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Posing Week Q&A with Demos

I'm Lindsay Adler. I'm a very frequent CreativeLive instructor, and I'm a portrait and fashion photographer based in New York City, so that's kind of my specialty. But because I started as a small-time portrait photographer, I've shot everything. I've shot engagement sessions, and children, and weddings, and maternity, and now a majority of what I do is cool complex lighting with beautiful models and hair and makeup, but a lot of my paid work kind of runs the gamut. So for the next, about two hours or so, I'm going to take questions, and some of the questions I have we've already gathered online, so I have some of those that'll be prompted up on the screen for me, but we're also happy to take questions from the online live audience. So guys, keep sending your questions in. And then also my lovely live audience, and it's great to have your energy and your questions, so send them my way. So you can ask questions about anything of the classes that I've done. It could be lighting, posing, ...

retouching, like whatever it is, and I'm happy to answer them. So with that, because I want to get to as many as possible, I'm going to start with the beginning of my Keynote, if you guys will pop it up there. Alright, so this week, just so you have an idea of what we covered, we covered a bit about posing. We also talked about flattering women with curves, so people of all different body types, and the reason I think CreativeLive is so important, slash education is, is women have all different body types and then sometimes you'll photograph people with a different facial structure, or people have different preferences, and there's not one pose-fits-all, or one camera-angle-fits-all, or one light-fits-all, and so people who aren't photographers don't realize how complicated our jobs are, because they don't realize just how much analysis we really have to have built into our brains. And then we also did fine art nudes this week. That was one of the other things we shot live, and so I think that photographing nudes makes you be better at lighting and posing, because you're just working with the nude form. There's nothing else to hide any mistakes, and it gets you to the essentials of things. So those are some of the things we covered this week. So I'm going to get started with questions. Alright, so the first question is, I saw this yesterday and they said, "I'm new to the concept of mood boards. "Can you show some examples or talk about "the best way to organize?" So I actually mentioned this in the fine art nude class, but I also create a mood board for every portrait I do and every single fashion shoot that I do. And what a mood board is, is it's the general direction of the shoot shown visually. So if I'm doing a fashion shoot I'll show the type of hair and makeup I'm thinking of, and then the type of wardrobe, and the type of lighting, and then maybe a couple of inspiration poses, and the reason it's important for a fashion shoot, for example, would be so the hair and makeup knows what they come prepared with, and the wardrobe would know what clothing to get. But for a portrait it's important for me because I'm showing the client the overall idea we're going for, maybe the type of clothes they need to bring, and they can kinda channel the mood of it. For a fine art nude, I create mood boards so that everyone's on the same page. There's no surprises of the direction the shoot is going. Everyone knows what we're shooting. So let me show you a couple of examples of real mood boards I've actually had. So this was for a portrait shoot that I did of a boudoir and fine art photographer named Jessica Lark, and Jessica is, she's got really cool, interesting artwork. It feels kinda fairytale renaissance-ish in its style, and I was interviewing her for the shoots, and she came up with the concept of the fact that her favorite, her husband and her favorite TV show is Game of Thrones, and their last name is Lark, and so if you're a Game of Thrones person you know the Stark family and the Lark fam, okay, so we decided to do a Stark family portrait. And so we built a mood board. And this was going to be, like, she wanted something that could hang on her mantel place, and she's an artist so she wanted something to represent that. So what I did is I've got my theme, an image overall of what it's looking like, hair and makeup that I was thinking for the mom, wardrobe, the type of things we wanted. Well you might say, well where the heck do I get wardrobe like that? Actually, it's really easy. If you Google costume rental there's plenty of costume rental places. There are places that specialize in costume rental for Shakespearean plays, for example, and that's actually where we rented this from. So one that's specific to Shakespearean costumes. And then in the bottom left-hand corner I have a picture of the location. We wanted to shoot in a castle, but I live in New York City and there aren't many castles. So what we did is we searched castle New York, castle New Jersey, castle Pennsylvania. We found a library that looks like a castle, so we called up to organize that. So this is the family and they're super cute. And so this was actually the image that they bought as, I think it is a 36 inch print for their mantel. And so they wanted something that was over the top. All of my family portraits do not look like this, but it was very specific to them. And to give you an example, the sword he has has his family crest on it 'cause it's his own. So it's like really appropriate for this client. But there is no way I could get anything close to that unless I had a mood board to prep. And then I do this for fashion editorials, to give you an example. This is a real fashion editorial. These are not my photos. This is what I submitted to one of the Elle magazines that I shoot for. So I submitted this and I said, here is the idea of the shoot. This is the model we're going to shoot, this is the type of makeup we're going for, and this is the overall concept, the model partway submerged in the water. And so then I submit this to the magazine and that's when they give me the okay. They say yup, this is a good concept, shoot this for our publication. And so this is what some of the end shots looked like. So then I could figure out the color toning and of course prepare. So I had a kiddie pool, you know, like a 10 foot long kiddie pool in the middle of my studio, and underneath her I put a shiny blue plastic so that it gave that blue look, and then the makeup artist knew the type of makeup to create, and so this is what it ran as in the publication. But again, I had to prepare and I had to get everyone on the same page, and I had to get approval from the magazine. So that's the concept of mood boards and how they work. I literally do not do a shoot without a mood board, because it makes sure everyone knows what we're doing and then it helps everyone contribute, whether it's the model knowing for what we're kind of going for, or the makeup artist, what they're bringing, or just me so that I start brainstorming poses, so I'm not stressed out when the shoot starts. I've already got some ideas going. So that is our first question. I'm going to pop over to another one of these that was taken online. Alright, can you talk about options for Fine Art Nudes using natural light or continuous light? Alright, so one of the reasons we didn't do natural light is 'cause we're in Seattle, and it's cold, and it's rainy, and it's dark (laughs). I haven't seen the sun since I've been here 'cause I get here before the sun rises and then I leave after. It's brutal, but (laughing) when I shoot nudes, I've actually shot a lot of nudes with natural light. If you think about this, a window is a soft box. Like for the most part, a window is a soft box, especially if you have a little bit of sheer fabric in front of it. The thing that will mess you up is if you have direct sunlight coming through the window. It's gotta be indirect sunlight, so meaning, or a cloudy day. It just needs to be not light coming through the window, but it's the same idea. So one of the things I talked about yesterday is if, let's say that this is the window here. I don't face my subject straight onto the window typically for nudes because it doesn't carve out the form. You need shadows to sculpt. So what I do, let's say it's a soft box, is what I do is I turn my subject away and then I slowly move them back towards that soft box until I see the light raking across the way I like it. So with a window, turn them away from the window, and slowly move their body back towards the light. So it's really the same idea, but if you're outdoors on location, what I'm trying to identify is where the light's coming from. And this was something that took me forever, I mean forever, to figure out, because I had to figure out, in an overcast day, where's the light? And I don't know, it didn't make sense to me. So generally, if you're in a big open field on an overcast day, the light is just a big soft box over top of your head, which means it actually might sculpt pretty well 'cause it's a top-down light and it might actually give form to the chest and to the muscles, but if you step that person underneath a tree it's not overhead anymore 'cause the tree blocked it out, and it might be the opening of the sky over here. So now you've got directional light, so guess what, I turn them away from it and then turn their body back towards so I can see the sculpting. So the answer is, I mean natural light is fantastic. You just have to train your eye to see what it's really, really doing. So here's an example of a fine art nude that I did with a window. And so I'm going to be the camera here, and I'm taking a picture, and the window's behind my head, just a teeny bit to the right. So it's like basically right here. And you can actually see that from the shadow cast on her chest, it's just a teeny bit to the right-hand side. And do you see how you see the edges of her body? What I did is I added black pieces of foam core, which is negative reflection. So basically what I did is I put that foam core on the left and I put that foam core on the right, and what it does is it soaks up any bounce from the room. So the bounce off the white walls on the side and on the floor, so that I actually could see the sides of her body, because in fine art nudes you're using both shadows and highlights, and so I needed those shadows to give her a little bit more form since the light was a little flatter, but it was control of light with window light, and I think it's beautiful. And we just took some non-toxic water-soluble paint, it was just white paint from the craft store that's meant to be body/face paint and covered her with it. So the answer is fine art nudes in natural light is beautiful. I have done it often. Alright, I'm going to take one more question from here, and then I'm gonna call on you guys, so I'm prepping you so that you're ready. So let's see what the next one is. What type of clients are looking for fine art nude images and how do you begin to find them? Alright, so first of all, I don't get paid to shoot fine art nudes, but I don't market myself that way. And I kinda did it on purpose 'cause I like when there's not a boss. Like I always have a boss, I always have clients, there's always somebody that I'm shooting their portrait, or it's for a magazine, and I wanted to photograph fine art nudes so that it was just me as a boss (laughs) finally, right? So most of the time I'm not actually shooting them for clients, but that being said, really, it would be the same clients that would be interested in boudoir. It's a celebration of the form and how that person is feeling. So I have done boudoir before, where at the end I say okay, if, we usually talk about it beforehand, but I say if you want to try any nude let me know and we can do that, and I just kinda leave it at that and then it's up to them. But I typically have inspiration that I show them ahead of time just saying, oh, by the way, I also do boudoir that is nude, you can see some samples of the work here, just so they know what I'm talking about. And then if, they'll let you know right away if they're interested, or at that moment. So it's really the same as boudoir clients, but I never say, oh hey, let's do nude shots now! It's like by the way, remember I showed you some inspiration. If you want to try any nudes, we're near the end of the shoot, you just