Lessons
Class Introduction
01:36 2Fundamentals of Night Portraiture
04:49 3Gear and Preparation
16:50 4Basic Settings
08:15 5Locations
06:15 6Subjects
04:22 7Safety
02:25 8Beating Adversity
01:28Lesson Info
Safety
Let's talk about safety. First and foremost there's absolutely no photograph that's more important then the safety of your model, your crew, the people around you and then yourself. In that priority. No photograph is worth anybody else's danger. So let's get that out of the way right now. There's other things that we should be concerned with also. Situational unawareness. When you're shooting it's nice to be in a tunnel like this and just focusing on what you're doing. If you have a crew with you they can help you have situational awareness but chances are you're gonna be shooting alone or maybe with one other person. So keep your head on a swivel. Make sure that you know what's going on. Make sure that you're monitoring what's happening around you if you're shooting in public places or in natural spaces, where wildlife might be an issue. So just keep your eyes open. And use your peripheral vision too. You can focus on what's going on but you can build up this ability to know what's go...
ing on at the edges of your vision. That's also good. When you get to a scene also as a safety check wherever your model's gonna be and wherever your crew is gonna be check the ground around you. Make sure there's no broken glass, no nails, nothing else that somebody could step on because last thing we want is for somebody to get hurt and bleeding and carted off to the hospital and then you can't make your picture. So a couple extra seconds can make sure that that doesn't happen. And on top of that, other things that you can consider under the safety banner would be, making sure everybody is hydrated, bring some water for them, that's your responsibility, maybe some snacks. Take care of everybody. Cause all of that's under this bundle of making sure that it's a safe atmosphere to be creative. And after all, once you've taken care of all those things then you'll know and some of these fears will go away about making portraits at night that all that stuff's been taken care of you don't have to think about it in the middle of a shoot because you've already done it. So step one always make sure that you and your people around you are safe every single time.
Ratings and Reviews
Jan
I learned some techniques in Matt's class, which were helpful, but believe this was for the advanced photographer and i was a little confused at times. i would've liked to know the "how to" with the lights, showing how to program them with more detail. I am just learning how to set my camera for different lighting situations. But a very interesting course and glad i went through it.
Kirk Edwards
Great class! Liked it so much that I booked a trip to Colorado to work with Matt and Lance on one of their National Parks at Night classes. Highly recommend.
Margaret Lovell
While I believe this course is more beneficial for a photographer with better night photography and lighting skills, I learned quite a bit. This class made me think of some interesting ideas, especially using regular light sources such as flashlights or a pixelstick.