Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Dramatic Single Light (John)

all right we're going to set something up over here I want you to go with may so if you just wanna turn your chairs around you're gonna do what I'm gonna do let's talk a little bit quickly about um john he's got a very unique look I love the beard I love the the little hat thing that he wears he's got texture in his face and we're going to do something with a speed light and a couple pieces of cardboard I'm gonna make a very dramatic interesting photograph of john something he I don't think is done before all right all right so um brett let's uh I want to set up the speed light were used the speed light and I want to go through that wrote meter thing so well do that is the road meter still around here somewhere looking yes it is that is that it's not it's ok yes and john let's just sit you right here okay just take one last look I'm going to use a very dramatic light what I want to do is to take john's um john's features I'm attorney this way john john's features and and present a phot...

ograph it really shows john to his teo to me the way I see him okay and that's what we're going to do I've been thinking about this and let's bring this over this side we're going to do this so you all can see howthe shot puts comes together wei have a lot of ambient bouncing around in this in this room so yeah and brett was spring that I will make a nice little little slit of light move you a little bit closer to this way go that's good talk about owning our light one of the things I like to do is very dramatic light especially on guys special on on men we do have natalie standing by so after we do this shot with john and you can see how it works with him we're going to the shot same kind of shot with natalie so you can see what it looks like with her too because it's a beautiful type of light and string meter is was that okay works we should be good we should be good okay there was some questions about the string meter relating to whether these are exposures or not these air not exposures the's are power of the strobe this has nothing to do with shutter speeds when we're talking about this and we say f twenty two there is no shutter speed correlated with that this is the power of the strobe giving us f twenty two it's on ly the metered power of the strobe okay so this is f ate your shutter speed doesn't matter shutter speed does not matter it's f ate whether you're at ah thousands of a second or you're at a fifteenth of a second it's a it's faa because that's where the power is now to get the shot that I want to john I'm gonna have tio meter this here and john pull that through there thank you sir and I'm going to uh don't take that through we bring it through to that knot was that they f ate non to third not there not so he is at the f ate position for that strobe if it was a naked stroh right at one eighth power not to make me take my clothes off oh man you take the fun out of everything it's a one eighth okay so if it's at one eighth power back there that's f ate on a naked strobe however we have a shoot through umbrella so that's going to kill two stops so we're now down to f four f eight by six four okay shutter speed doesn't matter all we're measuring is the power of the flash the shutter speeds going to determine how much of this ambient light that we get into the picture okay all right good let's see brett the height is I keep I'm looking at the shaft and I can't I've gotta look at the head we've got to bring it down maybe six inches so that that heads going right into john right there right about their good okay let's that's papa flash real quick manually and which one do we use them where that's the loma pro on that one he's in lieu of pro one sixty this is an inexpensive manual flash it's not doesn't have any whistles and bells that's the kind of flashes that I like to buy I think if you have ah canada an icon or so when you need one of that brand you know that to talk to the camera for the party pics and the events and the time of the kids were running around and you want to put it on a t t l or whatever the hell or whatever they call it that's great but for me I'm a manual kind of guy I want to always just own my light and so I will work with uh work with the manual manual stuff we got it hooked up okay um I always want to be able to control it so this is a great little light uh impacts right impacts lt's a lt's alright so f four we're not using uh trust even ultimate er here need a pocket wizard oh yeah we need the pocket wizard on let's pop in here pocket wizard on pocket wizards are funny animals pocket was their users or even funnier animals they'll go out on a bike pocket wizard and stick it on top of their five d mark too with their l glass right and then they turn it off after they do every shot to save the battery really three thousand dollars camera body three thousand dollar lens three hundred dollars pocket wizard you're saving a double a battery how I would love to have a seriously a dime for every time I've worked with a guy with a pocket wizard when he takes the first shot goes oh damn well turn it on I got a thought they got the batteries last a few months yet leave it's a battery leave it no draw I just don't get it oh I forgot to turn it on yeah most electronics break when you turn them on or off if you don't die in the middle of something yeah the last thing I want last thing I want to do is to miss a shot because I'm saving the battery life on sign of people who turned the camera off after the show that's not me either brett let's move that in that black ends with the nice black background very nice on john kind of just leaning just like that little more little more towards you good was there isn't on the camera you're right and if once we turn the pocket wizard on we should put it on the camera I was testing just testing john lens cap all right yeah I know the guys on the farm are going nuts with mai on and well I'm standing here chatting and shooting it up thirteen so let's go back for don't put that first one up everybody will laugh at me I'm a parle john good thanks sir bring that v card in closer so too far back there we go there we go that's kind of what I'm wanting their I can I can do this with john create this really nice moody kind of shot john um attorney in to the light just a little bit more just like that yeah brett keep in fact brett bring right thiss way towards you a little bit good and open it up so I got a lot of black back there thank you sir yes so what do you do when you don't know what to do you get a light out just pull a light out and ask yourself what oh I want to do that shot you see there was planned probably four months ago when they said you're going to come here and I said oh I'm shooting john karna cello and I know how I'm going to shoot him and I would do it just like this two pieces of card and the umbrella behind it so that I'm narrowing that light come through and I'm creating this great shot of john I get I get to see john the way I see him in my head now we got some nice phil going on over here let's bring that little thing over here on this side of him we have some nice natural phil probably because I'm shooting at a hundredth of a second and probably because we have some video lights going on here okay I'm gonna try it a two hundredth of a second and see if that makes a difference it's nice john right there