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Shoot: Moon Scene

We decided we really take the birth of venus create like the fairytale goddess and now we're going to talk to girls on the moon so you're going to get to see us actually break down the set and create so working with these kind of lights you could work in a very small space and create whatever you want is a mood you say if you could put him in a bathroom and shoot someone in a shower even if that's you know real small space you're bigger strides are going to need modifiers that takes up space so if you've got a small space you're working in, you want to think about all the different options that you could have creatively, so when you're buying your lights, you want to think about that sort of thing? My most used piece of gear modifier is my beauty dish I use a beauty dish to help me light a room like people my one of my favorite ways to shoot beauty is to do a clamshell top and bottom with two beauty dishes grid spots so hard light can be very pretty, but if you're going to use hard lig...

ht you want a lot of makeup very defined high contrast makeup is howyou stylized things together soft and pretty soft and pretty makeup, so you'll it's almost like putting the right dress the right shoes, the right hos in the right purse together so in this particular shoot, we're going to move the lights we have here, over we're just going to pop out the modifier so you can see how easy it is to actually do that. What I like to do when I have a shoot going on like this, if I'm working by myself, is I usually never had I'm usually totally by myself always have somebody that connection help me quickly roll through things. The subject leaves, they go in the make up around, I have about fifteen minutes. I usually like to immediately start processing at the images because I want to show them how great the pictures are, so I run right back in while they're getting their change up, show them a couple of the images, then I go back out, finish my set, have somebody helping me do all the heavy work that I don't have to work so hard. So this particular background is the same is this background? We just wrapped it around a four by eight sheets from court, taped it down so you can work in a tiny space with the background. It doesn't have to be a huge ah, huge background. So this backgrounds also square ten by ten, when you, if you order something from denny, they basically print on demand on the size of fabric you want if you no, you need a background or floor that comes out, you're gonna have to tell what size that's other court the prices on that so you can create any floor you want part of the things that helped bring these backgrounds to realities. Having something really in front of it is kind of associating with it. So this background you could use for wedding portrait, or you could do something creative like we have here that's to me, if I'm going to spend, you know, a couple hundred bucks on something, I have to be able to use it on a lot of different things. I don't want to waste any money. The other thing, too, is guess what? If anybody else you know wants these things, they sell very easily, like let's say you use one, use it to death he's using playing twenty five times in a year. It's time for it. Go away for a little walk in a new one. So when I met heather and I got to san diego and I walked into her place, every two single room I walked into had these cute little sets she had created, and I was like, let's came, we take one of those on the road so you wanna come back up so we have the moon are transportable moon, you would show me just a little bit about the whole set. So in my studio, I guess it was in the thirties, the twenties one was paper moon, when we're there traveling paper moons at carnivals, and anyway, I wanted to recreate one of those so in the studio, there's, actually a hanging moon, and it looks exactly like this. And when louise there, she said, I really want to take the moon to creative live panic set in where we're gonna hang it, I don't know. So I actually had a team of builders come in, they were amazing and make me a moon will understand, yeah, portable moon. So the cool thing is, if you decided to do something like this for yourself, you could make this a day like a sunset or a nighttime it's, a simple black seamless with stars hanging back there. So to get the stars to show up, what do you think I'm going to need to light it with money? I do have a suggestion south box, a big one, so we're going to use an octa soft box on one stand and place it hide to the center and paramount position, which makes it fashion. I'm gonna come over and sit on the floor and shoot right into them. My camera level is going to be at the level of the body. Then there will be light coming from the back to eliminate their hair, to give that old war portraiture field. So for two me and every light that's above, there needs to be some kind of phil, because why? There must be lightened eyes to give you your person, your subject life. So what we're going to dio is we're going to photograph beautiful estella, lexi, and have two girls on the moon, and we've used again the pillow batting to help fill in, and when we start to shoot, I'm going to move this cart out of the way so you can see what I was hoping to gain by having samantha actually do the makeup touchups right here so you could see how just a little bit of change can make such a nice impact. Whatever you do with a request with the hair and makeup needs to be thought out, so if you're shooting an angel and a sexy swimsuit with oil, and then you've gotta shoot, it could to again with an up do you want to think about the way you arranged your shots? Because you first might not be able to take a shower