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Sue & Felix: Shoot: Studio Light Portraits - Maisie

this is exciting you know one of the things that I think it's so interesting is soo really knows light so I can't get away with not getting it right oh my god wait right should we start yeah that's why I'm going to get macy to come back in you'll notice felix it's moved away from the window maybe two three more minutes see who has like stan teo so basically I bought two light stands and I put it vented trench lamp shade on one and the other one has got what's that other life stands so just something call nobody knows it's a light stand so you have something okay that makes you kind of come back in it was going to re create exactly what we did so if you look at the shops that we're going to recreate from the first segment yeah that's what we're going to do so we're going to shoot a nice flat we're going to do the first setup that you see on the screen there the nice flat going try replicate that so I think niko is going to put up the the ball reference and the first thing so we've moved...

the backdrop over because I wanna make it clear that we're not the window is now closed that's the first thing I want to establish there's no natural light coming in here at all we are going to set up with my trusty assistant john let's so I think we'll just start with this ok running through each bit as we do it soon would you hold my thank you so this is actually one of my favorite modifiers it's ah last alight skylight rapid it actually I wonder if you could do this it's thes joints they collapse and it packs up into little bag like this big on dh yeah that's they're over clipped in on the modifier su it just clips in and some people who used to scream jim have you ever heard of that now it's basically a posh silk all right it's a posh bit posh way of putting some fabric on the frame you could build one of these yourself this's thiss costs money but if you could achieve the same effect by just putting up hanging a silk that you know for me on a commercial job I it's kind of the way I've been taught us like you wanted to look really good if then you need to solve something you khun bring the fabric but I've seen your studio and it's so womanly and beautiful tohave the silks hanging everywhere that doesn't work with the sea off blah blah company so we've got you know people ask me about stands so I'm just going to cover everything doesn't matter what stand you have as long as it holds something up pretty much right there is no magic that the c stand brings buses another stands so just keep it simple they're amazing because they fall down in a really freaky way and the legal go in one direction so if you're traveling with them and they're actually really thie only problem with that the plus point and the minus point on these is that they're heavy so they'll hold your stuff well but they don't travel very well right I actually have so I have this in my traveling kit this is a see through silk which is just going to defuse the light diffusion means that makes it softer now you'll notice today we're not using soft boxes and the problem with the soft box is let's say that this is the soft books and your lights in here pointing at the subject and everyone has had this experience and you put those screens on it and then you pointed at the model and the same thing happens you get that hot spot it happens every time and that's why you get that studio look that just doesn't look right so what we want to do to is we create soft light so all we have to achieve today actually is what's coming in that window and sews shooting her natural light set up is a soft light source we're in seattle so we have we're lucky because it's cloudy do you choose like a north facing window ever or just don't care but she puts that she'll put the silk on it if there's no if it's too harsh right if the sun comes in you put a silk um so that's what we need to start with then we're going to end up just doing exactly she's gonna end up doing exactly the same things just putting her fee flats in front of it so what we've got this is for people who want to know this is a two by two meter frame this is a john is it a one point two five stops so that means it will it should cut out one point two five stops off the light all right simple so far so good suit yeah that's pretty interesting I just like hanging couldn't my kittens probably more like one stop two stops if I double it in clamber with a hick like you if you go to the fabric store they never know how many stops it is there nothing nothing right we're gonna pull it that can show the light to everybody yes kind of riding yeah exactly well I'll just pull the light out from behind so so I'll show you this actually do you know what a pocket with it is now okay good there's a sink cord somewhere right we'll take these off take your thingamajig you off the top of your camera for me just take it off right so these things baffle people they're like magic so I'm going to give that to john because we're not going to use it for now right this so this is a light it's a ll called a strobe and itjust but delivers a burst of light like a like that it has I just turn this off for you it has to look it has a bulb tungsten bulb and you see that circular can you not see that on the camera the circular bulb that goes around that that's the one that actually gives the flash and it's made to be kind of even or around that circle so that you get an even spread of light coming out of here it referred it to technical it's a light it's a light but no but it is what happened if you were to use that just this it spills everywhere so you put this on and it just controls it a