Lessons
Class Introduction
03:03 2Highlight Alert, White Balance, and Bracketing
10:25 3RAW vs JPG and Mirror Lockup Function
08:05 4Which is Better: sRGB vs Adobe 1998?
04:56 5White Balance and Color Correction in Camera
04:49 6What is the Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Frame?
07:16 7How Do You Choose The Right Lens?
06:18 8Pye's Favorite Custom Functions
01:25Different Quality Lenses
09:42 10Lighting 101: How Do You Find the Light?
08:29 11Creating Flat Light
06:24 12How Do You Shape the Light?
02:26 13How and When to Use Your Hot Shoe Flash
13:47 14Flash Modifiers: Grids, Snoots, and Fresnel
06:48 15Is There a Best Time to Shoot with Natural Light?
05:18 16Reducing Shadows with a Light Kit
02:58 17Metering with Mixed Light
15:55 18Getting the Best Focus
08:32 19Why and When to Use Gels
07:54 20LEDs vs Strobes
14:49 21Overpowering Sun with Flash
04:42 22Shoot Through Umbrella vs Softbox
02:17 23Adjusting Flash After Setting Up Ambient
04:15 24Image Critique Part 1
29:52 25Image Critique Part 2
21:14 26Setting Up Lighting for a Reception
17:10 27Posing Tips for both Males and Females
13:38 28Special Effects & Mood Boards
05:56 29Working on Your Composition
06:19Lesson Info
Special Effects & Mood Boards
I have a question about special effects. All right, Nicole re says, can you tell something about the special effects that you use like sparklers, spray bottle and fog? What do you like to use The most I like to use the most. I kind of use everything. It goes back to the mood board, you know, depending on what stuff they put on the move board. That's kind of how we dictate what special effects will be using. But sparklers or different favorite, the led lights thes string lights in front of ah lens are definitely a favorite. You just like a $5 little set of lights that you get granted. This doesn't necessarily work in all types of scenes, like it generally works really well in a reception room where you'd have candles and you'd have lights and you have all that kind of stuff in the background. So when you take a picture with this, it looks like you're shooting through candles and look, it looks like you're shooting through those types of objects. If I just to do it in this room, it would...
just look like an effect that I did on the image right sparkler there. Fantastic for emulating unpredictable flares that will, you know, we use We did this incredible engagements. We showed how to use sparklers and spraying mist over the lands. All these things do something a little bit different. Do we have? I don't know if we have time to, like, actually demo something but five minutes. So I would say check out that class way. But it always goes back to the mood board. What we want to do is make sure that it's cool and also have a single photograph. That's just like, Oh, my gosh, that is the coolest image. And we have, you know, a bunch of those that we did from increible Gators like the one we I freaked out Meg, my producer when I was like, Hey, guys, let's just do this. What if the sun was setting and it was raining and it was coming through and we had this flare coming in? Let's make it look like that, and we actually just made the shot in class is really cool, and it looked like the sun was coming through rain and crazy flair and all that kinda stuff. That's great. It looks awesome. The problem is, if no other image in that entire delivery looks like that, you have, ah, miss number, right? When you try and put that into an album, what, you have a great shot that could go up on a wall by itself. And that's fantastic. But in the story of ah, engagement, it doesn't make sense. So we try and work those things into the scene that we're shooting it. So, for example, if it were raining outside, it was those kind of things, and that would be perfect. I can incorporate that kind of shot, and I do other things similar to it with more flair and more stuff like that that we can make it look like something, I guess, harmonious, something that has continuity to it as opposed just a one off cool image. It's a really great point about sort of your portfolio of work, and a question had come in from mind. Smile. Can you talk a little bit about the mood board? How do you use it to the couple's Make it mind smile has never heard of it. Totally. We'll go through. We cover that in full detail in the class. So let me just say this. If you look at our blogged, everything on our block is dictated by the mood board. So what happens is let's pull up this wedding, for example. Okay, So if you notice when you mouse over one of these images, it brings up a little Pinterest icon so clients can actually go to the site and they can pin things from our site directly to a mood board. We have every single client do this, whether it's a family session, a portrait session, engagement session, wedding, whatever it is. And we tell them just pin images from the block that you feel like speak to you. So when she goes and she pins an image with, you know, the shoes, I know that Hey, she likes detail shots. Or when she pins like she had this shot of another bride up on the on the the mood board was like, You know what? She loves these soft and airy images, and I'm gonna shoot some of those. So this mood board like if they have literally no dramatic images on the mood board, we're not going to shoot dramatic images for that entire shoot. Basically, if they have a lot of mixture, we're gonna do maybe a couple of different types of techniques most clients will have, like, they'll have a little bit of variety in there where they want certain things. Um, like, they're like, I want the epic sunset photos. But I love the sun kissed look. And so we'll shoot them in a way where they're not so far apart from each other. You know? I mean, like, you can shoot an epic sunset, so it still looks natural and bright, and it still works very well with the sun kissed image on the right side of it, you can also shoot it where the sunset looks like. It's really dark and very dramatic, where when you place them next to each other, they don't work together. OK, so I'll actually just to give you a sample of that, um, have one of the This was from shoot to post is that we've done a lot of courses with you guys. Goodness. Okay. This was the shot that we made in studio the sun, the reigning sun kissed Whatever. Okay, this is the sample from that. So maybe go toe full screen. If you look at these images, I mean there, there, there's a little bit of lack of continuity between them. Right? What we say is shoot it in a way that if you know these air going on a spread together, they're shot in a way that's makes sense. So I shot this image because I wanted to have that darker, silhouetted like dramatic shot for myself. But knowing that I shot all of her details with a Brighton area looked previously, I then change the exposure and shot that way as well. So the mood board is gonna dictate kind of how we shoot, how we progress through the day. What kind of a lot of what kind of gear we're taking out, what kind of special effects tools we're using and that kind of stuff to cater their vision. We work a little bit differently than a lot of studios. A lot of studios have a very distinct thing that they do like they just shoot one way. We have a little bit of variety in the way that we shoot
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Pye is an awesome instructor! He explains everything in a way that you understand it. He is a wealth of information. Love all of his classes!! I love Creativelive and SLR Lounge! Continue doing the great work that you do!!
fbuser a48cf323
Pye is an amazing teacher! I've learned so much from him over the years - both in person and through his tutorials. What's even more amazing is that he is able to do it LIVE! He is able to clearly explain complicated concepts through easy to understand lessons. I highly recommend his courses to learn everything from the basics to advanced topics!
user-592217
Wow! Pye is an awesome instructor! I've learned SO many things - nuggets of gold!