good yes yeah that's it yeah so the two hundredth of a second does give me a little bit darker side and also gives me a little bit blacker back brett and and again I'm doing this without modeling lights right I'm I'm addicted to modeling lights folks I really am one of the things that I teach is when you're working with these little lights you goto down to the hardware store you know those little mag lite um flashlights you could get a little bitty one that hope that when you twisted it makes a really wide beam they're great they're just enough that you could velcro it right on the top of your speed light it'll feel that umbrella up with enough light that you can see it where it's falling especially in lower ambient conditions outside at noon probably not so much ok you're not going to see it but in a in a place like this you can actually see where that might be falling okay and brett what we're gonna do is we're gonna try to catch some of this light up here right over here exactly is put it right up over the top of him just like that I like that john just mention down this wall right there good and I don't mean how about a smile all right thanks sir don't do it more vertical one more good that's it thank you my man yeah see that's my portrait of john cornyn shell for aziz effectually known to me is a sure sure set up how wide how what is the distance between the two I've got eight inches right john yeah eight inches okay yeah now I can I can narrow that good question so what I'm taking question right let's narrow it up about three inches okay I can narrow it now before someone as I'm using a soft light behind it too I'm not using hard light behind it can you use a hard light behind it of course you can't does it change the look of the picture oh yeah is it right or wrong no shot yeah great right what about their alright john cross your arms and kind of lean into it what kind of questions sure snap turtle is wondering if you are concerned with separating the subject from the background if I am concerned yeah I did actually separate the subject from background probably not as much in that shot but yes I am I do once separation this is probably not gonna happen with this set up because I'd need one more light and we're not going set that up yes I would separate him a little more tilt it up a little bit like that just good jonah yeah I may open up just a tent for that there are opening their good way go yes that's an even narrower opening see his face with the light gets a little bit narrow one or face out narrower on his face and look at how cool his hands look coming down into the picture there that just little sliver of light happening absolutely we could yeah okay so another question from dennis dixon is woulda strips off box be similar to the flag umbrella in the shot yes dennis it would and even better would be a gridded strip soft box yes because the grid would doom or of what this is doing keeping that light from going out remember a soft box is kind of like a um if you think liquid we talked about that the first day soft box is kind of like a mr the light bounces around in the box it's the diffuser and mists out it's not being pushed out like an umbrella light it's sort of mists out around the subject so as it comes out that front panel it does this right if you guide it out the front panel with the grid then you have more of a channel to the miss yeah absolutely would uh without setting up the light can you tell us how you had set it up to separate john a second light yes I would put a second light speed light you're now a speed like put a second light maybe up here that would give the rim look to him the difference between that and the second way I'll show you is this puts light on john right and this puts light on the background either way would work I know it work brett grab the home depot lights real quick there through that door grab them real quick you know what I'm saying what we're going to take a home depot like we're going to stick it down over here and kind of muddy the thing up will it be orange behind john yes he'll look like he's escaping from devil land did you ever escape from devil in no I'm still here are you on that bandanna goes perfectly with that concept well what I think way need to know is I think the entire world is wanting to know what is really under the bandanna I'm thinking those little it's like a little glass thing with colleagues and stuff going on so so don actually what we were chuckling about is that people are commenting on john taking off the bandanna so he's got folks saying glazunov saying john actually has two brains one brain entirely dedicated to lighting calculations and the bandanna covers the second part you want to learn if you have a home studio and you want to learn how to do some cool stuff at home I know where you can learn it john you did a full day workshop on it and I got to tell you guys wass one of the best I've ever seen and I'm not just saying that because you're here and that's available on creative five yes it is you and it's uh it's like one of those things you want to put it on your ipad have it with you all the time all right john I'm gonna lean in turn that light on aiming right at the foot just one of them yeah anyone twisted around aiming right at the corner there yeah that's it right let's see if this works I'm I have to go back in my shutter speed I'm gonna try one so guys uh see here now I didn't work of course I have to go back to a hundredth of a second maybe sixtieth of a second to bring that back light and a little bit we're starting to see it bring a little bit closer to that wall there brett yes here we go and up a little higher tilted up up up up up right there right there good how's that yeah it's orange sari because it's orange but can we separate him sure can now using a sixteenth of a second I'm gonna drop it too eh a hundred a hundred of a second take that down to two thirds of a stop which is kind of where I want it to be so it's just a little whisper of light behind him to separate him let's try to get you know what brett pull that black hangout place what is that I don't thank you pull this black when I'm getting that read um thing innit so just twist there you go thank you all right yeah there we go so there is some separation on the back which is something that I would do I like this now we're going to separate him by pointing that around at his shoulder take it back up and we'll point that one light right here on him okay so get almost getting to that zacarias look here cross my heart someone have a vest for me you want to look like zacarias I want to look like zacarias I bet niko has a vest for you you know what would look good a zach curious oh yeah I'll give you a little beard all right and bret you know what you don't have to do to flag me off here sir yeah a little higher yeah we're gonna have to flag me because it's coming right at my lens all right good same thing kind of leaning in here just like that that's nice yeah and of course folks be gentle with me we are using a tungsten light as a backlight there so it is kind of going orange but yeah that's you could see exactly what I would do two different ways of doing it one like the subject and give him a rim light to separate him from the back and the other way is to put light on the background and give him dimension let him go to black on that side but give him dimension and john I like that shot