Lessons

Lesson Info

Light Modifiers Shoot: Alyssa & Claudine

we're gonna take a shoot through umbrella and we're gonna flip her over and do a bounce umbrella so I can show you how this size actually changes with the shoot through umbrella and it's raining good thing you haven't umbrella now my gene kelly days are over okay lissa and claudine we're going to start with elissa clinton wanted just grab a seat there and you will be with you in just a moment all right listen I'm gonna come right out here we're gonna take this shoot through umbrella and remember we're talking about a spray of light right I saw on the internet photographer did a side by side comparison between a shoot through and a bounce umbrella and the hypothesis was that a shooter umbrella was softer then a bounce umbrella okay and so what they did was they took the shoot through umbrella and step over here for second and they shot the background white wall like that that light's spreading everywhere isn't it now I think you would agree that that's probably going to be a softer wide...

r spread right then if I turned around because now I'm actually going to see an edge over here with that umbrella stops lighting up the wall and why not so it's not going to be quotas soft right is there a flaw in that plan and anybody see the flaw in the plan it's a further away from the wall no no what is what is eliza's characteristic different than the wall yes you're being compared to a wall nine just bear with me kate there's a reward dimensional exactly the wall has no dimensions two dimensions it doesn't come out once we've added dimension of depth things change because let's look at this shoot through umbrella man that clicker there quickly take this shoot through him for all and we'll take it up here and her eyes my life's write up about their I want this center shaft of this umbrella to come down into her eyebrow what about that angle here little lo ok bring it right over to a nice access from camera okay good you see the flaw and the thinking when the lights that close what's happening what's this lighting up a booth floor not her not her slighting this up light is doing what spreading away from her okay and remember we're talking about at distances that are within twice the diameter so you know this is a forty three so about eighty inches out after that it's just a light it doesn't matter really anymore maybe on the edges or something it would but right here get in this close it pulls away from all this little high a little high and if we could get a johnny wanna pop it let's get a reading on this real quick more time john or nine almost five six so we're gonna say five six one take a shot what you want we'll take we'll go with one hundred this umbrella is very very close to her but it's also scattering the light away from her waiting it's still a little high for her because starting tether to find two high with that light the center part of that shoot through umbrella is going to be the brightest part of the shoot the umbrella right the center part that's where the light's coming right out into it as it spreads out around that umbrella it gets it's more of an angle which cut some of the light going to come through it I need to make sure this is exactly the right height that I want it coming right into her eyes because if I take it up even two or three more inches we'll start putting a shadow under the eyebrow why are why do we have eyebrows foreheads why do we have that keep the sun off our eyes were outside shades your eyes does the same thing with a light in the studio is rapture to be five six actually five five five five good all right that's very nice spring chin up this we just write they're beautiful thank you here we might be a little thinking I'm a little hot here john you know let's get one more pop reading now we're good now do you see where I put the ball of this thing this meter put it right here there's a giant war in the industry there are some people who say it points at the light one of my mentors dean collins always said pointed at the light I pointed this way because the ball is the same shape dimensionally as elissa is so the light lands on the dome the same way it lands on elissa if I take a meter reading from the light source I get five point six point six five point six point six would be really six point three pushing seven point one but if I come right from here under the chin I get five point six so about a half stop difference I'll show you the difference in the shot I like a more open bright skin tone so I go a little bit brighter if you do this and test it I would say use the method that works best for you don't use the method I use because I use it don't use the method in use because he used it is what's right for you you're gonna like your exposures that's you're the ones that have to live with them okay so where we are shooting with a shoot through him roma turn it this way just a little bit and look at the highlights on the silver of gold highlights they are small and speculum like speculum laurie speculation profit where we go good chin down put it right there right there beautiful the light's spreading away from her so looking at her nose and hurt jake right in here we have a fall off and look how dark it is under the neck there you see that dramatic I am never going to make a value judgment there is no value judgment there is only what you like I like that I could shoot that going to show you what a bounce umbrella does in the same position same size umbrella pull it out and hit her with yes you want to try out the damage of models they're hard to come by and most of them have attorneys right take it up so that that shaft is coming right down into her eyes now bring this right and really close to you right now I'm gonna shoot from the same angle where's this light going now no it's the same part of the umbrella here that we looked at before that was sliding up here right what's this lighting up if I stand behind my model and I looked this way now when you do this by the way you should tell your model what you're doing okay it's very important that you don't just go up behind the model goal not good for you you will never never win friends what you're doing is I'm saying I want to see what this lights doing if I can stand here and see my camera and see a part of this umbrella that means her