let me know. Like really relaxed. And a lot of people, actually, would agree to do it, but of course that's private clients and I wouldn't show those images anywhere 'cause that's for them. Alright, so let's put the pressure on one of you guys. I know that some of you have questions. Who wants to be the first brave person? I'm watching, everyone's looking around (laughs). I'll go. Okay, well I start with you and then I'm gonna do you next. A lot of times I do shoot females for portraiture, but I do get the occasional male, and sometimes I struggle with posing a male client in a, you know, in a masculine way. Do you have any tips for that? Sure. Do we have an extra chair? Can I get an extra chair in here, or is there one around? Yeah, okay, so I'm going to borrow that in a second. One of the things that I want you to know to put you at ease is that you don't need to know many poses, like at all, and so the example that I use is if you go online right now and search Annie Leibovitz men, she's got two poses. No joke, like look at her work. She basically poses guys two different ways. And does anyone say, oh my gosh, all of her men shots look the same? No, like they, nobody says that. I mean I'm not really saying that, I kinda am but I'm not (laughs). (audience laughing) Like I'm not insulting her for it. And so really, if you can just memorize a couple, but then you've got to work with a guy's body type. So that's kinda the key part there. For guys, one tip that I would give you is first of all, their shoulders define their width in the frame, and so a lot of times for a skinnier, like less bulky guy, I will face him more or less straight on towards camera, maybe a tiny twist, because if I turn him to the side I really diminish him in the frame and I don't want that. But for other guys, what you're aiming for is to create a V with their body. So what I'll do is I'll kind of wind them up to the side, like if you guys, this is the camera. And I turn this front foot towards the camera, and so I have the body turned to the side and then I just turn the shoulders here and forward. So we've talked about perspective this week. The turn to the side narrows the bottom part of their body. This makes the top part broader and leaning it forward makes the stomach look smaller, so it does this, it does the V shape with their body. That's like just the basic standing. But can I have that chair? I find a lot of times for guys, sometimes if they're just standing there they're real awkward. Like they just like, like I don't know, they feel insecure, so I try to give them something to anchor to, like something they can touch or hold onto, 'cause then they feel like, like they start to get their cool on. You know, or whatever, right? Like it's like you gotta give them something. So I pretty much never just have a guy standing there. Most of the time it's with a chair, or when it's on location, if it's stairs, or a car, or a wall, that tends to be what I do. For sitting in chairs, the one thing I will recommend to you is you try to create triangles with the body, and so that might be the arm up to create the triangle, it might be the arm forward to create the triangle, but I create a lot of right angles, which is the opposite of what I do a lot of times with women, 'cause the right angles are real sturdy, and with women it kinda breaks up the curve. So those are my quick tips. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright, Jessica. I was wondering about the nude photographs, if you ever use your displacement mapping technique to do the lighting like you do for the projection? Oh my gosh, such a good question. Okay, so first of all, it gives me a chance to plug another class I have (laughs). I did a class that was on creative Photoshop techniques, and it was Creative Retouching, and one of the things I do, and one of the techniques I have is called displacement maps, and what the displacement maps are is you take a face, a form, whatever, and you take a texture, and you can wrap it around the form after the fact in Photoshop. This could be something like you've got a dress, like I'm making this one up, but you've got a dress, there's weird, you have textured fabric on it and you can wrap another pattern on it so the dress suddenly has another pattern. How I've done it for editorials is I've put patterns on the face, we've wrapped it around the face, and it looks like it was face paint but it's so precise, it's too perfect to actually be paint. So the long answer is yes, I've done a displacement map one that I actually loved, and I totally forgot to put that in my presentation. What I did is I had the subjects up against a wall in the nude, and so I had her a little bit curved, but mostly against the wall, and so I put the texture on the wall and then wrapped it around her so it almost looked like the wallpaper wrapped and she was coming out of the wall. It was super cool. So that's like if you didn't have body paint, or if there's a texture that you wanted, you can actually do that in post. And by the way, as an update for those of you who have seen the displacement maps, I usually combine displacement maps and also liquefy to bend the texture even more, because if I want the chest to look fuller, well I wrap the texture and you might not see it, so if I liquefy or use the bloat tool in the liquefy mode it bends the texture out more, which makes her look like she has a fuller chest. So it's like tricking the camera, tricking your eye, by the way that you bend the textures. I love displacement maps. I'm always looking for an excuse to use them and there's not like that many, but when you have it you're like, I look real good, 'cause it's like, it's a special technique. And it's not super hard, it's just a bunch of steps. Alright, can I do one more? Yeah. So I, two weeks ago, did a couples boudoir session. Cool. I know, right, it was my first one. Yeah, great. He was tall and fit and she was very curvy and shorter. I struggled with making them look-- Proportional? Cohesive. Yeah, sure. So do you have any tips for that? Yeah, totally. I actually shot, the woman I shot wasn't curvier but she was much shorter and he was big and super, super muscular. Typically what I do in an instance like that is I will build one person's pose and then add the second one. Alright, so in the instance that I did there I had him sitting on a couch. I had him kind of sitting kind of reclined to the side. And so he's, it makes him shorter. And I had her lay across him, so he was more straight on towards camera and she's more across, so it made her look longer. So it's basically, I made him look a little smaller and her look a little bit longer. I think what I would probably do a lot of times is find the way to pose her the most flattering and then figure out where would be a good position for him in that frame. It'd probably be my go to. Generally in boudoir the girl is the most important. I mean everybody is, but you're trying to flatter her curves. I would add that in. I would also look up a lot of inspiration. There's some good, I would probably base a lot of it on fashion shoots, Some racier, sexier fashion shoots pose men and women together and I would kind of see that, but they're all tall and skinny and muscular in those shoots, so that's more like posing concepts than actual posing in practice. Okay. You're welcome. I am going to pop back over for another Keynote question. Let's see. Do the model agreement terms change if the model is showing their body only versus body and face? Okay, so that'd be if you're doing a fine art nude shot and you say to the person, okay great, but don't worry, I'm only going to show, it's figure study. Here's the thing, the model release is going to be the same. Like you need to get a full model release no matter what. I personally wouldn't promise anything. Like it doesn't matter, 'cause if something happens you're going to get someone upset and it's going to be a problem, so the actual release doesn't change, and in it, in the description part is where you can say the purpose of the shoot or the idea of the shoot. But yeah, I will explain to somebody in a mood board, the intentions of this shoot is to be figure study, but you know how sometimes you like, you get the bottom of the lips and it looks really beautiful, and then the person will be like oh, you can tell that it's me. So I'm just careful with that. Like I'm careful with what you promise and what the plans are, and I have a conversation with my subject, so get a full model release no matter what, and the terms don't technically change. Hypothetically, if you can't identify the person there's like, the rules are a little different, but get a model release every time, make sure everyone's happy with what you're sharing, be nice and safe with it. Pratik, oh you're so cute! I love Pratik. That's really funny. Hi Pratik. So if you guys don't know Pratik, he is a brilliant retoucher and he's also an instructor on CreativeLive, and he's also probably one of the most nice, decent human beings I've ever met in my entire life. And that's like saying a lot, he's pretty fantastic. Alright, so the question is, does my retouching style change based on the type of lighting that I use? So what's funny is I'm a much lazier retoucher than Pratik. (audience laughing) I mean I'm just, it's true. Like that's what he does for a living and he's very meticulous about it. Here's the thing, when I can get away with frequency separation, and this is, if you haven't taken a class you don't know what I'm talking about, but if I can get away with frequency separation to smooth out tones, that's the direction I'm going 'cause it's faster and it still looks good. However, to answer this question, when I use harder lighting, really hard light, what it does is it shows all textures, any imperfections, but man, sometimes I love hard light, because then it's going to be like just a really, really narrow highlight carving out the subject, or it's really raking across the body, you can see every muscle and it's great, but every problem area shows. So at that point that's when you might need to try some other technique, which was what you get into some localized dodging and burning, 'cause localized dodging and burning can help you with transitions, and areas that are rougher because of the light. So it doesn't change. Just in the scheme of things I'm lazier until I don't have to be, and Pratik is precise every time. So (laughs) I don't know, I think it's roughly appropriate. And was here one more? Okay, one more. Thanks Pratik. Okay, what kinds of things do you do when you notice your subject is uncomfortable? Awesome think. Okay, 'cause subjects are uncomfortable all the time. Like it's true. I do a lot of things when I am trying to get someone comfortable. One of the first things I do is when I sit them down, I actually, even though I know the lighting I want I pretend I don't, and it doesn't mean that I look insecure. I say okay, great, you know what, let me, I'm just gonna test a couple different things with lighting. You just chill, you just don't even worry about it. I just want to see what I like best. And so what I'll do is I'll be moving it around, I'll just, oh okay, taking a couple pictures, and I move it, huh, I like that too, you look great in all of these, and basically what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get rid of that click fear in the beginning. Like you're sitting in front of the lights. I've been like totally chill, I'm just moving around and I'm telling you don't worry, I'm not keeping any of these, I'm just testing my lighting. So I'm trying to get them just to be comfortable with the clicking, and me looking at their face, and that whole thing. The other thing that I recommend, and it's silly but I've, it's the best simple book in the entire world, is How to Win Friends and Influence People. So this is a book, I interned for a photographer, John Harrington, who wrote the book Best Business Practices for Photographers, but at the time he hadn't written the book yet, but I wanted to intern for him because he was the business expert. And so I had a long commute when I interned for him. It was an hour and a half or so. And so I said okay, in your advice, what are the most important business books I need to read, because I knew he was the expert, and that was the first one he told me to read. And it's not even a business book per se, it is but it's talking about interacting with people in the title, How to