Lessons

Lesson Info

Joey L: Using Two Lights on Location

but what I'm goingto essentially do with this set up is try to do something different so before we were dependent on one light source right we're filling in to fill in the shadows so again pretending like this is a commission assignment for me I'm going to pretend like this is another subject that I have to photograph for the day individually and then later on I'll photograph all the models as a group shot right so this would be an individual set up for her it's a lot simpler right because there's just one person so that's all I'm thinking about for this but I want to take it a step beyond like just doing one light right so the first thing that we have to do a cz we have to kind of decide where are subjects going to be before we start placing lights and what the actual shot is going to be right so let me give you an idea of like what I'm kind of visioning here alright and then we'll go from there so before we had lydia standing up against the wall for me in this set up I think a lot of...

we could be a little bit more relaxed we have this like nice chase here which has been selected because it goes with the background I'll probably get rid of this this looks kind of like a mess just get just keeping it simple okay we have a lamp here which I think we can use this little bit of a motivated light source right so the first thing that I want to do is light our subject right make a beauty light for her a main light and then we can pretend this lamp is on set and see what it looks like but we might have to add something for that as well to motivate a nice warm light coming from a lamp but let's get this figured out where it's actually going to be placed I'm going to save myself a little bit of trouble and I know that if I start adding in mohr life especially from the back that I have a very small playing field here right if the couch is so close to the background it's going toe make a lot of problems for me later so if you could stand up killed let's bring this couch forward and let's change the set slightly so before we're right up against the wall let's see what happens if we bring it out maybe a little more a little more I don't know somewhere around there we can always tweak it again later let's get it squared with the wallet size little out yeah okay more or less that's a good starting place if you could do me a favor and sit on this side I'm looking at the couch and I'm noticing that like we have it kind of like I don't know what you call that a cushion and there it is she just sat down like looking comfortable than have to tell her much this is actually a pretty good starting place two at least test right and get the light going again I'm not going to give you too much direction in the starting we'll just get the light right once that's locked in we'll forget about it all right and then we'll start working with her and getting a good performance so to speak so main light first let's get this into position may be coming from this side okay and modeling lights not working that's not a problem we'll be able to test what I'm working with now is this a very similar modifier to what we're using before remember the first setup was an l in chrome rhoda looks octa bank this is similar but it's larger right so this is the seventy four inch I believe the seventy four inch octopus thing from ellen crone let me tell you the main difference of this modifier versus what were using before caleb if you want to pull off this diffusion before the last modifier the ball was actually turned toward where we're shooting right so we had a hot spot this the ball was actually turned inward and it's bouncing off this surface a lot more than before so it's actually going to be a lot softer of a light and we'll be able to feather a lot more on our subject so that's the main difference is both size but also the fact that this has turned the other way around let's get the diffusion back on there don't kill yourself guys with the modeling lights not working it's not a big deal so that's kind of my choice in modifier alright for this particular set up is it gonna work I don't know but it would be a good starting place to at least start testing the other thing about this surface is since we're not so close to the wall we might be able to walk away from that whole reflection problem we were sorting out before we might have a little bit more to play around since it's the largest source and it's farther away it might spread more evenly now I can start testing that but I think the best thing is to start thinking about what aperture I want to use in this particular set up because that's going to change the way that's going to influence the way the shot looks the most right it's a depth of field so I think I'm going to stick with my same fifty millimeter lens on my candid camera but I don't want to shoot with the sixteen because everything maybe shouldn't be in focus for this set up it would be nice to have a little bit of depth of field between here and the background so instead like looking at this set up like just with my eyes thinking maybe it's best to start around like a five point six so john if we could get that tax somewhere around a five point six if we have to tweak a little bit of a big deal okay so we're just in the power settings for my aperture right because that's going to control the power of the flash the way it reads into my sensor the other thing which is going on in the setting is there's a lot of natural light coming in right there's a lot of light which could flood our scene which could influence how the shot looks especially coming down at a five point six so I can I can control that individually with the shutter speed right to absorb the ambient light but we'll get there one step at a time okay so the first thing is let's position this main light and let's get it up high kind of at the same principles were using before which is to say a little higher than I level from the centre of where the ball biz also I want to say killed if we could till this down slightly so it's like not quite a forty five degree angle but tilted down what that's going to do is give us more depth right because the light's not coming on flat we have also some shadows coming down the face if we're thinking about this image and we want to do more of like a dark moody vibe or like lounging type five that's going to give us a lot of depth okay now the other thing that I'm thinking about here is where I'm putting my main light obviously I wouldn't put it here because the students wouldn't see but normally if I'm thinking about the actual set I'm also thinking about what I might do next after the main light knows we have this lamp here right so remember yesterday how I was giving examples of putting the main light on the opposite side of the rim light or the backlight if we decided to turn this lamp on and have the light coming from this way that means that the main light would put shadows on this side of her face right so that would mean if we did put something here you could see it more because we could see this light through the shadow on her face from that side but again we'll get there one step at a time let's not clutter our minds too much and let's get something good so let's light for the wide I think for my shot like just as a starting point where I'd kind of like like to be is maybe like around here like this I don't wanna be so wide before it will be like a solo shot so I think we can actually walk this in closer and get a better quality okay let's say something around there may be a little