cheek I can definitely see a part of the umbrellas so now we're going to the same shot john probably reading here you want right under the chance of finding a way to reset the scythe five six point three okay so we'll go to five six all right all right here yeah right there good eyes to me now same thing where they're good same shot same distance right same distance away and now we're gonna wrap the light around her face now we wrapped the light around the face and we've lost this deep shadow because we were pushing light away from the center we've lost it I'll ask you which one looks softer should through or saw her bounce at that distance once I move it away that make any difference let's take it out uh well let's let's see we have this far here we have some strength to stops we take it out about here john lee with same thing what is this about here then guys has to stuff about three stops right is the inverse square law three stops we'll see if we go down we got five six I'm gonna go down to four go down to two point a and what's our next move I s oh hi s o two hundred way we're backto what pretty much the same shot we started with see that should the heavy shadow on her nose and this thing's so faraway look att that sharp edge on the nose the distance of the light source makes the light source bigger the larger the light source the softer the images and I don't care if it's a hard like if you had a big round hard like this big and you were photographing a couple of grapes down there they would be softly lit because the underside of the grapes could see that part of light way over here the size of life source in relationship to it makes all the difference in the world now I kind of like that that's not a bad look at all for kind of a fashion fash anything but if I'm going to bring my light back this farm bring it a little bit closer here because I hate that I hate that shadow I hate it so much I hate that shot on that little one it comes under the lip I just don't like it I don't like it at all it's not my style let's bring it right over access just like this okay and let's see all right all right here we go we see some movement down come back to me live it good feet way apart set the shoulders good part the lips a little bit bring that shit up what kind of there you going kind kind roll through it good come back till it's like this it just like that right there good one of the things look how pretty that issue when it comes right off access we still have a hard look to it still have a little bit of a hard look to this uh that nose but it looks really really good spring go ahead and bring it back in then john who backed down to my eyes so one hundred and that was that five six yes and bring it a little bit more way more to access so it's almost in front of her keep coming and sit back it out two inches right there I start with my white sent to close that I move him back go too far then come back okay way have to be deliberately where we set our lights right in there good john swing that light forward a little bit more keep coming keep coming right there back it out just to hear beautiful attorney all the way into the light looking towards the light just like that just like that good bringing face back to me slowly right there chin down a little bit beautiful thank you when you worked with talent I don't like to have my talent stop moving it's the hardest thing sometimes when you're working with someone's never been a model before they tend to react to the shutter so they take the shutter as the reward of I've done it so they'll do this on the way and you click the shutter and then they'll move and wait and you'll click the shutter but I want them to do is to constantly be moving I'll click the shutter when I want to do you have to be very very careful that you don't set a rhythm click click click because when you do that you're not in control of a photograph anymore you're clicking a rhythm and you're just getting what you get at that point in time that's why I like you strobes that recycle really fast so I can shoot three or four bursts in a row if I see something happening I want to be able to do that um yes perfect I like that it's a nice portrait now why is the wall gray because it's a shadow falling back on like well there's some light falling on it but what rule that we think about huh yes inverse square law exactly that white wallace so far back from her it's not white anymore because there's not there's a whole lot less light landing on it okay when have you have a seat real quick I'm going to bring up this beautiful claudine with her leather jacket and gold top and I'm gonna put you right against the wall right right there you just lean right back against it now we're gonna take this light we'll actually leave it right where it is let's get him let's get a reading and we'll bring it in closer once you see the distance to distance does they were working with light in the same we have not moved the light so it's actually farther away just like the second shot we did melissa can you please remind us what lightens your shooting with I'm shooting with a hundred millimeter powers this one's on right there and then clear it on site we should have one hundred middle millimeter cannon two point eight macro yes ok good two point two point oh so that's not gonna work is it changed my iife so here too change it to two hundred notes he says two point eight halfway over half just almost to it between two to eight okay so I'm gonna go one sixty on my eye so I'll open all the way on dh two eight down here and let's go ahead two hundred on the I s o uh you want two hundred on the ice and see if I like this better that's pretty nice for a nice white wall nice skin tone we see detail in the jacket I'm going to go with that I like that better I like to shoot to the right what that means is I like to shoot brighter because I can take it down in photo shop photo shop is going to throw away information I can do that when I have to have in photo shop start inventing information by raising up dark tones where there's really no information at all if you looked at a a graph of the amount of information that photo shop captures I believe it's three force of the information in the product itself is from halfway half exposure middle gray to the bright only one third of all the information is from middle gray