Lessons

Lesson Info

Class Introduction

Talk about studio um why a home studio? Uh, things like the expense, you know, I'd love to be in a in a studio somewhere, a larger space and be able to go out to it. But you hear when you talk about seven, eight, nine hundred dollars a month for a studio that you're not going to use every day it's, you know, it's not economically feasible. Um, remember, talking with I think was greg heisler a few years ago he said, you know, you had this studio manhattan for thirty years and probably spent million dollars and rent miller millions and rent over those years and realised he's a location person and, you know, he moved a studio into his home it's really a computer in a place to shoot some things and be with his family, you know, took him a long time to realize that. So that's, why I'm here, I get to spend time at home if I had a studio probably never see the family and I would always be out there playing with stuff. Um, so economics is a big reason and just lifestyle and family, and it is a...

part time thing not here to talk about running a business today it's more howto take photos, morpher hobbyist or someone gets started in business, so we can't answer business questions or zoning and things like that. Uh, those things they're all going to be pretty much local to you have to check in with your local authorities on zoning and the like, so, uh, fifteen minutes, you know, executive summary, though, for me is to get a soft, lighter, two lights, background stand and you're good to go, you know, I guess I was a fifteen second executive summary, but we'll cover a bunch of different lights today we're going to be talking about working with strobes, working with maybe a camera flash and compact fluorescent light bulbs fluorescence become really popular for continuous sliding because you can also do video with those I think you're looking at some of the stella is that we use here is video lights also worked for still photography, but we have some other sets. We're gonna have some models coming in a little while, but first, uh, let's see what kind of questions are popping up there on dh take a couple of those and he's, sure. So the biggest question that people want to know is, uh, how did you convince your wife camp to allow you teo set this up here, kind of take on shoot she's artistic, too, and she does photography I would sometimes argue that she's a better photographer than me she could go outside and do landscapes and stuff like that well, you know I need a studio and and people and be in control so she is a much better eyes than I do and we realize we don't really have many formal sit down dinners so we got to move the living room into the dining room and opened up the living room to be studio space but we can always set up a table in here if we have a bunch of visitors over this can become a a dining room really quick to sew but yeah having a really wonderful families one of the big secrets of this whole thing one of the questions that the internet has is um what size room is your studio? This room is approximately I think it's twelve feet wide by eighteen feet long but there's some shelves in this bench and things here so it cuts down the workable space that's probably uh nine by twelve working area work injury and that does that include your office space to uh yeah I just have a computer in the corner it's all turned off now but lots of cubbyholes yeah, yeah those someone asked about those in the forum yesterday um home furnishing stores have things like this kim actually saw them in a catalogue and said we need to get those and got that set up in so smarty pants would I don't know can a studio be functional within eight foot ceiling? What are the limitations and I know we'll be showing you we'll be we'll be talking about that I mean this may be disappointing to some people but I don't consider it a limitation I don't even think about it you know the ceiling is eight feet I can't do anything about it if I spend time thinking about how limiting is it's going to just women everything else so really it comes in the attitude that the ceiling is what it is we're going to work with it I will show you though how we can get a light up kind of hi um this soft lighters work well for that or on umbrella I tend to not use umbrellas that much though I know some photographers do really great work with it I started out in doing studio large format photography with soft boxes and things like that I never really got into the umbrella thing we'll also talk about later maybe catch lights and seeing the umbrella in the eyes I I kind of don't like the ribs and things like that so I moved away from umbrellas to soft boxes but now um there's the as I said the faux tech soft lighter which is a big umbrella with infusions sheet over the front it's sort of like an october box but it uh third the price and I think westcott has a new like coming out called the orb uh that's that's similar it's one of their foldable soft boxes like it's part of the apollo siri's but it gives you around deployed some people like round catch light some people like swear uh I don't have a super preference I'd kind of like square lights because I think of catch lights mimicking windows. I think of you know, old paint paintings is where you saw light coming through a door or a window and there's tend to be square, so I like square catch like there's other people out there who really like round catch lights thinking the sun is round. But my argument against that as someone's looking