Lessons

Lesson Info

Location Photo Review and Analysis

Let me begin with a good friend of mine. His name. Oh, by the way, my instagram is, uh, roberto underscore photo. If you want to check it out. I always put photos of me shooting weddings. It's kind of fun. Um, check out my good friend joshua right there. Good looking man. Okay, good looking man. Right there. Um, I wanted to go through some of the photos we've been taken throughout the first day and the second day, and I wanted to show you what a beauty off natural light and speed lights and all that can do together this. Amazingly, not that amazing photo of joshua was taken with just natural light. You can see that it has a little bit of a blue tint to it. Ok, now you can correct for that blue tint on, you can do it in cabin temperature. You can do it later. Bonus in outer white balance. This is what you get whenever you are in shade in natural light and you are in our white balance, you always get a little bit of a blue cast to your pictures. Okay? This one was done with very much ano...

ther window, like it looks like window light again, but this one was done completely with strokes. Okay, now you could even tone down the strobe on the left side more and make it even less bright on that side. But notice the quality of light on his on his face. There is pretty much the same or a little bit better than that one. That one has a little bit of raccoon eyes. But here's, what I want you to notice. Look at the nice shaving off his eye and his face. That doesn't change with flash is the same thing look, same exact thing. I'm the flash because natural because the camera knows it is the flash went off. It gives you a little bit of a warmer tone. If you want to make your flash look colder, just change the kelvin temperature. Ok, but that flash it's not some awful looking flat light. It looks exactly the same. So that's. Quite beautiful. Um, here's calvin, the model from yesterday. Now this is natural light, just ambient. The only problem in this one is that because of the creative life camera lights, was he looming in them? Left and right actually made him look really cool, so but we found those accent light's on the left and right side of his face keep brother would've just looked flat again, okay, however, here's a decision you make as an sa photog if you decided to be a photographer this is the decisions you make do you accept what you get or do you get what you want those are those are that's a very different statement do you just accept that's what isthe that's what I'm going to get my camera doesn't lie or you can have the mentality that says no I kind of want to craft his cheekbones I don't wanna have mystery in his eye can I wanna have a little bit of shading on one side and brightness on the other I want to chisel his jaw line that's a photographer speaking photographer who understands stuff understand sliding um this is what it looks like when you craft it and this is done life on creative live like it's not like I'm like two hour set up by myself this is done on the spot just with just two lights this is what you get and I think that's very much like an ad in some magazine for ralph lauren or something like that. So when you see those ralph lauren after you see any kind of fancy ass off anything you're like wow, I can't believe how amazing their production value is it was it's very quick it's actually very simple okay if you having your website photos like that if I go to your website I see photos like that. I'm going to say this person, I'm going to pay this person. This person has knowledge of photography. I'm going to pay for their portrait. If I if I want to get a head shot, I want to look good. This is the photographer I would go for. Probably probably not probably not tonight. Probably not that one it's just awesome. Lucas crafted, you know what I mean? So, so pretty crazy how? Let what light does right? I'm just so in love with gorgeous lighting for photography I totally speaking at a passion right now photography lighting is one kind of got me into photography in the first place I saw amazing photos at barnes and noble off books by photographers with elijah streaming through trees is like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing on it was actually lighting that got me interested in photography. So this is where the cool you notice that there's a hair light as well on him, you notice the separation between him and the background. Everything is there. Everything is happening. Let's begin with the photos from yesterday. This is the part I really wanted to talk about, okay, when ryan, the producer, and I, uh, we're discussing locations for the photo shoot yesterday. I remember telling him I wanted a location that was going to bring me difficulties I wanted challenges I think they want a perfect amazing location I didn't want to be in some mansion in london or something I wanted a place that just looks like our place people would find themselves in so we went through some options we found this place he was perfect it had some currents that we're not that attractive it had some windows and they don't have a lot it had a little tiny courtyard outside not a lot to work with but that's really that's realistic what if you were shooting a judge up there? What would you do? You know would you complain where in my town we don't have great locations