Lessons

Lesson Info

General Q&A

Can you actually talk more just a little bit about the set up and what each light is contributing? Absolutely absolutely so when I'm setting up any shot I like the face first as I did here with the orb and the orb is like one of my favorite toys to work with because it's nice and soft on almost feels like natural light the way it spreads the light out super shiny on the inside speed light sits in there in the background flares the light around and it comes through this nice soft fabric this on the front and p s you can use that or with your studio lights so it's super cool I haven't said it about a forty five degree angle here to this side and I haven't said a normal setting our regular site full setting these strip banks I didn't want them to be so intense like I had them on playboy setting earlier I just wanted to see the dress I didn't want to see that light s o as I'm scanning down the body, I'm thinking I'd really love to seal that texture but not so obviously so grid's air on the...

m on the front to keep that soft light from spilling all over the set and over lighting the background too much linguine background with ruin the illusion we've created with the jailed speed light that's all the way behind the background so it's kind of like a magic nicks to think that these lights are so close together, but they're not overlapping it's very subtle. So the lights on the side or simply filling in from underneath underneath and because I was shooting so low, her heads up high, flat, pretty flattering lighting is there so it's, pretty simple, great and for the background, thie blue light summer crook is wondering, did you use an orange jelen said it's, tungsten? Or did you have a blue gel for the people in jail that I saved a few steps, so that hope from this and that has a little bit of a blue cast to it, but it looks like started up normal looking photo image on the back, which is fine for me because I can change that anything I want from that, the one we're looking at here. I had two backgrounds and use golden jill on one and blew on the other complementary colors on that, um, in the outfit, the whole thing was put together by sewing all the colors you see in the outfit. The makeup was also drawn from seeing colors in the outfit and what we were going to do with the background, so all complementary colors that make things pop complementary colors have the most impact, and you can look out through your life and look through any magazines on tv and whatnot and see complementary colors working in action, and we don't even realize that we're attracted to certain things there. I understand why these things work so well, but that's that's really it fantastic? Do we have any other questions here from folks in the group? Yes, ma'am, I was just wondering if you you mentioned making this informant editorial and how you would take that further into how many shots and different looks I would. What I would do is I shoot the beauty first, and only in this case I did a test for started with the light, worked up to it, then took it down shot to set itself. Now I'm working into shooting more of a close upset, then three quarter backing out when I feel like I have the interesting shots, I usually say that's it onto the next outfit will usually have something that's coordinated with it, but not the exact same thing, so if I know I'm going to do that, I'll usually talk to the designer if I need somebody to help me it's, a wardrobe stylist and say, look, I'm doing this whole tribal, snow sane, those few words is enough to make them start visualizing what that might be. I might mix another girl into that setup, had maybe an ethnic look about her, and then rival the blond and that against each other in the makeup might become key and both done in different way similar style, but, you know, matching matchy, but not exactly the same kind of thing morpher maybe she might be wearing pants, the top exposed or something like that, make it fun and creative. Sometimes I'll shoot three people, but it always ends up being the two, and I was picking odd number of images, something to lead with and the others to make double pages that they were published, and then I create them and ship them out the same kind of format. Fantastic. So again, can we talk a little bit about the backgrounds that you're using just in case people have watched a little, whatever we would love to hear whether they're from absolutely denny manufacturing is a company that has made backgrounds for a very long time, and traditionally you see them using portrait environment. I came at this obviously from advertising fashion field, and they were intriguing to me because I could go somewhere without going somewhere and inclement weather and this few months when you can't go outside it's, snowing and dark and yucky, I still needed to make money. So I pulled in a couple of those and started working with them got really great results, and then I every time I have a shoot and the concept is coming, I go there first to see if there happens to be something I could use um, and I make decisions based on whether or not I'm going to buy it if I think I can use it beyond just that one intended use because there's nothing worse in buying something and use it once or twice, and it sits there on the shelf, but I can usually tell from the website these air, all everyone I believe, that we have on this entire photo shooter called freedom cloth, and they're actually photographs that have been enlarged to scale and printed on this cloth and it's supposed to be wrinkle free there's a few wrinkles in it, but you I can see pretty well here we just pulled it tight, stretched it a little bit and wrinkles were gone, so changing the color of the jail you could take this in so many different directions, including maybe christmas cards, if that was what you were interested in doing are changing the whole effect of it. I've also taken these things outside and stuck them out in the woods behind a sub set you could take the snow outside to use other trees other things that are around and make a set, my alice in wonderland set was done completely outside hanging the backdrop and everything outside. But so if you go to the den you matt denny manufacturing website, you'll go to the freedom cloth section and start scanning down. You also type in what kind of look you're going to hear more than welcome to go to my website and see some of the cool ones that I've used on dh I've been really surprised I've used most of them, like, you know, hundreds of times, to my surprise, do you have so many creative ideas? It's? Kind of amazing, I know you say you're a stylist trapped in a photographer's body, but I mean, you have such a huge range and repertoire that you have in your portfolio. Where do you get your new creative techniques and ideas? Where do you think I tell you about that in the morning at lane? Yeah, um, sometimes it starts with the word, and this one started with trouble. Clothing. This one started with ice princess, and then I take something like that, and I just start examining that, and then I think about all the things that I could do and bring to the shoot easily, um, and then I start creating and I have this new rule that I have within myself that I can't just go out buy stuff you know, there's no need to buy stuff that you know, that you're not going to use if I can't wear it I'm not buying it so I try to keep things and you know, smart and that you know, her headdress I've probably used that to three hundred times that's the same thing we used in italy over on their wrapped around her and actually not on that one but I did use it when we were in italy so when you buy things you want buy things they're neutral enough that they could mix and match with all kinds of thanks and that's