and get the oil off you want to build the hair from the simplest and the makeup simplest to the most complex, so I usually arrange my shots in that way and I like to think about color, style and tech sure in the set as well as in what they're wearing. So we took a little bit of repurposing the beauty shot you saw. We knew we had the steel cage courses in the crown, and susan did her wrapping magic with beautiful ribbons and bows, and suddenly we had this great beauty shot you just saw boom transition! We've built up the quality and the hair with all the teasing, so now we deal with this gorgeous fat ponytail, and these were the kind of things we talked about with our pre planning, like how she would go on because you've got to control your amount of time. I spent four hours on a shoot two hours at the most on the headshot on ours and makeup, and if I do two looks in thirty minutes each bam done so controlling your time's gonna let you make more money because you're going to do more shots if I get up and sit up and have the girl come once in the day, if I'm controlling my time gets heavy shoes thing doing today, too, so in my catalog shots, when I talk about how I'm going to control that day something calls me and says I want you to shoot twenty prom dresses I could do it in two days or I could do it in a day and a half or if you really want to kill me and could do it on one day one day means seamless paper and not a lot of props to make up artist to model staggered you have think about it you can't really get a shot done unless in twenty minutes really I've shot forty dresses in a day each girls on the set seven minutes head shot three quarter front back out next always have to have somebody ready you have to think like a machine so they don't need to feel that your client doesn't need to feel that but if whatever it is you commit to you pull it off so just like we agreed to do this, it took us all day yesterday to set this whole thing up but it had to be regiment and thought out planned so that they are uncomfortable they know what they're supposed to dio and back to the question about the shot getting out of hand something probably wasn't in control beforehand so it's the photographer everything but he thinks we just pushed the button but you're the curator the art director, the financial person you're the chef, the comedian, you're the image maker, the re toucher you that concept and guess what? None of that can happen if you don't communicate all of that stuff in advance and the more you communicate, the better the pictures are then all the sudden the time efficiency think it's under control and then you're dropping it like it's hot every time fam fam right all right, how are we doing over here? Blue? Well, we're still getting everything set up over here with the lights and everything. I wanted to know if you could talk a little bit about if this is the type of worker conceptual work thatyou dio for these clients for the commercial work or what do you encourage people to do these for their own personal work as well? Do you approach them in the same way several people are asking? How do you make money doing this type of work? I use theirs? I think about my photography work in several ways you can get people's attention by being the chief fist and that you know there's there's people that call me to say I want you to do my headshot and I have ninety nine dollars and I'm like, well, that's not gonna happen first of all, we can't do it without makeup in the makeup is going to cost in a minimum two fifty so let's talk about what? What I usually ask him how much money they have to start always talking about people like that, some people come to you and they want a head shot. Somebody comes to you, they want a boot to our shot. Somebody calls me might want a fantasy. I think of this type of photography for myself is an editorial chance to make myself more known and more scene I feel like you have. You've got so many opportunities photographers like opening, was it? How many crayons in the box of sixty for us? Stella isn't sixty, four hundred now sixty four still, you have that many options to make something amazing. So this type of photography for me people go, how did how'd you think of that? If somebody asks you how you did it and I want to know about it, they're going to want to know who you are. So my image making my lighting, I did on each one of these I you sign lining for boudoir, I shoot it for glamour, I shoot it for fashion, I make money doing that people call to me all the time I'm going to l a I'm going to be in a movie I'm going to be, you know, a cop, I need to be shot in a certain way on they get and on ad for swimsuit company. Our lingerie company have shot for vanity fair intimate I've shot for haynes at thirteen years I shot hanes underwear and all I did was make men and women look fabulous in cotton underwear so you need to know how to light to make people look great and the sunlight for the body to face light makes the person look great. The fantasy stuff is the image stuff that makes the impact that makes people look at you. When I was coming along in the beginning of my career, you couldn't get noticed and couldn't get high for a job if you didn't have all those tear sheets in the book. Well, I didn't want to shoot, you know, the four women that were, you know, the employee of the year they were goingto appear and let's say, allure magazine, I wanted to shoot the fashion pieces because I wanted to get fashion work, so you shoot what you want to shoot to get the work you want desire. So in this particular case, if I put up these images people call me, so whatever you create for yourself is what you're going to get more off, so if you're dancing the boudoir thing make killer but who are pictures