Win Friends and Influence People. And there's so many tips in there that you're like, well obviously, but then you don't think about it. So one of those tips is, like one of the chapters or one of those little ditties there is, one of the sweetest sounds in the world to a person is the sound of their own name. And like, usually I just meet someone and say hey, and then like I try to say their name once so I remember it, but then a lot of times you don't use it again, and so I had a, Sue Bryce took my portrait, and when she was taking my portrait she, throughout the session would say Lindsay, and then you've probably, if you've seen her, Good Girl, right? The whole time. So the whole time, if you can give positive reinforcement and say, you know she'd go, good girl Lindsay. Like (sighing) Lindsay's a good girl. Like it just like feels great, it's awesome. (audience laughing) It sounds silly but you don't realize it until you're behind, on the other side of the camera. So what was really interesting is for my birthday last year I asked a whole bunch of photographers to take my portrait. It was my 30th birthday, I'm 31 now. It was a year and a half ago or whatever. And I asked people to take my portrait, and I did it, A, because I wanted to celebrate my birthday and I wanted to have pretty portraits, but I also thought of it as a learning experience. And the thing that I learned instantly is you're so insecure, but it doesn't mean you're insecure necessa-- Like even if you're not insecure about how you look, you're insecure about if you're doing a good job for the photographer. Like I didn't ever, that part I didn't think about, 'cause the whole time I'm like oh, am I posing good for them, is my expression good for them? It was like less about me and more like I wanted to please, I wanted to be doing a good job, so just hearing good job, good girl, nice posing. So I would say constant positive reinforcement, saying their name often, and like don't just start right into the shoot. Okay now turn your head this, like make it a little more relaxed, get them comfortable in front of the camera. That's kind of my technique, one of my techniques. Okay, so I'm going to do one from the Keynote now. Alright, let's check the next one. For location shoots that includes nude models do you suggest bringing extra people for security purposes? For the most part, the security purposes thing, I don't know if you're implying you're doing this guerrilla style and you need to know when to run? Like I'm not quite sure (audience laughing) like the implications of this question. I mean I don't think it hurts to have an extra hand, but the thing that I would be wary of is if it's somebody who's less experienced and there's just someone standing there, like there's just someone standing there when they're watching your nude shoot. Like I don't know. I like to keep nude shoots smaller, personally. So it's me and that individual. There's not someone else that's distracting or making them feel uncomfortable, and it's the same thing. I know that at certain angles the pose looks good to camera but everything's showing that this person might not want, and if there's some person they don't know where they're standing, like they might feel like, oh, is that person behind me? I try to keep my crew or the people with me more limited. But if it's on location and maybe for the subject's comfort you're like, let's assume you have permission to be shooting nudes in this place, we're just going to assume that, but people can walk around, it's a park that they're allowed to be in, sure, if you wanted to have someone there just because you want them to feel safe and not have onlookers watching then that's fine. Just keep in mind, what are your goals of having this extra person? Make sure there's actually a real reason. Okay, let's do another one. Are there special considerations to be made for a male photographer shooting fine art nudes? Would you suggest always having a third person in the room? Okay, so this is in the same kind of vein. What I think is if you're feeling uncomfortable 'cause you don't want there to be any issues coming up or any problems later on with the subjects, like some people just want to be safe, just make sure the person in the room has a purpose, which I think would be a female makeup artist or something, or a female assistant, like if you were concerned about that. But make sure they have a purpose, they're holding a reflector, they put on the makeup, something like that, not just someone standing there saying like, I gotta watch him and make sure he behaves. 'Cause if there's someone in there it's like, why? So give them a purpose, have them have a job. Alright, I'm gonna do one more of these and then I'm coming to you guys. Okay. Let's see. When shooting fine art nudes, would you advise against having male and female models posing together? Good question, and the answer is no, it's so beautiful. I've seen so many gorgeous fine art nudes of a man and woman together. It was funny 'cause I actually had in my inspiration a bunch that I wanted to do, but I thought that was a little more advanced. Like you should probably, for teaching purposes, probably stick to one or the other and then build later. But, my thought would be a good place to start would actually be if you had a male and female dancer. I think that's probably a good place to start for one of these shoots, and that's what I've photographed, is I've photographed dance partners together, and it's so cool 'cause they can do lifts or they can intertwine their body in beautiful ways, and it makes it a lot easier, especially if you're not comfortable shooting nudes. They already know how their bodies interact with one another, so that'd be the place I'd go. But no, there's nothing wrong with it, but just, you know, have your concept and work with people that are comfortable if you haven't tried it before. Okay. I'm ready for audience. Yes? You always have good questions. I was reading Rangefinder Magazine the other day and just happened across this really amazing shot of you. (laughing) So what was it like for you being on the other side of that kind of a shoot, not just a birthday picture but a genuine fashion shoot? Was it fashion or portrait? Both. And go from there, discuss that. Oh this is a good question, and I didn't plant this one, but I have to tell you, I don't know if he's watching, my boyfriend took that picture. He's so talented. I win. (audience laughing) Okay, so what was cool was that this was a portrait, slash, fashion session for me and there was a full concept behind it. And so it was interesting because I'm always the one planning the mood boards and the concepts, but I got to be the subject of the mood board and the concept, and so I got to have my hair and makeup done, and I had massive amounts of extensions. So my random tip for anyone out there trying to do styled shoots, extra hair is always better. I know it sounds weird. Like always, extensions are incredible 'cause you can do things you can't do with, like most hair, like I got big hair and I had an extra three people's hair on my head. It was awesome. But even when the hair is up it's fuller and allows you to work with it more. So invest in extensions or work with hairstylists that have extensions. It makes an unbelievable difference. So for that what was (laughs), part number one, which is really interesting, is trying not to give input, because I'm like, oh is that light pointing in the correct place? But he totally knew what he was doing. So anyway, for that experience I think what I thought was interesting is trying to channel a character or the mood of the shoot, 'cause most of the time what we're doing is we're trying to help just make someone look their best, which is great. We're trying to pose in a curvy way, or light so the light's most flattering on the face, but in fashion shoots a lot of times it's what is the mood of this shoot, what should you be emoting? And then everything is servicing that goal. So in that case I was the strong, powerful queen of the north, so I had to be kind of angry and it was really interesting, instead of just, like I usually smile, or like look really serious. It was great, and the other thing that was really interesting being photographed by someone else is, have you guys noticed for the most part I typically don't meter that much? I totally get why do, and when I teach Lighting I'm metering just so you guys can see the different powers and ratios of the lights. But for the most part, I know my lights really well, and I set it up and I shoot it. But when he was photographing me he was heavily metering everything, but what was really interesting is what the end shot looks like, it looked identical in camera. There wasn't like, he had to pull up the shadows and put, you know, which a lot of times I'm playing around with the file in post and it looked pretty much like that in camera. So I was feeling like I might be converted into metering a little more. It was pretty impressive. That was a good plant question. And PS, the photographer is it's Chris Knight Photo, 'cause he's so good. Okay, I saw another question. Either one of you lovely ladies. PS, that made me blush. My face got real hot. I never get hot (laughs). (audience laughing) So I have a question that kind of pertains more towards when we were doing curvy women. So I saw a lot of the times when you told them to bring their hand up it was mostly towards the chest area, but when it comes to like maybe putting it on their face or on their hair do you have go-to's that you have, but also like don't-do's (laughs)? Totally, Anna, totally. So the main thing that I watch out for is sometimes they have, you know, they have blowing hair, and if I put the hand in the hair, sometimes with women that are a little bit fuller, like when they bring their arm up it's very distracting and it's not as tight as they would like. So I tend to keep elbow down so you don't see that problem, and I tend not to do arm to the side as much. It of course depends on the person. And I tend not to have the arm so close into the body, 'cause again, sometimes they struggle, especially if there's a fuller chest, so sometimes I'll have them put the hand in the hair but a little bit further out, 'cause then you're not worried about this all squishing. So I'll have the hair blowing, and then they kind of do this. Just general rules for hands is most of the time I'm trying to see the pinky side, so that's why I would do kind of like some place over here in the pose, and leaning, and all that. When other, other things for hands. Chest is just 'cause I'm like, these look lovely, look here. But hand for the face, it kind of just depends on the hands. People either have nice hands or really not. Like I, hmm, don't look at my hands (laughs). Like I personally wouldn't pose my hands close to my face most of the time. So that's kind of what I'm looking at more. I don't want it real close to the face if they're not nice hands. Just a little bit further away, you're not paying as much attention to it. And that's my thing about, I don't like thumbs either. (audience laughing) I'm always trying to hide the thumbs, they're just weird. Okay, and then you had a question. I once did a photo shoot with a woman who had a very full chest and all the posing techniques that we use and the leaning, and so what I was getting was like really big up front, super whoa, and then when I went back then there was the whole, this issue, and I kinda took care of it post process but I felt, would there be techniques or other ways of handling that than saying, oh I'll fix that in post, which I don't ever want to say, you know. Thanks. Yeah, that is a fantastic question. I'm super happy you asked that. So one of the things we talked about in the Photographing the Curvy Woman class was whatever you want closest to the camera, wherever you want more attention to or to look larger you bring closer to the camera. So face and chest. And everything you want to look smaller you push away from the camera, stomach, hips, midsection. But if you've got a big chest, not only does it look bigger, but also at that point there's going to be a lot more cleavage, and sometimes that's not what you were going for in the portrait, you just wanted to flatter them. So there's a couple of things. This is actually why all this education ends up being so important, is because every single person is different, and so you can't actually just use one camera angle, or one lens choice, or one pose for everyone. So thing number one would be, I still always want to put the weight kind of on the back leg and push it away. The reason isn't, like notice, my chest, I can actually keep it vertical. Like I don't, and you can kind of, like I can do this without leaning my chest forward too much. The reason is twofold, it's going to make the hips and the waist look smaller, but also to the camera's eye, typically if I do this it actually gives more of a waist. Like it kind of bends at the waist here, so it narrows it. I'm wearing a floofy dress and not the form-fitting that is necessarily recommended, but it will do that. So the first thing is I wouldn't lean the chest forward, but I would still push the hips and weight back. The other part of this equation would be if you are getting from a higher angle, like that perhaps is better than leaning, 'cause then that, it's leaning out and over. Like the little bit of a higher angle, they can stick their face closer to you. So it's not just like everything's going down and closer. It's that little bit higher and then their eyes can get closer without the chest looking larger. It just means that every single person you photograph, you've got to figure out, okay, do I go a wider angle lens to exaggerate it or do I a little bit longer lens to compress it? Do I have them lean or do I have them keep their chest up? So the answer for your person is don't have them lean and watch out for the clothing choice. Like that's probably just as important. If they do lean, how much chest is showing? Watch out, for fuller-chested people watch out for lace because lace is going to draw a lot of attention there, watch out for big chunky necklaces, like really big ones, 'cause that's pointing you all there, and then how much of a V-neck did you get? 