too close back it up something like that looking at the position this light is already extremely soft to begin with so we probably don't have to feather it too much let's let's do a test with it in this position that's good the other thing is remember with the catch light we have like such a large source so close to the face right if you're looking at this behind the scenes it looks like kind of wacky like why the towering thing on because we're getting that nice wrapping light and also we're getting a large catch light in the eye okay so let's test this do have my camera okay let's go this way thanks for that so again I'm still using the same fifty millimeter lens as before exact same camera system my shutter speed is one hundred twenty fifth of a second uh just to try to like get rid of as much ambient is here as possible that's a good starting point and we can always tweak from there but let's do a test so did we put this pack to match a five point six more or less did you do that let's not use the light meter because most people don't have one out there so let's just let's just weak with hester ground all right oh and yes the great card reading let's do that before we get yelled at on the internet again okay so let's let's let's pick that in there and again a lot I don't need to worry too much about us testing now okay there it is coming on the screen jesse could you get the eyedropper and select the great card so I get a good color bounce and it seems like our settings from before are being applied on this image can you make sure those are turned off so remember before we put some custom settings on capital and just just go to this uh go to where I put them on you could just reset them their next one okay so they're off that's good okay so jessie can you get the eyedropper and then select the gray area on your great card and again for those who hadn't tuned in yesterday they're probably thinking like why's this great card so whack is because we like to use it as a tool to spite anyone who wants to go out and spend hundreds of dollars on a great card yes it's not exactly the true gray that you want but we've been using it since the beginning since we forgot it one day and it's like a good omen for us to bring on set that's why we used the great card okay so let's see what's going on as a starting place a lot and I'm gonna have you look at it me first in this set up just so I can get an idea of how the catch light is on you're I let's see so I'm just making sure I'm careful with the focus that somewhere near her I and I'm not really worried about composition or anything right now I couldn't do that I can focus on that more when the lights locked in instead of what I'm kind of focusing on now is just like the light quality and how it's hitting her face with her looking this way okay so let's have a look just as a starting place that's not bad jesse can you zoom in to the eyes for me okay so not bad it looks like we have a really nice catch light really nice reflection in the eyes zoom out jesse I think we can do a little bit better with position excuse me with positioning the light like everything looks good with her pose and like especially for faces this way but to me the whiting looks kind of flat and I know that this off the bank is extremely picky whether it's here or whether it's here we could get a completely different quality of light so the first thing I'm going to say to get rid of the flatness is let's raise the height of it okay let's raise it by about a foot okay good and the other thing that I want to do is let's feather it offer right so let's purposely try to miss her with the light and let's see what happens all right so look at this this looks like completely like amateur hour like what the hell they're not even letting the subjects but what's gonna happen is we might get like a nicer quality on her face because now she's just getting the feather the bulk of this light is being thrown this way she might just get a feather the other thing that I foresee might happening is that this background might get a little darker right because we kind of turned away from the wall so let's do a test and let's see what this is what this is doing for us here a lot everything you're doing is greatest for the test thank you let's see the difference between those two shots um jesse could you do me a favor and compare those two so jessie's going to throw up side by side the last two images that we just photographed there it isthe so looking on the left it was yes it was a little brighter and removed it but we can also notice the quality of light and how it's changed on the face lightly to me the version on the right looks like a little bit more masterful it kind of looks like we know what we're doing although this doesn't really look like that but at least in the photo it looks better as well as I was right when the background got darker but I know that I might add in more backlight to this image so a dark background can actually kind of helped the vibe right it can help this look a little bit more cohesive and thought out from start to finish with all the lights so looking at this can you zoom into the face jesse for the last one that we just took uh you into a lot of faith to me what would be nice is maybe even if we screwed up this main light a little bit more on purpose because let's look at her face right look at the shaded side turning toward the lens so we get a little bit more of a dramatic field if we closed off these shadows on the face a little more so meaning if we walked the light slightly that way okay a little more okay we could enhance the contrast and enhance like the drama of the picture let's even turn it off for a little more waki waki lighting setup there it is okay let's see what this does for us just that really subtle move so how far do we move that like one foot that's it not not even okay let's see how this change the image and if we could get a nicer quality on her face okay could you compare those less to actually this is not a fair comparison because I think she moved there change can you pull those up real quick jessie yeah okay let me take one more test ignore that last one can you turn your chin just slightly that way okay perfect okay let me see all right pull the last one up and then skip one and the one before let's look at the quality in between these two things it looks like the side of the face that was turned toward the camera got a little darker and it's not fair because their chins like turn a little bit toward but I think just that slight tweak help us let's do one more test shot where you're looking this way turn your chin a little bit more away from me let's see what this looks like here so it looks like we're getting a deeper contrast toward the camera I even think hale we can even feather it a little more away from her this is getting totally whacky now and I was just getting stupid that it is all right let's see and bring your chin back to me a little and perfect okay and zoom in to the eyes for me jesse okay that looks really nice to me now so again like really subtle movements just changing the field of the image I know that this is such a large source that she could be free in her movements and like whether she's slightly over here or over here I'm still gonna have this like quality of light on the side of her face zoom out again for me jesse okay cool now that we have the main light set let's think a little bit about backlight and what we're going to be doing in this set up killed can you throw that lamp on that just happens to be there so nice in the composition okay