to the dark because when you stop thinking about it something that's a black pixel has got what it zero something that's a very bright magenta may have zero x baba baba right there's mohr information up here I can take that down can't really invent stuff in the bottle so I always shoot a little bit brighter and yes I know there are people who do it the other way that's what makes it fun okay so now she's right next to it we've got a nice little bit of a sharp shadow right here coming down through here because the light is so far away it's casting ah hard shadow but we're just going to work with her just a little bit here that's nice pretty chin up a little bit right there good twist the hips away from the back you just like that exactly good bring the face right too may write to me keep coming this way with this good right there good drop chin down beautiful thank you now let's go ahead and take it up take it right up next to her and I'm gonna kind of sneak up underneath that I'm relative some sand because if I take this picture now slow and snap it for four and a half that's a nice one hundred I also wanna thank sir uh on four and a half b along where we go or I'm gonna go to four point five I want to sneak in under here just about here yeah I'm gonna go with silver shadow because we have a single light source of a shadow we have a shadow that's much softer on the edge do you see it's not a sharp anymore because the size of the light source is actually putting some light behind her and look at how the light wraps around here I like to start with my lights in as I just said my lights like theo when I get my lights and I like to start with him as close as I can I can always back him up but I find if I inadvertently or for some reason start but they're too far away it's confusing to me were to bring him in okay I just really think about it but if I start with him in close and I can decide because I don't want you to say oh yeah that's a good shadow it's not a good shot all this just the shadow we have it's not good or bad or indifferent it's just the shadow we have I like it I like the way this umbrella is lighting up this leather jacket see how pretty that is however we're not getting all of the tones of the leather jacket we can do that by creating something for what who wants to finish that we're gonna create something for leather jacket to reflect great something for the leather jacket to reflect no put that yeah that's good right there is good we'll bring it right up against the wall like that I'm gonna bring this thing right up underneath my umbrella john if you can man this thing and get it locked in okay what am I doing providing stuff for that jacket to reflect thank you sir and you can take it up a little bit I'll tell you when I sit down by that beautiful look at the leather jacket now if we can put these up side by side place would be great way have speculators in the jacket we have bright speculators in this jacket right because the speculators so much brighter than the dark jacket now we've given the jacket something to reflect and look how much smoother the jacket iss however noticed we haven't really changed claudine very much same way localized what we're doing and I like those shots like those shots could we just have a second with claudine here not really half a second means you a little longer than that here we go just a couple shots beautiful come back here it's nice twist away from you just a little bit more right there good now I don't want to see that yeah exactly put the hands in the pockets yeah could shake up a little bit back to you in the face right here right here right here yes that's nice thank you hear beautiful so we've done there's another reason why we put our lights in close I'm gonna go back to the keynote we have size light source now we have the distance of the light source from the subject because the distance of the light source from the subject means and here we have very close big light sunshine and a medium light a little bit farther away we get a little bit of neat shadow thing in here but you see everything's lit up so we changed the look of one girl just by the way we lighter size of light source and it's the distance and by the way I don't know if I mentioned that before but size is the most important okay and now we're on distance which by the way is also the most important the distance means we have inverse square law inverse square law means our light falls off but how does it fall off it falls off faster the closer we are to the subject so if we take our subject would bring you in over here to thank you guys both against the wall here yeah you're gonna exactly you're gonna put you back to her a little bit just like that now I'm lighting them from the left to the right why exactly lighter skin because the light's going to fall off we're going to keep her into it if I reversed it what would we do accentuate the difference in the right so we're using a sidelight looks good yes I don't like going out together with wearing that gold stuff and bring this right in here like that john bring that in just a little bit and let's see what we do with both of the girls here with a little bit farther away good right there light falls off when we get back to the white room yeah I'm going to reverse you guys flip sides I know this isn't gonna be terrible okay it's not like this this is gonna be a terrible shot there you go right there good day smiles this isn't gonna be terrible but it's not deliberate and that's why they say I'm talking about this's deliberate we know what our lights going to do we make the shot so it works for our subjects this is I put two girls against the wall and I didn't think about my life was going to do light falls off fast so was that mean it means it creates drama take a seat right there I'm going to shoot one of the time when I haven't I'm going to set this up and then I'm gonna shoot you first I'm gonna pop you guys in and out okay we'll get a stool for them settling right here get it if we bring our light in really close what is there like do falls off really fast right so what if we brought our light in so close for this head shot and it actually fell off across her face well that's fairly easy to do I can moonwalk and I'm so glad and I need one for her to sit on a cz well whatever sitting up thank you um I'm so glad she