she what's expected and then step out of the box and shock everyone with your creativity do other things that people are not expecting to see if seat people see this and you're talking to the right audience, they will spend money with you these are the kind of pictures that people would want to put in a bullet can hang on a wall and so then you have endless financial opportunities that can from that so if that helps, you know you have to shock yourself or create for yourself to impress yourself to show whether what you want to do so in the case of getting more work, shoot something that's a little simple she would they ask you to dio and then take it off on a fantasy to r we'll call you back in six months and suv they do the whole thing can't see so the more you put into it, the more you're gonna get out of it in every case. All right, so so heather, tell us a little bit about the set on how you set it up. Three dimensionally sorry. All right, so we have the moon that we talked about on the stand because we didn't want to deal with hanging. Um we have two bar stools that I painted black that the ladies air sitting on and then clouds that are really cute the clouds but for this shoot we made them look a little bit more dreamy but even without our fluffy clouds you can imagine how fun they would be just for a photograph of a little girl sitting on made it a little more dreamy and then we're going to make it even more dreamy couldn't get a smoke machine in here the machine we're gonna use dry ice gonna add some dry ice on cue you tell me when okay, so a smoke machine is a water based smoke machine if you use one of the best place to buy one is that the halloween after halloween party store place? I think they have a party city they're like twenty bucks, but if you use the smoke machine, you take two or three pictures and if you were standing around, tinkering with your camera is going to go everywhere and block your view. I tried to use one on the last creative live and we were too afraid we couldn't control where the smoke is shooting in a little bay to contain the smoke is okay if somebody tells you that they don't want to be around smoke from the smoke machine it's a water raised product so that nobody can get, you know, smoke inhalation or whatever from it, what we're going to dio is dry ice and a little water and we're gonna create a little bay on each side and contain that and I have a little tiny bit behind her and a little tiny bit in front of her if you use a smoke machine it's better to have a smoke machine facing the background behind them and let the smoke come up over the background and a roll around, so be patient and see, because the smoke will rise dry eyes will rise. And do you know how you get smoked to show up in a photo backlight? All right, so we're gonna have tio over here. Good right above. We're gonna have to change the angle on that one too. So when you place your hairline it's not straight on top, it's about right here, you wanna have a little halo around. So one of the other wonderful things about having here and makeup artist if somebody that has their own hair and makeup and they've got straight here is everywhere you're going to be like tweaking the retouching to death on that, smoothing it down and getting into with this possible, just save you a few minutes. Backlight will also eliminate that. Can we put that in? Maybe from the side so I could see a little better. Just kind of came in from the other way. So paramount lighting for me is high into the center. For you, khun, trying to tweak it a little bit to the side so you can have himself shadows. It depends on how artsy you want to make the shot there's all kinds of rules, there's, all kinds of drawings, all kinds of places you can study lighting techniques, but to me, it's, where looks the best on the person and every human being is different. Every age range of person has a different requirement that things you're trying to be flattering for with lighting the soft box place tine above gives the dream quality and it's also going to help me get that reflection back off those stars in the background and give me something fun to work with so they'll come to life. The moon is set up, always back the end of this nine foot roll of paper. If you were in a studio environment with the scale of the moon, it might be easier with a twelve foot roll of paper. Uh, but we're going with this scale. All right? So when you're set up a light on arm, always make sure you use sandbags think safety first, we do have them sitting there now, but I always set the light up in sand bag before somebody walks on the set, I have fallen and hit somebody in the head with my meter you know tripped and fall lights have fallen over on my set so never ever set your lights up without sandbags on them you'll thank me later something will fall over one day and you're going to go wow you should've put a sandbag on it people trip over the chords to so just be safe at all costs and put your subjects out it's not like it's okay you can keep it on an angle like that if you could tighten it down they're doing the switch it so go ahead and plug it in and turn it on to before you raise it up in the air okay okay so what she has here it looks like she's sitting on the moon but she's not she's actually sitting each girl is sitting on a stool behind it so it's just a prop it's just placed right in front of him so they compose easily they can't lie down on the moon but they can kind of lena's if they are so you fake it everything this black in front of the black paper is going to disappear and then you can just retouch out any seams if you want to make the images here is easier to add dimension on the background black place in the black and making that border that's probably