Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Girl Next Door

So what I've decided to do for you guys to take you kind of on a path of what it might be like when you're working with me and I'm hoping that I can impart all those lighting techniques I showed you today in slightly different ways and show you some really cool ways to bring some wow factor into the work you know, everybody khun set up the same, less there's a million photographers that can do that we can find a nice light in the alley somewhere and shoot, but I want you to do some really great things because the impact and hubbub that's what's really gonna bring you the business, you've got to go to a little bit more trouble than everybody else. You've got to be running ahead of the pack, so everyone teaches you to get on the train and do all the same things I wanted to in part with you, stand alone and differentiate yourself from everybody else. You would take beautiful pictures and make everybody look great when we are in the brake. The first thing people said is how do you decide h...

ow to do what? Look on who? So before I go even into this very first said, I'm going to tell you that. Every person has their style I mean I can look around the audience here and see there's beauty and every one of you but each one of you has a different you know core look about you what you think interesting and sexy and pretty I want to resonate with that I don't want to pull you out of who you are and taking down a path of somebody you don't know I want you to be the best you can be so the more questions you asked in the beginning about what people like to do with her favorite color is you know ask the people what they like to do it in the evening do they ride horses they ride motorcycles all these questions are going to lead you to a place of coming up with new ideas in your visual ization will start to actually get you connected to them and you're breaking the ice when you ask people speak to you like that you're giving them confidence that they can share with you there you know they're intimate details about what they like to dio so that's going to make the whole thing easier when you command comfort and connection and give that client that power they have already said to them I really want help you think great pictures believe or not when that starts to happen all of the things you need to know we're going to rise right to the top in the beginning it's a great idea if you can get together with the subject, go to their house, see the clothes, see what they're like see how they live their life if there's chaos and mayhem going on in their house and dogs running everywhere and not degrees set in the world, you will probably don't maybe don't want to go there shoot because that chaos and my hands going to come into your photo shoot be a part of that so the more control you can have over the set in the situation, the better it's going to be for you if you don't have a couple of places lined up to shoot there's always hotels in places like that, you can rant, but I avoid that if I can I usually confined something fabulous we have staged some sets here right in front of you, but you could easily dio here's a solid white ram solid white room white props, white clothes this is for the girl next door this is the fresh face california girl on we've got veronica over here! I thought I might bring her on out on the set on what you see, I'm going to tell you how I asked her to dress and what part of it I contributed to so in my little storage unit that I keep all of my props and I don't keep it all in my ofthis don't want look at all that stuff all the time is too much. I probably have twenty tubs that I bought from target in each tub are different things that I've collected one is nothing but pieces of fake for that I get from the upholstery store, I have warm tones, cool tones, blacks, browns have gorilla hair, I have all white so I can make the basis of something anywhere I go even if it's on a piece of white seamless, I can start to create a set, and I don't buy this all at once. I piece it of time, you know, if I get a big shoot, I'll go and get one or two things and I take very, very good care of it and keep it, I buy so flower, I buy all kinds of pieces of vintage jewelry, all of this stuff is collected, wrapped and set in these boxes. I have a lot of props I'm going to pull out over the next few days, you kind of get an idea of what I'm thinking about when I'm buying this stuff isn't going along, and I use some of it over and over, and if I'm at the point where I feel like I've spent too much money or too much shooting on it. It's gone ebay best place to say it sell anything used like that people would want to know that they bought something like that costume store sometimes I'll go there get ideas I might rent one or two things or by and then I'll pull the rest of it together from what I have the girls I have them bring all of their own lingerie the base of what they're wearing the top of what veronica's wearing that cute little shawl is mine um it's basically a scarf and I thought it would make a beautiful thing to flow on this is she's got a great figure beautiful body she's to spot her traditional underwear and this tops over it that it would make a great situation for sitting here in this all white set up this is the wrapper and light with