Lessons

Lesson Info

General Q&A

Any questions? Well, I'm doing on this. So, jerry, if you're on like, a commercial shoot on you, you know you've got to do is to try and, like, squeeze and maybe a little time at the end, where you where you can play around to do this, would you struggle to keep it like personal work? I think it'll be good for a few, thank you. Yeah there there are a lot of shoots where I'm I'm so bored I'm losing on like there I think it's hilarious when clients like look at my work you're so creative we love your work we're so excited work pretty and they have me shoot a subject on a white wall all day and I'm like falling asleep when they're certain photographers they love that forget the there's a legend's name where his favorite thing to do is put the camera on a tripod not even looked at the camera just talk to him and capture those moments of them whatever that's something I think my thing is creating like I want to figure out what piece of art we're going to make together and how are we going t...

o get there? I love the journey I level these there's so many terrible photos here but there's that one that it comes out that something really, really interesting and that's the end of the day I know that all my client is wanting is you know that one or two images they really work and if this were a band of history actual client and that we already have one um but yeah there's some shoots where I'm just so over it that I'll just do something weird just tow have to get myself engaged again or play loud music or get a coffee or do something to shake it up yeah, absolutely yeah so there's a clip of you I'm not sure from which creative live workshop, but you speak about sharing your passions and how it landed you certain gigs I think it was a nike shoot that you got caught with the art director 00:01:55.869 --> 00:02:00. and it was actually, um your personal work that I 00:02:00.07 --> 00:02:03. landed the gig so would it be this kind of stuff will 00:02:03.49 --> 00:02:06. be more of the bigger humanitarian projects? So do 00:02:06.66 --> 00:02:10. you mix them both little bit? Yeah, absolutely. I 00:02:10.49 --> 00:02:10. mean, 00:02:11.92 --> 00:02:15. yes, he's asking about I'll tell the super short version 00:02:15.12 --> 00:02:17. of it, but I had a meeting years ago with the big 00:02:17.66 --> 00:02:20. our director, like the art director for nike and gator, 00:02:20.92 --> 00:02:24. even apple, and went in to show him my work. He didn't 00:02:25.02 --> 00:02:27. he didn't love it he's seen a million portfolios like 00:02:27.38 --> 00:02:29. adele, you skimming through? So the end of the meeting 00:02:29.97 --> 00:02:32. house like I could've walked out because I think you 00:02:32.56 --> 00:02:34. been settles like, hey, can I show you some mother 00:02:35.02 --> 00:02:38. things that I do? And then I mentioned in, and so 00:02:38.2 --> 00:02:41. I showed him all the work I've done in hating all 00:02:41.7 --> 00:02:44. the work of deon africa showed him on the iphone app 00:02:44.56 --> 00:02:49. I created, I showed him some of the some of the, you 00:02:49.52 --> 00:02:52. know, shale, some other siri's, real quick personal 00:02:52.28 --> 00:02:56. work, I have a light room thing called 00:02:58.36 --> 00:03:00. it's. Just a project. That's. This different projects, 00:03:00.29 --> 00:03:02. you know, here's people in front of the same frosted 00:03:02.68 --> 00:03:05. glass window, like that's, something you could take 00:03:05.2 --> 00:03:08. away home, like. Find something interesting and shoot 00:03:08.6 --> 00:03:11. a hole portrait siri's in front of that wall. You 00:03:11.24 --> 00:03:14. know, this is just a frost. The door in my studio. 00:03:17.17 --> 00:03:20. See, tramp lane. I love, uh, I have a trampoline at 00:03:20.46 --> 00:03:22. my house that begins to wall on. I love shooting, 00:03:22.93 --> 00:03:26. interesting portrait. So my kids with jumping on a 00:03:26.45 --> 00:03:29. trampling. This was an iphone in one hand, and a water 00:03:29.29 --> 00:03:32. hose on the other is trying to capture 00:03:33.42 --> 00:03:35. different energy and moments. 00:03:38.32 --> 00:03:41. And so I showed in this little serious in that meeting. 00:03:42.72 --> 00:03:43. Come 00:03:45.62 --> 00:03:47. I've already covered some of step of foreign creative 00:03:47.93 --> 00:03:51. live. But a showing. My rwanda project. No! 00:03:53.52 --> 00:03:56. Here's. Ah. New project I'd just did recently where 00:03:56.75 --> 00:04:00. I collaborator with former child soldiers and, well, those art show here. You clary, with these kids who have been victimized budgets of cockney in the l, a area and made all these mixed media art pieces with them. So I took their drawings and their their stories and, uh, and took literally taught them photo shop and they would draw their stories and photo shop. And then I would combine that all into this final mixed media piece, is we're now selling prints and doing all kinds of cool stuff. So long story short, I should this or director all my passion projects outside of mine, pretty poor flew on, he went, grabbed