you know it's like, you know, please. So um ryan sent me these photos before the class and he said this is where we're going to work and like, I don't know I'm sorry roberto can't find him I was like, no, this is perfect it is like the worst thing ever is perfect, you know it goes look at thea if you're fine, okay, if you were sitting there and you had a bride and a groom or a fashion model or a high school senior or or a portrait and this is where you have to shoot, would you be a little bit like come on, man like come on, we have to come on we have to go somewhere else I need space to back up I have no space to back up what I deal with that crap allover the place chairs crazy lights and shadows trees all over the place where am I going to shoot where we're going to set up my lights were going toe you know, if I lived in new york I would have a perfect place but no um so I thought about it and I said here's my mentality I have studied lighting enough I have practice lighting enough to not care about where you put me throw me in an alley throw me in the in the bathroom I don't care not in the toilet when we would throw me wherever you want me to and I will create images that will that we're going to do some damage you see what I'm saying? Because I understand like that's all I wanted to do I saw that all that crazy light the tree and everything andi I put the put her there justin straight up light okay no consciousness off the sun on how hard she hits her face we didn't care I just had sit there girlfriend doesn't matter because I can adjust and fix everything in two seconds okay? And then we went through the steps this is what the natural light looks like when when when it's harsh lighting your direct light hitting your subjects on we didn't pose for it right then we try toe bring her chained down and we get something like this when we try to kind of diffuse a little bit covering a little bit and we try to solve the harsh light in her face that's fine then we put the light of course I forgot about that plant on the left you see that little plant I didn't see the plant you know it's always when you go home you're like blowing up the plant you know the point is there the next image I did skin soft inning on it because I didn't want to show her photo with like you know if if she's watching or whatever I skin soft until I called I corrected the color like five percent on ideas based basically minor and I also corrected the I strained it that's all I did know nothing else skin softening strained dropped a little bit and this is the picture business pretty much out of my camera okay it's a little bright on the screen but it looks exposed well on my screen but look at that ok forget that green plants coming out of the left that's like the worst destruction in the world like I cannot believe I didn't see that that's all right you know it's pressure um take a look at the highlights in her eyes please they can look at the beauty off her skin that looks like the sun hit her perfectly and it has like a nice diffuse bounced quality like to it but no it was it was flashed because the natural light looked like this or they looked like this okay of course this is an exaggeration because I wasn't putting her in a good place but I'm saying this is the sun this is what I just put it somewhere and then you can create a picture the point off me putting this is if you have a subject you're photographing and they say can you shoot me here? The answer is yes because you can just if you understand just anywhere you are you can make it happen okay look at the hair light too pretty beautiful, right? I mean to me this is like okay, I understand why people use it here's another photo off calvin this one is taken in natural light and it looks very much like natural light it's a nice flat image does it say hot sauce no don't you say no flavor? Yes it is it has no spice to it. Okay did you guys bring your hot sauce is by the way, are you guys going to eat him or you're going to keep him and keep him? People are writing on twitter and instagram and on facebook or cancer stuff about the heart, everybody showing photos of their hot sauce cabinets and stuff like that. I'm like it's good that they're there and I put him in. You put him in your photography. All right, now the next photo I took it with a flash going through the trees just to create a graphic element on the wall. In other words, I was just trying to make it more interesting than flat. Okay, this one doesn't have any hot sauce, but this one definitely has a little bit more going for it now. There's some crazy shadows on his face. And if you if I wasn't a creative life and I was I had a minute to adjust, I would move the branches out of his face just to clear up a clean pocket off light on his face. But it doesn't change the fact that I created interest in a very boring environment. That's kind of a this is the environment and you can filter this toe help. I mean, toe however you want, but you're never going to create. And I look like this with filters. Yes, that's that's, our organic photography technique you have to do okay, so, um okay, here's a good one, that little bush right there, that's all we needed to make it look like you're in some sort of forest, you know that's another fun part of our photography you can compress the scene and make it look like there was a huge amount of