Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Window Light (Brie and Alyssa)

well we're going to do for this sequence here is we're going to try to do some shots where I talk about the emotional impact of the photograph and how I'm going to make this photograph and we're going to go ahead and go through the entire sequence someone asked earlier where you get the exposure well first we're going to find the ambien exposure we're lucky today we get some nice light coming through these windows so we can find the ambient exposure that we wanted to be and then using our string and the string leader be able to use our speed light and bring it in and just do what we want to do the nuance that we want to do to the image so that's what we're kind of kind of do here I'm gonna have my model sitting up right on this this corner right here and then I'm gonna work from down below so before I bring the model out I'm going to try to get some ambient like shots um just gonna be kind of playing with I took a shot or two just at the end of the break but he's trying to pull in thes...

e windows very tall windows with light coming from behind them that's kind of a neat shot for may I kind of like that idea um sold me uh let's try to find out where I'm going to be here now my meter says my meter says that that window up there should be well what does it say it says that meter that window up there should be f twenty two at one hundred that's what my meter says I have twenty two at one hundred um this is white after only two and a hundred does by the way what one hundred everything I do is that one hundred I'm glad you said that when I'm calling out things that I'm thinking of my s o one hundred if I've changed my eyes so I'll let you know now this we're talking about placing exposure that's what my meter says right there that's not gonna work is it there's the shot that took that bright window and made it middle gray it said we know what you want you want to make this window middle gray no I don't now that I'm looking at it I may later do something because it's sort of intriguing is really mysterious so I might do something with elissa here in a moment with this by placing this here create something dramatic but that's not what I'm feeling for this what I'm feeling for this and I want the light coming in and blasting so twenty two isn't going to do it at a one hundredth of a second so I'm going to open up all right here I would open up to eight go three stops see if I get that feeling of light that I want well even there no not quite yet so I'm gonna go to five six because right now I'm not looking for an exposure of windows out there we go not looking for an exposure of the windows and looking for a mood no I'm saying that's the difference looking for exposure windows I'm looking for a mood I want that light to come tohave a feeling of coming blasting in and you know what john go ahead put that back on j peg we don't need to get because this shoot we're gonna put it on j peg that way we don't have to wait so long for it to come in you don't need rods for this when I when I actually shoot the shot I made switch back if you remind me but for now let's get these pictures coming up a little faster thank you all right so if that's five six what is four look like right we go to foreign and come back you look at four it comes up for is actually spreading the light into the room look at that so now those windows air totally blown out and the room's kind of lighting up and that has a nice bright airy feeling to it this is not nearly as mysterious as the twenty two was mrs twenty was grainy kind of gritty this is kind of you know light coming in and now we have to figure out what's gonna happen to our subject in there so let's bring a model over and get her up on the on the seat there if you want for this one who's coming in for this one this one right here in the in the brown top here but she right up on the corner there you're gonna be up on the set up here so around yeah I came right over I'm john nice to meet you okay come in if I do this shot from here and you go kind of lean and then just like that gonna have really a not very good photograph of rianna she's very dark but we have our our our apertures set now isn't it aperture and shutter speed is set we we don't we want to shoot this that what would I have therefore at for what we do now is we use the string to bring our light and to be a four on briana we don't change anything else we're just now gonna work with the second half of our equation which is their stroke so with our we'll go with shoot through yet so familiar somebody bring this right over here we come this way with stroke the safe's in the shot no not in the shot that's good of course it's a cannon there we go focus against the backlight how special alright way have the kind of the shot that I want a like the mystery of it but she's dark so we use the string and we get our our distance and power actually we can put it from right here input from right here yeah take it out to this first knot which is very bold what is this first not way we're on a basic setting one eighth power at fifty with the bear flash this knot is f ate the umbrella kills two stops f eight goes to five six four so this knot is f or one eight power through the shoot through umbrella right well good I'll go with that umbrella kills to stop so take our angle of this umbrella to bring it down onto her eyes at that there and take it up so it's aiming at her eyes they're good we're already at for sure yep run it for here let's uh chart just leaning into here good hey thing and we've lit her up and we've also placed a big giant thing going right in the top of her head there you see what that is that's called a tangent that's not gonna work that's not gonna work at all I'm gonna have to change my angle I can't you know I'll see what I'm talking about right we got an ex that goes right into the top of her head let's bring this light over this way a little bit more to access the caramel staying black and wait stand black and white and then go in and drop it down just a little bit maybe maybe more we'll try a second shot here and right there good everything you could hear that there we go now we have kind of a nice feeling of of the light there and