all, has other cohorts and co workers brought him in and said, hey, it's, the jeremy cara he's, an idea guy, we hey thinks like us like we have to work for this guy. So landed the job not because of my portfolio, but because of who I am and what I'm passionate about, andi, that I have a lot more offer than just more pretty pictures and nice letting and so, yeah, that's ah that's, that story and that that was the moment where I really feel like I've found my voice, like knew that I'm more than a photographer, that I'm you helped me understand my brand pays in the word brand that sounds so I don't know gross, but that at the end of day we all are a brand, you know, everybody on social media, you're building your own brand and so like it or hate it it's his toe word that's here, here to stay. And so yeah, if you're a freelancer, you do have to start thinking more of a ceo and you know how, marking how people are perceiving you outside of just your pretty pictures. And that was a good learning lesson for me, like, ok, yeah, I get why it was weird to say, but I get why he sees me in that way, and now I need to start presenting that way and myself that way from to my audience so I wouldn't change my website, tio, you know, said teacher, humanitarian photographer kind of presented the rest of my life, so yeah, who, us? Yes. Do you have any tips for like mixing races now you have mixed family here probably dealing with out a lot when I went to uganda had a really hard time when the one white person was in the mix and it properly exposing everyone are there lighting tricks matter yeah I think there are she said I now have two african american children and two white children and and pictures are interesting but the biggest thing I've learned is that if a if a lightness here you know sometimes it's tempting to put though I know you'll just notice he have the lighter person here in the dark or person here we'll leave your light is over here and put the darker person closer to the light and put the lighter person further away so that you're balancing that out just by the way where they're standing that's probably the easiest simplest thing to think about is like where the light's coming from I deal with that all the time especially big cast images where I'm shooting a tv cast he always had mixed skin colors you have to think about like if there's a lady right at front who has bright white legs and she's wearing a skirt I gotta figure out a way to like make that not read so much have to kind of put her more in the shadows and then put the lady with the dark legs right up front, you know, see it's hard, but they need the sure doing well, she's, not the main characters. So the lady with the bright legs has to be a front, you know, you get back into all the politics of a photo shoot had a whale that but be a different skin. Gellar's khun b could be challenging for sure. Different weights can be challenging that sort of deal with a lot with bands as you get the the super skinny lead singer in the overweight drummer or vice versa. Yeah, like that's, where it gets really tricky. Three have to master the art of, you know, politics and being nice about, you know, how do you any dance around this? Awkward? And there are everybody's already insecure, and now you're, like, forced tto I always feel so bad when I have to have a short person stand on apple box. Okay, everybody has to do this. I do assure people that time just needed to be a little taller. And because of the band, I do want everybody for the most part, be the same heights. But you never get that. You always get the superstore gun. Really, tall guy, you know, some mars eating apple boxes, but I'm yeah, racism, that's a good question and it's hard. Anybody else? What about all this experimentation? Weird, weird stuff have been shown anyway. I'll try training that stuff in the stories, you're mine. I've shot with gels and actually spot a bunch more so this was like super have super home to come here just gonna get inspired but like what inspired what inspires you to come up with like these ideas like where do you with light bold pops that makes you go I gotta try that's a good question andi it really does come back to you know at first started photography I didn't I didn't study didn't know things I didn't learn and I was very I thought I was so cool because that was oh I didn't study I'm just stumbled into this and that was such a naive way of thinking because now that I'm older I'm like oh man had I only known how to use that light than I could have made that shot so much better had I only known to gaff tape the ears that image what obit looked better had I only known so but I didn't used to be an idea personally that didn't used to have these crazy ideas and I've just learned that it's ah it's about momentum like you try one little idea and that works and in the next time you feel a little more confident a little more common iced have zero confidence just like maybe some of you are people watching but over the course of time and just I don't care about failing and I'm not afraid to fail I love you know miles davis was a jazz musician