into the sun squinting and we're not going to see the catch light anyway. Now if I get a catch light outside it's maybe from the big open sky and that tends to be rectangular too. So I do like square catch lights, but you know, as long as there is a catch like you need to have some life in the eye if you look at it all my photos, I think you can really concentrate on the eyes and getting the color there and, um we'll talk about that a little more only talk about the difference between using continuous light using studio strobes using camera flashes where we have modeling lights or don't have modern lights and how that affects the iris uh mallory's abby asked do the colors of the wall you're walls matter I haven't noticed it I mean I'm you know this room is white but you knows I'm wearing an orange shirt back in the film days I almost always had an eighty one a filter on the camera I don't like using filters with digital, so this is my little cast back of orange into the tea to warm up the scene but um, working in a small studio, you know we'll talk about the inverse square law we've talked about that in a number of creative life classes work into the small studios sometimes I think is actually an advantage many times I see people get a new set of lights and they set him up in a big space and they put the model here and they have a little shoot through umbrella and they put it ten feet away and course that that a little umbrellas goingto light up the whole room and it's going to bounce off all the ceilings you'll see when we start working it's almost a claustrophobic thing, you know? I don't want me I can't work claustrophobic models because I'm gonna bring the lights in really close and as you know from the inverse square laws the the closer to the subject, the quick of the light's going to fall off to the background so there's not gonna be much light hitting the walls to bounce back in when we're working in the studio like this. So, of course, a neutral white, gray black we're gonna work. I like because it's a little brighter, but for what I'm doing, I haven't seen that it's a big issue, but I have a follow up. Okay, the color of your bandanna matter now that's just got a match to the t shirt or something. Uh, I have a question from f m c klein. Who says this is awesome? My wife has been trying to get me to bring my studio in house. How does your wife? How does your new how do your new clients react to your home studio? Um, well, as I said, I'm not really running this as a business. I'm mostly photographing for myself or with friends, but I do occasionally bring someone in, and it hasn't been an issue. I mean, that houses it's pretty warm and inviting, and I don't have kids running around that that helps too, with all the wires and cables and stuff. But I think more and more people are using home studios. I've talked to a number of photographers in the seattle area that have moved in from other places, and they're working here and they're working out of their homes to, um we had an instructor a couple of years ago, a creative live a creative text roseanne old sins is nearby here, and she works out of her home. Um, I can't remember his name is david hiller was on with john gringo couple years ago, and I just talked to him a couple of nights ago and you said, yeah, I'm working out of my home studio to, uh, you know, so I think people getting used to with clients and photographers because I said, you know, if I had the opportunity is really running a business and no shooting every day, uh, studio makes sense, but for me, this is what works uh, j d ito is wondering if your models get very concerned when they're going into another person's home to take pictures? No, I've usually met most people beforehand. Um, seattle's a kind of small city tries to be a big city that tries to be a small city, we all know each other, I mean, most of my friends are performers and that help oi, you know, they're we come in here and we do we'll do some concept shots for performance is there going to be doing so? I know I haven't had an issue there I do welcome people to bring someone along with them okay? Question from splashy mk deed is is your studio is your studio this room completely insulated from outside light now there's there's big windows here but I do have these kind of heavy curtains that can be pulled across this is a south facing window but but we're in seattle you know, it's very rarely bright enough to to really matter here but um yeah, so I have these the shades and the curtains and I could also put a piece of foam core over the window if I really needed to be dark by the time I really needed dark is if I was going to do like painting or, you know, playing with lasers or stuff like that like we did with jeremy coward last year uh, but white leakage hasn't been an issue. Uh, ruby marine ass I have two windows in the room where I want to set up my studio. What problems should I look out for from these windows? I guess it depends on how bright it is outside if their son comes straight through them if they're north facing windows that's probably not an issue at all south facing windows do have sun through through most of the day. Um, but sheets, a foam core, you can get it. Um, probably home, home decor stores, carry phone corps or art supply stores have it. We'll pull some out later to show you with, if you're not familiar with foam core, uh, coming either white and black, or wait, uh, so you could cover the windows pretty easily with them, and they're cheap, easy decree, cheap in light.