brianna looks like she's lit up pretty well catching a little bit of light back there which is kind of nice I don't want to change my angle now this is what I would call I'm using the emotion of the overexposure to say I'm saying I'm going to show you what happens this this lights remains the same r r f stop aperture reading on this string leader remains the same actually it looks like because I'm getting a little flare like can we bring it in maybe three inches which way right towards her about three inches okay right there little movements that's all it takes little movements there yeah I like that better that gives us a good look on her face we've got that nice feeling to the window to the light it's kind of a cool thing but we are missing some light coming this way on briana right still bit dark over here let's use breathless he's one of those big flying um home court not the phone policy is the uh disc reflector disc and see if we can bring that and then get it just a little bit no that's a diffuser uh just bouncing like a video on there yeah yeah we're just using a wink of strobe over here say that to bring this in the way we want it just kind of take this right right it's coming right at me right at me like this and we'll take it right up next to hold on no it's in the shop gonna be ways in the shot there we need to get it over here you know what that does probably not too much good go pretty high up too yeah well it better that's a little bit better yeah a little bit higher that's a little bit better there I'm gonna go back to uh now that I've got what I want here I'm gonna go back to um color right leaning out into the outside and see what this looks like in coming here we go very nice very nice way go that's kind of cool like that down we can alter the background the reason I want the background to come in bright is I don't want a sense of mystery to it I want a sense of openness to it a place where we could be and feel like we feel right now if I start to under expose this background will start to change the entire feeling of the shop the emotion of the shot will change as we dark in the background however bree will stay the same because I'm shooting a four had a hundredth of a second this strobe is going to keep popping out for but I'm gonna change now is the shutter speed shutter speed will affect the back okay someone coming right like this here that's one of our shop let's go down on one sixty they're good shot thank you bree right there good and one more to fifty each successive shot the backgrounds going to go darker and darker and darker and this is part of the the process that you go through when you're trying to find your shot where do you want to make it figured the place where you really like it it's just a bit here where you really like it and then you've got your exposure and ready to go so I approached my photography from both areas where I wanted to be emotionally what it's going to look like and then within the technical limitations I'd love to go toe you know one eight hundredth of a second but I can't because I flashed like to deal with so there's a give and take and someone's going to ask about how about high speed sync the moment you stick on high speed think you've lost a full stop of power right up woo and the sun comes out behind the clouds and you feel that that's interesting so everything stays the same bree I'm gonna have you always looking up towards this light right here I'm going to go back to my f for reading or one one hundredth reading here and see this because this is going to change their look we now have shadows by the way in the windows which we did not have a moment ago we have hard light actually coming in the windows this will be way blown out more than it was before could be kind of interesting yeah yeah well that changes things doesn't it I like that now I'm going to like that I like it I like the flare ah lot it just says something to the shot and do a couple shots there all right all right that's good that's nice right there she's not just a little bit right there right there and one more right there I really have to trust this model to do what I wanted to do because I can't see a thing of her through the camera she is one just black blob through the camera um I'm seeing this I'm saying this so you've got to trust your your models that they're doing what she wanted to do but I like that flare I like it a lot I think it gives a different kind of warmth to the picture makes it kind of fun it makes the shot beam or um what's the word I'm looking for uh approachable ethereal yeah amore approachable kind of photograph because the flare gives us something other than what we're normally used to sing you know so many photographers do everything they can to get rid of flair right so now we're starting to see if the tire is using flair more and more don't you guys saw the recent the newest star trek josette every shot has flaring it knows that every single shot I thought that was pretty cool I mean do a couple shots of bree here and we change something up here right all right thank you bree it's nice oh yeah I got a bit of the umbrella in it that's being way and one more there good yeah now everything I did is kind of like I said is deliberate I want a very deliberate look to this image there's nothing left to chance we do it all by carefully finding the exposure that we want we knew we wanted something to be bright and open and airy so I went with that I brought her in right at the moment of the point of flair and let her with a light that doesn't look like flash you know we know it is but doesn't really have that flash feeling we can do that by um by creating more lights on her but we're not going to I kind of like this move this has that sort of she's looking off this way and actually being lit up by the room that we're in move and it's kind of cool I like it now it's gonna take some work in photoshopped to help bring out a little bit of contrast and stuff but we can make that happen uh easily in photo shop all right questions first we find the ambient then we add our yeah kind of curious I'm seeing a theme I'm the leading lines in the convergence that you have moved seems very very strong in your composition do you think that I'm shooting toe layout to what