little bit that's a simple that is the tanks involved in the middle is your model and naps on when just like that that's just so that you can focus and you can see what the lightest doing you look back so good what we used to happen is you would have a cable from your camera do you know what a plug listen on your camera I'm sure I do somewhere there and you plug it into the back of your light and when you press the shutter it should fire the light you take a picture shoot there we go and the lights flash so what the pockets with its do is do that wirelessly pretty much so we don't sue loves tripping over stands let's not give her a cable to trip over a cz well okay we're going while we're going wireless coming to that whatever century win yeah so soon I'm already bored with lighting I know wasting my shape the referee shirt just bear with me because it obviously it takes more time okay but you have some advantages right I will convince you of this so that's a pocket livid this you khun set a channel we've put on the same channel right because you can't talk to someone who's only speak english and chinese so let's put that on there and those too so you click it now john if you connect that hang on they really started on dh they got light flashes right I'm not funny the soft boxes I said we're going to use that shoot through umbrella where was it you just leave that for now I'll go set up over here anyone in the audience has any questions go ahead lamp use them don't use them what's the point I know lots of people that use the model amps to kind of do the same thing where you shoot with you know the model light doesn't turn off sorry it doesn't flash just like the um stroked us but you end up with a really warm light source on dh there's technical reasons I won't bore you with why if you shouldn't commercially you can't you really use that so yes or no yes like so right now I'm just going to play around with this come actually not sure how exactly we're going to do this just yet but that's one of the things I said to sue I want to really show it okay stroke stroke over soft box for you yeah and scream to diffuse strobe over soft bag how much is a stroke oh cost this idea anybody got any idea what a stroke costs I'd like to know what that costs if I'm going to go buy stroke I'd like to know like five hundred from my alien beings stand yeah that would work for this how are you finding it online video yeah I really like it if I had a cheapie bay set before this one so on that worked as well write it something expensive this is what we've got ellen chrome b r x two fifty whatever that means so so you you trigger happy here I'm waiting to shape I know I know but give us time I want to show you this so you could do it okay yeah um so what I've done it so the soft books you know you get that hostile and it's because the light this light is pointing straight at your subject and no matter what you put in front of it it will never get soft it's always gonna have that focused I thought that burns out and that's what everyone runs into and that's what makes it look like studio so we're not gonna do that what I'm going to do sue is create ah large soft light so we're gonna bounce light around behind here already by put it shooting this into the umbrella I'm making it a little bit softer that little light source that's this big turns into a light source that this big on once it comes through here it's going to be a light source that's this big and when I was thinking about how it's going to do this this is actually the simplest set up the cheapest set up and anyone could do it and you all have walls at home and you have bed sheets or fabric you can all do this you know so let's see we're going to put it behind here so I've put it behind here I'm just kind of got a point it it's now let me walk this over actually sue just don't trip over this so I put it there pointing towards yu guys you can already see that it's now a little bit softer right I haven't put a soft box on here nothing it's a little bit softer going to put this back in place so you're following along I'm gonna make you set it up for the next setup all right now the other thing is su shot from the window that was kind of coming up coming from above so I'm going to raise this modify apple of it think about this right yeah good and also the son is usually coming from above the light source where it is now it's like about here that's going to come across a little bit to drag the word horizontally so I'm going to make it just point down a little bit I'm going to keep walking this I'm just gonna do this again sorry I can see if they can see it I want the audience to see it as well that's my my test subjects over here so I'm just gonna get that to have a little bit of an angle so it's kind of mimicking where the sun would be coming from right bring this back over here can I ask a question felix this's from fashion tv in singapore the question is when you simulate natural light how what is the distance between the scram and the light does that matter do place our strobes how do we where do we place our strobes in relation to this cram in orderto get naturally that's a really great question the thing is the further away you go if you're bouncing it off something the bigger your light source is going to get that does not make sense so in this room we have about three meters to play with if you're at home you might not have as much but I just try to get as much distance as I can if I want to make it soft so if you want a bigger light source you moved the scrim away from the light but if you want the light to be less you move the screw in the light away from the model exactly so it stays the same same size of light but it