all the light from behind I've got octus off box here filling in the front you want to climb up in there and position yourself kind of on your knees and the pillow kind of get in the middle screwed all the way into that great so while I'm talking, I'm singing let her relax and then I'll talk to you about posing and shooting and things as I go along this is to scream jim's place together with two strobes those air sutton about stop over what's on the front of her both lights are behind her not to the side if there to the side, you're going to see it on her face and you don't want that. If I start somebody in a great outfit like this, she could be in her underwear and she's not totally out there, you know, in the buff it's not eyes it's comforting to be starting out on something that sort of see through and it's easy to move in the fabric so it might be fun for her work with that, things that move flow all the way kind of things make for great places for you to start with your styling. It also matches beautifully with a white and her fresh, really fresh look, the light and the reason I chose octa box using in front is it's the same quality of light the scrim jim's air now a giant soft box for my light to come through. So the entire room behind her is a white glowing space. I'm going to zoom in and fill the frame with her body. I'm going to have her position impose around the pillows. I'm going to completely work her within this space, standing on her knees or, you know, on her knees, shifting her hips, I decide lying detailing on her tummy. Lying on her back and show you that one exception when I actually will shoot across the body but then you'll have an idea of how to work in a small space you'll get a lot out of this imagery from the quality of light but you also get a lot out of the opposing aspect so what I'm going to talk about there this light is high into the center it's not going to take much feel like from this light to actually fill in her face it could possibly be my stop down from what's going on in the back are you going to stop and a half now you're goingto make that judgment when you look at the subject taking one to one or two shots look at the beauty in the face all you're looking for is a kiss of light in front of the face if this exposure coming from here are the power on this light is set exactly is the same you will cancel out the wraparound effect the light from the back has to be at least a half a stop to a stop hotter than the light on the front you can simply go around too the stroke here this's setting minimum one backgrounds gonna be said it too click click when you're done all right so test you should make sure that the lighting is symmetrical if you set it up on your own building of the you want to make sure like if you're a tte the centre if you spread your hands back like angel wings it'll be seven and four o'clock at your back like that so if you're at the center of the clock that's where the light needs to be not here I have to say that two or three times because people send me images and then I'll see the light on the side and everybody's white and a shadow down the nose that would be great for fashion but not for boudoir you want open face not artsy face so remember whatever you do in glamorous boudoir it's for the subject not the art so you want to kind of keep things all in perspective I need a shorter still then that's just a chute so the bed height is here I'm going to want to be down there looking right at her face in the boudoir kind of setting you want to be the person she's giving the images to if you're shooting that's images so if you're up here shooting down her you're diminishing her do you want to be in there with her beautiful and as you saw on some of the shots that I took from the show this morning I was actually sitting down on the floor shooting up to her but that was in a beauty scenario um so let's start with you sitting up on your knees and kind of turned yourself to the side into the pillow just a little bit could could you raise the life it's behind her head is a little bit straight at my camera can you just move it a little bit this way for me? Maybe about a foot and a half so you can actually sit all the way back on your heels straight back kind of snuggle your knees into the pillow so I can have that set so I'm looking at line yourself up directly between me and that post back there, so we're hiding that to your back beautiful keep going a little bit to call a little more a little more beautiful. All right? I'm going to do one little test shot here, all right? So when I'm actually shooting, I'm gonna have you raise yourself up, but you can sit and rest until I'm actually ready to shoot. You can just kind of rest and then I want to go back to shoot. I'll have to stop and take a peek at the screen on the move again. So you see how it started to wrap around. You've got someone of a little bit of hair light and you'll be able to see through that fabric when you sit down and start working on it and post it how her body will show through if you have somebody that's a little shy it's a great way to think how can I be sexy without totally over exposing them when that person comes in your space that says I want a shot like this, but I'm too scared to do it this is a way for you to start in it gracefully you can also choose things that are open in