the easiest retouching thing that you would ever want to have to do all right beautiful and I love the crowns susan created these forest forth for the moon made matching crowns. I'm not sure how you actually attached them, but I catch them. You attach them, led a secret secret bobby pin ninja. So these would moons in front, and I know you can't see it there, but the little bucket of dry ice, right? Kind of still, I put it right in the very center. How much you're gonna get, go ahead and grab a different lands here. Could I have somebody grab me the eighty five? Thank you. So I'm going to shoot this all the way down to the ground. I may crop into the clouds a little bit. When I actually go to print it out here, you can actually take this. What? No, take it off. Look with you. Wanna take a question? Well, we're sure you can while they're adjusting that that way. Have one in the studio. And yes, questions regarding you have a light very flat. Next to her on that. Made her skin glow on her face. There's a collar setting that was on the line. We balanced the light back to tungsten to match with the lights that are available and hear this. Wonderful light has the capability of turning it into daylight so you can come backto clean white if you don't want that golden glow I think in this particular circumstance it worked fine I might even choose to leave it that way some people would maybe say it's two gold for me yeah I personally love the gold but the question has to do with the shadows yes, I don't know. I think personally I would love to have the same effect without the shadow is there is there any way for you to use the same light on and not have the shelter and the shelter that's right behind her because the other way to move the separated you could make the background will further away but you could you you would need two extra light. Uh not really. If you just move the background further away you could also put take your second life, put it behind it. Eliminate the background a little bit here will help balance out that shadowing to me when you start getting into the old world feel you know, I described rembrandt lighting for a rembrandt painting style there was always a light off to the side and if you think about how they were lighting those paintings that were using oil lamps so there was a glow around the face with shadows it fell to the side there might be another little glow over here to separate him from the background and then was almost always to table in the background with wine and cheese and fruit and it was eliminated. So when you work with a continuous flow light you have some people might call it a flaw. But I say it's an advantage the lie the laws of flight are that they fall, they move forward and it falls off in power the further and further it goes away from me so you can use the shadow is your friend teo, you know, chisel into someone's face shadow in shallow the chin or thin someone down. You can also use it for that same kind of true, honest rembrandt sort of feel, and this has kind of a painterly quality about that. I would probably take that into consideration. The shadow doesn't bother me on that, uh, a lot more prominent on the body. Looked like she was stuck on them paper right against the paper. Well, that would be, you know, a choice that you could make. It was also depending on how far away you are from her and how many lights you have one high, one low you could put them actually very symmetrical on top, um, the flatter you make it in a more cosmetic ad like you make it which we then we think of commercial hegyes clamor head shots like somebody's going to enter a beauty pageant or something like that that's usually live from all around it's more of a commercialized look I light for the look so I I chose the dramatic kind of sideline for that phil if the I lighter was not position so close underneath her face it will really fall into shadow and you would have noticed the contrast from the single light even more so did that help? Thank you. That was really at the end of the day everything I share with you is about your art and how you choose to tweak it it's going to be up to you just how my my attraction to you is an artist right kate's ready for you too wonderful all right let's just tip it maurin a forty five degree angle and we're gonna have to dio um something of the same thing to those kind of facing straight down on the back so you go ahead when you're dealing with light like that you want to go ahead and get it kind of in the same subject for pointing right at the subject when you raise it up it's where it needs to be it's also easier to get setting correct before you raised the light up in the air if you push it here it's gonna listen it so they're like oh well it's day thank us take loose let's take this all apart and take this off the stand and just put it on the stand we got too many working parts here so when you use a c stand traditional way to tighten it down is things loosen it if you turn the one way you want to set it up so it tightens itself well it's resting on that that makes sense to you guys so when you're working with and you set it up and it keeps falling it's just turn it around and do it the opposite it will catch itself into place there needs to be repositioned it needs is pointing straight down toward them right? Tip it more toward the back of the head can you do that? Okay. All right, so do you want yes, just take it off unless you put it on the stand and get up in the air and we'll put it on a slight angle so a boom arm is also a good thing to work with. You guys ever worked with a big boom on the big wheels those air nice that they also to convey dangerous toe honest said you want to make sure you always have it sandbag so when you take the head off