Lessons
Class Introduction
05:49 2Analyzing the Face
14:48 3Light and Skin
10:34 4Science of Light
10:09 5Direction of Light
14:39 6Fill Light
12:19 7Demo and Shoot: Analyzing the Face
07:10 8Demo and Shoot: Distance of Light
19:21Demo and Shoot: Distance from Subject
09:17 10Round Face Considerations
09:55 11Shoot: Round Face
13:23 12Double Chin Considerations
06:51 13Shoot: Double Chin
07:07 14Shoot: Big Forehead
05:17 15Big Forehead Considerations
06:40 16Pronounced Nose Considerations
03:56 17Shoot: Pronounced Nose Considerations
06:23 18Uneven Features Considerations
02:03 19Shoot: Uneven Features
01:20 20Shoot: Large or Small Chin
09:12 21Pronounced Wrinkles Considerations
04:08 22Shoot: Pronounced Wrinkles
12:23 23Shoot: Uneven Skin
06:33 24Oily Skin Considerations
03:17 25Shoot: Oily Skin
04:41 26No Curves Considerations
05:18 27Shoot: No Curves
10:07 28Full Figured Subject Considerations
10:09 29Shoot: Full Figured Subject
04:29 30Shoot: Glasses
09:04 31Balding Considerations
02:27 32Shoot: Balding
07:10 33Retouching: Wrinkles
15:27 34Retouching: Uneven Skin
04:36 35Retouching: Brighten Face & Whiten Teeth
05:06 36Retouching: Large Forehead
04:24 37Retouching: Round Face
07:02 38Retouching: Oily Skin
02:53 39Retouching: Full Figured Subject
13:06Lesson Info
Shoot: Pronounced Wrinkles
Hi! There is fine, okay. Hello. We are going to start, and you can lower it is a little, if you want, is that as low as it goes? No, I think it'll go lower. Just make sure you're comfortable. What we're gonna do is we're gonna start with, not terrible light, just blah, not great and then we'll move up and show you a couple different solutions. Wonderful, we're going to use a beauty dish. A beauty dish is kind of an in-between hard and soft light. It's got qualities of soft light, but it's got a little bit more contrast than, say, a big softbox for example. What would be terrible, is the zoom reflector or something hard like that, but I don't think that's what people do as a go-to. Just think of it as, don't use a bare speed light. That's going to be the equivalent of if you use a zoom reflector. Let's bring this in just a little, can you raise it up just a little bit more? By the way, one of the things that I can do is, let's say you have a smaller softbox, bringing it in close...
r is going to soften the light, the closer that softbox is, the softer is to your subject. Keep that in mind, especially if you're working on a two foot octa. A two foot octa this far away is not really that soft. Bring it in nice and close. We've got our beauty dish here and it's not a super high angle, but it's not super flat. Let's take a look at what we're working with. Great and chin down just a little. Down just a little bit, all right, there, good. What you'll notice is the wrinkles it defines are going to be the ones from top down The one that you draw more attention to. Anything in here and there. It's also a little bit of a harder light source. One thing that you can do to lessen it a little bit is, can you do fill first? We're gonna fill in with a fill card underneath. We fill in, great. It softens up some of the shadows and transitions a bit. Not quite as defined, the darker areas now have a little bit of pop to them. That's one solution, but also, the higher up the light, the more shadows it casts down. If you lower this light, just a little bit. Right there is perfect. We take one without fill and then one with fill since we lowered it, so it's not quite as raking. Chin down just a little, right there, beautiful. Then we'll add the fill, great. One more thing that you can do, this will be a little softer and a little glowier in the next one, okay? Kind of softening it out. Can I have that other little reflector? Can you do me a favor? Can you hold this and this side, John, can you box her in there? Perfect. What this will do, is it fills in the shadows from every single direction. It's going to be nice and even and it gives you super flat light, as flat as possible. This is as flat as you can get your light. It is centered, it is low and there is fill from all directions, okay? Not much room for shadows. Just look a litle happy, are you happy? Good. Perfect. Okay, wonderful. You look cute! For example, just take a look. It's a lot different in the quality of light. This is a different mood, but it's also going to be a lot softer on the skin. Now, next thing that we can do, can we just pull it off to the side? I'm just going to show you again, another bad or less good. We're just going to pull off to the side and show you raking light and then will give you a couple more examples, good, tight space there. We're going to move this back. Cool. Great. Okay, let's take a look. Here we have the light, the lights not high. We have that part okay, but it's further off to the side so it's raking across. It'll draw more attention to here. It's across those. Just keeping in mind, I feel like, oh man. Let's say you have somebody with a round face, but you also don't want to show a lot of wrinkles. If you move the light off to the side, to narrow their face, it's gonna draw more attention to these, you're balancing. Let's do the umbrella on this one. What we're going to do is we're going to do a large soft light source, we'll switch, which way do you want it? I'll get it out of here. Okay. We're going to do the large light source and really close. Basically as a I can get it without being in my frame. Because it's so big, I can't put it right here, cause then it's in my shot. What I can do is I can get as close as possible and then I can fill in the shadows on the shadow side so that I'm not seeing as much definition. Great, thank you. Yeah, I'm gonna move it, basically into my shot just as much as possible. Can I turn your body towards the light? Great, perfect, that's beautiful. I'm gonna do one without, great. Look your eyes here? That's great, little lower, just a little lower with