the front so in my boxes or bins of storage things that I have, I have a few trophy pieces of things that will kind of go with everything they're mixed in neutrals baby blues, pinks things that I know that might be great choice is to put on somebody's body when I'm shooting like this and you bring me the best underwear you can get for may I have a couple things we pull with us to make it look right? So you know if they want to go shopping, you know most of the girls I find if they've been working out a lot they want to go shopping, they'll go get whatever I ask them if I asked otherwise I ended with kind of a mixture of stuff that might not be so great, so it's really good that you go ahead and make a list of what is good choices for guys shooting this type of photography if you're concerned about having to pick up the phone and tell somebody that you've just barely met what to bring I have a lady sit down with you that you work with, maybe it's your makeup ours and have her help you could create a very short, concise list that you can refer tio and have her email it the day before the shoot the week before the shoot you want to call, have her call and make sure that she can check in and say, I just want to talk to you about how to prepare your hair for the shoot. Did you get the e mail list that had all the clothing suggestions? Have you been able to look at that? Is there anything you want to talk to me about and have her deliver that for you it be worth it to pay her a few eggs just box to have her do that for you? But then you at least know someone has spoken to her and you don't have to put yourself in that awkward position of dealing with that if you're uncomfortable about it. But it's very important that you do that creative control with the clothes, otherwise you'll go to all this trouble and then the clothes aren't so great, so it could be simple in its execution, but you just want to make sure you have really pretty things what I find more than not if I don't do that, I end up with used washed, overly washed clothes that and I might have been beautiful in the beginning, but after they wash it twenty times it's not going to make the greatest photograph really in a perfect world you want to go get new clothes for the shoot, but I can't always ask people to do that if they're young enough and don't have the extra funds to bend after they've paid for their photo shoot to go get all brand new clothes there's beautiful launch array that's perfectly suitable target and walmart I've got a couple of pieces in the more drug mix that I have and nobody would ever know in a million years that they came from there. It might not be something that you would want to wear every day and it's not the end almost incredible thing ever obviously victoria's secret and you going to name is in sacks and places like that are a great place to start for the underwear and then start good venturing out from there I also have vintage underwear in my kit they were their base underwear underneath it and then we can like this on top and then I clean prepare dry, clean everything every time after a photo shoot, so you have to be considerate of that so the light is nice and soft it's wrapping around on her cheek, you see a little bit of see through from the fabric the texture of the scram the lines and scram is just gone because the light is over exposing it um it's positioned perfectly nice I loved a little bit of hair light we have wrapping around make up for this I usually suggest even in the cleanest simplest thing that the eyes have a pop of definition black brown purple dark blue something to make her eyes come forward in this hire keith things that will wash away and you'll have a little less than appropriate eye contact if you don't so posing for this kind of thing I'm going to back up just a little bit so I can make sure I have plenty of room to work with so we're going to run through like about fifteen minutes of this why don't you take the pillow and just kind of cuddle it just a little bit maybe around to the side of you a little bit maybe one arm maybe pushed the fabric back so I can see your hip line great so pull your hair right out of your lip therefore me awesome great keep your neck long and your shoulders down beautiful awesome so we have the beep on I like knowing when my my flash is totally recharged and so I can move forward awesome let's drop the pillow down right in front of you push it down a little flatter so that it's not so big right now sit back onto your heels almost not completely lift up just a little bit now put your legs and hands on your thighs and roll your shoulders forward and keeping chan looking at me and cabin nice expression on your face beautiful sorry, great! Why don't you do a couple of things now with your hands all up in your hair and over exaggerate your hips out to the side, not push out to the side this way do you see how I'm directing her with my hand? I say shift the hip and I think when you have a longer, straighter body like veronica, you have come over exaggerate to get a nice curve. So it's not going to be something is going to comfortable for her to maintain for a long time, but over exaggerating a little bit not the push, but the kirk that's great all right, beautiful and I'm choosing to crop her feet out, but that doesn't mean that you want to do that in every time a