didn't say no you can't is an hour have been proved wrong we're going to bring this light in so close that when we look at our indian inverse square law she is about eighteen inches wide here right maybe fourteen inches wide so far lights in so close all right right there bring you right up into this chair right here sit right there yeah thanks john will take it down so that's this coming right into her eyes so bright there yes yeah we'll get a reading do you see what's happening the light's so close to her but there's a difference of a stop here whole stop difference between this part of her face in here because of how close we have the light we move this light farther away her entire body would be the same exposure for now we're going to drop it off just a little bit it creates drama but it doesn't change the light from being harsh when we talk about light falling off some people think oh well that makes the light harsher no the light actually stays soft very soft because we're so close but it falls off and creates more contrast in the overall image because of the inverse square law because we are so close hope sorry john go five six yeah I'll shoot it at five six months coming here I saw a head shot here beautiful oh yeah this is with no this's with noah phil look at what we have all right look at this plane right here and look at this plane right in here you see the light getting it's actually a bit brighter in here as it comes across her face because it's slowly falling off in that short distance because we're so close we'll see it more when we bring the soft box over and in a moment we'll even seymour of it but isn't that pretty now we're gonna brighten up her hair because we are losing texture on her hair by giving her hair something to reflect hey john let's try a silver one that's a silver gold just a great silver breaks over yeah and the reason that I thought we'll try this bright silver we don't have any that scared me way don't have any skin tone toe to worry about that brightness happening we're just going to get real poppy light back to her hair and how do I know where to place it who wants to tell me angle of incidence angle of reflection what should I see from here right now I see a flat dull silver board what do you think that's going to do for may not a whole lot we're gonna turn it john until I get turn it away from you keep going oh look at that keep going right there right there now so I get you see from camera got to get right and access a camera right here you see that light reflected in that silver card from camera which means angle of incidence angles reflection take the shot it's gone a little bit jonathan got twisted away from me just a little bit towards you away from me right there right there good they're good thank you sir I wonder if what would you think it would go faster if I took this thing off like ultra raw and stuck it on j peg or something it would weaken yesterday huh we'll go faster but you won't have the raw images okay look look at the look at the texture in the hair the brightness in the hair it's cause we're we're creating I got a little bit of it over here didn't we but that's that's silver card hitting those that hair reflecting that silver card because of silver card becomes a speculator source and gives us a very bright edge that's one like that's pretty pretty nice light for one life I think earlier in the day someone asked me where do you start you start with one one light and build from there there's all kinds of other lights you khun ad to it all right we're going to do the same thing here with a soft box we're gonna have you move over going to bring that box over john I have a question for john yeah what kind of reflector is that and what is the one that you just pulled out there that's all the brand name we're sure I think it's from backdrop outlet cool and it's a five in one so it's black silver gold and white okay thanks remind me after lunch someone say five and one to make five and one want to show you something about five and ones we obviously can't go outside where this liquid sunshine is raining heavily honest but we can fake the sun inside that can show you something with the five and ones that are amazing you love this good then we're gonna go ahead and do this and almost set that up we're gonna take that were new that shot we did yesterday you girls okay it's true yeah we'll just bring it down a little bit came on yeah you kind of take it oblique to her thank sir right about here I'm gonna cheat this just a little bit I generally cheat my my soft boxes a little bit you so mean by cheating generally I use a soft box that a pure oblique angle to my subject it's flat over here but I started cheating it just a little bit bringing it in just a hair just to pull a little bit more light on the other side of her face okay so it's a small cheat okay I'm gonna bring you in closer who actually know you want to stay there I'll move this in because this moves and you don't there we go reid is the light scaring you know how about now look at me right here you go good all right so close we have that it's right up on top of her this is our light source right here what do you think it's too stops darker back here guys two stops darker we're falling across her face with taking and creating dimension okay yes sir here we go a eight on even a point to a point so good thanks sir they're ready okay outside five six and a half they take it right behind her head right about there right there five six five six eight five six it's a full stop okay since I pulled two full stops but it's a full stop remember the inverse square law when you're up close and you're farther away from soft boxes not necessarily exact on little poppy on the back of my camera here would have you know I got skin tone yeah okay see falling off and it's not just shadow it's falling off right part of the neck right across this is all true value in here so it's kind of falling off this gives you modeling off the dimensions off her face but still with a great beautiful soft light look at all the transitions are very smooth all the way through here we have love large catch light in the eye first thing I look at you arch catch light in the eye and of course we have the hair coming down here's a little bit dark we're going go ahead bring this will take the white board back in yeah we