let's see what's happening with this just with our eyes let's look at this so we have one hundred twenty fifth of a shutter speed and looking at my eyes like there's no way that this lamp is like ripping us hard as like this octo bank right actually pull the pull the pull the shade off um I look better with no shade there you go that's that's even better rotate evolves toward me there it is let's let's do something like this to me that that is a set a little better let's let's sneak it up this way a little closer toward alana uh to fargo in between split the difference if you could hide the cord nice there too all right so this meal looks nice we have like these kind of like bob lamps and might fifth industrial feel of what we're doing but the main thing is it's like looking at this light if I took a test shot I know like there's no way that this light is going to balance properly with this job let's let's do a little test on let's see what it actually looks like here quick little test let's see we got a little caleb in the background but that's okay let's see what this looks like so the light is like it's okay is there but it's not very bright at all right so it is not going to affect her hair or that shaded side of the face naturally but it does give us a nice practical light to draw up some kind of motivation right so if we wanted to add in another strobe pretending that the light is coming from that direction we totally could and we could use the intensity of that strobe to then feel like where her hair is but before we do that let's do a little experiment if you guys want to step out for a minute so we're at one hundred twenty fifth of a second right I can drag the shutter a little bit on this camera or even use a higher so to make that light come or alive so I know what I can get away with like handholding right so let's let me see like one fiftieth of a second versus one hundred twenty fifth just if I can see this bob a little bit more and even with my eyes I can see it like just kind of like glaring but what we're trying to do is ah absorbed the light and like drag the shutter so we incorporate more of this light end only problem is we're shooting in the studio so as we draw on light from this lamp we also drawn light like from all these windows around us if I were actually doing this photoshoot for riel without a creative live broadcast right and you didn't have to see me I would totally black out the entire set so that we didn't have any lights bleeding into us but because like we also need to broadcast for online it gives us an even greater challenge which is good so we can work we can work through it right so we can bounce so this is an interesting challenge for me right now so I have a change the er shutter speed from one hundred twenty fifth two fifty if nothing else has changed let's see if we can make that light come like a little bit more alive and jesse if you could do me a favor and compare the last two there it is so it looks like the bulbs are coming like a little bit more little bit more balance can you give me the history gram of that last photo that we took perfect so looking at the history and I know it's a dark image already it looks a little flat but because this monitors cow branded and because like we have a lot of black it doesn't worry me too much so with that said let's put on another light and let's pretend like it's coming from this side and in the meantime what I can do before start testing is asked some questions while those guys figure that out are there any questions from our studio audience or what is going on with my thought process let's just talk about the main light for now since this is going to throw a different variable on it there it is so at what point you think since you're feathering so much that likes almost coming back at you now that you're going to start adjusting your lee filter adjust my the thing yeah exactly so it's a good point as like right now I think it's pretty good but let's suppose this light was like turn more toward me if I wanted to adjust this to stop flare could do just like one of these right also since I don't have a wide angle lens is quite a long lens of fifty I'm not going to be able to see this in the corner of my frame whereas if I was using a lot uh wide lines I'd have to be like really careful about what I'm doing thank you hey you're welcome that's what I'm here for now the question in the audience can you talk a little bit about the house the feathering a feisty catch light in the ice how does the feathering effect catch light in the eyes very good question because as you know look at this like a wacky set of it's like not even hitting our subject more or less but because it's so large and because it's close to the face we still see the reflection however what's going to change is just going to go into the eyes so let's pull us up on the screen so yes we can still see it but it just changes the position right so suppose we had the main light coming from that side it would be in the other side of the eye if it were more straight on we would see more of the octagon shape so it just it just changing the shape as a reflection if you had a mere here and the mirror was like in front of her face imagine looking at that and then seeing the main light pan across the scene and be doing almost exact same thing because the eyes just reflecting this back it's like a glassy surface yes sir speaking of catch light in the eyes in the previous set with previous model there was ah catch light but it was I think it was one of the windows over here how would you get rid of that quote I don't see it as much there close the window you what if you can't close the window if you can't close the window you could do several things you would want to get rid of the ambient light right so I was shooting on f sixteen so if you still are seeing ambient light it's gotta be pretty bright you could increase the shutter speed which would might mess up like the sink to the pack if you go over like two hundredth of a second you might be seeing the curtain if you still seem the catch line you like I can close that window get a piece of black foam core put in front if you can't do that then you could start using indy filters right so you could drop the entire ambience of the entire scene but anything that you drop in front of the lens you're going to have to compensate with the higher flash power so if you really wanted to get rid of it put the nd filters in like this okay so you had a three stop exposure three some filter you have put that sucker in increase this three stops and anything else which is happening on set and you would kill the window eventually but my advice is just just to put something in front of the window yes I just had a general question what would be the biggest differences in the quality of light we would see if you chose to just lessen the power of your stroke versus the feathering offers so how would the quality change lessing the power of the strobe versus feathering it so actually the quality wouldn't change is the intensity right so the position is what I'm saying quality I mean like it's relating to the position right so if this was like right on her and then you turn down the intensity you would have the same shape right it would be the same shape of light but it also it would be lower right but if we come to the side and that's what changing the actual shape so whether this is like dialed up or whether this is dialed down the position is not going to change to the shapes not going change you're welcome questions from the internet are coming in