'Cause there's a point when it's like that's all you can look at, and it's just because of the clothing choice. So it might be having something with more of a scoop neck, a little bit, so there's not actually cleavage but you can still see the size. One other thing, darker colors will make the chest look smaller. A lighter color shows every curve, and so when you have shadows it makes it bigger, so like darker colors, less detail, all of that. Okay, good. We have two online questions. Hi Greg. When people are nervous, sometimes their hands will get splotchy. Is there a way to correct this in camera or would you deal with this in processing? Really interesting question. I've never thought of it in camera. I mean, we always put, in my photo shoots we always put lotion on everything, because people's hands get dry and they get red, and as soon as you put them up to the camera it's different. So we use a lot of Jergens. Is that how you say it? Okay. We use a lot of Jergens lotion and then we use the Ponds cold cream, and that might help soothe it. However, in post there's a way, there's definitely a way to deal with it, it's just I'd rather not deal with it in post. Do other people have that? Have you noticed the splotchy hands? I notice red, is that the same thing? I notice people get red. I mean, let me try to see if my hands are red. Yeah, so I would say try the lotion thing and just say oh, you know, it picks up the light nice, instead of saying like, ew, you look splotchy (laughs). (audience laughing) I would go with lotion. Okay, next one. I have an old 750 Bowens studio flash. Even at the lowest setting, it can be too harsh. Do you have suggestions for softening the light? Okay. There's kind of two questions in here. Alright, so 750, we're talking about watt seconds, so the wattage of the light. In my studio, most of the studio strobes I use are 500 watt seconds. So I use Profoto D1 Air 500. Here's what this means. So the higher the wattage, the more output it gets, but in a lot of these strobes, and it depends on the company, if you've got a really high wattage, like 750, or 1,000, or there's ones that are 1,200. It sounds good in theory, right? Like oh man, this can give me a ton of light. But if you're working in a really small space, a lot of those, no matter how far you turn down the light, it's still giving you a ton. Like you would think it could go down really low, and it doesn't work like that in many. So it depends on the type of pack you have. Like I don't know this particular flash. I don't know, like some of them you can separate the power, for example, to cut it down. And so instead of having A plus B it's A separated from B, but a couple things that decrease the power of the light. Any time that you have bigger light sources with diffusion, the light's gotta fill more area and it spreads out, and it kinda cuts down on the light. So for example, if I've got a bare bulb pointed at someone's face and then in another shot I put a three by four foot soft box, same distance, same power, same everything, it's going to be several stops dimmer, like less powerful because it's gone into that soft box and it's been diffused. The next thing is let's say, like you're saying questions to soften the light. Let's say soft versus power real quick. For soft, ways to get a light soft. The larger the light source is compared to the subject, the softer the light. So instead of going with a three foot Octa, if you want it to be soft, you can go with a five foot Octa, or you can go with a big umbrella with diffusion, like big light sources, lots of diffusion, equals soft. And then you can bring a light close, and the closer you get it, the softer it is. But I think part of the question is for softening. I think you're saying the light's just really, really strong, like it's just really powerful. So part of that, the big light sources helps cut down on that. There also are things that are used to cut down on light. There are basically neutral density filters. What's, John, what's that white, um... (muffled) lux. Is that what it's called? It's just a cut-- Diffusion material. Yeah, it's diffusion stuff. I don't really know what it's called. It's basically a diffusion, it's like a piece of material. Like it's meant for diffusing. Sometimes they have ones that are kind of paper-like, they're thicker and they can cut down and they come in stops, so you can get it to cut one stop or two stops of light. So if for some reason you're like man, I've got this 750 and I really would love to shoot wide open in my studio. Like I'd really like to have the ability to shoot at 2.8. Some of this diffusion material and neutral density material makes it darker, like it cuts out on some of the light. So I think we're going to go with soft, slash, you're saying too powerful. And was that it for questions online for now? Okay, cool. So I'm going to pop over to my Keynote for a question. Alright, what's the best way to get rid of unwanted tan lines on your model? Oh man, especially if you're doing a nude, that's the worst. That's terrible. Um, okay, a couple of things. Now if you have a makeup artist they do it, like they do it for you. They can take different types of foundation and fill that in. I'm assuming most of us don't have a makeup artist to fill in tan lines, so there's a couple of things. One of the things I've done is when I do frequency separation, which check out the retouching class. Basically I can have the texture on one layer and then I can smooth out the color and tone on another. I can kind of clone over, or if you want to use the mixer brush that's another way to do it, but basically you take the correct tone of the skin and move it over. I'm gonna show you a technique real quick, 'cause I prepared a file here. I didn't have any good tan line ones, but related to color and tone, how I'm going to correct this one. I'm gonna grab a file where the girl's face and her chest are such different colors. I don't know if you guys can tell that, but she's got a lot of yellow here and it looks really cyan here. This screen actually doesn't exaggerate it as much for you in the audience, but it's pretty severe. They're not matching. So I'm going to open this image, and this would be an example, have you ever had when people, like they've got the really red hand next to the face, the face is yellow, it's cooler tones, and the hand is just red? So there's a couple ways to go about this. I'm just going to show you one real quick. I also have a class called Skin 101, and I talk about this technique in that among other things for skin. Alright, so a couple things you can do. I could select her body and play with color balance. So could move the color balance around, but this one's interesting. I'm going to take a new layer, and in this blank layer what I'm going to do is I'm going to pick the color of her skin with my eyedropper, the skin on her face, and I'm going to pick kind of the most saturated color. So you can see here it's giving me that kind of peachy tone. And I'm going to grab that as a brush, and I'm going to paint that into the new layer. And I'm going to do this, I mean it's going to look crazy, don't worry, we're going to fix it. So I'm painting it onto the skin that's incorrect color. But notice, like that's getting closer to the right tone that we have there. But it looks crazy. So what you do is you're going to change your blend mode. So if you don't know blend modes, add it to your list. I'm pretty sure I taught a class on CreativeLive during a photo week called Blend Modes Changed My Life, 'cause they really do, they really do. Like blend modes are incredible. So what I'm going to do is change the blend mode. And what a blend mode is, is it changes how a layer interacts with the layer below it. So it's basically what's the algorithm for how these two are going to work? If I go down to the bottom of my blend modes there's an option called color, and what that's going to do is it makes the skin that color. Now this is obviously too strong, but what it's doing is it's shifting them the correct direction. So what I can do is I can back off my opacity. So just let me see if you can see the difference. I mean, it looks a lot more the correct tone, and then I'm tweaking it, right, so I'm backing off my opacity, or if you don't know adjustment layers, layer masks, all of that, learn it, but I can add a mask on and I can remove it from where it's a little bit too strong. I think it's a little strong around her neck. Something like that but I can get things to be the correct color. So that's what I would do. If you've got the hand next to the face, select the correct color of the skin tone, paint it over the hand, change the blend mode to color, and then you back off your opacity until it looks good, and then you can kind of clean up where it's too strong. Something like this you can do similarly for skin tones if like the skin is redder, and then you've got the tan line where the skin doesn't match. One other tip, and I don't know how well it'll work on this one. Let's say that her face is a lot brighter than her chest. Have you guys had that, where like the light's really bright here? Sometimes it doesn't bother me. Sometimes the face was supposed to be lit, and that's fine. Let's say though, I wanted to, like I wanted to darken down her face. Maybe it was too bright and I wanted to match it. But a lot of times when you darken down somebody's face, what ends up happening is it looks more saturated. Sometimes when you darken something the colors, like the yellow will look more yellow, or the red will look more red, and so you can kind of see this in parts of the nose, it starts to get a little more saturated. Let me show you. Colors get richer. Granted, I didn't feather this, so don't judge me, but let's say something around there. This is another great place to play with blend modes. The blend mode that you want to note would be something called luminosity, and what it does, it's just gonna darken the face but it won't change color. And so what it's saying is when you do this darken thing, don't make colors more saturated, don't make them less saturated, all I want you to do is play with the tones, make everything darker, the lightness and darkness, and it's basically like hue saturation luminance, if you guys know this, don't affect eh hue, don't affect the saturation, just affect the luminance. Hence why it's called luminosity. So when I do it, you know, see how it didn't saturate the skin? So like here's the before and here's the after. It's more, it just darkens things down. In this example, not a particularly good one. It's not one that you see it dramatically, but that is