beautiful eyes at me good, beautiful, beautiful that'll be nice with the light coming through, so relax for just a moment when she pulls her arms up for the mary next shot that should be really pretty lighting amendment you could do here, you can bring the ice lights and for light in the front if you want and have one position low if you want a little feel like I could also do a clamshell lighting in the front of this scenario, but you will remember to keep the light power down a full stop underneath the background. This is a great day outfit for shooting somebody that you know you want to camouflage their waist a little bit. You want to give a little hint to sexiness but not completely show their whole body you could have these made you could also buy them. They were in most of the department stores and it's the end of the season. I guess when that's the best time for you to go shopping for your proper clothes and now you want to go to like marshall's. Tj max, go to the back row everything's on sale before the christmas stuff starts, but not like right now, and you'll find beautiful little flowy tops and shorts and things like that for two, three, four dollars. So on and that's kind of what I did with this, but I've used this thing a couple of times and you have a blue, black, white, pink so it's an option for you have you're gonna wanna have about six to ten things that you can use on people that you might wanna have a little help covering up just a tiny bit on someone's body, all right? So let's try a couple fun poses now I'm nicole you want to come over for me I want to try langley now on your back let's just lower this light down well actually let's start with you on your tummy toward me and I'll do a beauty shot version of that all right scoot your body back into the pillows and if you want do you mind working without the campus all on let's lose that and you just lay here so when I was shooting the beauty shots before I'd like to get down on the ground so that it looks like she's kind of coming right over the pillow and looking right into my eyes or her partner's eyes that she might be giving those photos to so you could toss awesome let's use a regular pillow and you throw that on the bed there would you perfect just lean it against perfect all right, scoot your head and shoulders over this way let's pull this light toward me so I'm positioned in the front light over into sort of paramount decision right about the head and shooting down I know that that life is going to be very flattering and very pretty which in land grabbing the cake pans for me all right so let's pull your hand one hand up on top so I'm just going to talk I'm teaching photography said I've got to talk about shaping form here a little bit see how she's relaxed now and she's lost her collar bones from the beginning. That was something I kind of had. It was a pet peeve so you wanna have lift yourself up so that this line is pretty to hunch down so she can sit like that until I'm absolutely ready to take the picture but I want to start looking at her hands and the placement of her hands and straps twisted on the other side and your feet should be twisted like this good maybe even laid them back just a little bit beautiful you'll arrest him on the pillow there really pretty there. So if you can pull up on top of the pillow can you pull the pillow down so you have a little cleavage there and make sure you're brought is on nice and even beautiful awesome just kind of flipped your hair out a little bit great you could bring that around the front tip it back toward me a little bit great beautiful that's gorgeous and pull your left hand up on top of your right hand beautiful it's gorgeous a little bit of a squinted eye beautiful guys should be quite lovely pull your feet in like this toward your bomb that's great lift your chin up to the light great beautiful but your head roll over like this, right? Maybe pull all your hair around the side beautiful laugh way there somehow linked to the other side and laugh good, beautiful good I see how in laughing it just looks so more generous and honest and beautiful tuck your feet all the way into your bomb good laugh awesome beautiful how is our exposure looking take a peek and relax for a minute so even though the lights here were pulled into a beauty so you want to pull in something underneath pull the feel like right in the face still we'll do your natural retouching underneath the eyes and smoothing things down and it just sort of feels like you're somewhere else but in a photo studio and I when I first started doing this particular photo shoot, we would have location sometimes for playboy and I get there and it just wasn't working for me but when you're there on the set is too light to make a decision to change but I would still have to bring the light somewhere somehow so a lot of my solutions were problem solving things that came up with on dh I urge you to try toe, you know, find a way you know sometimes you might want to challenge yourself to take yourself to a bad location and try to find something pretty like the worst place ever and in consequence I've sort of come up with some better things that work better for me then I mean, this is not a traditional thing that you see with lighting done in this way. So let's, move along now to turning maybe over on your back and let's. Lose the