trees and all the stuff. When I talk to ryan about this location I said, can we find a place that has a backyard so I can go toe do photos outside with beautiful trees and locations and all the stuff this is what we got is that with two plants work yes, they will yes, they will because if you don't get what you want that's reality, sometimes sometimes we put we get put in places that is not ideal and we still have to make it happen. Can you imagine guys? Nikki carrie, can you imagine if you were asked to teach a creative life are lighting class and this is the location you were going to be life all over the world? How would you feel the answer should be cry? You're crying you would cry umm if you don't understand lighting, this will be a nervous this would be a nightmare, right? Imagine everyone's watching you right, but here's a weekend I went step by step the first step wass I'm going to use the trees as assam foliage background, I'm going to use my seventy two hundred at two hundred millimeters or actually as close as I can because he was such a short space, I think it was like one seventy or something, and I'm going to compress the scene as much as possible so you don't see the metal doors. You don't see the chairs, you don't see anything except for the trees in the background, blurry or out of focus. So when you put your subject in front of that, it looks like this on that people would say satisfactory it's fine, maybe change the white balance, maybe make it warmer, maybe do some toasting this tow it that's fine, but this is a this is a powerful one here because without any filters, just correcting the adjustment, I just adjusted the I straightened the picture on my soft in her skin from from any blemishes that all that was done to this. This is what we got out of camera in the same place. Look at the trees in the background, they look like you could have been in some huge forest in maine or something like that if you're watching at home, I hope this hits you hard because this is what I'm trying to teach it how to create locations like that and turned them and sorry, I'm not be satisfied with that and take your photography to a higher level of artistry. That is my only wish when I came to creative life my only wish was to get you guys to say I want to take my photography toe a higher level of artistry if you feel that way then I achieved my goal here on that's that's really what I want I want photography to be respected again I want I want people to say you're a photographer that's so impressive but that's what I want you don't have to be an engineer or a doctor to be respected you should be able to be a photographer and be respected but we've got to start thinking more in terms not in terms of this on more in terms ofthe this this is what we need the next one I said okay we have the same if people I know that somebody texted me yesterday and said um they said this is like not it's not possible it's just taken off camera somebody took a screen shot and send it to somebody this is taken off camera you guys saw the four off camera this is straight out of the camera with exceptions off skin soft inning and straining that's it same war, same exact war you're back to the same spot most people would say I already photographed that wall I can photograph it again it's done I already I was already there but I try to, uh hopes make it look different you know that one? You know that one that one that's a very different look then this one on a very different look than this one you're making that little wall on your really utilizing every square inch of that wall you know here I put I put hot sauce with the trees here I put some spice with the uh the back of the chair. Okay, now what does it take to do this? It takes knowledge ofthe how light creates shadows if you put the light far away from the object is going to be harsher shadows if you put the light closer to the object the light source gets bigger relative to the object and therefore part of the light hits the shadows and the shadows get softer but if the light is if if this is your chair the back of your chair and this is your your light and your like this far, far, far away that race the light's radiate from the flash they spread all over the place on only a few rays hit the chair so no race are able to reach the shadow sounds where the shadows are so harsh that makes sense it is when the shadow gets lit by some light that the shadow gets softer and if you understand that when you're photographing beauty like what you do nicki and stuff you can just say I want a little more shadow here I want to be just a soft as the most beautiful natural light in the world and you can totally do that okay pretty cool right so fun shot then we moved on after we used every square inch of that little tiny little korea we moved on to the inside on we went to this place okay this is natural light this is what you would call no spice spice girls no spice no spice okay but we transferred this and I said okay if you have to shoot in this location if you are forced to shoot in this location what do you do well if I didn't have to shoot here I wouldn't but if you have to that curtain has a translucent uh quality to it which means I could make it look more dreamy by putting light behind it I'm kind of kind of making it more like this. Um yes I could dreamy feel to that to the to the window right