like crazy right now for you the first one is from our m j f photo who is wondering how you determined where you place your main light on the left or right side of your subject ok so I looked for this there could be a few different variables going on if we could get a shot of alana the first thing which might make me determine where to put the main light is like where her hair's falling actually because suppose like this side of her face like on the left side so it was like blocking her face more right that could mess up my catch light or it could mess up the quality because he would get a shadow of the hair on the face so honestly I'm looking at my subject first and seeing what is going to make them look the best that's number one the second thing is is we have our studio audience here is going to block the view that's number two third thing is the composition in what I'm choosing with this back light on okay we wanna have the shade on her face which is to say the flash from the main light is putting a shadow on the opposite side of the face I know that I want to add in another backlight coming from that way okay with the shaded side of the face toward the backlight I know later on when we test it will be able to see it more right because the shade will be able to reveal the light from behind if the main light in this said it was swapped okay and the bright side of her face was on the other side it would be really hard to see the light influencing from the other side so this is kind of my rule of thumb is if I do have like just one back light typically toe add a layer of production value I'll just put it to the opposite side of the face and you saw that yesterday with the ethiopia set ups I have one son and one light so to get the most production value I'm kind of like contriving where the lights and fall fantastic thank you and I like how he eriks explaining how your thinking one step ahead are two steps through such four steps ahead most times I don't know what I'm thinking I'm out it's really hard for me they're like uh do a set up and explain what's going on in my head because a lot of things are just at the back of my brain and I think it's a good thing but a good tool for a photographer is just like you need to be technical like it's science and art but it's best if you could just leave it at the back of your brains they're actually thinking about the shot on dh what shot you're trying to pull off technically first but then also for someone who doesn't know photography are they still going to like the image so keep the technical stuff of the back your brain learn it and then forget about it one more question because several people have asked this are their situations when you had set the practical the ambient light before bringing in the main light s so typically I always start with the main light because I want to see how it's influencing the subject if there was a scene in which I couldn't notice the practical light what I might do is actually do a test where I turned the main light off and I just have the practical light or any light rim light practical light on andi I could kind of gauge where exactly that's affecting so for example if I was photographing like really high in studio set a seamless set and we're trying to light a white background evenly and then back light from behind it might make sense to actually turn off the main light because that might be bleeding onto the white surface but behind so it might make sense to turn it off but typically in my setups I'm always starting with the main light first because that's how that's gonna affect how my subject looks wait should we get back to it that's it keep going all right let's let her rip all right so okay look look what we have here okay on this side I'm going to stop sitting cross legged like my kindergarten students over here I love the use beauty dishes back lights right because first of all they're soft wrapping source from the front but they also work for great back lights for that very reason so if we look at this lamp and the way like the light actually is it's kind of like soft right and wrapping so we can choose a modifier which is similar um the other thing that you'll notice is inside of this beauty dish we have a grid okay there it is without so what does the grid do is this going to focus the light it's gonna point it in one direction and be ableto like uh what I said focus it alright so you can put it without the grid the light is going to let you spray everywhere which is beneficial in some circumstances but in this let's think about what we want to do to the photo first is looking at that photo we want to pretend like this light is coming from that lamp so we just want to like put it here we don't want to spill everywhere another thing that I'm thinking about now is yes this modeling light eyes warm but the actual flashes daylight balance so what we can do caleb if you want to grab some cto and what we can do is we can put it inside this beauty dish so that the white color also matches the source that we're trying to motivate right so if we have the color the shape hopefully if we add a light it'll appear like it's coming from the lamp all right and appear like that light sources coming there so let's throw this on what we can dio do we have some gaff tape all right so what we can do is we can cover the entire dish we could just cover the entire dish in the surface of the cto let me let me show this to the camera all right so this is a half stop cto meaning that it's like color temperature or cto means color temperature orange it comes in a variety of different strengths this one is half stop you could go full stop go quarter stop typically might go to a tool to start with his half stop if I want to make this like even more orange there it is there's that full stop okay there's a false not perfect so if I wanted to make this like insanely orange could do something like that but I think just as a starting place let's start with the half it was put it in we're going to tape it on the outside of the light if you don't have a lot of cto when you can do is just tape it around the ball that works too but it's not going to give quite the same intensity of colors like covering the entire outside surface because what happens is the light flashes it goes through the color but then is projected through the white of the dish so you're actually changing the color temperature right so if we put it on the outside of the light we can have a more intense orange color the other thing that I'm going to say is I know my frame and I think like where the slightest position right now is probably going to be in yeah too tight so we'll probably just have to walk back slightly that way but let me get my frame first on let's see what it's going to do let's also think of the intensity of this light and where should be john what is the power on this pact right now that's a five point six okay so let's think about this this light is a five point six in power but it is going through layers of diffusion right this light is going through a layer of cto but it's like a dish which is going to throw the light using my intuition not say it's going to be perfect when we start but let's put that in like a four ok I'm just guessing like no idea what's going on what's going to work and let's not use a light meter let's just see from the test on let's go from there a lot if you could look that way what I'm going to do is also position it okay so where I kind of want it to fall is like maybe like on the back of her hair and maybe just like stretching across her face because