extent do you think shooting toe layout is influencing your your composition my thoughts my my graphic design background absolute probably huge because I'm and so we'll look at the shot of the er doc there um I was with another photographer and he was doing shots all over the place and he came up with some really good shots as well but all of my shots used the leading lines of the dock dead center you know when you when you were watching you you know when you come up to a window like this a set of windows and you uh put it in your camera there's two ways of uh well well here we go every once in a while my camera says I don't think I won't do that today don all right um you walk up to a building or anything that's got horizontal tze and verticals I can't even imagine taking this picture from here can't it comes up here I can't it's just that so wrong to make its this's going conversion here and this is converging here it's wrong when I come upto a building that's got lines on it I'm probably going to set myself right down one line shoot up the building like this if I have converging lines they're all going to meet it the same spot I shoot straight on I'm graphic and that I like tiles I like you know that's a straight line a dead center straight line I like that and then I can take my subjects and move my subjects within that greek and you jump off there you're pretty good jumper let's bring this one right over and light her with that I'm gonna it's as a matter of fact let's take it up tio let's take it up to see us out here yes I have a meter but I'm trying to show you guys how to use my world famous string meter so we'll use that back that up until this knots right here this is what not at our basic setting five six eights in the middle of the five six so five six at one eighth power one eighth power but we've got the thing in front of it so I'm gonna go down to so five six four two eight this is two eight at one eight power take it up to one quarter power and he goes to f four right that's what I said this is two eight right goes up to out for that one at one um quarter power sewing up the power of our stroll to take take into a account that we've moved it back one not let's see if this works I'm sure it will come communal face yeah all right let's take it up one more notch I want to beat the flair a little bit place the exposure a little bit up new profile pic okay so have power you have power okay let me get raised back up toe that's pretty good right there and john bring it right over here on access now remember I was saying I don't like complex faces let's look at this face call complex it is we got lying shadow highlight have really highlight shadows deep shadow highlight that's what I call a complex face it's a lot going on there I want to eliminate as much of that as I possibly can I want to be a complex face going to be a very simple face it's going to go back just a little bit actually it's probably because of all that flare let's go ahead and go with it right there I'm gonna come in for the face right chin up towards that light just little bit right there sweet that works that works all right so I'm gonna come down here against that and make sure my camera is straight here all right break right there good straight stand in its way go I like these lines I like the lines of it going up nice military listed right there very good all right one more one more take a half step to your right there good too much come back too much way too much sorry way good very good all right like getting down low and shooting up I'm gonna crop this off this is not important to my shot and then I'll straighten these lines out a little bit but I like the vertical lines and the tension that we create when we use those vertical lines to be as close to perfect as possible I couldn't lay down on the floor and look through my my camera I would prefer to put on a tripod so everything remain the same but you can see the point of the shot now you can see the simplicity on the face you see the simplicity on the face here is we brought the light mortar on access of the camera really simplified out the face so I don't have all that complexity happening and it's more attractive to big plus we can see how pretty this looks now that's what her face is gonna look like in the previous shots right way just get up close and make the shot back up and get full length or what we have what we at least know what the face is gonna look like when we do blow it up big guy just enough flair to cause some some fun right in there and it's got a nice feel to it a little bit of a shadow going on the back cool thanks thanks we'll bring out elissa here you want to take any questions yes absolutely got some essential adams's wondering can you explain that point about uh leading lines horizontal vertical on what you're looking for yes I don't like uh and the shots I just did I was shooting not looking through the camera but when I fix those in photo shops those lines the center line will go straight up okay I like my verticals to be straight up and my horn is donald's to be a little bit uh straight across I don't want him to be a little bit off I'm gonna move this out of the way with just a tad here right over here and elissa step right over to that side right there little more right there good when other words what I'm saying is I would prefer to have my shots be like this so sexy yes and I have a friend of mine has a video of me doing chimp trying to jump my ma mia I think the picture look down back think what the heck then like this just a little bit like this okay you see in the first shot how all the lines are straight and horizontal and in the second shot they are slightly skewed when the second shot comes up momentarily it's cooking maybe I need to do okay okay put it side by side there you go look see the one on the left perfectly vertical lines one on the right there's there's no perfect vertical line really maybe that one till the right there is kind of close things kind of skewed so what I say is either I either want to make it straight or good or let the lines lead back either one of the other to be very well just put this one up side by side of this last one see how these lines I don't worry about vertical there because I'm absolutely doing