can get out. A couple more questions on light before we wrap. One is, I know we saw you mainly using the white side of the reflector. Do you ever use any of the other sides, whether it's silver, gold? I don't. I like soft light and I think the silver side, I guess it would have been good just to show. Even that light side, to be honest, I thought was a little bit harsh. Like the one that I use it's the diffuser and I use that as a reflector and I feel like that one is a lot softer, the light that it bounces back. This one was a little bit more harsh. Alright, thank you. So we talked several times about how you mainly just use a reflector for needing additional light. Do you shoot ever night weddings or inside? Yeah, I use flash for those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I like to use natural light as much as I can, but I definitely do flash as well and off camera flash and I have a studio, so there's studio lighting there too. People are like wow how does she do that? (laughing) But yeah, I'm mostly natural light. Like all the stuff you see. And I'm not scared of like high noon or anything like that, as long as there's sun, like I love it and I embrace it and I use it. Do you have any final words of wisdom for people thinking about how now that they've learned your different points, how to go forward and use everything we've learned today, how to practice, all those things? Yeah, I think I would love to see you guys practice some of it. Like try out, especially for those who still haven't identified your style yet, you know, whether you like the high contrast or the light and airy. Like try out the different lighting ones. If you're doing, for example, like side lighting, you can do some really fun edgy stuff with side lighting or front lighting where you're getting harsher shadows versus, for me, I do back light and I get the light and airy instead, but that's a choice. So try out the different stuff, see what you like and if you join my challenge, that's what I'm gonna put out there and have you guys go try out different scenarios and help you find your style, help you find a more consistent voice and help you understand light better so that when you're walking into a situation that you're not like oh which way do I shoot from, that you can know, like okay if I shoot it this way I'm gonna get shadows, if I shoot it from this way I'm gonna get blown highlights or whatever.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Karina
I had such a great experience at Creative Live. Everyone was super nice. I flew from Los Angeles to Seattle for the first time and Mariangela was kind enough to help me with transportation, hotel, restaurants, things to do in Seattle. It was a fun continue education trip. Caroline Tran's class was amazing! I can't wait to go back for another class at Creative Live.
user-ba3a78
Enjoyed the class! Especially liked seeing how Caroline transitioned and shot the engagement shoot with the cute couple. The pick up points were great, love the analogy to piano since I'm pianist as well. I use her refined presets too and really like the outcome :) Would recommend that as well!
Student Work
Related Classes
Wedding Photography