we see the face is falling in in the shadows so if there was a little bit of orange there that could be nice it might not do exactly what this is doing in real life but we won't be able to tell the difference okay it looks like a motivated light source so kills you want a position that grid hitting just like kind of what I said on the back of her face right now I can see what the modeling light which which which is on a little bit like phar down here would probably want to tip it up so the strength of the dishes coming from around there see turn your chin slightly this way so another interesting thing I don't know if we could get a good shot of her face here okay um do me a favor alana and turn your chin this way okay not so much come back a little bit let's look at the modeling light and it's actually like hitting her nose here this might be something like which is not desirable because we might have something coming from the back nice warm white here but then like there's a light on the nose my personal preference is I don't like doing that so come reaching a little this way moving in now it's gone right so I could do a few things with like pointing the light back further against the wall so she could look that way or I could just keep note of that when I'm taking the photo um killed let's push this back as far as we can against the mall against the wall so that she is not like I can only stay here I can't move this way okay so while this is being set up I think what we can do is do a test shot ah and we can see where exactly we're going with this let's make sure that we're firing on test test button okay everything looks good to go again I'll give you some direction where we're actually photographing killed that light has to be walked this way I can see it in the corner of my friend uh just a little more and then we're good thanks okay I call so let's see just as a test let's see like what's what exactly is going on here okay jesse if you could do me a favor and compared those those two shots that we just did versus okay so can everyone see whats going around with the back light not bad for guess here it is okay so looking at the direction of the light coming from these evolves if you look at the couch down below um way have like a little bit of a glare hero I'll show a lot of time so she could learn about photography we have like a little bit of glare on the couch down down from below which looks like it's coming from the bulbs that looks great we also have her hair is now completely motivated by those balls that looks like it's coming from that direction zoom into the face of jesse also just as I predicted the shadows are becoming a little bit orange in tone so everything is kind of fitting together here in this set up zoom out a little bit jesse even a nice kind of mistake that I didn't count on happening um compare those two again for me another hidden gem that I didn't count on is it looks like the flash actually passed through the bulbs and it brightened them so it looks as if the bulbs are brighter now right and we didn't really count for that I see like we could do one more thing with this set up is we might want to put like a little bit of light here that looks orange so why don't we throw in something like do we have like a little zoom reflected with a really tight grid I know we didn't count on this but I think it looks better what if I'm not saying it's going to work but what if we had just handheld like a little flesh and we put it on the background behind the lamp so it looks like it has a little bit of a glow to it because I'm kind of maxed out with dragging the shutter don't really want to adjust the I s o because all the light in this room is like so like bleeding into our set and flooding so what if we added another light and you're sort of like I don't know had like someone hold it here they were not heading here but just on the background and we put like a little a little splash of light here could work could not I don't know we'll get there in the meantime while those guys were figuring that out um I can take this opportunity to have a little q and a session yes grabbed the mike um one second we're also going to need some cto on it to match the lamp yes what another option b like you're talking about the beauty dish would spill more if you hadn't grated it if you took the grid off with that spill on the background as well and give you something that you wanted or you wouldn't spill on the background so if we took the grid off it would spill on the background but it would give away our trick right because it would all be coming from the side versus from the lamp so if we took the great off would be like oh wait that's not coming from the lamp at all so yes the greatest to focus in on the subject but it's also to keep it off that background because in the corner of the frame we see like light in its most high intensity coming from that way so might have to do a little photo shop doctoring to fix that up and that we want to stay away from that we want to make the image as good as it could be straight out of camera yes this might be just a little bit off topic but hearing what is my favorite food now here in the studio we've got this excellent ambient noise of like somebody landscaping outside or something I heard that on a commercial set do you use any music or anything like that to keep afloat going lee yeah so obviously we're broadcasting to the internet people have to hear what I'm saying right so we won't be like blaring music but on set I feel it helps the vibe so like when we did killing lincoln for national geographic is a very dark vibe we actually put on like some nice soundtracks of moody music like help the actors get in the vibe for doing like a fun quirky shoot well put on some nice pop music I think that the mood should mash what you're shooting it like helps everybody get in the same group but for now the music is gonna be silence cool any other questions from the audience before we go to the the world wide web I was just wondering um how do you choose your composition because it seems like it might be hard to change it afterwards if you find one that's not really working for you um you know yeah how how how would I adjust this composition or how would I choose it from the beginning again from the beginning it's all kind of intuition so I looked at the couch and I just saw how she'd like sat down naturally is she like put her arm up I was like that could be in interesting I knew that I wanted to put in the lamp so I chose like doing a landscape version this could totally work in million different ways right we could come wider we could go vertical we could shoot from that is that that side like I could go like more this way and have her looking up that way like there's a million different things that we could do with this composition it really just comes down to what I kind of saw during the test actually since we're shooting right now and just testing this will probably not be my exact final composition but once we're set I kind of like to light like a cinematographer once everything's locked down then I'll be bumping around trying to find how my set like it's the best in the frame so oftentimes with light like we can light things really particularly so the subject can't move but we know like more or less in this space she could move around like this doctor bank is huge whether she's looking this way or that way it's still gonna still gonna work thanks for your question isn't it okay cool any from the internet before we move on they're always questions from the internet one is from