it doesn't flip over andi something standing there and you take the head off this thing goes flying can actually get hurt really bad and it goes throwing your lite across the room. All right, it's. Really? Pretty. Now, if we can just tip the angle of the light on a forty five degree angle, one of the cool things about these head is you can turn the head all the way around. So if you wanted to put the light so it's shooting straight down you can you can also take the stand off and turn it so it's on its side that doesn't come with traditional light. Has there's just one option. Beautiful. All right, now, just just it toward them a little bit, you know, I have a starting raise it up and then turn it from you're fine. We just do it this way. I got that once you go around to the back and then take that angle of that line is pointing straight at the ground. All you have to do is take the head and point it this way. All right? So I'm going to go ahead and set take a peak where I'm at I think I'm going to go with the twenty four two one oh five to my land's. Beautiful. Tell us about your lens choice so I initially thought I would shoot with the eighty five. But my space would not allow for it, so I'm gonna use my twenty four two one o five so if you're gonna buy one wins, anyone spend money you're twenty four two, one o five you'll use it all the time I can shoot a beauty shot with it or shoot a room with it. I did architectural shoot this week, I shot a restaurant chef for editorial for a magazine, and I put this one lens on and I used it for the entire thing, so if you're just getting started, this is a really great choice for you. My other two favorite lenses for fashion is fifty in the eighty five. All right, all right, so I'm looking at their poses and I'm thinking to myself, right off the back, how can I position them? So I think on an angle would probably be good and stuff sitting straight at me with your knees, so can you guys turn this way a little bit and we kind of need something that their feet can get stretched out so that they're not straight and just hanging loosely is perfect angle beautiful all right, now just center it so it's facing straight out toward the front of the studio great, so when you're giving direction and you're looking at a set, you can either say camera, right camera left or you can say into the set and out of the set you have to kind of turn things around backwards and speak to who you're delivering your message to so that I can follow you, it's just a little bit too far to the left must bring it a little more toward the center. We're getting close. Yeah, toward the center of the same one. That's. Great. Right there. All right. Wonderful. So I'm going to just take a little quick test shot here. Beautiful. Stunning. Sorry way also, can we do we have a little white bucket or something? We could sit down there so the girls could put their feet so they can get on an angle to their feet. Maybe over here. Locks on apple box would be fine. Thank you. What? Uh, you're next to you, mason vertical way. Actually, you know what? It might be nice over here on this side. Sorry. Sometimes it's always a little more trouble than it seems. So we've got one light position just to the top into side falling with nice softly across the whole set. It will kind of spread. This is your overhead light that I talked about turning on its red light everywhere it will also put a little light over on the background. Uh the grid spot on the background that's coming over the top for the back here is gonna need to be about a half star brighter to reach them but if you think about what kind of quality of light is coming from that life it's really straight on it's just being narrow down by the grizz so there's nothing really baffling a lot of that power so it won't take much to make that like show up so as I'm making my creative judgment so bring that once you position that it will be right behind heather a little bit more in front this way come toward me a little bit more keep coming keep coming on that's perfect! So we reason the grid again to try to control self fox that that the light just doesn't completely over lightness that the biggest mistake I see what you are photographers make too big a light source like one giant soft box and they want to cover the whole set with the light but it's not interesting line it's just over lit to me so you want to make sure your exposure is nice in the lightest, sexy and moody and interesting even though this isn't really a boudoir shot, we're doing a little angelic type shot where could this be used front for a beautiful portrait album a beautiful you know, children's portrait could be done here is well so you have to think how can I be creative? How can I bring something magic to the shot itself? All right, so sure so we've got the pocket wizard three here uh we're not firing here or up top there goes it's going it went and then it turned off your pocket was your cook connected to each life? There we go, here we go and the power on this one could be turned down to about three on do you know what power setting is on the one up top? Okay, um put this one at four. So when I'm shooting my playboy style shots and I've left the face in the body in the background the rim light that kind of circles around the back of the body that it pushes everyone forward. I use that same philosophy over here even though it had nothing to do with the playboy type shot I used to again there by pushing the subject for with a lightning background when it playboy times I would use grids for focus able spotlights to help me do that you could also use barn doors in this case we have the hair light back there is going to be about a stop and a half over the way that the light travels from the back forward