gets further away from the model yeah right yeah it's if you had a small lights was far away would be really she some people would make the mistake of just going and moving the light not the scram yeah to try and get the light away from the model but what they're doing is creating a bigger light source exactly but that should be softer exactly so that we put the umbrella on this in between to soften it up and that's essentially creating a bigger light source doesn't make sense and that bigger light sources are software softer smaller light sources are harsher and you're right it's a little bit counterintuitive because you would take if you take it away it really becomes a smaller light source but keep in mind this is really our light source in this situation this is where this is what's affecting the model all of this behind here it's just kind of bouncing back and forth because that makes sense I just want to make sure I'm not going a million miles an hour and the sale of screams just went at worldwide on they won't know why on they won't know why I think they will hopefully they'll watch and john I just want to tell this the bottom of this over a little bit just because this is the direction that the sun comes in all right and then because the windows hi I'm going to just block this off with the flat so that that's not your not getting like from down here as well and let's see how that goes so what you have created is my rectangle window but I can cheat it in any anywhere john put it the other way then we just put up on these legs they go so I actually think that's still a bit of a large two large area compared to what we had so we're just going to drop this down a little bit thanks how do you do that on your own you're going to that but that there bit shoot himself yeah I um I know lots of people who want to help you see quite ok where's my life well I'm just going to go on just obviously my obvious christian is these studio lights for creating live are on and they're not part of our lights or so with the ten emma we will find out we're going toe that's going to work through this so this is where is this what you call the lighting test the lighting test you're sad and you're lighting test I just made and start shooting I'm kind of jealous but you know so this is when you always post like we did aye lighting here yes I keep that spy behind the scenes look a lighting tests and that's all my assistants get the best profile pictures on facebook that way I'll get mine because you don't use the model to the lighting team you should use your yeah or if I know the light's really good up we'll take a picture of may protocol picture right let's just come away from this backdrop would you hold this just in front of your nose for me thank you this way I just need you away from that backdrop so I went to the same distance issue we're okay good and just take a shot of that and I'll see this is like my heart's pounding right so we need to set your camera properly yeah neutral density filter I'm okay so let me run them through that so we've dropped one of the things about shooting commercially is usually you want to end up a one hundred s o I add grain afterwards nice and shop yeah nice every island every for every port lots of retouching on the skin on dh but you know that's kind of where that commercial standard for clients they do kind of wanna have one hundred I still want to get to five point six sorry f two point eight that's and if you've ever shot with lights you know that usually they're too strong so what we've done it's soo's little trick on dh we've gotten a neutral density filter on this thing you can see it goes from one stop to nine stops off cutting out the light that's all it is it's a nine stop indy filter so when you've got too much light you put the indie filter on and you block down the light of reason yet the reason we're doing that is because I want him to replicate the look that I get with studio lighting and there's too much light so in order to cut it down I think I'll just use my indy filter so we're going to try with that so we can still shoot wide open and get the same look yeah and everyone's gonna ask online I know what power did we set those that light on I have no idea I just turned it on and we're going to see what works and felix one quick question about the umbrella a lot of people are noticing that you did not that you're using it as a reflective umbrella to bounce right back toward the screen but you did not put a black cover on the back or anything like that is there a reason you didn't do that good good very good question I'm actually bouncing some of it off that wall at the back and you can do this at home as well just I'm this is only partially shoot through it reflect a little bit back on the inside and some of the light will also fly out the back and then come back and soft the end result here again good so the neutral density filter I wantto think I'm going to end up at around five six if I I didn't put this on so I'm goingto is just getting too technical by the way I don't wantto lose anyone s o I'm goingto set this if you buy one of these it's very obvious what you do I've set it to two stops so I'm going to stick that on there there about seventy five dollars it was actually a secret that a filmmaker told me he said when you're shooting with the cannon five doing you're making little films he said if you want to shoot at one point two in a break room it's impossible and specially when you want to stay fifty shutter speed fifty when you're shooting film it looks more filming my asset would that's impossible and light to shoot at one point two or two point eight or two point oh you know in a bright room and he gets not