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Lesson Info

Culling Boring Spaces Shoot

Here's Arlene, the very first photo, the, I call it a Polaroid, of course it's not. But that's how we used to test in the film days. I actually get a lot of reactions outta people when I say that, they'll say, "Polaroid?" And I'm like, "Well not actually, just an analogy." but it does start a conversation because if that person knows what a Polaroid is they probably know about photography, and right there we have something to connect on. So here's Arlene, the next frame, I mentioned the Polaroid, she has a nice smile, I'm not liking the lighting. It's really lighting her foot, if you notice. And the background's really distracting. So, I'm not there, but I am liking the red and the black on the white. I think that's starting to get somewhere, and that's what I'm gonna play off of. You can see my light, the soft lighter and the reflect. I don't know why I'm pointing back here, it's right here, it was over here, you can see the reflection in it. You never wanna see your light, obviously.

You never wanna see your lights in the image. If you can help it at least. I remember seeing a very old Annie Leibovitz photo, back when she was doing a lot of stuff in early, her Rolling Stone era. She was in a bathroom photographing somebody, and you could see the reflection of the umbrella in the tile. And I remember thinking, "Ah, happens to her too." So, here's Arlene, we flipped the couches around, and I'm really liking the soft light. It's really opening up her skin a lot. Here's just to compare. So now I'm getting the expose right, and I'm gonna end up using the background which is very graphic, and has things going on, I'm gonna end up using that backlight to sort of wrap around her. So here, also as I mentioned, I see the cables, but it doesn't bother me. But we're really starting to get somewhere, this is a nice frame. I think she looks very nice, she looks soft, comfortable, vert straight forward. I like that the angle of her head there. The back line, some people might think it's distracting, I think it's drawing, in this situation, it's drawing my eye right to her. I am seeing a lot of the bottom of her foot. There's no need to see the bottom of somebodies shoes, so I did have her move it around in a second. But here I am changing my exposure ever so slightly. I had her get up and sit down because she was sort of getting a little bit too stiff and comfortable in that pose. And she got up, and she sat down and I took this frame, and I think I started to really like the shape of it. And I see the bottom of her foot, however, it's not distracting. So if we go back to the other image... Which was over here, the only thing I see in this image on the right is the bottom of her shoe. But in this image I see her. And I see this long elongated body shape. So we'll go back. Still liking this, still working the situation. There she is more serious, but I love the gesture of her hand there, it's sort of sweet. There's a nice smile, beautiful. I like that a lot. Then so I go in a little bit tighter. I probably would've had her relax her fingers and just place her hand back on there, but we moved. So, here we go. That's nice. I love the backlight, how it's just opening up the whole image. Such a beautiful smile. You know, and oh, out of focus. But I got it, the next one I really nice. When I'm, I obviously didn't have... Any time to do this, but if I knew I was shooting somebody, again, I mentioned when I photograph someone I don't do a lot of research, but I do look them up on Google, just a Google search to see what they look like, if that's possible. And if the person isn't on Facebook or something, and doesn't have it, it's not inappropriate to ask your subject to send you a picture of what they look like. I know it sounds rude, "Hey can you send me a picture of you? "'Cause I wanna know what you look like." But that's actually really important and will help you start thinking. So Arlene has this beautiful short cut and... I just was thinking of an actress or actor who would have a short haircut who I could reference. And I think of somebody much older than Arlene like Judi Dench, but... And anyone who has a short, Melissa, Michelle Williams had a short pixie cut for a while when she was doing some work for Prada. I would look up both of those people and see how other people have photographed them. Just to give myself some ideas and to see what is out there. But be careful not to do too much research so it sort of clutters your head space because you still need to have your own point of view. I think this is beautiful, I think she looks great. Go back there, I just think it's a nice smile. Just looking off frame. That's very genuine. It's when she's like, "I'm going on vacation." My next frame, not in focus. Going tighter. Something, let's see. I like this one, it just sort of depends on the intent, and the output of the image. What she wants, where this is going. So this is too obvious for me, but I am getting her somewhere, it's a means to an end. We're trying to work to find, that's a nice little touch on the ear. Oh what a sweet smile there. So here I turned, I wanted to see what else was going on. My light wasn't right, had some obstructions in the back. And so we moved it around, I fixed the light, I was working it a little bit, but I'm not loving it. I do like that smile, but I don't like the frame. And the light's a little bit too flat. The more I really stuck with it, and a lot of that is because of the all of the bounce. So I'm not having quite as much control over the situation. So we came back to where we were. And