then there was the curtain opens and so instead of putting someone like if this is the curtain on I put someone in front of the curtain that curtain is closed it's just a person in front of the curtain but if if you think about it the current opens creates a frame that frame gives you gives you more gives your subject more presidents moron more priority right? So then we uh and then I started using my little bit of knowledge of posting a little bit of not forsee yeah, just giving I love posing I love posing bigger was posing was a nightmare for me it was difficult so I said I'm going to just become a imposing master that's all I'm going to do it no, my wife is like off coach know please know I was like no, I'm tired of getting nervous before I post people I'm tired of the butterflies in my stomach I'm tired of looking at pictures like what am I doing? I'm tired of that we're gonna be a master and then I just became one well it's just extract this right it just takes practice I put the time I don't I don't think I'm talented I just put the time I'm talented up deciding I'm going to practice that's where my talent tents this is what we got out of it her hair kind of makes us with the background there's no spite here whatsoever this is what we got when we started putting flash and we started adding beautiful things to it you know you guys are funny I don't know I feel like that's just gorgeous you know uh this this is fun for me this is really fun um two lights were used here. If you watch the replay from yesterday, one was blowing the curtain from the back on another light. Wass with the diffuser because light never changes if I want soft light in her face, I need a bigger light source. So it's like a dog, you know? So the light in the back has no motor fires. Just stray flash, because I don't care to make the current look pretty. I just needed to blow out right on the other flash. I just had put a mortar fire because I needed to be solved on her face and that's it. What I want you to notice is the finessing off the cheekbones. Notice how one side of her face is darker than the other that's, the magic and I think that's where the real experience comes in, because this year this beautiful light coming in that side it's a little bit brighter than this I put both have highlights in her eyes. Okay, how'd I made a mistake. I would have put the light right in front of her and I would have flattened her out. That makes sense, and it wouldn't have worked, but look at the beautiful shadows coming through, look at the beautiful shot on that side and this one has a little bit of brightness to it, so she was a great model wasn't g amanda good times good times with her fun times house. Okay, uh, ryan sent me this photo uh, from for my location scouting with about a week before creative for two weeks is like, this is the bar I was like, dude, this's like a really interesting place, you know, on the way asked for a larger picture and this is the larger picture and I said, okay, going back to the ten things I look foreign locations, the most important one of them all is the reference points I think can ask a question about that yesterday or somebody was asking a question about the reference point. Let me repeat reference point when it comes to lighting means that when you walk into a place you feel the mood off the place you find something that inspires you, toby, your reference point on. Then you match the light to that point. If you do not find a reference point, you can create your own reference point to like what we did with the lamp. I remember that in this case I walked in, I would say most bars I mean, maybe it's just my brain, but most bars seemed to be moody when you go into a bar, you want to have a nice beer or drink or a martini you want to do it in a nice moody place some cool color some darker tones on your truck just you're chatting your resting from the worst day you don't want a bar just like boom with light right? So oh my gosh even the jackets purple linda I just noticed that yeah, I know and it goes well with but check it out the ambience here wasn't really there it was kind of like stray brit bright bar that didn't inspire me so I decided okay what is my reference point here and then I took a minute to look and I said there's two reference points really won the purple light it's kind of a reference point it would be really cool if I could make the whole kind of situation more purple in color. However these lights there are right over the chairs because they're right over the chairs are going to illuminate the people with a different light color right? This is the way you have to think you have to be very peculiar very detail oriented so if the people are sitting here and there's thiss light that's not purple hitting them you have to think as a photographer okay the mood of the bark and bi colored but the lighting on them has to match the tungsten like coming down on them is that super clear on then we got on then what I asked my friend colin is I put two flashes here I put the flashes on manual notts because the deal is going to try to expose correctly I don't want you to expose correctly I wanted to be moody and dark. I just want the purple color of the light so the speed like there's, not some monster, it was just creating purple light. So I put purple light here and here, and I put another flash pointing at