it if you've ever seen a a photograph of a of a landscape or person in landscape and the backgrounds tilted if it's tilted a lot it's deliberate if it's off by three degrees that's a screw up that was not done correctly so it's either there or there it can't be a little bit off so that's the way I am I'm either gonna do this or do that anything in the middle is just me being wrong so makes sense that's the question yeah one more question is do you ever use your lens hood because I have it backwards yeah I do one hundred percent of the time I just didn't even think about it today because I'm on tv a few things still thinking be don't be always and why maybe it maybe give both because the moment you get out of the habit of doing it you forget to do it when you need it I probably don't need it in here at all but outside I do use it and because I wanted it there and you know on all my lenses use linds hoods uh brett you want to put the big fancy winds hit on the two hundred real quick I can show him how you can look really intimidating when you're out shooting um yes that's a good question I recommend that you use your lens hood always what do you mean I actually like those two shots for various reasons what what are the reasons the moment you forget to put the lens so does what you're gonna say you could be battling flair and not realizing that you've got the thing backwards okay you just eliminated the second thing is there's been occasions where you know I know I'm I'm like mr smooth but I've actually bumped into things that's hard to imagine but you know pretty much on a daily basis I run into crap so you run into something and then the lens hood it's better than bending the thing here denting the lens hood or or something so it protects the lens from flair and from bumping into stuff and the third reason is next coup even in this situation here I mean there's some light bouncing off this umbrella back at you that could catch that school use absolutely is this what you wanted so now the fancy one fancy one hold it up in there good china up to the right compendium yeah this is this this list going really want everybody to look at you know cam this alright uh question regarding approaching a similar scene outside from martha bravo if you're shooting this outside you spot metering on this uh spot metering on the sky this thatyou're explosion mood or dio you just set a middle point in the scene to set the exposure than introduce your subject and like her with the speed like no my exposure's outside the same is inside they're very deliberate I will find the point of exposure that I like in in in previous days we didn't have the ability to see the shot when we took it right so we would have to do a lot of knowing a lot of note taking and saying well if I under exposed the sky by a stop it'll do this and then I have to work with it in the hope the whole bit now I can look at it I just go out and look at it but there are certain exposures that are that are are real that are always there when it's sunny in seattle it's f sixteen outside it's f sixteen and one over whatever your s o is for your shutter speed if you're in tulsa on a sunny day it's same thing beijing singapore tokyo south africa does making difference called the sunny sixteen rule it is a rule it's a rule that gets you so close it's unbelievable how close it is then if you do that the light to the side if the sun lights coming on me here if I turn to the side lights side lit I opened up one stopped f eleven and if I turn around to the back open up two stops now kodak says open up two stops I always thought that meant two stops from the sixteen means two stops from eleven when I backlight here I go to five point six I can stand out in the sun we can if we have a break at lunch go out and try it you turn your back to the sun on a sunny day take a reading five six five six three five six four maybe you know for nine depending on how dark the sky but it's going to be somewhere around five six once you step into the shadow right on the edge of the shadow of a building it's going to be five six maybe f eight if there's a real big white building over there bouncing light all bets are off then you step back about six or eight feet in the shadows could be afford whether you're here in south africa toronto anywhere those air these basic things now they're in the ballpark close enough that you could make it work believe me believe me you're never going to step into the shadow and have it be f sixteen at a hundredth of a second at I s so one hundred it's never gonna happen you're never going to be in bright sun and have f four at one hundredth of a second it's never gonna happen and I have one hundred so you can narrow these things down so in question when I'm outside and I want a dark blue sky I know I'm gonna have to be somewhere around eleven or sixteen perhaps twenty two if the sun is in it to darken it I know that instantly eight five six four they're off the table they're done they're not happening then what's my next consideration flash think so have sixteen and one to fiftieth of a second going to be two stops under exposed a underexposed for ah northern sky and so that's a ce faras I can go I now have now I have my exposure have sixteen two hundred thousand now what do I do I bring my strobe in to give me f sixteen based on the power zoom and the distance that this job we've already set up to be f sixteen and we got a rope meter to do it or flash meter it's just power in distance for the stroke fantastic thank you sure you want it quick question from mouth d d do you have this like uh calculation running your head as you're talking to the models or this you've just been doing it so long it's it's like you know second nature to you now calculations because you know when you're when you're sitting there and you realize while I'm off a little bit drop it down to are you constantly working these numbers in your brain or you're just comfortable you know automatically work I know my reciprocal cz at I s o one hundred one forty eight hundredth of a second me I'm sorry uh I have two point eight of thousands of that I'm sorry now I know those I know you just figure it out I mean it's uh it's sixteen out one hundred and it's eleven two hundred and eighty four