Lessons

Lesson Info

Various Lighting Pattern Demos

We went over not a huge amount of diffusers because you can see it can get overwhelming pretty easy but the ones that I basically use a lot and this we're going to start now that let's kind of review you basically learned the basics of the flash you learn some of the light basic light patterns you learned some of the diffuser is on howto easily soften up like very simplistic you learned some science behind how to create ratios so you're basically learning almost every single puzzle piece to create a portrait with flash so we're going to really start now to concentrate on how and where to put that light placement for the photos because that's kind of the last step before we actually will create that portrait so I'm gonna bring in my soft box again that we had yesterday that everybody liked from sweet light and I'm gonna bring in our model let me get this going and I want to visually show you again the light and I'm gonna make sure we don't mess up with the camera sorry it's live I get a...

ll flustered turn on my radio popper all right sorry I don't like you that's why I did it way we go all right so now I'm gonna bring in our model macy is this all right guys or would you rather have it sideways? I want to make sure the cameras can see everything okay come over here mesi ok let me get my clicker okay okay sure light we went over it yesterday but I want to reiterate it because this is the most important thing there is is short life and so again is yesterday I have her here come a little closer so they can see a little bit you turn your nose stores a lot a little bit not quite that much but look forward like the photographers here with cameras yeah and insuring your nose just slightly that little bit this way turn your body may be this way a short life very simple kind of move over this way for them to see back behind them students see the gentleman is really that's an overdone I want to make sure that image was really showing you really see the bright light on his face is short lived so way you khun do this very artistically if you have plus size models you have anyone that thinks their plus size models because almost every girl thinks that their plus size model these days you want to be able to one let me pull this out just a little bit sorry I don't want to get this camera mixed in thank you and it's gonna be a little harder to see because we have the stage lights if you can pull the state slides down just a little bit it might help and I want you to step back and I want to look straight ahead so nowhere about short light or anything as you as she walks forward come forward we'll stop just second see how the light go back one step. See how is the father she's back. See how that light really wraps all the way around her face as she's gonna walk forward slow afford that light over here is gonna get darker and darker and darker and keep coming forward and see how it slowly getting dark on that face and come all the way forward. Now back up. I want you to be right there, here now if we didn't have the stage lights lighting up her face, which we have two for you can see it would little to be almost split lining it would literally take away all the light from the side and we'll just be on this side, so back back up so so many people when they photographed all the way back the way that I would photograph using this is I would have come to the front of the front of the soft box. Mason this is exactly the place one of the soft box that I would have for her in my studio I wanted to come forward a little bit. I want this part right here the bottom of her shoulder right here, the shoulder, the bottom corner I want on her shoulder. So now what I'm getting is I'm giving this full soft box was sweet like to wrap around her head wrapped around her face and I'm getting that beautiful life that that khun do now here's the problem with this set up in my studio by using speed life, speed lights if I did this exact same thing here it's not gonna spread that light, so I'm going to get a little bit of light up here on top of her head. And so this is the ultimate problem we have converting from studio lighting to speed lines is light placement you understand the light patterns that we're talking about, and I will show you some more a second, but you have to understand where to put the light to get those light patterns this john saw fox is beautiful. I love the light that it produces. I love to be able to simply stick her in front of it and you can easily see look straight ahead easily see turning those a little this way and see you can see all the shadows and everything that's what I love about constant light, it's wonderful it's, very difficult to get constant light outside because the sun overpowers any the constant light so you have to imagine what you're seeing here I want you in the audience and you there in creative live world to start imagining where you put that flash a flashlight where you put that speed light so where you imagine where this light's gonna fall on his face? So this is what I do when I first started I literally I know it sounds ridiculous. I had mannequin heads I got a flashlight and I started going okay, the lights here here and I started looking at the shadows and finding exactly where they'll patterns on their face is what I liked and then I sort of put my flash exactly where it needs to be because really that flash flash light and that bead light very, very