with a neutral density filter so that's how they get it beautiful wide open look until I've had one for about two years I still amazes me when I spin it round and it goes dark and go spike goes down who's writing just do this I don't know much so set your camera two point eight now do you know why I shot the speed doesn't matter in studios in the studio no all right so I need your permission to just make one diagram you'll hate it but you'll get when you just say it I don't live by diagram tell me out of these guys can figure it out I did I do have this you're right I just have a white one I just have a little white war prevent here's one I prepared earlier right so it's called sink speed right this is where everyone turns off but just bear with me because you'll get it it's very easy the flash is a minuscule little it's just it's a tiny little birthright manufacturers will tell you how long it is I don't care if your one hundredth of a second your shutter like this is the shutter closed it opens and closes and your flash goes off in this bit there ifyou're let's say one tenth of a second that's a little bit longer your shutter opens and it's going to be open longer but the light is still only coming in in that minuscule bit so it doesn't matter right and if you are then you got it but the camera has kind of a limit so if you went to five hundred of a second it might open here and miss the flash so that's called a sink speed does that make sense isn't so if you have that's why the house size don't matter because we're gonna shoot that yeah and we're just all you need to do is make sure open long enough that the flash and the camera could go way see each other all right good too fast and you could miss it too fast you could miss it yeah it's very fast so your shutter speed said it for safety sake at one hundred twenty fifth of a second keep on doing it and then we're s o one hundred satisfied one one hundred twenty fifth of a second on dh your aperture is a two point eight so let's fire for test shot and with the ball and now so is this where you would have her in relation to your window um let's have a look I just did a double shot um come forward a little bit more year around there about a meter and a half from here but yeah it's a bit disconcerting because for you you can't see it right yeah all right so we still have one of those studio lights now we need to bring in the white b flat would you do that on the ball you can see that we're on the right there we still have one of those studio lights still affecting the image so what you can do is you would turn up your aperture to its fate because you know if you were just shooting with natural light if you turn up your aperture you get less of that natural light that's the same thing we're going to do so but we still want to be a two point eight so I'm just going to change the indie filter so it cuts out another stop of light and then john I'm going to turn up the the actual flash I'll do it yeah she's getting an even soft light right across his face now more like my one stub yes there's a confusion in the chat rooms about the nd filter right so why wouldn't you most of the questions kind of say why wouldn't you just lower your power instead of doing you'll find that if you turn you even when you turn your light all the way down still still have too much okay that's kind of how they thank you all right let's try it on the bowl or hear faith I'll let you just do it with the face and then see how you how you feel about it just push your chin down you have to take a more and interestingly enough it's really dark looking through the lens just a tiny baby smile just a little bit like a girl no so it's starting to approach that natural light look and look at this so these two things I would change yeah one of them is this too much light hitting the background I'd put another beef let there just to block it from hitting the background yeah we could do that or we can try another little tree if the camera can see me I'm just going to turn to come around the back have a look I'm just going to turn this over a little bit sorry away from yeah we'll do it this way I was going to try it on this also is called feathering you turn the light away from where it should be pointing so you're just getting you're actually communicating off the side technically they're your tuning it towards where I don't want to but it's coming back this way yeah I think it's this one must I think is more reflective to us than to the back so just push your chin down towards me a little bit more tiny little smile we're still getting a lot of spill in the back yeah okay so we're gonna do is john's gonna put a b flat back there so we want that flat light right yeah but look at the light that's hitting her cheers to any shoulders it's almost exactly the same we can probably one thing I would do is I think the sun wraps a little bit more around the front in kind of like this okay you know how you said she sews always shaping bodies around the light and I'm always shaping the light around the bodies I'm going to do exactly that so we're just gonna move it like that and it'll come rap a little bit more on the front so interestingly enough this but here looks like my set up he just close the window and put a light behind that diffuser I've never seen anybody shoot in studio like that to me they always have self boxes around them or lights around firing straight towards the model like I've never seen a set up that looks just like mine but with lights and that's why I was so taken with what felix does because in new york when we shot there hollywood shoots I was watching him bounce all this light now that's what I do but I just thought with sunlight and even