Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: First Dance

so let's get right to shoot folks we're going to come on over here and set up a shot now what we want to do here is to simulate uh this is a reception wedding reception small little private reception area which it actually is this is a great spot the stables here really eclectic interesting spot and we'll have our bride and groom and we're going to pretend this is like first dance time how do we set up a first dance shot that feels romantic like they're all alone you know the music you know you get to do this to you guys like little fantasies and then say you're to create this in a photo you know you're sitting there going uh yeah that would be saw okay let's go see the way we need light here like here like here like here that's all my scenes come together it's like these romantic fantasies in my head and then we're like okay let's make it happen so that's maybe it's different for guys you know like oh what the hell you're on so anyway we're going to set that up so I have this this pic...

ture in my head like ok this is how it would happen this is what it would feel like and all that and now when we create this mood so if we look at the room which we'll see in a minute here it's not particularly romantic setting but we'll pull down the lights a little bit we'll drop our exposure uh there's a old fashioned jukebox over there that is really cool so that we could just kind of use that as our background so if we could get the sense that they're dancing to music rather than music playing in their heads uh which is what's happening now and um try to create something kind of ah moody and romantic and then we'll move on to some other portrait all right put your books down I know you guys can't let go of them but put the books down because we're gonna go over here and you guys were gonna help me out okay hello dating jessie come on up up here dana vanessa that's the world I don't care the whole world's watching you guys dated vanessa say hello to the world and we're gonna have you guys over here boys and girls come on around just don't stand in front of cameras and we're gonna put them so what we're going for so I call you like I know drinks have a good friend its name dane so so okay dr bra I like this guy all right so dated vanessa are gonna be right here and we're going to sit up like a first dance you know and what I want you guys to do it's going to be but just you two you're not looking at the camera it's like you're into each other you get your arm around his neck going honey you're so in love and then we're gonna have this little jukebox in the back part of like a spotlight coming on you guys kind of make it feel like you know dirty dancing will spotlight on your kind of thing you don't do any thirty and says I did that yesterday and did not go over well so you hear anything about yeah so we'll have you guys right here little spotlight and how good it gets or how comfortable your p d a like I'm not talking like porno stuff yes course okay it's like oh no no we don't touch in public so so we'll set you guys yes I know the wine's okay saul still good someway we bring you here for starters and uh vanessa I think we'll have you facing this direction on this side you're pretty symmetrical you don't have like a I mean I command that you are so symmetrical wow I met them the best okay you're gonna face then you're gonna face her yeah fuller hips in you asking practice for a little while all right so this is our this is our post look at that awesome sauce okay who wants to shoot this they're done they're so we want to have them right there I've got my jukebox in the back remember are setting up our shots we talked about the process the first thing is just get your people where you want think about your background you guys like don't finish up before I'm ready to shoot they save some love some love for when we're gonna actually shoot okay get funny looks and I'm gonna go here so what I do first um is to check my exposure for the room right so no lights no flash I just want to see word I need to set my shutter speed so that I have the ambience in the room primarily in the background there do I need to turn off those lights if I have access to that if I can't turn off the lights and I need to bring my shutter speed way down way right ok so if I can't turn them off I'm actually gonna bring the shutter speed up make it faster so that I could darken the background right so basically dark in the background so I'd use my shutter speed to control that I also want to think about it what if stopped I want to be at to get the depth that I want how much out of focus don't want that stuff in the background and you know by now I like things as much out of focus generally so I'm thinking also they're going to be kind of moving in swaying and dancing and I want to let them kind of just do that why shoot so I don't want to be like a deaf one four which would mean that you know I've gotto be like perfect on them the whole time otherwise they're out of focus okay so we'll we'll say we're going to shoot at two point eight I'll plug in my camera here in a minute when we get ready to actually shoot it and actually student sorry plug in can I have anyone available to scoop my camera table closer while I'm shooting here for me and we'll get this tethering fired up so you can see the exposure for the background our starter I don't have any flashes on right now I'm just going to say what my exposure for the background is if they were dancing doing their thing that tether in just so I could see it yeah right about there and I'm going to start my tethered capture the light room didn't start that up here good okay so let's take a little test shot this again it's just for our background exposure you guys can go ahead and grab onto each other and some pseudo love stuff right there okay and so there's are this just