similar they put out a very tight band of light especially if you don't defuse it so it's not that far fetched idea and you visually khun see it and once you visually see it it's so much easier to represent it or reproduce it out in the field and that's what I kind of want you to do here so let me get my clicker so you have well let me go back so really you have if you notice move over this way so they can see the tv and other online conceit but I want them to see it so here we have two lights in the photo showing and we moved her very far in front of the light the big giant soft box so it's just producing the light on the one side and then just the real and the other and we turn her body to the side which is slamming her damn that's an easy way for her to walk all the way up in a very attractive manner of cutting down body socks you have a tough guy look, you can do split like that's kind of what we did so now I have macy would be right here way up front so the light is just hitting this side of my face dark on this side and then I just ring light on the back so they reproduce that if you stand right up here macy like in front of the box basically I would put this light not up high but I would literally I would pull it back but we have the soft box here, so just bear with me here and then I would have let me get my other one. Sorry simple rim light back here for your split light but I want you to notice instead of this giant box way up high you have to put this like, really even with their face back up a little bit so if I wanted a standard light this is about the place that I'm gonna have to put it for loop light so instead of that big giant soft box this is about where I need to put it not real scientific maybe about a forty five degree angle in front you don't want to get to highs I talked about yesterday especially with guys because their brow line is going to block it from their eyebrows and it's just slightly above their eyes that's the whole problem I had a hard, very hard time transitioning from this to this to make quality light and you have to be very accurate with it and it's not going to come easy so natural I photographers don't get frustrated when you first start doing this and you don't like the shadows concentrate use that and we'll use it to your vantage here's the problem though you're not going to get rid of all the shadows you're never going to get rid of the shadows with a little flash they're going to be there so you use him to your vantage just like this we also use this all the time and I use this all the time my flash so I will turn turn into it you know it's brian I'm sorry put the flash right into the face and when you do this don't say look at the flash your client tell him to look past the flash because you will blind them and then a simple flashlight. Very, very simple. We do this all the time with our guys and even sometimes of the girls, so we turned them into the light. So many people don't think of ever turning the person directly into the light to take a photograph and away from the camera. But we do this all the time with with the speed lights and the reason why this pose will hide a lot of the shadows. The shadows are there, but because of the angle that you're photographing, you don't really notice that it's not that visually negative in the viewer's eyes. Does that make sense? All right, now broad light have a seat. Are male model what you name anderson, our new model cason come on out casing. All right, casing, I want you to stand right back here. Kind of do a perfect again turned towards the light. Look at the look right here. Like this is the photographer. The main camera they're perfectly simple body to the broad winds seem makes him look tough kind of cross your arms put your hands in your pockets you go whatever you want yeah that's just simple that's a simple think and here's the thing ladies, I want to go with ladies so many times when I could take photos women, when you're photographing high school senior boys or something have such a hard time posing men because you're posing very feminine and I don't care if you make everything possible that's technical correct and the artistry is amazing if he looks feminine in that image, he will hate it in the story, and he kind of laughed when I said that because it's the truth, so don't over analyze if you're nervous about posing, these guys don't over analyze it kind of put him in opposed to wear the proper lighting that you want, and then let him, like I said across your arms to put your hands in your pocket and he does it himself that's gonna be manly and let it go, let it go, maybe find tune his hands fine, tune his fingers a little bit, but don't over analyze don't don't get him sitting squatting down and don't do all this other stuff that so many do and don't have and put their hands up in the and the hands on the chin over the face that they do with the hands and the hair. I mean, it doesn't look manly, exactly, but people do that all the time and it's not because their meaning to just that's all they know and very much like me photographing the young lady I do I'm a little more hesitant that's one reason why I don't like to use a flash meter because I don't like to go up to young lady with a flash meter and start doing this that they don't know me it's a little imp I mean violating their space now him I can do a lot more with its just that natural thing so I mean I even had like this kid actually is a football