pillow. So I'm going to talk a lot. You can lose that, too. She's gonna have her face up to the sun. Bring your head all the way over here. And I want you take your hair and kind of fan it out. Great. Can you reach in for me and position the pillow? So she's kind of around the back of her. So my vision is going to be in shape about here. Some one or two and that's, almost perfect. There actually can you just screwed over a little bit into the pillows with your hips and then tip your head back over the edge and contemplate that's. Beautiful. Now pull your feet up into the air like this all the way. Straight up, you, khun I prefer leg, side by side, ankles, toe, ankles and then one knee in front of the other opposite. Great, beautiful. You can use your hands around your knees lightly touching. Use your forearms to lift your cleavage up and together not too much, just a little so you never let everything fall to the side. That's all I'm going to say about that it all cleavages beautiful we love that that's part of femininity to me so a playboy move we would do would be to use the forearms keep your hands relax you don't even see it's happening the cleavage is lifted with four arms and then hands are generous and soft and beautiful there's your finishing touch so she can use their forearms to just live just a little cleavage and lets everything sit where it should be and then she can relax her neck and relax your forehead and then right when I get steady you can lift your feet up all right hold on one sec actually could probably stay there put left hand on top of your legs so it's soft and pretty in the front beautiful still using your forearms were likes your forehead good lift your chin up to me so you don't have to raise your brow squint your eyes for me beautiful it's absolutely stunning awesome back up pull your legs up just a little straighter in the air they back up just a little more beautiful lift your chin up toward me a beautiful girl and you can laugh awesome but your ankles side by side and hold him straight up to this guy put your left knee in front of your right knee that's all right you're going to tell me both good uncross your ankle's all right put your feet side by side like so and then cross one day in front of their perfect we'll just bring your toes up can you take your left hand and land in your hair now as you look lift your chan away up here and don't forget to use your forearms huh beautiful simple straighten out your legs just a little more beautiful all right you can totally relax we probably should bring the light around a little bit more in front not all the way around to this side but just closer to my feet so as I'm looking at that her body looks great everything's great but there needs to be more light in your face when you come back with your would you mind coming back with the all right so now we're getting a little bit better and try not to raise your eyebrows for me yeah just keep it right totally relaxed come around this way in the front actually you might want to sit on the other side of the light stand thank you so much you okay, sweetie? Good. All right beautiful all right leg's up near little higher take your left hand and put it in your hair beautiful good awesome beautiful all right, you can also now what did you kind of come up onto your knees back to that position and and turned your tummy toward the wall on dh then kind of sit down like you were going to do the splits sort of that's even their beautiful body parts what you just did there with your hip kind of shifted out like this pull your hands all the way up in your hair now and elbows away from the camera so when you're posing subjects things coming toward the camera get bigger so if the elbows hands go up in the air they should immediately be to the side. So a cz she's flexing the hip out she can crunch her tummy which makes the muscle tone show up in the tummy so the word I use for teo hold the tummy titus I say crunch your tummy we all know what that is from doing sit ups so if you say crunch in the hips khun shift right to left and you have more almost a six pack tucked in at the belly so that's awesome to oppa's well, hold on it won't you sit back a little bit? Not all the way down. Uh, you could go away good. Both hands in the hair beautiful really curve your body leaning over this way awesome! Squint your eyes for me beautiful, awesome and one more that's really lovely that's pretty just kind of people up at me while you're there with your head down like that blossoms beautiful so at this angle she's stronger and taller that's lovely so you're retouching is just along the waistline there if you want to smooth the broad out but it kind of makes a fantasy land for you to work in so if you want to show the group of them for me that would be awesome you told me he likes to give her the top back kind of helped her off the set alright so does anybody have any little questions you wanna ask about way definitely have some questions online if we don't we have some here actually just before we jump into the lighting questions you're talking about having like six to ten items that you have how long do you use something until you rotated out of the cycle so is not being seen or used to make times well the worst thing that can happen is that the girl you shot yesterday thrilled to death with her pictures and