my starting point okay so I have a guys can't see it over there very very dark background says I want to keep it that dark or don't want a little bit more what you guys think you see a little more we need to see more right so I'm at one twenty five left two point eight right now so two hundred they want to keep two point eight I don't change that because I like the fact that they're gonna be sharper in the background could be blurred right so I can't change my picture I can change my shutter speed or I could change my s o s oh two hundred still way down low so what should we do to so so maybe let's do that so I'm looking at that that's probably two stops lower than what I really want so I'm going to hundred go to eight hundred two stops we'll do another little test there who has a lot of shots all right so now we brought the background kind of where we want it to be right to stops brighter than it was before uh now we have a little bit of texture we have a little bit of ambience from there my white balance right now is set for tungsten which is for the background and I need to decide do I want to maintain my daylight balance on them and let that go really warm or do I want to make everything tungsten between have to gel my lights that I'm gonna use here on them what do I think the background needs me warmer it just looks too blah and normal right so what I'll do is I'll shift my white balance to daylight they like cloudy so it's a little warmer than normal and we'll shoot one more on them beautiful so now the background start to look warm and your meanness the fill light on them it's gonna look really nice so that's becomes our fill light and then we're gonna drop a spot onto them to kind of make that boom on her face okay it makes sense so we may or may not add something to the background we may for sure probably put a spot behind them flaring through them either on the floor to shoot something like through it to highlight her dress your curves here to put a little glow behind them so we may put a speed light on the floor with a rope grid on a gorilla pod boom from the back and one right on her face so let's start with your face so the show has a road grid what kind do you have on that uh double do you want you just just the thin one and actually we're gonna be on the way changed the daylight on this we'll take this gel office so on our road grid here you can see we are putting in hold that one of your girls okay uh I'm gonna put only the thin grid inside which keeps the beam white enough that we're not going to miss her face and his face when they sway or move if we had the double or something really tight then we've got not very much room to play and in fact this itself may be too thin of a beam we might just take this out and use just cone which they don't really talk about using at this when you buy this product but this is actually a great way to use it which has a nice spread pattern you get a lot of light because you don't have any grids reducing it but let's try it with the thin one and see where that goes you figured out what it all right we're also going to put the road grid on the speed light on a stick so that my assistant can move with them and we're following her knows who's the most important person in a bridegroom shot technically they're both very important but photographically it's the bride so if the bride looks good then the groom's usually happy bride doesn't look good that nobody's happy starting at half power so what we'll do if you don't know okay so regina give me a power setting just throw it up through our power setting there's no wrong answer um f there's like half our full power quarter power eight power eight eight power okay through innate power this is called random light setting pointed right at you all right so what I want you guys to do for starters is uh day and you can nibble on the left side of her neck your left side of her neck her right side and you know you're going kind of look up towards this thing right here to smile close your eyes and enjoy that nibble nibble nibble yes way get a flash I don't think so flash that's a good pose though way on see one no sea to see one channel okay see one channel eh beautiful sauce okay you know what uh I was controlling it and she were doing it manually so let's go back to sea too because we're gonna do the manual thing and put regina on the spot no I was going to be in control but I'm letting you guys be in control I switch things around a bit alright sayspoint writer face same exact thing looking right up over that beautiful day we get a little fire on that one okay so what is it going call is that right or is it too bright okay so what we do how many stops to brighten you think that might be feeling one at least one means one twenty eight way were at innate power so half of that would be sixteen another half would be sixty four sixteen thirty two days okay so that would be two stops I'm thinking we're a least two stops over with this sixty four you said sixty four power might actually be where we go with this so let's try sixty four power doesn't need three stops okay okay feel the love that's all good so we're three stops down now a beautiful light on her face um how hard was that it wasn't that hard right just guest mate and a good place to start sometimes is just right in the middle almost started half power and then you have room to go up to your room to go down so if you're not really sure to see started half power and take a test shot so we took two shots and we got the got it nailed exposures perfect uh doesn't have the mood we want that something got to decide now is it moody enough do we want to bring down everything a little bit so there's mohr spotlight and less ambience we tried that so how could we bring down the ambient without affecting the spotlight with flash your shutter speed if we change the I s o we affect the flash and the ambien for