cranked out fifty albums and only three of those were commercial successes but he just kept making is going to keep doing stephan the wall and see what sticks and I love that process and said now I'm always like man, I want to take that old trick applied to this thing and then use the newbie one lights to do this and then with the fifty mega pixels of the five gs I can you know, like I'm just always connecting the dots when I want when I travel with the pope of few weeks ago it all sudden made sense like fifty megapixels I'm really far away from the pope, so if I use a four hundred millimeter lens I can zoom in to get fairly close but then I can transfer the fifty mega pixel image to an iphone with the I find movie pro cards and wirelessly because I don't have time to go back to my studio and so then once I transfer the fifty megapixel j peg him a phone, then I can zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom and still have a large enough photo to post instagram so people were seeing these images and thinking that I was like just hanging out with pope but nearly and they didn't know that I was like, you know, two hundred yards away and so that's when all that knowledge comes together with your creativity tio to do some really cool stuff there was ah, I mean, I took some really crappy images that, you know, because I only had someone checks us. The photos were terrible about using what I knew in post and even on my iphone, I was able to zoom in and find the right composition and make it darker and make something really interesting, just combining, um, that technology, you know, so, uh, but those ideas just keep growing. I remember when I was twenty eight, I told a guy, I'll never be an idea, guy, I'll never be like you, and here I am, ten years later, I'm thirty eight now and now I'm an ideas guy, like that stuff can grew, it can improve, it will get there, so you have a question. Sorry. I work with children in the school system in vancouver kids who have special needs or just special challenges how do you have any idea about imparting that passion to experiment and not worry so much about failing with photography because they use my camera with them how to inspire them to do that and to try things some of them are quite shy yeah in fact I've been speaking I just spoke to an arena a few weeks ago to thirteen thousand people and my whole my whole story is that like failing nearly feeling photography getting fired from her first job like my words as a child where I can't told my parents everything I try I can't do that I can't do that and I really think that's almost children and a lot of adults still phil but yeah I just think you have to inspire my believing him and just endless endless encouragement and I'm no matter how much how awful is you just gotta keep encouraging and encouraging him to explore and a play I mean my daughter is always trying to draw realistic faces and she it's so bummed if it's not perfect eyes aren't whatever the news is or whatever I'm like no no no no the art is not about perfect like you that is a beautiful picture you just drew and it's beautiful because it's not perfect like you know being taped pictures make a perfect picture of someone I'm trying to retrain your mind away from perfection just like I'm doing with the all in lighting like it's not about perfection or consistency for me it's about the fun of creating and exploring and trying new things so you know with kids I mean the last thing we should be doing is trying to direct their month we should be trying to open them up too possibilities and so yeah yeah some questions from online um christy wants to know would you add a section in your website that has personal work like the ones you just showed it with that distract from your portfolio? You know, I think I already do have a lot of personal stuff on website now I'm all about sharing all that stuff I think the more personal the better actually let people get to know you you know, I talk a lot about about pages show your show your passions don't just put up one little boring photo one little paragraph of your story you know yeah where your heart on your sleeve and social media to like, you know, put a lot of stuff out there I do that all the time I'll probably do it too much but you know, my I've come a long way because of social medium because because I'm open and honest so yeah different encouraged to put all that stuff on your web site if it makes sense I mean, if it falls within the general direction of where you wanting to go? Um, symptoms, this is a whole other class I'm getting into. But, yeah, sometimes they can be troll, like if an architect got post a huge section of baby portrait's, like his architect clients, come back with the crap, you know what if he but if he wins, shot a personal project on handmade architecture in south africa than that that connects, you know, that makes sense to the clients. He got a kind of figure out if things makes sense or not. And I mean idea, portraiture. So I go over in africa, and I should portrait. But over here is commercial portrait. So the dots, you know, connect for may.