I think that there's some, I now don't have, the reason I came back is I didn't want to have that bar sort of going through her head, but it, as an option, because when we select our edit we'll see which one's we like. But I move her up in the frame and that's really nice. It's just sort of finding the right one, and I think that that's it. I like how comfortable her hand is on her leg. Ideally I might want to have seen her other foot... But it really isn't distracting me here. Sometimes... Sometimes that can definitely be something that catches your eye. And so here I brought her over to the window and I just wanted to just see what happened if she was backlit, and we wrapped the light around her. So I brought in a fill, and I'm really placing her right in the window for symmetry. And I love her pose. Now immediately I think this photo should be black and white. My white balance is one auto since I don't know where I am. I barely know what state I'm in, let alone what room. And... So I just went to auto to get it in the ballpark, knowing that I have the ability to change it in raw. And I think there's something sweet in there about this. But I'm trying, so I changed my white balance, it's a little bit warmer. It's not really helping me with my end result 'cause I'm still thinking black and white. A nice smile there. But I'm so far out in this one, I would definitely go in much tighter to crop in the end. So here she needs some fill in the front. I love the back sides, and I think, but she needs a little light in the eyes here. Which is why we ended up bringing, I opened up, but because I opened up to open up her eyes, while Danielle was getting me a show cart, I then ended up blowing out the highlights on the side. That is actually a big pet peeve of mine, I never let images of mine go out into the world that have the highlights blown out like that. In sports photography, well I shouldn't say in sports photography. In a lot of situations where photographers, myself included, have to shoot athletes, a good way to do that is to sidelight, because that accentuates their muscle tone. And the shadows and the highlights, and you really start to see a body builder's physique. I like to see a highlight, but I want to see the texture of the skin. That's important to me, but it's a personal choice. If you look at a lot of athletes and how they've been shot, it's sort of with a very strong high key front light, and then the side light. And you'll see some people who intentionally blow out the highlights. And that's the look their going for, just a personal preference. That's really nice. I like that I got low for this one. Nice smile, looking at the camera. I still have the highlights blown out, we're still not there. But I'm not gonna let her sit there. I love what she's doing with her hands. And as soon as we brought in the fill, I stopped down a little bit and you can see the show card on the left side of the frame. But I love what she's doing with her hands. I think that's probably when I directed her to touch her rings. Women are fidgeters, they just are. I think humans are fidgeters, but particularly women, and so she probably would've grabbed her necklace and sort of play with it. That's sort of what women do, they touch their earrings, some people twiddle their hair. Those are the things I'm looking for that allow... That look beautiful that are natural idiosyncrasies, they are what people do when they're nervous, and I'm trying to actually capitalize on that. I think they're beautiful. That's a nice image. So that's a perfect example of when I'm moving too fast. Great smile. So I think there was one or two in there, and I thought, let's go, and we're gonna switch over here. This is the first one, I'm way over exposed. I like where we're going, we're switching the light up. Still over exposed. Danielle and I are still finding our rhythm here. I'm still directing Arlene, and I'm shooting through this. And I mentioned to you, I was still adjusting my exposure, but as a learning purpose, I never would've said that out loud, I would've just kept shooting. I did not want my subject to know that something was going on, they don't need to know. And you just keep your cool, and you just keep shooting. If I'm having my dinner party and burn the turkey, I'm not gonna tell anybody, I'm gonna send somebody to Whole Foods to buy another one. In the meantime I'm gonna just go out front and offer everybody more wine. (audience laughs) So I like where we're going here. Then over exposed, come in, oh okay, finally we got it. I finally have cut out all of the ambient, and I am shooting just with my strobes, and this is much more traditional. And what I liked about it is that if Arlene had hired me to take these portraits, I'm then going to offer her something very bright and airy, and horizontal using the environment, and then we tried the window, and now I'm gonna give her another option that's definitely feels more like a studio setup. But the I decided that, you know, let's just try to take it somewhere. So we're not there yet, we're not there yet, but we're getting there. We're going somewhere, and I actually think... Somewhere in here she really settles in and we make a nice frame. There's something very nice about that. Now it's obviously... It's intended to be more artful, not a typical headshot in some way. I think that's really interesting. I don't know why, but I do. And there at the very end she sits up, she looks over, I think she's got a great look on her face. I might crop in. And then when you put the camera down and everyone goes (sighs) and there's a nice image in there. And that's it, that was our shoot.