hundred and it's five six eight hundred it's fort sixteen and it's two point eight through to two hundred outside you walk outside I s so one hundred bright sun put your camera on two point eight eight thirty two hundredth of a second and you're going to be so close in the ballpark is standing on the pitcher's mound we have to go a little bit either way but you're that close so we went out with a sunny sixteen rule when I talk about it so many people think that means we always have to shoot it sixteen no it's just that one number we just need one number to create everything else so for it it at uh uh you know what it is and four is what sixteen hundred at s o one hundred I saw two hundred thirty two hundred s o four hundred ain't happening six no shutters means out there so these air this the different things that we go through and no knowing that one thing will get you through it yes I feel there's a question somewhere you answered the question I did sure probably twice remember what the question all right okay so I really liked this when I looked through the camera what I really like it and I kind of like it now I like what she's doing but I want to get a little bit more of her some take one step right there take this light over here I need a human boom right over the top of her just like that and started twice just like that come in and get a shot off the face that looks really nice might be a little bright let's see on the monitor here oh that looks great now she's a little bright it's probably not the correct exposure but eliza has I call it a listen looks like a helmet newton model then she yeah she looks like helping you smile I like this I'm going to go with this it's a little bit overexposed but I like the look on her it makes your skin look very alabaster it brings up the thie texture in the in the jacket and what do I care right we're already bawling out the background doesn't really make any difference what that comes to I just it's just become something that I like that's nice elissa right there good night like that more like this good shot a little bit of weight we could have a little bit higher brett like putting her down in the corner I think of like don't know why I like that but I do like a lot possibly because good twist this way just love it but their shit up a bit you know but like all that negative but I like that now um this is an older this is not in a pocket matic lens that wish it wass a little bit older lens you can see what it's doing over here that curve um the lenses sold photo shop doesn't have the curve correction for it's what I'll do is I'll put this in photo shop and then I'll try to bring that curve straight I'll try to fix that falling off curve is best I can I'm pretty good at it but I wish it wouldn't happen but that's the nature of this lens if you get in a pas chromatic quite angle lens that will happen it won't get that curvature so that's got a nice emotional feel to it now we talked about making those windows dark right listen I'm gonna bring it right over to the corner I'm going to go back to my f twenty tours kind of gritty those windows were real dark gritty one are on the border no she could just be leaning against just the corner right out here elissa right there couldn't just like that on dh go back up into these windows but this time I'm going to go to f twenty two remember it about half power on that strobe so just watch the recycle times oh thank you you're right I might have twenty two so we're gonna take things happy very close to have to re meet her this okay but before I do that I want to get my ambien okay yeah really kind of really kind of gritty and grammy okay so we have twenty two uh had a hundredth of a second that means I'm gonna have to have my light in really really close right to get that how can I fix that I might have twenty to one hundredth of a second your flashes in full power a tte full power it's going to be really tough to even get this thing close enough to get f twenty two what if I went to f eleven at two hundredth of a second and that be the same right open up half eleven was my shutter speed down to two hundred my windows air going to be the exact same as they are now but now I've got a little more distance to play with cause all I need is f eleven I'm sorry of sixteen on my strobe but I say I say eleven sorry I meant sixteen about twenty to one hundred sixteen two hundred opened up one stop cut it down so this only has to be to give me f sixteen now so you're more breathing room so yes so we bring this out here and we know that this is f eight sections f four with this thing with the flat the umbrella on it at eight power had a quarter power this is five six I had a half power this is f ate at full power this is f eleven at full power this knot is f sixteen so full power in tow that not keep coming keep come right there and it's bring it forward a little bit you'll see how I did that full power at that not self sixteen we're shooting it f sixteen at one two hundredth of a second set up to full power now yes we're on full power our lord okay right there right there have sixteen at full power let's see what we get here good no flashlight together pocket was enough you're right at that moment of like sheer terror oh crap the string leader didn't work good good good wake up it's got to come in just a little more oh I see what it is the stroke is going over her head spring it down out of strobe spring it down come and keep coming right there let's bring it around this way so we get a little less complex city on the face about their okay all right you try one more time here good there we go now we have a whole different mood to the photograph totally different than what we did with bree with very bright background it's still kind of an emotional shots a lot of mystery to it we have I placed her where I placed her so that she wouldn't um disappear into the darkness we have light behind her so she's set out um this exposed from it and that's that's how easy really that it is to use that that meteor that string leader you just have to know that first point and then by raising the power moving farther away you can find what you need but when you're when you're going out to make photographs think of the emotion of what you're trying to do