them that was the had a half cto because that that have orange matches that kind of the color off the tree lights above. And this is the picture about that, right? I mean, listen, this is done live on creative life under the pressure off like you have no ideas like teaching under the pressure under like a pressure cooker or something like that and this is this was ableto we were able to create this not because I'm smart or because I'm dumb or because I'm whatever it was just simple. Let me explain how simple this is. I've done this before a million times I have practiced it, I have done it, I have experimented, I go to my house and I say, hey, wife onboard, look at the lamp, let me put a light under the lamp oh, look, he looks like the lamp is on that makes sense. I'm not some crazy, like why roberta, you're so talented, I'm not talented. Gosh darn it I've just done it a million times if you do it a million times, you're going to do it too. In the end, you're the genius, you know what I mean? Uh, the next one is we went around the room. That room wasn't even that exciting way. We're just killing it in that little room, right? I hope that's a good message for people watching online that, you know, no matter how small or whatever this is what we did and we got out of it. This is not your light for window panels. Very nice currents kind of framing the subject. There's chairs over there. We moved the lamps left and right to make it to keep the symmetry right, but if I was shooting natural light, this is kind of what I would get. And then I put a glass of wine on his left hand. Of course we had no wine. Unfortunately, that would have been really handy yesterday, but I put that glass of wine just to kind of continue with the mood off the off the lounge place, like when you're just relaxing, lounging around, okay, then I said to myself, I want to feature him but I don't want to blow him out I don't want to even his face was light I want to still have shat on his face because if true window light was illuminating him you would have winter light coming from this side and it was kind of kind of rap a little bit and it would be a little bit brighter but if you just a flash on camera would be like boom we will be like flat on his face I saw I said to myself I want to keep the mood but this is unacceptable to me as a person who understands light this's unacceptable on it's easy to fix so we put a big light here on we pointed it at him but we pointed it a little bit more towards the window so I wouldn't hit his face very very directly quick question for you guys amanda super it's a question of winning if I would have used a small light like a direct flash of his face it would have just gone everywhere and it would have been harsh light right? Because it's a very small light source look at small that look us more than took us more than light sources it's about an inch and a half to three inches that's not gonna work so when I'm thinking ok I want illuminate his face it's a face a face should not be hit with this face should be cut off softer so why do I do? I need a bigger light source that's not complicated. Okay. Oh my god! So complicated no it's, not bigger nights or softer small I source not sought he's not hard, it's harsh, soft harsh. So this is the picture we got you see the shot on that side of his face on the inside closer to us that's the shadow that I was after how'd I don't have made a mistake and turned on my flash and pointed it at him we would have done something like this that would have been the flash look, this definitely has more off realistic natural life look okay, so okay, one of my favorite ones coming up remember those two lamps right there? This lamp you notices it's it's on, but there was hardly any light. Okay, cool. So I said to myself, because I've done it a million times I'm going to put the flash under the lamp and I'm going to turn the lamp on using my speed lights instead of instead of you know so and then I'm going to make the lamp the reference point so the orange light that comes from the lamp will be the same orange light illuminating his face, so now I need two lights one to turn on the lamp on another light to illuminate his face so we can make it look like it's the lamp but it's really not? The other step you have to remember is if the if the flash is he's jailed with a cto filter which means uh color temperature orange on the lamp looks orange you cannot have white light on your subject so I put another flash with a big light source with another orange filter to illuminate him made it look like it was the lamp. So this is the photo that we got from that one looks like the lamp was illuminating him we created the lamp on we created the light on him. We did everything here. Okay, you know what? Maybe I'm wrong but I can't I would love to challenge on no one can possibly tell me the lamp is not illuminating him. It really looks like the lamp is illuminating him because look at look at even look at even this shadow on his face it is very cleanly done I'm that's the load you should. You should be after or try to be after the next one is we moved on to the other side way saw a meter on dh I just put I photographed amir and I did this the last the last shot of the day on it looks like that it looks like they totally are illuminated by the lights from the back although it's not the case at all I