she goes home and shows him to her friend and she's wearing the same outfit on the same set in the same light doing the same poses and we're creatures of habit in the beginning you're going to find one or two things that you love and you're going to do it over and I were over again I suggest highly that you do every can change it every time at all possible because every time you change what you're gonna get to be better as a photographer, but you're also going to bring variety, so the poses don't you could go back to a location, but you need to work the complete location. So for example, if veronica's friend came, I might shoot in a white saying that there be pink pillows on the bed. I rotated out, I may do whatever I can to make it different, so I might shoot that on site two, maybe two, three times in my local area might just put it away for a year to bring you back out in another way it might shoot again on another location. There's a couple of things I've shot several times like that, but it's usually not something that's so, so, so obvious, so you want you can turn it over if you don't spend a lot of money on it, you don't feel about that about that, you know any other questions before you move on? Absolutely, we've got a question here we so we here in the studio, we try to keep it fairly clean, but apparently we didn't do the greatest job because we notice that the models feet were a little bit dirty. Is that something that you worry about? You fix that in post? How do you deal with thirty feet on models? I see that on with spray tan morse anything that's part of the reason why I hate spray tan so much people go to get the spray tan in there standing in the puddle and they get everything smoothly done all over their body they start washing their hands, their hands fade and then the bottom of their feet end up being really staying by this and there's not a lot you could do about it have hided in the pillows retouch it so I have awaited if I can if this was a regular shoot in time permitted it probably would have had a wash your feet for me. But I did notice that you do want to make sure that that's an issue to take care of best. You can anything that you can do before and it's going to save you time costs you personal to me money in time are the same when I start getting into my personal time after I didn't shoot anything I could do while I'm under that timeframe of committed to the photoshoot to help me make my workload late later easier I want to do all right we have a question from the european who is wondering how you can deal with the stressor nervous is nervousness for both the photographer and the model from the beginning of today I talked about how important it is that you set up in advance try something out in advance. You want to get all the nervous, stressed out part of this taken care of before you ever get on the set, just like I had the lights set up for you, it's much easier for me to walk over here and pick up the camera and know that I'm now I'll have to worry about is her opposing the drama, the creative part of the shoot if I'm standing there stressing about the light and stressing about my camera and I you know, you never want to say what happened to the images o g ive lost the photos or anything like that. You really want to be a show is showtime when you're in front of camera, when the paying person is in front of the camera, you have to do everything you can to make it a magic stress from the model if you meet with them in advance a week or so to two weeks in advance and spend a good for thirty, forty minutes it's going to make that job so much easier for you from the close to everything and you're letting your subject have a chance to see what it's like to work with you and see what you are like personally it's kind of like going on the first date. I hate to use that analogy, but I think we know what that feels like. You can't have that butterflies in your stomach, excitement going on, and anything you can do to release that tension is going to save you stress later. So then it also gives you a chance to fix the clothes if you get there and they're missing something and you have time to see their house, if you're going to shoot there, you could go get more pillows, bring props of some sort should just take this so that being said, you know, as much interaction is you can have beforehand will help the stress factor. Then when you get on the set there sort of going through the motions, they get into the make out that's a new thing for on that day, they get into the whole scenario, if you put it time and effort into beautiful lighting, a beautiful set, then they're going to feel like a million bucks, and then that stress just kinda goes away. And if you have somebody that is like her urn on the set, I mean, we know that that's feels like right that's the worst, and that suddenly you're taking out not emotion there best thing you can do is just, you know, but you're gonna have to shoot a little more. You know, it's does she in twenty minutes, you might be shooting for thirty or forty minutes, and I would avoid showing them every single picture. In the beginning. I would work with him until you get greatness and then show them fabulous, okay, it's, what you've presented otherwise, so keeps crawling through him, dilate, the ones that aren't good on ly. Show them the fabulous.