dpc dirt diver who asked I've never used a power pack like the one you're using right now and you leave your flash on full power and just adjust the power on the power pack to give you the power range that you are going for so what we did when we started was we used the light meter to get a reading right and that told us how powerful the flash wass I don't leave thing's on full it totally depends on what we're photographing full power on this pack might need maybe might be used for outside needing the overpower the sun that might be something we need to like blast the power for again it totally depends on the pack and knowing your gear and where the strength is if you don't have a light meter for this inside we knew kind of where to start because we're in the shade right so we didn't have to like block out the sun and overpower everything so that and also we're shooting a five point six aperture eso for me is sort of like sweet spot is just knowing what where and what to do when I'm traveling in ethiopia we use the seven b pro photo power pack is an outdated I have the older one I don't have to be three yet but I kind of know if it's sunrise or sunset where to put the power and I know that the full strength of that pack is like one thousand two hundred watt seconds something about and this one I think is double so itjust again goes back to knowing your gear and how far you can push it great great before we have back a couple of people including peanuts and bill forty five but could you tell us what the degree of the grid and the beauty dish is and does it no matter it's a twenty five degree great yeah that's uh that's that's a standard grid that comes with most pro forty beauticians and yes it totally matters because with the grid adjust amount of focus right so if we had a tighter grid which is to say less room in between write these wholes the spaces it would focus the light harder not hearts or he would focus the light narrow what is the word I'm looking for a narrow yeah it would focus the light and be more narrow a wider grid with larger spaces would be more spread out so for example you'll notice when I got these guys to get this right I told them to put like a really tight grid on it because I want to do something very narrow if that changes and if I do something different and like the spot is too small on the background I'll go with the larger grid so the standard kind of grid that goes with the beauty of twenty five degrees I find it works in most scenarios fantastic thank you no problem all right so let's get back to testing here so guys I noticed that you put this light from here which is not gonna work because instead actually it might work but what I think might be better is if we hide it more behind the land because yes we can hit it off here but I think it'll look more natural if it's like not hitting and it'll just be like putting a little cast here so we have the modeling light on inside this thing that's not the right angle it has to be like more from about here we have the modeling light on inside so we can kind of get a preview of where it's going to hit and this is on its own separate power so we can adjust it so let's see where we're at let's let's aim it so it's like kind of around here let me see yeah that's good ok and let's match the power of this light with the same as the beauty dish just this kind of a starting point okay and let's see what that actually looks like okay let's see what this looks everything you're doing is good alana will direct you to get the lighting figured out see okay there it is so jesse could you compare the last two okay well this worked out well for the first test not bad looking at that now it appears like we kind of have like a glow from the lamp right if we were to add I think looking at the globe looks a little bit too low let's heighten the stand so like the bulk of this wash goes up higher like behind where the bulbs are it's also going to get going a matter like if I come up here right perspective move it back down but I know I'm kind of being like a little bit I level with you alana so as long as that somewhere around there this is starting to look lit up now it's starting to look a little bit more motivated speaking about the grid I think it's a good choice because we just want to keep it tight again if we use the larger grid would like spread everywhere we just want to keep it tight pretending that it's coming from that area so let's see here and let's see what this looks like all we did between this shot and the last one if we moved it up higher killed just just pan the actual head don't don't don't don't just the height of the stand but just knock it up a little bit we'll see higher higher okay good all right let's see what that does for us now okay cool and if you could compare that with the last picture ok that's much better now so it looks like the glow is actually coming from the bulb I would actually split the difference caleb and take just a little lower so it looks like it's going in between that position okay that's good there it is so all we did was adjust the height of that and now it kind of looks like the lamp is on it looks like it has the strength of a stroke but we have the bulbs all right so I think that looks very nice good starting place I think the next step what I would do is move on to the actual color grade right so before members and capture one dis saturating playing with exposure for this I'm going to mess around as well and see what I can kind of come up with as a look for this shoot so just see if I could get behind you here so for me looking at this image in order to tie everything together I think my starting place what I might do is dis saturated it again and do the exact same thing to the last image so there's all the way all right black and white we want to kind of split the difference something like just going off my eyes here maybe something like that contrasts it's pretty contrast it to begin with I don't think I want to lose any more detail in the blacks but what I want I want to do let's go back into the curve line and play with that and see what happens like maybe if we got this little warmer okay so since we have like a nice warm lamp right influencing the scene perhaps we could change the vibe overall to reflect that so again I'll get the blue curve line and kind of pull that down just using my eye there's no riel rule of phone the warm light is going to be a mixture of yellow and red so I just added more yellow let me add oh my god with well then add a little more red let's see uh okay something perhaps around there let me look at this on the other monitor two looks a little green to me to my eye so what we can do is add the opposite of green on this curve at a little like purple magenta to it and see like that there you go let me show you thing pulling that down just kind of makes everything a little warmer doesn't it when you add a little purple on top so let's compare those last two just like with a colored grade and without there's the difference okay we have a look at this martin make sure I'm did it right ok cool yeah so it's it's a very subtle difference but I think when we're shooting this example on the far right to me looks like a lot more cohesive right it looks like better so when I'm shooting jesse if we can apply that on the photos coming in um I think that will help the shoot look better to anyone who happens to be watching any questions about this before we go on to the shooting aspect of what we're doing I'm getting the go ahead to just keep shooting okay as long as we have a bright bunch and