change the f stop we affect the flash and the ambien shutter speed affects only the ambience so I can play with my shutter speed all I want so say I want this background down maybe another half stop so I'm at one twenty five I'm gonna go up to two hundred to be little more than half stops we'll go to two hundred shutter speed and same thing point right there way brought it down you can see here is if the one before for the background was a little bright now we bring down the back oh now we have mohr emphasis on that spotlight on her and it's starting to look pretty nice now right so again shooting by field doesn't have to be scary do we know we do what we know the light ratios here what's the light rays finger face on the shadow side in the background who cares light ratio is like nice to really nice that's the ratio you know I think it looks great we don't need to worry about the ratio I think the background I want to keep that not competing with them so the level of the backgrounds pretty nice the light on her face is really nice out maybe bring the light down a third of a stop bring down one third more and then we need some we need some magic you want some flair wants a magic light behind her so why don't we why don't we get one of you ladies or guy's toe hold this the stick here and alicia is going to go for the magic light what color we want the magic light do blue that's right you're warming your blue any other requests for magic light blue their options options are we could go warm and make it look like the light's flaring from this warm matching that color way we could go neon green no thing lets go we could go blue or we could keep it warm for you like you're warm you're warming your cool together I do like the warming that cool on if if we could get this background to be cool that's maybe something will do next turn these down mohr and actually stream our own blue light across the backgrounds I think that would work better for me rather than a random blue light when we have warm lights I want to make it look like the warm light is what's actually flaring onto them from the back you know like it's a lamp in the back so let's go with warm for the flare light okay where should we put it let's try it uh you know what since on the stand let's put it just directly behind them in front of that silver thingamajig and I have to come down a little lower and let's let's start with it down all the way to minimum power because of the flare light you really just even a minimal power if you see it it's gonna pointing at the camera it's gonna create quite a bit of a light so powered on okay that was a test all right you guys one more time so that gives us enough start to light up here grounder back uh like that it gives this shape like the shape they're kind of feel like I want mohr it was like coming through between them you know so let's bring it up uh so that vertically shoulder height yeah and then uh let's bring it up one stop as well yes a poor hips in tight and let her shoulders fall back late you can just drop your left shoulder and the right hand can go you're right there you over make a left on just grab on to his big strong muscular bicep with your left hand left hand the other left here we go right and guess who that's it we're talking about okay now we're gonna that flare like right between their faces if it fired we got too much so I'm gonna bring it down six inches and then we're good so what it's flaring when you get you catch the player it's a lot different but looking dalva got under under veil that this great little globe through her veil there and what I'm gonna play with now I'm gonna let them kind of dance and shoot several so that we have a variation of it flaring between them and really kind of glowing them out and then mohr just like ej light if it's behind her completely behind her face you have question well I do like the brightness it seems little great good what do you feel like the greatness go lauren that I'll still keep once it's hidden it'll be a little lower so let's try one with hidden and then we'll see if we want to work with that all right there you go where'd my life go I see it in background now so have hidden is good yeah you can look right in his eyes tell him if his breath is nine they're so good at p d a you get you get married already symmetrical catcher all right so here's the variations that we had when the lights down low we just see a little rim there don't really care for that I like that better get a little rim right between them there will be there the previous one my favorite was I think the last one there cool okay all right so now we're just gonna kind of work it for a little bit we'll play it that the posing and because they're moving and because I'm moving you did a few shots to get the feeling that you want just right on we'll let them kind of do their thing here that's awesome always big smiles don't don't stray too far guys don't want to see your butt uh that's it right there awesome love that good woo hello okay let's try one again where you're on her neck and uh dennis attorney your face up this way big smile yeah it's tickly not don't get too hot and crazy just like tickles kind of thing I mean because they got family audience watching us you think this might be dropping this a little bit there workable see that okay that's cute there we got a nice little flare right between them is he's nibbling on her neck okay awesome ok we'll shoot a few more and then we'll add the change things up a little bit nice looking a little bit closer kind of cheek to cheek with your cheek's on his this side there you go beautiful gorkha make sure amy that up just a wee little bit more okay perfect nice beautiful okay so now we've got that little dance he shot let's go with the uh but full length one and um where's alicia here's a bythe that uh aim that light a little bit down and we might need to take