when it's smart to be able to pull that whole rabbit out of a hat you know, the only thing we had to struggle with to make this whole shoot happened I think we're really the boots um, you know, everybody in the south has high high boots just kidding, but those are easy for me to find. I know just who I can call to see if I could find those either used from a vintage shop do you guys have plato's closet plato's closet yourself? Stop it's always a good idea to go to places like that, you know, on the weekends I call my girlfriends on sunday and say let's go thrift ing and we literally start out looking for that you know that hard to find item or two and I keep those bins rotating with that stuff and the studio sometimes I roll through it sometimes it's flowers sometimes it's leather and studs sometimes it's flowers and netting each time I'm rolling through it it's something different tomorrow morning we're going to do pretty cool set some things were bought and most of it was bought at home depot and the drum drama of it is going to be just insane when you see it all kind of come together lighting will be simple, but the whole impact of what you're creating is really the shoot it's how you feel when you look at the images that leave you kind of interesting I think photographic images you need times to tow have the impact come across have you ever put something in a shot? You know it's just not big enough there's just not enough don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone when it comes to making things grand like this this background you'd ask me about the scale of this when you order a background from denny you tell him what size you want I very rarely ever buy them, so they're long enough to sweep out on the floor I make my own floor because the background sweeping forward is what removes it from my sense of reality when it's hanging there, you kind of forget you don't see the horizon line, so you don't see the fabric. They designed floors, little rollout floors that you can put in and for studios like this, where you wanted instant change the floor for a sad it's, really a great idea and they just roll out, put down the little molding or whatnot, but I prefer going off on a whole different path in that. The other cool thing is that packs down, and you don't have to worry about it being up on a big roll story. It like a roll of paper when I lived in new york city. If you wanted to buy seamless paper, it almost cost is much to have. It delivered is the role of paper costs, so you would go to a studio and shoot in a studio and rent by the foot, the paper abide by the foot, so a roll of paper was like one hundred fifty bucks on. I just couldn't see that it was like, wait, there's somebody better ideas without having to do that. So you can make cool backups backdrops as well by painting right on phone core building pallets, standing him up a little l brackets on the back. So, you know, don't be afraid to step out of the box and makes a cool set. That's what's really going to make the magic for you happen? We're talking about light placement, creative statement, the light it makes the magic on top of that statement that you make visually so that's this much fun to me to put all that together. I love the dressing up part, the staging of the set part as well as the light. So if you list out most important, the first thing is the concept, the idea you might have, you know, it might be an ideas we did today on the very first start shooting I'm simple bed sometimes you're limited to this that what if the bed's not great? Then you build description set, so the way I presented this to you is to not be afraid of things. I say there is never the answer of know you can always be more creative and make something happen anywhere. I don't worry about how I'm not having a studio anymore because I could make something happen anywhere. What I'm in atlanta called photo plaques and I go and work with them and I'm like a membership thing do you have time to schedule me in? I don't know if you guys have anything like that here for studio I want location I know enough about the cool locations when we were working to are going to show you some fun videos and involved that tiki hut that I talked about this morning you know I wanted to shoot the tiki hut and I was nowhere near one I wanted that sort of island feel next thing I knew two days later I'm standing and a tiki hut and we're all laughing because we found one so the other question very cool well, you know there's a question that just came in and I think I want to ask because you and I had talked about it this morning before coming on the air it's from m s images studio wondering where you store all these big props and all the gear that you buy and we had talked about that this morning because I have a small one bedroom apartment five hundred square feet but I still have, you know, umbrellas and I have four ten foot backdrops and it gets really squishy in my apartment I don't keep any of it in my house and there's a reason for that I don't want to live in my gear closet and I want to separate myself from that. What I take home is my computer. I have a lovely computer set up in my house and office there on dh I'm usually on the road, so I keep everything in a very well organized storage unit, and when I have something come up, I go there and pilfer through what I need and pack up to rolling suitcases and ship it or take it with me, then I have stuff to work with, and then I would say, to give you a perspective of how many props I have if you took the sat right here, what's that ten foot by ten foot, I probably have about enough bins that stack up half of that with backgrounds, so no, hey, and I've got every kind of theme you would ever want to pull from so that if I have some crazy thing, I want to do it like I think I can make that happen. And like I said, if you find yourself over using it, you know, some people say I want one of those I want that I want to do this after a while, you can't keep reusing that because, like I said, you don't want your girlfriend. To call the other girlfriends now just trot with lou freeman and look what I have and it's the same set with the same styling, hair and makeup and not to brings up another subject. If you do repeat it, you want to use it totally different so that those two people don't collide. But keeping the gear organized has been our gear, and the actual props organizes been girl key to may. I have one entire ben there's. Nothing but different kinds of flowers. Different kinds of the next one might be different kinds of leopard skin fabrics. The next one might be propped closed. The next one is all these backgrounds. And then when I pulled my set together, I organize it that way. So I take just what I need to set. And then if I need to make things like these, if we were done, we could throw those away if we wanted or use them a couple of times until they start to break and show wear and tear and then get rid of them so that something is used again and again, like snow, you might use the snow five times, there's no reason for you throw it away, just pack it up and store it and pull it out thanks to me, the kids or something like that so and my gear is. I keep my speed lights in my cameras, everything with me at all times, because I never know when somebody's gonna call me want me to do a shoot and my gear, my photography gear, is in florida, where I live. So it depends on job to job what I take with me. And I arranged all my flights around that. If I have a big job come up and I'm shooting in san francisco, and I'm down florida, then I order it there and go and shoot in rent and leave it and come home. There's. No reason to try to take everything with you there. It's bad for the gear and it's. Too expensive, it's, easier, cheaper to rent it. Really.