a good thing for the tan lines. If you're trying to darken it down a little bit, but then the colors go all wonky, try luminosity and then also try painting with a blend mode of color. Okay. Do you have a suggestion for clients that are asking for more of a relaxed pose? Okay, that's a really, really good question because what that means when they say relaxed, or sometimes you hear people say candid, they don't actually mean candid. Like they really don't, they still want you to pose them to look good, but they don't want to look overly structured and they don't want it to look too, like oh yes, clearly a photographer was in here posing me. They say candid, they don't mean follow me around and just get shots, like that's not what they mean. So here's a couple things for more relaxed poses. First of all, just as far as relaxed, the places people hold tension, just to add to like your checklist, people hold tension in their forehead, some people are nervous, they raise their forehead a little bit, they hold it in their jaw, they bite down on their jaw, they hold it in their shoulders, and they hold it in their hands. Like those are the things that I'm checking for tension. So for the forehead, I mean I'm just watching. If someone's nervous they smile and they kind of raise their forehead, and I'll say okay, relax your whole face. Have it melt from the top down. Okay, now lighten up with your eyes and give me a genuine smile, like that kind of thing. For the jaw you can be serious, but when they bite down on their jaw it actually flexes out a muscle, which makes the face look wider a lot of times. So I'll say, okay, now relax your jaw. Same thing, like I tell people to melt from the top down. Same thing with the shoulders. I have people pull up through the top of their head, elongate, and pull your shoulders down. Okay, now shake them out. I think if you watched my Fine Art Nude class yesterday, the girl regularly, the girl that I had for the lighting demo, she'd regularly just kind of pull her shoulders up, and so okay, shake your shoulder up, pull them down, relax them. So that's kind of my checklist. And the last part is the hands. Like if somebody's got stressed out hands it ruins the whole shot. There's a photo of my own that I have where the pose is great but you can see them tucking their thumb in, which is like a sign of, they're nervous, and I love the shot and then I see that hand, and every time I'm like oh, you can tell that they weren't comfortable. So I'm really focusing on the hands and I've got a lot of tutorials that talk about hands more in-depth, but I do a lot of the okay now great, wiggle your hands, set them back down. Like I'm just trying to get real relaxed hands. But that's not really, kind of, for the relaxed posing, what they're talking about. What I'm saying for relaxed posing is they don't want, like they don't want it to be structured, which I've got a pose later on where the girl's doing this and she looks awesome, but it's clearly posed. So a couple things that I'll do is I will have them generally get in a good body position and then I'll do something where they're looking over the shoulder at me. Like I'm trying to get that spontaneity that looks more relaxed, or I'll do things that are, you know, the step and turn so that it looks like it was more realistic, or I just do things much more subtle. And so the hand would be, instead of posed by the face I'd have the hand kind of just by the side holding onto something. Like realistically you might hold onto a dress instead of like, you know what I mean? So it would be more realistic movements instead of something that I would place the hands. Alright. Gonna pop onto the next one, and then I'm going to come back to you, next one guys. Okay? Alright, what distance do you typically keep between your model and the camera, and the distance between the model and your light? Okay. So I'm going to demo this roughly. And we're just, we're not being fancy here today, so I'm just using the wall that we have. I'm gonna have you step back there for me, and I'm gonna talk about this whole concept of the distances. The short answer to that question, the cop out answer, is it totally depends and there is nothing I can say to that, 'cause it all depends, which is true. It does all depend, but here's a couple parts of this. First of all, the distance between your model and your light. For the most part, it depends on what you're trying to do with that light. For example, if you've seen any of my lighting classes, I've got a Creative Lighting class, I've got a Lighting 101 class, I've got many. And one of the things I talk about is grids. And so grids focus light. You can get a very narrow beam of light, so I can just have the center of the face lit. But if I want that light to be really, really, really focused I've got to bring it in really close, like if I just want to light right here. So I have beauty shots where the light is here. Like I'm, if this is a model, the light is here and then I'm just trying to get it out of the shot. That's not as normal. But let's say a portrait where you're using a soft box. Let's just use the example here of a three foot Octa, three by four foot soft box, an umbrella, something like that. What I'm doing is I'm balancing between the quality of light and the spread of the light. So here's what this means. So the rule that you hear me say a bajillion times over and over again is the larger the light source is compared to the size of the subject, or relative to the size of the subject, the softer the light. So for her what that means is if I bring this three foot Octa closer, the light's gonna get softer the closer that I can bring it, but one of the problems I'll have, of course, is like at this point it's in my shot. So that would be when you say oh, maybe I need a five foot Octa instead, 'cause then I can back it up and still have really soft light. That might be a reason. For this three foot Octa, for example, a lot of my portraits, I'd probably be like a distance like this, because if I start backing it up too much, this is, oh, I can't do distances. A few feet, how much John? Two and a half feet. Two and a half feet. (audience laughing) Two and a half feet, because if at some point, if I back this light up, okay, and I double or triple the distance, whatever, at a certain point, now compared to her here it was this large. Now it's that large. Like it didn't actually change size but because I backed it up, it made it appear smaller relative to her. So at this point it's now small. I'm totally standing in the darkness, sorry. Sorry crew. But anyway, so when I backed it up it's now going to be a harder light source, which if I wanted soft light, it's not going to be as flattering. So that distance kinda depends. I tend to have my main light in that, two and a half to six foot range, depending on what the modifier is. This is where I find myself most of the time. The one other part of this is, if I'm lighting her full length and I have my light real close, because of inverse square law, we're not gonna go too fancy, but because of how light works, the bottom of her body will be darker at this distance. Basically her face is closer so that's gonna get all the light, and it becomes darker by the time it reaches the bottom of her body, and if I'm trying to get a nice, evenly lit head-to-toe shot it won't work, so I might need to back the light up a little bit so that I can get a more even spread. So I'm gonna say two and a half to six feet. Depends on the size of my modifier and all of that, and then the distance between the camera and my model, I can tell you're just, it depends on the lens choice I have. For head shots I find myself here. I don't know, distance, John, six feet what (muffled)? I think you're about six feet. Okay good, six feet (laughs). Like six feet away from my subject or so, but sometimes for full length shots I'll back up to like 15, 20 feet and I'm getting a low angle, and I have them jumping and they look really tall. So that's why you have to shoot a lot, 'cause then you figure out what distances you like, and what angles you like, and 'cause it depends on the subject, and what I'm trying to do. So that was me making it complicated, but it is, it depends. So I actually think, I saw somebody. Yes, okay, excellent. When you have a client that's a designer and you're showcasing like their gown, how does that affect your lighting and posing when in your working? Yeah, so it does, it absolutely affects it. And so this is a good example, so I'll leave you up here. It's weird that you're in the dark. I should turn the modeling light on. Sorry. Yeah, I, you know, thinking production here and it kinda escaped me. Sorry you're in the dark. Okay. I consider clothing when I'm shooting when it's for a designer or something like that 'cause it really matters, especially if they're hiring me to shoot this, so one of the things that I'll do is I call it lighting in layers or layering the light. So let's say I want dramatic light on the face, or something a little harder. What I'll do is I'll have one of these lights closer, and likely with a grid on it. So it could be a soft box with a grid, but more likely it's going to be a beauty dish with a grid, and typically it's going to be a beauty dish with a grid. So what that means is I'm not lighting the entire subject. That main light is just going to light maybe here. I'm lighting the torso, and then the second light I choose is intended for flattering that dress, the angle that I put it at and the modifier that I choose. So let's say it's silk and I want a nice, even highlight. I might pick a three by four foot soft box and I place it where the highlight on the dress looks correct, and so I know, and I can angle it so it's just lighting the bottom part of the dress. Or maybe it's a sparkly dress and I really want it to sparkle. Maybe I need another beauty dish, because I need it to have a little be more contrast to it. And it keeps going on and on. It kinda depends. So that's the difference for me, is I will light the face and the dress a little bit differently and I can choose the modifiers as such. Also keeping in mind, if it's a dress and I've got, say, a dark background and it's a darker dress. I've got to see the outline of that dress because the silhouette of the dress is part of how they're selling it. So I'm thinking, I kind of say okay, what can I do to show the texture of the dress, movement of the dress, and silhouette of the dress? And then I use my lighting and my posing to do that. Most of the time for designer stuff the poses are pretty basic, whatever. The look books are pretty simple. Okay. Yes. Do you have any tips for like awkward poses and maybe like a couture fashion shoot? So awkward poses, like you want them to be awkward? Yeah. Interesting. Okay, so awkward-- I know what you're talking about and the best way to articulate this would be if you're bending joints in ways that don't normally bend. So for example, like bending things out or in more than you normally would. That helps make awkward poses. Or angles that converge, so with the legs, instead of doing like this, you would have one bent in so it's like, it doesn't totally make sense to the way the shape is supposed to be. So I think that's how I think of it, is pay attention to the joints and bend them what wouldn't be normal for awkward poses. I will say, you know the fashion pose that people do, that's like the bent shoulders? Okay, so generally I hate it, just putting it out there, generally I hate it. With really, really slender models when they do this they can still look slender, but for most people it doesn't work. But if you do this, let's say you're trying to do like the awkward whatever, just make sure that you don't photograph here, like if you guys are the camera, because all you see is you guys don't see my chest, you don't see my jawline, you don't see my neck, you only see back. So what I do is I can still do that but I bring the camera, I bring the body back around, 'cause now if this is the camera, you see my jaw, and you see my neck, and you see my chest, versus this. And you can still kind of do that awkward pose but it's better than this version of it. I think I have one in my portfolio. Do you ever use infrared, particularly in the nudes? Oh man, okay, so I want to badly and I haven't. So for infrared photography, and I've seen this before and actually we were looking at something recently, is when you shoot infrared for nudes