the oh we're not we don't have a nd a bendy on it so I can stand here and aim it down uh let's see can you crank it up the power you guys go ahead and dance get you assume your dancing positions again we're gonna go with a little more full length so gorka keep that right on her face there yeah we're at one sixteen wear before uh no we were at one thirty two before or one sixty four sorry so we're two steps that's good perfect okay all right so these things out of the way so you could see the shots so going the fulling remember we talked before I'd like to see that light on the floor kind of casting the ford shadow that's kinda what we're getting now and that looks really good I love that so we're going to play with this pot's right here so whatever you did was great what you did was great you guys are doing is great and uh we'll shoot a few more from this that like when you're snuggling under like that that's good turn your face towards the side just a little bit region when he snuggles you there you go a little more towards us that's beautiful good right there nice kind of lean her back just a wee little bit there day and you can go and for a little kissy poo there you turning your face on this side when he leads you back okay go ahead and lean her back there yeah nice more and go for that next out there yeah lena back later are you ok disappearing e like when you're bleeding but let's kill that's the flower is looking for right there let's try leading her back but keep your keep your nose to nose okay so we could see more of your face you got a handsome face I'm sorry wait I want to lose you too much it's kind of a playful lean back like a quick little we going nice nice beautiful wilmore is like that except your curves nicely doesn't cute alright one or two more in awesomeness okay your change is slight your face slightly to meet my side of his face yeah but looking at him but your face is going to be this size you're kind of cheating your face a little bit here you go big smiles and let you have just fall back what a big laugh ha ha uh uh see what a poser I am huh okay kevin you mind if we ask you a couple questions as we go along there's quite a few people asking I'll just I'll just pick one this is from dean souza from california who says the light behind the bride is beautiful how is the best way to use this type of concept during their first dance at the wedding we don't always have time like this to go up and down six inches because it's not opposed picture and you have suggestions and there's a lot of questions saying you know we only have three minutes how do you suggest changing up the light during the first dance and things like that the best way to do this is number one is to know what you're gonna do going into the reception like for example claire and I when we go into a first dance type situation we know we're going to do this so we either either claire will be on a with a light on the stick in the background so she's moving so as their dancing if this was really the first dance and we can't set anything up that's a little different story in which case what we do is we have that backlight on a stick and she's moving as their dancing I'm just letting them do whatever they want to do following and claire knows that she's just going to stay behind them the whole time so she has to watch me for your assistant and as I moved here they move this over the dance claire's moving behind them and just she can't see me it's good and you gotta shoot more obviously to catch the flare just right but you're still gonna have nice ej light rim light on almost every shot but whether it's the perfect position flair or not it's gonna be a matter of shooting but you can now a lot of times what you could do is have a few minutes to set up a shot like this either after before you don't have to do it at the first dance doug gordon is actually really great about he sets up all these things and doesn't even shoot anything during the actual reception because he wants to get it exactly the way he wants and that's that's another way to work and say hey you know before your dance after dance can I have five ten minutes with you guys to set something up on do a shot like this then boom I'm done I'm out of your face and then you can go enjoy your dance so it takes him planning to decide which way you're going to do it but having your things ready and set up obviously we're talking and teaching but when we get ready to do this shot I would have that set up have that light set up have my tt one controller which is right here so that I was controlling the power from this so I don't have to run in back and forth to the lights so if that was too bright I would just go to stops down background one stop up but shoot so the more planning you do the better chances you have plenty of head yeah and ready to go so that all you do is jump in there and make a couple quick adjustments and lily we could have done this in five minutes if it was me not talking and writing anybody's help thank you kevin I'm not sure if you addressed this but susan kelly asked how can you shoot manual flash it all if they're constantly moving closer and further away from the flash yeah that you can't if they're moving and that's why we generally try to have my person with a stick right and the assistant knows if if they to start to come towards me you got to come to me and if we're outside and we're walking and doing the person on the stick just kind of cases along so that's one of the nice things about not using light stands and an assistant or ah you know intern or willing bystander whatever you can grab you know it's like and I've done that at weddings I don't you know claire's back there should doing something just grab best man or somebody hey dude hold this hold this from ants come on I'll give you a quarter on it works pretty well you know people do anything for a quarter that's amazing