also have something that you may or may not like it's up to you notice her chin as it goes down here right slit and it goes down why is this going dark kitchen going dark curvature her chin is doing what as her chin comes down it reflects that great floor that's going down to darkness her skin reflects it doesn't stop reflecting as it turns away from us still continues to reflect so it's reflecting that dark floor well actually use the way use them okay what we're gonna do we're gonna bring this in john will take it and just looking right flat under that yeah under the soft box good I think john what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take two shots okay one with and I'll have you taken out tilt it up just a little bit higher if you take it up brady's right up to the box a little more right up right there right there this is with it and and don't move elissa take two same shot ready okay we go with it and without it thank you now we'll see what this does wait we'll have the phil card in from the side and we'll take these next two shots and put him up side by side seeing see what that bottom thing does with it without it and it's to me it's dramatic really see it it softens up all of this area in here that's dark in here is now all softened up we don't have that dark line under her chin that we did here lit up mohr under her neck than we did here and look at the eyes do you see the eyes it's a little different but you see how they pop more just have a more of a one alive nous to them if that's a word if it isn't a word is now so I like working with one light source I could do you know send me to a desert island give me one light I'm happy one light clouds and I'm a happy guy um more lights than that not a problem we can certainly use him but we don't necessarily need him okay I'm going to set up uh that's that's the distance we had one more slide to do here and that's the angle everything you do in fits our did you guys have questions I have a question okay so while we're still talking about distance I'm try with so much crossover of the utility between a shooter umbrella reflecting in a umbrella and a soft box and since we're talking about distance it seems that with a soft box in sun situations I'm going to be able to bring that in much closer to my subject to be able to work with the fall off that you're talking yes okay I'm just making sure that I'm understanding you finesse light up close if you're doing one or two or maybe even three people or still life or something you can finesse the light you're shooting one hundred ibm executives on the floor of an office building you light them up you know I got finesse that that's not a finesse job that's the light and I get a light for exposure stunning too the best you can you still might add six or eight highlight shots all around but you're not going to be able to finesse every little face that's on that and that group can't do it so it's the closer you are the more intimate you are with your subject one or two people or still lie for something the more finesse you khun do as you move away and like event photography you're shooting weddings you're not doing this it's not this is not that game this's really paying attention this is large box in clothes a smaller box back farther and of course the soft thing with the sun angle of camera to subject angle of light to the camera okay we have a trying always of camera to subject subject toe light like two kids it's a three legged subject the wider you pull that light to the side like john and you have to kind of face you kind of think triangle you know I think a real triangle have to fake the angle okay so if we take this to the side here melissa that's the white ist this base of light can be you only have ninety degrees each side of your camera toe work for main light if your lights up here on access you have ninety degrees to the side and ninety degrees to the other side once this light goes behind melissa it's now back light it's now something else it's not a main light anymore it might be a lot manes a source but it's not a main light main light lighting her so this is a very wide base to the triangle here you think john for five between four and four year we're five six before we were at eight I'm sorry so we're gonna be five six yeah now if I just focused on her oh there she is over there well scratch that last shot first shot aaron okay and now we're going to bring the light two to three quarters from her so we're gonna narrow up the triangle that image will come up here in a second uh there we go look at that look at the amount of shadow right that's because the base of the triangle the distance from may toe that light is the whitest it's going to bay okay little three quarter action going here all right and then almost right about fact let's just bring break he bringing it in trying to make it is close toe on access is possible keep coming in right there in back it out just leave it right there sir okay change places we're gonna be right back start from the start here is going to go back ok right there good good smile you were gonna go back there good you write nice over the side but you weren't that's nice all right thank you you'll see the difference in two different skin colors and two different types of tops and how they represent as you go around when you go out to photograph you make what's what's your goal has time to make the best a photograph of that person that you can write the best photograph that you can look at clotting there we go we get claudie the this is I believe the sidelight right yeah for three quarter three quarter shot is that the last one I don't know his last name is that sidelight yeah pretty much um highlights and darks everywhere almost pure tone because the highlights don't show they're there the same highlights that air on her for their they just don't show so when you're working with faces you must know what your subject's going to do with light now what happens does this triangle thing makes sense because we're going to be using it all the next two days triangles distance of the light and the closeness this is what we do to create the light we want so that's pretty nice okay so there are times when you have to go and shoot something in the worst light of the day where is the light on the worst light of the day it's up there right all right