everyone knows what's going on all right cool so looking at this now I'm going to start thinking about composition okay since everything's sorted out I kind of like what's going on here but I can really work with a lot and get like the pot's right you know get what's going on just from the starting place I think we can move around a lot more than before she has kind of like an easier stage so to speak but I know she's going to be sitting there so the first thing is like I'm looking at this cushion maybe if you like drag your hands like your hand a little bit overtime just resting exactly um before I give you direction let's see you asked me about composition let's see how much variation we could get out of the setting so we could always go oh my god ignore that trigger happy we could always go like something like this and get like vertical ignore that photo hold on we can always get like something vertical I'm seeing like the corner of the couch right we can come a little wider this might be something else here like this okay I could probably get wide on this one too like this another thing that might work while I'm shooting is I could like come more from this way right and get like more shaded side toward the camera or bounce around and get a whole bunch of different like variations of this exact same set up you happy okay they're all right there it is there's my client for the day okay now the lights set let's just completely forget about it all right and let's work with alana and gets imposes I think you've done this before on creative lives so what would be great is just if each time I flash you switch it up slightly just very very small variations and very subtle differences but as long as you're sitting more or less around there we're gonna be good okay one second okay perfect so the goal here exactly just like you're inside you relaxed lounge you kind of get the idea looking at the monitor okay that's great I love the way your kind of spread out on the couch leaning down all that stuff looks nice even if you lean further down so since we're using such like a large source I'm actually like not even worried about her moving down because it's still going to be good the only thing which might change is caleb if you want to get on that backlight and just maybe pan and follow her if she decides to lean down more let's get the eyes back on the lens let me see what this looks like stay there for one second so again she's leaning all the way down it looks like we don't have to change that don't worry about it killed forget what I said even her like leaning down there we're still in the sweet spot of light we have like a huge source right so it'll totally work and we can keep getting more and more stuff let me get even a little wide wider with I'm not cross maybe let's just like relax your fingers that are on the jacket that's nice when you put it up on your knee there and turn your eyes and look here at my loves maybe the hand that's in your hair fits up slightly higher yes let's go back to how we started now I think we got that if you want to sit up and maybe like slider bum this way as far as you can on the thing okay that's nice and if you kind of like lean down exactly so to make this composition that I'm seeing now let's have a look at it on the monitor um some things have changed to make it a little bit tighter what we can do is actually like move the lamp and she did a little bit this way to the right caleb come look at the screen here for a second let's cheat the light this way okay and put it more like here then we'll get another variation and the word I'm using cheat is like what we use on film sets because like we're just pretending like that it's supposed to be there that's what I say when that's what I mean when I say cheat the light so let's walk this way with the light we also have to move and cheat the glow so if you want a pan that a little bit to caleb the other thing is she leaned forward so let's go back to what we just shot jesse she leaned forward the lights a little bit hot let's take this down quarter stop so I noticed the light on her face was little different moving that way so let's take let's take her down there it is okay so let's see if we can get this composition figured out can you do it like a similar post where you were perfect let's see how this has changed okay one minute perfect so we need a lead over glow still looks good you can probably pan it up just slightly caleb um other than that I think everything else looks pretty good oh that's really nice when you bring your hand up and I can see it if the other one was relaxed like it was before like just on this side of the exactly bring it back to where you had it yet and your help before something around there looks good I'm giving her like a little bit of time in between east exposure to switch it up slightly I'll go like vertical and horizontal so I get like a lot of different options in the same set see if I could even get close up here in the same set for this close of a making sure like I don't crop off any of her arms because we're so close up now let's see yet for these since I'm portrait's gonna look best if you're looking at at the lens and put your other hand up near hyde you're kind of doing interesting things like around your neck before exactly great great let's get something different let's uh switch it up a bit and maybe so your turn profile to me this way this could be nice um do you wantto do you mind if killed fixes your hair okay killed do you want to just like draper hair just so it's a little bit more toward me so looking at this let's not do over the there it is okay maybe some of that I don't know if we want over the chair can it can I see what it's like just like behind you inside this might be a little like I saw a photo tweeted yeah that's better I saw photos tweeted recently of a guy who is in an airplane and the girl in front of him on the seat had her hair over him over the seat from behind it was blocking his screen good let's let's try not to do that all right and can I have you turning heads slightly toward me yeah something like that might be nice let's treat the light back to where we had it originally I confer see something happening here where we might have to justice main light right because your face has changed so much but let's see what we can get first so I'm gonna just her pose later does that lam go any lower no it's a it's a fixed tight is it ok no no worries let's see what we're getting here let's do a quick little test shot so looking at this interesting but I think we could get more dramatic let's walk this main light that way okay so now we have a more shaded hold on shaded side of the face toward the lens lets get it like if we do like this light like almost like right here I think right so if we want to get something like really dramatic and this is just the beauty light on lee has no motivation it's just meant to look cool what if we walk it like there and we have like the shade toward us it could give us a completely different variations let's see here this is a good starting point let's see what this looks like I'm gonna be a little wider here can you back that not the other one let's back it up the beauty dish we see a quick test I think we have to back this up more the octo bank I'm going to go wide here gentlemen not bad let's get this octo bank up higher let's do something else I think that's good let me see here so again a lot I'll give you some direction once I know what I'm doing with lighting if this was a real set I wouldn't be like tweaking like a madman when like the person