picked up a catering tray which was like a tin foil arcadian train in bounced another modeling light into the back off the shot we did or brooke shade in when she was just to get a life you know yeah also a perfect how he did it and it's just like modeling light yeah the only difference is here you can't really see what you're going to get so you have to shoot a reference and they used to shoot polaroids let's see um this is like the moment of truth here sue yeah you can see my black people but I can pull it back and it's too much contrast on right I think you want to just sort of in that filter off a little bit but the back of my camera is beautiful and soft oh I see yeah what you're seeing there is not a very good example of what I'm getting looks great on the back of the camera so softness look at that yeah it's pretty cool right doesn't fool uses all right so here this is your chance to say right this is what I don't like about it yet now I really love that I love that the camera looks amazing I can't wait to process it see it's much simpler if you just just rock onto one happened in an ice in albert back a little wee bit just and bring it in this way just to touch that teo from there I just want to take a shot here so can we do the reference shot I want to show the two shot side by side you just get that fall in there and then if nico if you can pull up the original reference shot we were using against this one and we'll have a look if it comes up so let's have a go yeah we've almost got the shape exactly the same shape I mean it's a tiny little bit different but soos shaping it around what we have and that's ok so we have that light coming in from the top here I would even say so you can go up in s so maybe to one hundred sixty or two hundred just because I feel like that's a little bit stronger coming in and we're getting that same shape from the b flat on the side and that's all we've really done there's a little bit of a difference because the light spilling onto the feeling but it doesn't concern me that much it's a minuscule amount on their hair you know we're not suing gonna work with the light she's given in that makes this really work that is that is that the studio you serious of salad felix I'm just happy that you know just remember when we did that shoot in new york and we spent hours just messing around and later I confessed to sue these lights before but it worked so right so then you're gonna shape your life around that okay so now my next shot wass ending more contrast right so I went from that and I put the black tunnel on either side of her to cut down the light to the backdrop to make a backdrop darker to bring in more contrast around her body trying so if we go teo slide yeah yeah and that had the black on the other side yeah okay so we'll just turn that around you're going to do exactly the same thing you gonna change in the white reflected to the black yeah and we can use the same setup sorry that's what happens with that so you want this to be flat to be kind of a tunnel on the side yeah you want this one I want it back against the backdrop so I want it to block a signal that might lead to flatten down the light that hits the backdrop yes where were you where was perfect and then this one is really can be pulled back but it has to be against the backdrop otherwise it's leading in a lightly pulled back away from the model put it in it and push it right did you have her kind of here with right on the edge because of the tunnel and really what I'm doing is just bringing the contrast into the backdrop and into here right the edge so then yeah we might do a little change I want to see how it how it looks but I could show a little a trick for this I've taken my shoes off so I'm getting it here to take your shoes off because otherwise we'll be shooting up in ostrov all right usu I prefer to shoot barefoot if I can doesn't always look good but like I care you told you that we don't want you going the way of the flat wouldn't even there's good okay so maybe come over a little bit question does have here that is causing a shadow on her I would you put a little ok so it won't matter when I fire the flare are you getting that contrast look shall we have a look on here to compare it would you hold that for me thank you just in front of your face nico is kind of pull up both of those and we can have a look what's kind of not quite right it should be about similar so the only difference is the little white reflector that I bounce back to her face on the side to even it out okay I want to also point out these are the studio lights but they make such a minuscule difference to this it's not really these are the creative live studio lights not yes sorry yeah make that two things that may be important distinction yeah those are lighting us yeah well that's something we didn't really talk about when we started this segment with the fact that when you are shooting with seo artificial lights you can have more light in the room with with suze we had to really lock down all the lights in here so that it was on ly the natural light so this gives you a little bit more flexibility if you can't turn off the lights in the room for exactly and if you were shooting with the model and only you know that was your question sarah you would have that same those lights all mixing up like soo mentioned or there's a shadow but those air coming from the studio light that creative lives to their lights but you don't see them when you shoot with this okay can I just say so now I've got the face right but now I'm not getting the dips on the background that I was getting right should we I think homeless krim and the light that way you're getting this oh and wow look down