the skin is so smooth and silky and it's so easy to shoot, 'cause it just ends up being creamy and perfect. Like all the imperfections disappear. But what's really cool, and we were looking at this, and I'd seen this done back when I was in college, is you see veins. You don't see any skin imperfections but you'll actually see the veins underneath the skin, and you could pump that up in post if you want to go for something weird and unusual, or you can tone it down if you want to. It's super cool and you're good at infrared. I like your stuff. I'm gonna come back to Keynote and I think I've got another lighting question coming up, so she has enough to stand there. Okay, when shooting with studio lights my image looks dark. What am I doing wrong? So there's a couple things that I would add to your list. So one of the things that you may be doing wrong, and I'm gonna like just troubleshoot for you, 'cause there's several things that could go wrong. One thing might be is that your aperture is too small, so maybe, for example, if your camera's set at like f/11, maybe you need to go to f/8 or f/5.6. When you open up that aperture it lets more light in. So it could be just the way you have it set. Even if you've got your light at fullest power, you might be shooting with an aperture too small to make it bright, so change your aperture, try wider. The next thing that you might be doing is you might be using too fast of a shutter speed. So every camera has a sync speed. You have to look it up in your manual, but most sync speeds are somewhere around 1/200 of a second. Some cameras are 1/125, one are 1/250, there's some that are much higher. My point is, is if you set your shutter speed faster than your sync speed you get black bars and it looks dark. Basically what's happening is when you're doing this you're shooting at such a fast shutter speed that you're catching the flash of the light when the shutters are moving in and out, so you actually end up seeing your shutter in the frame. And so the black bars or the darkness is your camera not shooting fast enough for the shutter speed you're at. So anyway, in this instance you have to just figure out what your sync speed is and slow it down. So if your sync speed's 200 you might just be flipping to accidentally to 1/250 or 300. So check that one. Those are the main things, but one of the things that, like a version of this that I did want to address, 'cause I think it was in the original question, was talking about, I'm trying to see this, alright, talking about your background. So I wanted to just demo something real quick. So I'm going to flip over to Lightroom, 'cause this is a question I've got a bunch of time. So hold on. I will give you the question that goes with this answer momentarily. Alright, let me just test this. (camera clicking) Oh wait, I always forget to turn this on. This is a good face to test it. Yeah. Okay. Alright, oh, bright, hold on. Let me turn it down just a little bit. So the question, a version of this question that I got (camera clicking) had to do with the lightness and the darkness of the background. So let's bring up this photo. Okay, so taking a look at the photo here. I've got a relatively even tone from her face and the background. The background's not super light, the background's not super dark. I've had somebody say in a question, the background in my shot, I'm shooting on white but it looks really dark. Why is that? So real quick, without going into super tech of inverse square law, you have to know inverse square law without knowing inverse square law, which basically means you have to know what it's doing, in effect. I'm gonna bring you out like many feet. Okay. Alright, what happens if I bring her far out from the background? She's significantly closer to light so she's going to be bright, and as the light moves behind her, it gets dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer, and dimmer. The inverse square law is basically saying light falls off faster than you think it does. It gets darker than you might think, and so every time you double the distance you're quartering the power. So the further I move my subject away from the background, it starts falling off, but it also has to do with this distance right here, because if I take this light and bring it super close, whatever, we're exaggerating here, okay, super close, doubling the distance happens real fast. Here's double, double, double, double, and so it's going to be so much darker. But now if I take that same light and bring it here, let's double the distance so it doesn't get that much darker. That's kind of the idea behind it. So relative distances make sense, and light falls off more quickly than you think. So let me just take that shot real quick, just so I can demo. So right here. (camera clicking) Okay, so notice in this one we've moved her away, so the background, 'cause it's far away, becomes darker, but she's staying at the exact same exposure. However, let me, I'm going to back you up this time. Keep backing up, backing up, backing up. Try there. So what's going to happen is now when I double the distance from her to a light, it's actually beyond where the background is, so it won't have fallen off that much. This puts them on relatively the same plane. More or less her and the background are similar distances, so her and the background will have similar amount of light, so it'll be brighter. Of course she's far away now, so I've got to change my aperture for that light. So don't judge me. I'm totally guessing with the exposure. Eh, it's close. But notice her and the background are similarly toned but now the background looks white, 'cause compared to her it wasn't much further from the light. That's how it all works, so double the distance, quarter the power, but in practicality if she's close to that light and the background's much further it'll become darker. If they're on similar planes then they'll be similarly lit. 'Cause I think the original version that I saw of that question was actually asking about the background a little bit. Alright, so I'm going to flip onto the next question, which I know has nothing to do with lighting, so if you want to take a break for a minute you're welcome to. You can just pop off wherever you want. Next question is do you think Dehaze is a better option than Clarity? So they do totally different things even though they kinda do some things that are the same (laughs). So Dehaze is an option that is newer, like the last couple versions of Photoshop and Lightroom. Well recent version of Photoshop but couple versions of Lightroom has this thing called Dehaze. And what Dehaze does is it's actually much smarter than you think it is. If you look up what Dehaze is doing, it's actually trying to analyze the light source in the environment and guess how it would interact with the atmosphere to make a picture flatter. So it's basically like what haze would this light be creating and how can we counteract that? Clarity, on the other hand, takes mid-tones and gives you contrast in the mid-tones. So it pops mid-tone areas. So if you just regularly drag contrast, like just increase contrast, highlights get brighter, shadows get darker, but what Clarity does is it just applies that effect in the middle instead of doing it to the extreme. So it takes the middle of it, and what that appears to do is it appears to make your photos sharper. It appears to add sharpness, 'cause when you, if you guys have ever done Unsharp Mask, what you're really doing is on edges you're increasing the contrast, so it's the same kind of idea. So let's take a look at an example here. My mom and I went to Machu Picchu and it was really funny 'cause we did this hike and it was the most miserable, like it is the most difficult hike in the world, and I mean that clearly exaggerating, but I mean that as me being someone who doesn't climb mountains very often. And so we're climbing up this thing and I'm like, this better be a good view. And get, I'm not kidding, it was like, I think it was three, over three miles that were stairs up, straight uphill. I was dying and my mom was fine. I was like, what is wrong with me (laughs)? So we get up there and then this is the view. Gorgeous, but it is so hazy. And I was like, and this was before Dehaze existed, and I was like, oh man, I am not going to get any good shots out of this. So just take a look at what Dehaze does. I believe Dehaze is over here. Right now I'm in Adobe Camera Raw. These same options exist in Lightroom, so it's going to be the same conversion. So what Dehaze is doing is it's taking a look at the entire environment and it's trying to remove atmospheric haze. Like that is night and day. I mean... So much better. But let's take a look at what Clarity does. If I go back over to Clarity that's what Clarity does. So Clarity took everything in the middle and sharpened it up. It increased the contrast. Dehaze is actually trying to analyze the light in the atmosphere in the scene and get rid of or reduce that haze. So I use Clarity all of the time in my portraits. I use it all of the time, now I'm not talking about close-up portraits, but a lot of times anything I want there to be more texture to the skin, or anything I want to be a little sharper or a little grittier, I'll use Clarity. But Dehaze doesn't work. It doesn't really do anything in my shot. And sometimes, well often, it shifts the color. It makes the color look all crazy when you use Dehaze. Clarity is not shifting the color quite as much, but it will work on portraits. So basically that. Neither one's better, it depends on what you're using it for, and just to show you like a real extreme example here with Dehaze and Clarity. Like I got my picture looking super dramatic and lots of beautiful color, and it started off horrible. Like it started off like that other shot. I always have difficulty balancing the light for correct exposure for darker skin tones. Do you have some suggestions? Alright, so it kind of depends on exactly what you mean, but I'll give you a couple suggestions. In my Skin 101 class I photograph darker skin tones, but I also photograph lighter and darker skin tones together, 'cause that's something that you might consider. I photograph darker skin tones all the time. I love it. Like oh man, I love, for me, because of the type of work I do I like extremes, I like someone who's like so pale they have no skin tone or someone so dark that it's just velvety. Like I love the extremes there, it's personal. But when I photograph darker skin tones, one of the things that you want to watch out for is more specular lighting, so a harder light source. 