created the light one hundred percent because some people online told me yesterday they couldn't see the actual photo I just put a close up of it so you can see it you can see how beautiful the light looks I don't believe the expression of the guy very much, but who cares? Okay, it was about the light. So what is the purpose of the purpose? Wass this is my reference point that's the reference point and then I matched the light to match my reference point. Is that clear? Guys, let me ask you honestly forget the cameras and all this stuff. Just you and me is that reference point thing clear. Okay, okay. I got a lot of messages yesterday. Like, what is the reference point again? So I'm glad cannot. You asked me that yesterday. I also had a question, uh, I want to say this before I forget somebody e mailed me and ask the question about the flash when I was teaching her the flash works yesterday I said that in t t l the so doesn't effect the flash that's what I said in manual that distance, the power, the aperture and the esso affect the flash, but in tt l it doesn't let me explain what I meant a little bit more the answer that I said it's absolutely correct e s o doesn't affect it the only thing that it effects because the flashing ptl is only going to create eighteen percent gray so if your eyes so is one hundred and you take a picture it doesn't care it's just going to is going to blast more light to give you eighteen percent great if you change your asshole from one hundred to thirty two hundred your flashes going to say crazy I s o I'm going to lower myself because it's so sensitive to light that I'm only going to do a little tinkle of light because that will be enough for thirty two hundred so to give me again eighteen percent grea t tl is never going to change trying to achieve eighteen percent great because that's what it's programmed to do so if you're listening to this um I s so I put your shutter speed none of that matters not even distance because that the flash is just going to say I don't care what we do I'm just going to give you eighteen percent great okay cool I'm gonna move on to reception lighting thing next this is the main topic for today before I move on is there any questions or comments about the experience you guys had yesterday with reference points how we utilized to the location how how you khun I think maybe maybe I shouldn't have excuses anymore and I should just produce what does anybody have any thoughts or questions about your experience in that last two seconds yesterday or maybe what was one of the most exciting thing that you saw light bulbs that went off or do you need a coffee right now go ahead it's just gives me hope that I can walk into a situation like that with lots of practice and know that I got it like I can walk into my studio and I know I have it no matter who walks into my studio, I know I can handle it and if I because I practice practice practice but with the situation like this it's just really cool to know that eventually the more I practice I can walk in and nail it that's right? The more you practice it's not because you're a genius, you're just gonna do it you're just going to go and do it cool just is very inspiring to go out on and even looked bigger watching the replay look bigger on tv that patio was tiny and their shadows everywhere and the light was very harsh shows they're inferring toe you can create anything if you know you were going to give you peace of mind that no matter where you're at you khun totally make it happen I mean to me if anything you may not like flash you may know you made me hate you may be a flash hater, but why didn't they just keep me peace of mind to know that I don't care where you put me I could do amazing pictures and I can make a look how I want I can make a new flashy or I could make a look natural or I could make a look soft don't get yeah rachel another comment about yesterday it made me realize that it's okay to go into a situation, look around and not be panicking being like I just need to get those shots to save shots and just kind of fill up my time with us many photos as I can but to step back and to just look at the situation look at what you've been given and it's okay to take a minute let's go find that like awesome on another point that you just made is important to me. I know this happens a lot if you're watching this class and you totally pumped up don't go to your next job and tried all these crazy stuff okay, please don't do that. I got an email saying someone saying I have a wedding this weekend, I'm going to just totally like rip it up with all this flash picnics I was like no do not do that because you're not trained yet like they step by step, you know, like register, said it's. Ok, to do what safe and it's, okay, to do what you get the job done. That's, that's, excellent, but maybe try a technique here and there, you know, take it easy. I always say something to people when they're trying to get their photography, when they're all pumped up, take it easy, but do it right, master simplicity, master, what you know how to do. I just think I want to go higher. When I go better, I want I want to work a little harder. I want to think one extra step. Why would he do for me? But don't go out with your next job on go bananas with all this stuff, because then people are going to get a lot of angry people calling me, okay?