so we're gonna do this without the whole studio swore you lloyd you take you're bringing that just going to bring this over john you're going to stay right there but that little reflector made a big difference to that side of her face right yeah let's just take him and I want to make sure that we're not skipping anything that you know because I don't want to presume that anyone anything go ahead has fluorescent lights on their awful I get green hair there were to cancel those out using I mean this show yeah but doing the soft boxes that people are doing this now right I would just turn the strobes up andi maybe using andy filter to because then you're changing that ratio usually I can turn him off but if I'm shooting there at night I still need the light so that you have you can focus it yeah you know shooting in the dark yeah yeah make sure your shutter speed it's as high as your camera sink speed will allow to go it it's really technical and boring suze rolling eyes sure but you got that look in your camera manual you're no you're saying speed on if you go to the top of that there's a cameraman fifty e I think there's a good way of demonstrating what's going on right now so I'm going to take that we're on the same settings if you take a shot of her now this is how I tested so now there's no flash going off and it should be almost black when it comes they go there's no ambient light hitting the subject at all make sense soon a good student comedic timing to the max right now tricking the flashing in any other questions I have a question from anna spain who was just asking about catch lights when you're when you're lighting from the side through a diffuser are you concerned about having catch lights at all or usually if if like her light is sorry her eyes are lit up in this shot she's gonna have a little catch like kind of a few if you end up without a past like you you'll also end up with dark devil eyes so I don't worry about it too much I think she still looks alive we can I think you're in post you might I think you could say yeah always I like nice I think he did say that a lot of fashion photographers put a catch light light and just for a catch like yeah yeah yeah I had just here just for a catch like that gets complicated the easier way I would do in this case and we're goingto move this around a little bit anyway is I'm going to wrap this light around her a little bit because I can see in there the catch light is like in the very left of her eyeball and if I moved the surrounding all of it it's going to come in a little bit you know if she's here the light kind of coming around is going to create a catch light in the eye so I feel like this store too much light on the back so do a open up this fever I'm going toe I'm moving this promise over away from the backdrop okay a little bit and we'll try it on well let's work through into this because I this's where are you going to give me the reflector and keep I had a balance so let's see you want no light on the backdrop for much less light on the west side and just kick out the window so again philip you want less light on the backdrop yes place I wanted to look like that bottom left image where I'm creating more contrast behind her right so we're gonna have to move this on the subject further off the background okay yeah say john help me with this please you need to come towards me but you do that as well when you're shooting in that friday because more dick if I can get the more dark I can get behind here so the more of a tunnel and I call it a tunnel because it really is you're building a tunnel of light that is directing down that tunnel towards the background which gives you that beautiful separation and also can get you to change light right so soon I'm going to make one change I'm gonna put this like he said like a tunnel bloody b flat that's always a fight isn't it and john if you wouldn't mind just holding that there you see how when you did it on the natural light you blocked some of the window my day the same thing so now she could be on that edge okay and it doesn't matter that I'm getting a hard shadow because of my thing okay straight remember when we talked about just attacked when we took the pocket was it off you couldn't see anything yet from was black so it doesn't matter that light does not make a difference it just helps you to focus on this right getting better getting better you see so if we kept doing that we don't have my reflected and I have my reflected belt up chick she's got a dark take and I don't want that so this is actually a little bit tricky and that's where good strong model itis important because you can't see this now I know but I can you know where to go I say not just a time ago yeah nice soft of face background is getting darker so I'm obviously a lot colder on the temperature yeah yeah so we can fix that in post shooting roll right right so we're getting pretty close now I'm impressed who was that what you did it you know john we're sending both to the computer yeah yeah when we do the retouching that'll become clear yeah because warren and jay pig and you're only saying that jay pig and you're only seeing the screen vision of the job but you're seeing the light which is the most important part right we've got six more shots today god yet so let's keep going because what I did then was what was my next shot nico I think I took macey out and I put katie in yeah I think we're pretty much on the same and I opened the black deflect so you can go maybe that side this camera's on and go you come through you know would you just hear the hero shot of that so this is with the black b flat as the background yes okay so now all I did was bring this around if my backdrop