sitting here instead of what I do is big you know take a five minute man that minute break you don't get that like this is good move your face a little more toward me like your chin exactly and I like how when you look down your eyes look relaxed ah don't close them no lets you look up a little higher exactly something like that let's see okay nice let's get that light up higher raise it up so I'm looking at the quality of her face right and and how the lightest changing on her face as we move that in height since she's laying down it's sort of like we're like lighting her in a different way we wanted that triangle toward us let's get it up even higher getting something different in the same said I could go wider you see you okay let me have a look at this nope nope okay this is something interesting now everything looks good to me except killed let's raise this light slightly higher can ever ever everyone see that jesse can you compare the difference of this verse is not the last one with one before put those two up so that's us adjusting the height of our main light the octo bank see I was just like completely flat on her face laying down but now it's up high it's the same kind of like um technique we're using where we're keeping it above eye level it's because she's laying down so I kind of like this okay that's all that's going on there show me the last one big jessie we'll see if we're close lighting for the wide this means that this would also make a great close up but we'll get there first is there any way that you can walk that dish out from behind slightly more if if there is not just tell me know and I'll frame it differently yes lie the slide the the boom arm should be unplugged all the all the cameras okay so alana for you I really like what you're doing everything's perfect only thing I might change is your hand that's toward me looks little clothes if I could just see your fingers relaxing that's all okay perfect well we'll get a plumber bone there this okay so let's see what this looks like why everything you're doing is great along I would stay like that just because the lights so particular okay everything that's good except I'm dutch I'm like totally crooked that's my mistake perfect and I would just stay like that because this is all good I'm just gonna change composition and bounce around to get a bunch of different stuff I'm not too careful about what I'm doing with this land back here because to me if you like frame it to perfectly it might appear like we're trying to like oh there's the lamp let's get it in and might come off as a bit like pretentious framing rights which is to say like make everything perfect like it might look a little place instead I kind of prefer like cropping it a little bit let's go in closer for the close up I'm not even going to care about putting in that lamp because I'd rather make this lake a nice portrait killed can you back that lamp up slightly on alana everything you're doing is off awesome one change anything well um turn your roll your head toward me a little more exactly and let's put your eyes more like follow them with my hand walk I think your eyes right there is perfect I love the relaxed mouth everything looks good lesson drape your fingers a little bit more exactly gonna go even closer and again just looking what see where your eyes are right there looks perfect just gaze out on just pretend something is very soothing going on in this direction might be jesse jesse give her your most soothing soothing expression there I'm noticing I'm cutting out her hands a little bit so much up relation up just a little higher exactly and I was looking a little higher no put it back the way they were I was wrong there it is okay cool I think all this stuff is good give yourself a break I mean you might be relaxed in that in that policy may be good jesse real quick let's flip through these images and let's see where we ended up here you can too if you want you can come over here it's all good I think I prefer the wider shots nice go a little wider when we were doing over there is yeah I think that's nicer all that right there keep going through go back I think for me like the sweet spot of the shoot with something go back a little more something like around these right I wasn't like too careful about framing in the bulbs because again it might look like oh we have a lead let's place it on set it's okay to crop those things off because then they look like the kind of natural in the environment and we're caring more about her than the background but I think with this set up we got a lot of different variation again we started with her up and then we laid her down I saw that the light wasn't being so nice when she was laying down because we're over here so we gave it more of a like contrast he looked by walking away from us shooting with the shaded side toward the camera to match the dark kind of vibe on dh that was my thinking process behind when she likes suddenly laid down and I saw something I saw uh how the photo could look if we had adjusted lighting when do you call it done I mean is that a collaborative process is well or do you just say hey guys I think we got it we got enough variety or do you kind of turned your clans say hey do you want to see anything else or how does that communication kind of work yeah so that all depends on schedule right so if I'm doing multiple things in a day if there's more time all right and I feel like we've gotten it what I'll do is I'll do like a variation right so when we first started off like we got it we got a portrait of her lighting look look nice that kind of like I told the story okay like we had like her looking good that was good but I knew we had more time so it's like why not make more variations because to me the thing we did second ended up being a little better I think like this is a nicer shots and how we started um so if I have more time I'll keep tweaking until I'm dead do you know if there's time to do stuff I'll keep getting more and more variations however if there's other shots to think about that are gonna happen later on in the day like when we got it we got it cause I'd rather like earn a little time here to like put it there ok so that's why again I'm usually starting with like more complex set up it's in the starting of the day because like we don't know what's gonna happen later on to be best to start complex and get a little simpler are you always so when she laid down you got down on your bucks you're always staying level with her I little not always there is no rule of thumb for this particular set up I thought it helped us kind of get in the same state of mind is the model it but I mean this could totally work if we like framed up and got like more like view across the cows here let lay down for a minute alone we still tell her so I know we have like limited time but if we did come up higher we could still like make it make it look nice right so let me see royer channel it'll toward me and put your eyes there this could be like actually a nice portrait put one hand higher than the other killed get this light out of the background okay let's see what would happen if we like came from above raise your eyes a little higher all right it's like super rush but just for the sake of your question thank you that's that's fine yes we could come higher than I level it just totally depends on like what shot you're trying to do um yeah I just want to put it back on the wide shot just so you know what we're talking about but there's that come above you come lower no rule of thumb I'm just following my intuition