it takes that much to get you to see it even though it's further away thinking how's that work I'll show you just a moment all right power wass our height wise no is fine so the apple box needs to go in so the girls can get their feet going this way when friends like c could you do your feet off towards that way you know I've got my legs this way just beautiful and you're goingto hose if you're a landing on the moon yeah you can put one hand yeah well you could reach all the way to the top beautiful and then you could just kind of cover that up a little bit more on the other side of paris to you and over the front wheels turning black you need together we're gonna take one little test shot so you were at seeing yes seeing this uh down near the front of the cloud here I think I'm gonna drop my I s o down to one sixty troubling eight why she's tweaking that set so I moved the focusing point over constantly I worked my camera like a little machine beautiful now has delighted really really pretty stale when we go to actually shoot you khun put lean over onto her lap with your elbow like that it's beautiful on straight troubling with your arm like see around her back beautiful stella you look so pretty I love your makeup then lean your head this way just a little bit beautiful awesome in your hand here just finish off the touch there don't you try this way with it beautiful lean a little bit gorgeous absolutely stunning so how are we doing there? My loop was hanging on a light stand consume me grab that for me so what I'm going to suggest is I'm not seeing enough of the stars so let's take the grid spot off the front of this instead of it being limiting alight we're going to use the light and the spillover is going to help us and we'll position the south bucks so it's facing the background little bit maybe raise it up and let the stars come popping out so as much as I can tweak it before I actually shoot it no better so take one picture stop look at it, study it and then go from there and let's raise it up the light up about a foot and turn in a little bit more toward heather but still facing the background so what we have now is beautiful light in the background a long lexie side but behind the stella the stars have turned black so you think about it just like you it's a shiny surface and you won't like to strike it so instead of controlling it, we're going to use the limitations beautiful think I'm a mark right now let's just put it together right on cue so can you tell me a little bit about how you're going to go about the dry ice have heather well we went don't take the head down just get the light okay? So another good thing she's paying attention to her feet I can't tell you how many times I shoot people and I walk around the studio without their shoes on and then the next thing you know they're they are in front of your camera with your dirty feet so you know you can pay attention to that in the front they hopped in the cellar has dirty feet wei ran to party city found these fabulous uh leper con behold with our dry ice that's been sitting here and this morning so hopefully we have enough to make a an impact here we'll see what happens you might have to put it up on a box another apple box so it can come up high and after new test if I put it here beautiful it needs to be more in the center behind them like right right hip level up in the air wei have another apple box coming? I think I think I solved it all right, so why don't we give a test on that first take one more a little shot here? I think that we're getting close I think we're going to light test I think the light's really beautiful way raise this light up for me and what's the power setting on it let's put it at two and a half and turn it a little bit more toward the background and raise it up a little higher so the light was not it was lighting some of them but not all of them so two seconds later we tweak it taking out a picture judge it shoot alright that's perfect all right let me take one last test shot before heather pops in the eyes I don't know if we're going to get enough thing out of this all right you can start right so girls you want to just pay attention to me for a moment and sit up nice and tall and his delicate you cross your feet for me kind of like this beautiful can you sit up nice and tall and maybe lean over on lexie's lap that's beautiful and I want you to think happy thoughts beautiful guys look amazing all right one last check of the focus beautiful and I think that's great beautiful awesome that's telling you had this way a little bit where is it? Great now pull it a little taller can you lay your hand maybe on his nose beautiful maybe put your arms around her estella come back, sweetie beautiful sit up nice and tall, gorgeous, beautiful like so you look amazing all right, let's, try just a couple more girls. Could you come over and turn up the power on this one self box to my left? Put it up in three and a half. No. Is it doing anything it's? Just not giving us the big smoke effect that we're used to. Awesome. Alright, let's world through this a little bit further so you're get ready. Tell me beautiful, good not so much great. Beautiful but we didn't have full light now on the stars and exposure looks really great. I'm going to check my history ram and make sure that I don't have any flaws. It's one thing I do is try to make sure everything is covered. Awesome. All right, um, why don't we cross your legs like this now you default, that's, that's really pretty and then maybe lean out a little it'll forward, beautiful stella, can you lean in to her just a little bit beautiful channel for me again? Beautiful, and I'm an eight. I s so one sixty, sixty three seven beautiful awesome apple boxes hidden. Everything looks great.