your eyes again, okay. Oop, it didn't switch. Okay, yep, exposure. About that. Don't look at it too bright. Can you look your eyes right there is good? Beautiful. Great, okay. It's really soft, but you'll see kind of raking across here. Can you bring white fill in nice and close? Perfect. Now look right at me, good. Perfect, let me do one more. Look joyful. (laughs). Okay, that's cute, that's perfect. Aww! That's perfect, I love this last one, you look so pretty. Okay, cool. Aww, I love that. Notice. I just really wanted to see her look happier, I had to take a couple. Obviously, everything I've shot so far was the bare minimums and then we add the expression and the pose and stuff on top of that. Last, do you wanna do the? Yeah, just letting her see it. You look pretty, you look beautiful. Let's do one last one, do you wanna do the balance into that? Sure. Okay. Everything I've showed you so far has been in the studio. We're going to pretend you've got a little white wall, okay? We are on location just so you've got an idea and you've got a speed light. What we're gonna do, we are pretending this is our speed light. Fundamentally, I know you're like, "Oh no, that's cheating, "It's a studio strobe." We're talking quality of light, the head of it here, is this big, used to be like that big. It's not actually that much different for the front of it. The actual quality of light coming out will be quite similar. What we're going to do is if you had a speed light on location, you're shooting on the top of your camera, what I could do is I could turn it this way? If this is the white wall right here. I can turn the speed light towards that white wall. But, since it's coming from the side, it would be raking across so I would turn her. Can you turn this direction? Now she's facing that so it'll be flat, or more flat like and I could take her portrait. Let's show you the equivalent. Switching this, John's my white wall. He's hitting it off the ceiling. Actually, I'm gonna face you this direction, just like that. Great, what do you think for power here? We're guessing. We're gonna just guess this one. I'm gonna guess, I gotta open up a bit. My battery's almost dead too, John. I got one ready for you. Now. Not too bad. It's not right. Blinked, hold on one more. Let's try this one. Even if you don't have a softbox, if you look at that, that's still quite soft quality of light. If you can bring her closer to the wall, the light's going to appear larger. It'll help you out a bit. If you wanted to have the production, you could bring in a fill light, but I'm assuming you've got your speed light on camera, turn it towards the wall and it'll give you an effect like that. Pretty, I like it. Do you guys have any questions? Thank you. Have you ever used a ring light, which is the ultimate soft source? Yeah, ring lights are really cool. The whole point is they're stylistic. If you like the look of them, it's cool. But it's got a very specific look. If you've ever seen the ring light, it's completely flat. The downside is, you do see a lot more reflections on the skin because basically the light is kicking out from around your lens, straight on the skin. If there's any part that's oily or greasy or shiny it kicks that reflection straight back. If you've got that, you can't get away with a ring light, but otherwise it's just, if you've ever seen the shot sometimes it looks like they're almost retouched in camera because it just blows out the skin super flat and there's no direction up or down or to the side of wrinkles or blemishes or pores. For fashion it's great, saves retouching too. Fondwell asked because you were talking about the speed light against the wall, "If you are at an event "and you're getting a lot of people coming through "that have a lot of different features "that you're trying to go for, "is what you've just showed us a good option "for dealing with an average number of things coming through "or is there something else that you would do?" John can you fake hold the reflector real quick? I just wanna show you an example. Not gonna shoot it. Fake hold it, that's fine. I don't know what it'll look like but. Let's pretend this is my camera and the flash is pointed at this wall. I'm going to be the subject. Here's where the camera is on a tripod, we're leaving it there. If the subject faces straight towards this, it is super flat, soft light. But, if the subject rotates this way, now I've got some sculpting, there'll be more shadow here. If you then move the camera over here, you got short light. You can use some of those tools I talked about before. If I bring them in close, it'll be softer. If I want it to be hard light, I can turn it around and use it as hard light. You can actually use a lot of those same lighting tips and tricks, just using a wall and changing the subject's angle and then your camera angle.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Sharma Shari
This class was amazing! It was great seeing a demo class with real people. As a wedding photographer that specializes in offbeat/non traditional couples, it is always good to see how I can enhance all my clients beautiful features, and make them feel their best and confident when I am taking their photos!
a Creativelive Student
I was so excited to get the chance to learn from Lindsay live, and this course did not disappoint! The techniques she shared were insightful and straightforward. I felt like seeing them on different subjects throughout the day really helped to cement the concepts and grow my photography tools to bring out the best in those I'm photographing. I'm not a studio photographer, but the ideas apply in natural light as well.
maria manolaros
Great class! Impressive amount of tips on posing, lighting and photoshop techniques , a real good no nonsense approach by superb teacher. Numerous amounts of thumbs ups
Student Work
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