'Cause what happens is if you've got a harder light source and it's picking up highlights in the foreheads and on the cheeks, you still have the same brightness of that highlight but it's against a darker skin tone, so it looks brighter, and so it makes somebody's forehead look real shiny, and their cheeks look real shiny, and so instead of using a hard light source, try something a little bit softer and it'll be a smoother highlight. And also, if that highlight isn't ideal, try, what I use is blotting papers, like the papers that soak up oil and I blot it on the skin. Sometimes that helps that contrast on the skin not be so dramatic. So if you're saying balancing the light for correct exposure for darker skin, balancing, I guess it kinda depends on what you mean. It might be use a softer light source and then if the side of the face falls to complete shadow, 'cause the shadows will appear darker, you know, maybe bring in a little bit of a white fill card. I wouldn't go for silver, 'cause when you add silver you see specularity again. When you add white it just opens up the shadows. So I think we're going to go that direction. And then when I pose people of different skin tones together, the person that has the darker skin tone, I usually do put closer to the light, 'cause closer to the light makes it softer and brighter, so then it gets rid of a couple problems I'll have. Alright, I'm gonna do another Keynote one. Next one. Alright, I have a very small studio. Do you have suggestions for working in a smaller space when photographing curvier clients? So everything that I was saying for curvier clients absolutely can be done in a smaller space for sure, because really if it's their body perspective and you're getting up a little higher I can do that super close, and if you actually looked, most of the time I was shooting non-full length. I was probably only four feet away, which you can do in a very small space. The other thing that you could is you could do a curvier subject where they're on a chaise or lying on, if they're even just on like apple boxes where their chest and their face is closer to you. And so that could help, let's say, if you're saying you have really short ceilings or something like that. But it totally doesn't matter. Everything that I did yesterday, you could definitely do in an eight by eight foot space. Alright, do you ever share potential poses with clients ahead of time so they can practice before arriving on set? Yeah, no, totally. What I do is in those mood boards sometimes I include inspiration poses. It's kind of up to them if they practice. Like I haven't been like, practice this. But you know, if it were an aspiring model and you're trying to help them build their portfolio you might say notice we're posing with hands in this shot. Maybe you can try practicing your hands before the shoot in a mirror. I'm not going to say that to the average client 'cause it's actually my job to pose them and it's not their job to worry about it. Like they shouldn't feel like they have to perform on the day. So I don't usually do it with clients unless it's aspiring models, but I will send inspiration so they know, they can get in the groove of like, okay, this is what we're going for, we're going for strong, or we're going for sexy, and they can kind of see that beforehand. Alright, what are your top five lighting essentials for a studio shoot? I'm going to assume that this means like modifiers are like tools, those kind of things. So I would say (sighing), it depends on what you shoot. If you're a portrait photographer, I think an Octabox, like a three foot Octa's real nice, or an umbrella with diffusion's real nice, but for me personally, my beauty dish is my essential. Like I've gotta have my beauty dish with a grid, for sure. Next thing would be a reflector, specifically 30 inches, about, with silver and white. I never use gold, ever. And silver/gold mix you can use but I never use it in the studio, so that's what I would do, and about 30 inches is what I'm going for, for reflection underneath the chin or something to the side. After that, I would say it would be, if you could get three strobes, awesome, but two is gonna do the job for a lot of things, because with two I can have a light on the face and then I can either have my second light on the background, or as a hair light, or as a room light, or something like that. So that totally doesn't really answer my top five. It was like well here's some things. I would say aim for two strobes, have a reflector, and then get some modifiers for your strobe, which I think in the most part is going to be something like an Octa or the three by four foot softbox, like a soft light source, and then something for that back light, which you could make your own, or I would say a stripped soft box would probably be the best for a portrait photographer. Kinda answered it. Alright, I'm gonna do one more of these and then you guys, okay. Alright, what's the one pose you feel is the most overused and unflattering? Oh my god, I got like one? Okay. (audience laughing) Oh my gosh. That was going to be your question? I told you, first of all, the one I hate, the, anything with the hunched shoulders. Like it's just not, it doesn't look good, it really doesn't. So that's one. I would say, okay, can I do a couple? Can I have, can you grab me the apple box? Okay. I think what it comes down to is it ends up being more the devil's in the details, 'cause sometimes like a pose is close but it's like certain things. Thank you. I don't like when a girl has her leg up and she's got her hand in her pocket and her hand on her hip like this, 'cause A, I'm looking... It's like too crotchy for me, like I don't know. But the thing is, it can be, leg up can be fine. It just needs to be maybe turned to the side a little bit. Like I see people go straight on, and then at this point when they're doing something like this, everything is so angular. Like right angles in my arms, and right angles in my leg. It's that, it's like this pose, but you can work it better, you know, if you're turning the hips away, a little bit softer with the hand. So that one I see a lot. And oh, the one I hate the most! (audience laughing) Alright, this one I hate, but it's, again, in the details. Like it can be done well. I hate the shots where it's supposed to, and please don't hate me if you have a shot like this, okay? You might be the person who's done it well, so just let's not fight, okay. The shot where the girls are doing this. Oh no, I thought of another one! (audience laughing) Oh, the other one, we affectionately call the poop pose. It's the one where the girls are squatting, or like they do this and pose to the side. I can't, like I can't do it. I can't. And I see it in fashion magazines. Like it's not, it's just when I say for posing, you typically want to elongate. That's, let's squish everything. And then for me it's, if I do an unbelievable pose like this, you know that that's not real, like the jump up. But that's not either, but in a weird way. Like someone might actually squat but (sighing), like I don't know. So that question just got me excited, 'cause I have so many I don't like. (audience laughing) So that's kind of cheating. Alright, let me pop on to a couple more. Oh wait, sorry. I said I was coming to you guys next. Sorry. Okay, yes. First of all, thank you for doing what you do and being who you are. Of course. Thank you! So my question kind of refers to when those, a couple questions back about relaxing the client. I've actually started to do some modeling and I understand, it gives me a better understanding of what I want as a photographer, but also what they're experiencing. Totally. So my question, or I guess what I'm referring to, is I saw one of your videos, you indicated something to the effect that do what you're doing, relax, and then go back to that. What was that phrase? Totally. Okay, I got two parts to that. That was an awesome question. So two things. Let's say I'm going to make up a pose, I don't know, I have them sitting, I have them arching their back 'cause I want a lot of curve, and I have them do this. My back hurts about eight seconds in. So what I'll say is okay, feel that pose. That's a perfect angle, I love it. I'm going to have you relax. Okay, now when you're ready let's get back into that pose and I want strong connection with the camera. And so they can do it but you don't see the tension in the hands, and they're not uncomfortable and you start to see it in their face. So I'll say relax and repeat. Building onto that other question in this. Sometimes what I'll do to a subject, and sometimes it does not work at all but I'll try it, is maybe with a sitting pose I'll say, you know, do me a favor, just take a seat and be comfortable. Strike a pose, don't worry, I'm gonna take care of it. Like just take a seat and be comfortable. 'Cause sometimes I'll get them in a more natural body position. I don't know what that is. They'll lean on the chair, something, and then I can identify the problem areas. So I can work with what they gave me, which they already have told me they're comfortable with. They feel it's them, or their body is in the right position, and then I'll say oh, we have foreshortening. I've got videos that talk about the five things that ruin poses. Okay foreshortening, the knees were too, they sat like this. Okay, well I can put the legs away from camera. Alright great, but they were comfortable like that so maybe I'll just put the elbow back so I elongate everything. So I'll sometimes invite them to be comfortable, take a seat in that chair, be comfortable, whatever, and then I'll tweak it. And sometimes they just look terrible and I can't work with it, and we have to start again, but sometimes they come up with really nice things, and sometimes that's helpful if all of the poses I were thinking of I've done a million times. Maybe they come up with something totally different. I'm like yeah, that looks great. So sometimes it's great to let them kinda do their thing. Go ahead. So in the pre-planning phase, do you ever do client consultations where you talk about insecurities, concerns, or maybe areas of the body they actually want to flaunt? So that was a good question. So basically I don't discuss it beforehand, in the sense of like what part of your body do you want to show? I'll do this, I'll say okay, if this photo is going to scream something about you, what is that? Like what is this photos screaming? And so I try to channel like if they're saying sexy, if they're saying strength, like that part of it. And I, by the way, related to consultations, I talk to everybody before shoots, so we do that. On the day of, how I'll kind of work it in there is in conversation I'll be like shooting them and I'll genuinely compliment them and be like man, your eyes are phenomenal. And they go oh, thank you. I'm like, what do you love most about yourself? I'll try to give them that opportunity. I find if there's something someone doesn't like about themselves they let you know right away. Like, oh my god, don't show my stomach. Or like I hate the side of my face. I don't need to ask them to bring it up, and I'm like don't worry then, let's turn you sideways, or whatever, you know, it's not a problem. So that's how I do it. And I saw another one there. There's one more. Yeah. So I have two places where I get creases commonly, and people request poses where they're laying, I do a lot of boudoir, laying on their back. Crushing it. And the breast comes and you get the crease here, or if they're on their side you get the side crease. Do you handle that in post or is there a posing way to get those to go away? 'Cause I haven't found a way to do it in post that looks natural. Okay, for the side crease I use arm placement. So like if they're on their stomach, I don't know (audience laughing) and arching the back, and then you get the crease here, I'll put the hand, something like that. Or if they're on their side, man this is awkward, if they're on their side and there's a crease here, you know, I've got the arm over in that way. Also, one thing you might find useful is if you do a version of it that's really high key, like a really bright background, when the light, if you overexpose the background it wraps around and a lot of the time it hides it. So I love that. If I've got the window or the sheer behind I overexpose it by a couple stops and it actually makes the subject look more slender 'cause it kinda, it eats away at the edges and it works really well, so I would say try that too. Thank you. You're welcome. I have a question, 'cause I noticed in the past that you've worked with a lot of athletes. What is your go-to lighting for athletes, whether it's, you know, whether it's a, kinda like a sport portrait type deal where it's an action shot or... Sure, totally. So it's probably a cliche because it's not a particularly original answer, but it's the one that you use most often. It's some form of three point light. So what I mean by that is there's gonna be three strobes, one on the face and then two back room lights, but for athletes the specific combination that I use is I usually use a beauty dish in the front raised up higher, and that higher elevation of the light, what it does is it casts shadows downward so it'll show the abs, it'll show the muscles, and so it's that elevation that makes a difference, and then the back two room lights, either stripped soft boxes, but I tend more towards barn doors, and so what I'll do is if I have the light above it's carving out the abs, whatever, carving out the muscles, and then they turn their body a teeny bit back towards that barn door. It rakes across and it really shows those muscles. So that's pretty much where I start a lot of the times, especially since the three point light can be very easily composited and it can be cut out. So of course my lovely friend Joel Grimes, who is the master of three point light, but I've also done a lot of shots that are fashion like that for the same reason, because it carves out the sides of the dress. So it's anything where you want to pay attention to the silhouette but also create drama with that main light, it's usually what I do. I'm gonna do, I think, another Keynote one. Alright, do you have any solutions for a curvy subject that has a large nose? When I try to use a high angle, it accentuates this feature. Alright, well I got two things. I believe I'm, my next class, a future class, I'm going to do one about photographing challenging features. So large foreheads, larger noses, double chins, like that kind of thing, so that'll be eventual. But this kind of comes back to the question that we were talking about, that you have to know your lighting, and your angle, and your posing, 'cause it all works together and everybody's going to be different. So my suggestion would be this, for curvier subject, right, still kick their hips away, you can have chest forward, but don't get up at such a high angle, 'cause the problem that you run into at the higher angle is when their nose overlaps with the lip, that's your no-no, like that's what you don't want to happen. But if you're at a higher angle you can have them stick their chin up and out a little bit and bring the eyes closer. You just gotta watch, like at what point is the nose starting to look longer on the face. It depends on the nose, but typically something a little straighter on and a little bit more eye level or lower is most flattering. Okay. Do you ever ask clients to walk, dance, or move to see their natural body movements before posing them? I don't particularly. I mean I'll like ask about people's passions and if they say they're a dancer I'm like yes, and then I know that I can move them a lot. And I'll try, instead what I usually do is it's not necessarily movement, but what I'll do is I'll test my directing in the beginning, and I'll say that whole thing, like oh, let me just test my lights, and oh I've got to move you around a little bit just so I can see how the light's working, and it's my trying to see if they figure out directing before they feel like it's a big deal. So I'll be like, okay, can you turn your shoulders to the right? Perfect, okay, great, now I'm gonna turn your chin that direction too. And so I'm like working the posing directions to see if they got it, and then the other thing I'm doing during that time is I'm trying to see what angle their face looks best at. So basically these are the angles, chin on, up and down, turn to the side, up and down, turn to the other side, up and down. So I kinda do like a roundabout. Oh, can you turn this way? As I'm posing them I'm moving around and then I'm kinda, alright, let me just see how my light was and take a look and seeing which shots I liked. The other thing I've done often is I encourage people to do selfies of, like, you know, they're getting their hair and makeup done. I encourage them to share it on social, and so I try to figure out what side they shoot with a selfie, because they know what angle of their face they like best. And so I'll have a little bit of a better idea to start off. If they're shooting it like this I know they like this side of their face. The rule used to be, or that I thought, like I went to all the time is whatever side someone parts their hair on. Usually what that means is if I part my hair on this side it usually means they're trying to showcase that side, and that's my good side of my face, but I switch my part, so I'm like okay, well that (muffled). So it clearly doesn't work with everybody. Sometimes, you know, the curly hair does its own thing and you just gotta go with whatever it's giving you that day. So this is Tiffany, and Tiffany's adorable, and she's beautiful, and I love her hair. And so this is what she walked into the studio, I never, you know, I'm not telling people to wear anything in particular. And so we do a styled shoot with her. I did not have wardrobe bring in clothing. Instead, I recommended, this was a portrait shoot, I recommended what she bring. So I said, I asked her to send me pictures of her clothing beforehand. And I typically say, show me about five to ten outfits you're considering wearing. And then I can figure out what I think is going to be photographing the best. Also, perhaps what looks best on her skin tone, and sometimes I'll ask, can you send me a shot of one or two of those outfits on? It's going to help me figure out my lighting, or my posing, or it's going to give me an idea so I can kind of see if it actually fits them. So for her, the outfit that we went with was this kind of maroon, lacy dress. I love it, it's super beautiful, but the reason I also picked it is I had a matching background so I was going to be able to do those tones. This background is by a company called Gravity Backdrops, and they do custom hand-painted backgrounds. They're one off, and so I got this one and my lovely boyfriend gave it to me as a gift. Right? Photo gifts are the best. When you have somebody that knows the photo gifts, so good. So anyway, so this, I said to her, go take a seat and just be really comfortable, and clearly this was not going to be working. Like this pose doesn't work. Here's why. I don't expect you to read these. I'm just going to go through why. Alright, so her shape, if you look at the lines you follow, it is really boxy. Like I'm looking at a rectangle in her form. So that doesn't really work. Also, typically want to see the pinky side of the hand. This one's okay, but this one I'm getting like a wrist nub. I'm not looking at this pose and saying it's terrible. It's just like I know it could be better, and that hand, if I saw it in a shot I'm not gonna be like, oh my gosh, that photo's terrible. Like no, it's just the hand could be more elegant. Also, this is a weird crop. Like seeing right in towards the knee. That's what I'm talking about, like the legs spread pose or the knees straight on towards camera. It's usually weird. She's kinda cropping at the knees. I don't like that. And just overall for women, right angles are intended to show strength and this isn't really like a strong pose, so instead it just makes it really boxy. So there are many, many different solutions you could achieve for this pose. Like all their poses you could do. So I'll show you one of them that I came up with. So I had her stick with that, let me show you and sit. Okay, so the pose she had, the pose she had was this, right? So I had her rotate to the side and she kept this arm the same, but then she brought this one up. It's not like I had to do drastic. She was facing on, but I rotated her to the side and moved this hand up. Now thankfully she's slender so I've got some nice lines and negative space. I have to work this for the body type. What I like now is I've got much more movement in the pose, and I've got diagonal lines instead of having hard right angles and structure, which I usually use more for guys. And just so you guys can see, this is the retouch that we did. So I don't know if you think it's a lot or a little, but a lot of little changes add up, and mostly, you know, notice, I'm not trying to make her any more skinny, I don't need to, but I always get rid of wrinkles or lines in clothing, and I like big hair. You'll see that in like all my photos, I make the hair bigger, I don't know. But there are other poses. So for example, in this one I moved the arm back but kept the hand in the same place so that these are variations of the same shot. The one over here is, instead of turning her to the side I faced her straight on, let's see, what knee? And I crossed an arm over and an arm up. For slender girls this works really nicely, especially if they don't have curve, because notice what her arms do. They actually make an hourglass shape, 'cause it meets in the middle, and then the dress comes back out. So she is a very challenging subject to actually create curves. She is super slender, no hips, so in this example I can give the illusion of curve, not curve on her body but curve through the pose. So that's kind of what I was aiming for. That's one of my go to poses if I've got a girl that's tiny. I use that all the time. Let's take a look at another one. Alright, so, this girl's so funny. She was awesome. I walked in and I went that's a cute shirt. So anyway, for her, she wanted to try something. She said, most of her shots she's really silly and giggly, so she wanted to try something that was a little bit more serious. I said okay, cool. So she brought this outfit that had like a black hood, but here's the problems that I've got in this shot. I've got lots of stuff going on. Typically you don't want to see the back of the hands. It's not the worst, but typically you want to see the pinky side or just narrower. Like I've got a lot of hand in this shot. Also, symmetry. When you have something symmetrical, like both feet the same level, or both hands together, it creates structure but it's often boring structure. So it's like it's not, like your eye just kinda does this and then here, I don't know. You kind of get locked there. Of course her expression's not super cool. She looks a little uncomfortable. And then in this instance she's kind of doing this, let me see, right, she's kind of sticking her stomach towards camera. So she's slender but her midsection looks a little bigger, and it's not like curvy bigger. So it didn't really work for me. And then also where I've cropped it, it's kind of an awkward crop 'cause that negative space is where your eye goes. So you want either less or more. So this was the version of the crop, the version of the pose I did. This is the pose that I said can bother me a lot depending on how it's done. So if it is all right angles, hips to camera, hands on hips, that's when I don't like it. But she's turned to the side, she's got her hip out so she's got a little bit of curve there, there's more interesting shape, she's got negative space. Notice it's not the pinky side towards camera. There's no way to do that pose with it. So just make sure if their thumbs are visible, they're nice thumbs (laughs), I don't know. So anyway, there's a lot more flow to that shot. Let me just show you what the retouching was. Let me do it one more time. Notice the bigger hair. So I mean, I smoothed out some lines, straightened them up a little bit. Let's do another one. Alright, so shot when she comes in. Alright, so she's got, she had this really beautiful dress that matched my background, so I'm like yeah, bringing out that background again. And I really, I love this background with darker skin tones, I just think it looks beautiful. So right now the problems that I have are manyfold because I've got, one of the rules I say for women, if you can bend it, bend it. Straight arms, straight legs, there's no bending. It's all straight. And also, she's kind of, 'cause she was kind of doing this, looking over the shoulder, her stomach's sticking out. She's kind of doing that. So I need to get rid of this line and then really, she's turned around this way. The booty's probably gonna be a focus of the shot but it's not here, so this was my solution. Alright, so the difference is you've got a subtle bend to the arm but I popped up this leg. And popping up that leg gives you this curve. And then I said, "Arch your lower back." Does any of this sound familiar? Right? Pop up, I did it in Fine Art Nudes and I did it with Curvy Women. You pop up that leg for Fine Art Nudes. It's the one closest to the camera. It creates that curve. Arch your lower back, it creates another curve. So this is why, kind of my point and everything was it's all interrelated. When you learn how to pose curves better you learn how to pose everyone better, but when you learn how to pose Fine Art Nudes better you learn how to pose everyone better. It's the more tools you have, that every single different person, every single different body type, you've got more tools to utilize to flatter them. And then this was the retouch. I decided I didn't like the colors as much so I changed my mind, but notice, but what did I change in her body? Nothing, I mean I didn't actually change the shape. I smoothed out the skin and that was done with frequency separation, and then if you guys watched my contouring, watch that contouring. Boom, look at the arm. It's the contouring that makes it look so shiny and smooth, so when you see those celebrities in magazines, you got that going on. So guys, thank you to my lovely live audience. Thank you for joining me. It's definitely really useful to have your energy, and your smiles, and your head nods. And of course, thanks for everyone out there in CreativeLive internet land that joined me for this week on posing. So I will see you next time I'm back on CreativeLive, 'cause I'm definitely going to be. Thanks everybody (laughs). (audience clapping)