player and we were trying he's the nicest guy in the whole world literally the nicest kid in the whole world and we're trying to get a tough guy looking he wouldn't give us a tough guy look so I kept saying give me your game face on man I'm just too nice I can't I can't do it I'm just too nice giving you get and susie's messing with everything else and finally I just went over and I pushed him and he just looked I said that's what I want to look that's what I want anyway oh it's so and that he did it I couldn't do that with a girl so there's different there's ways that you could do that with different guys and girls so I wanted to bring up exactly was that simple simple stuff and that's exactly what this is this is my wife image leaning up against the wall broad lining turn his faith and you get it very simple take step off thank you also on this shot right here, living with the softball back just a little bit for right now go the power points I want to bring makeup a point on my power point, no that's a bright light, so I want to get it out of the way. I'll use it in just a second, though, so don't don't run it off too far. This is a very easy shot to do with wireless flash and I do it all the time with guys and girls a little bit different lighting in in the shorter, broad light, but I want you to see the shadow that's back here, you're not going to get rid of that, but you can hide it with angles on a broad light guy you could get away with it. The shadows actually add to mention add depth ad, a lot of detail on a lot of positives to it for a girl. What I'd normally would do is I would actually shoot maur this way straight down the wall and that way, the shadows here but the camera angle hides the shadows so many times, just like what we shot in the previous session session section, where the shadow is on the back of the paper, I left it there on purpose because I wanted to see the diffusion of how the edges were gone that second shot that you saw a while back that had the softer edge it was not near is noticeable on the whole scale of things is the hard edge so when you have shadows if you khun soften up that edge it's not gonna be near is distracting to the human eye so worst case scenario if I get an image that I love and there's a hard shadow on their nose I will go in and I'll just soften up the edge of that shadow in photo shot against not that I want you to do it but I'm telling you how if it's there I'm not gonna throw away a great image because a little hard shot no I will soften up just the hard edge in photo shop he's in a clone tool there's multiple ways of doing it and by taking away that direct line of shadow the human I hardly even notices and they go to what is a great image otherwise they'll be going oh my goodness look at my nose it looks deformed or something that dietrich is the shadow ads negative aspects to it so with this I would actually have the bride turn a little more or the girl turned her shoulder more too if the wall was right here like where the tv is I would leave him here and set it this way I leave them here maybe put their head on the wall and that actually hides this distance here so the shadow wouldn't be there and then shoot mohr tor down the wall so you would never see that shadow so just know, when you're thinking about placement and where this light's gonna fall, it will make shadows it's not like that beautiful, giant soft box, it will make shadows, so you need to realize to do the posing to hide those shadows and then the camera angle on top of that, that makes sense. Okay, I want I don't want to stress that because that is really, really, really, really important on how you pose and how you shoot and how you use these little guys. It's gonna be very difficult in here to get away from the shadows in a minute when I shoot because we're in a very confined area, so I'm not really gonna worry about the shadows. In fact, I'll probably use some of them into my advantage, but I want you to understand a minute when I like this, I want you to look at the pattern of light on their eyes and the pattern of light on their face, so I'm actually going to do more of a harsh light on purpose so you can see that shadow and see the definition on their face lighting patterns, broad light again. It's very balanced but you definitely know what side of her face is there because you see the loop pattern so that's the light's coming from this side and that's the side that's broader, bigger to the face that makes sense bigger to the cameras that makes sense but you can get away with it you can get away with it on certain girls I'm not saying you want to do it but you can get away with it same thing here shadow broad, strong broad but she is beautiful and it works because it's more than just a snapshot there's more to that image so you can get away with it all right lot of patterns key and main light so let's kind of get into that. All right, um haven't used you much. You coming up for mason's been used and abused for two days? Stand right over here. Perfect. Okay, look this way I'm gonna actually pretend I'm gonna shoot you from this way in this whole scale. Thanks. All right. We're gonna build upon this image and multiple multiple lights. Very simple. This is how if I was going to curate a multiple light image in my mind how it works and we're going to do it here kind of in a test situation leading up to when we go outside, I'm actually going to make it happen so since it's on the roof and I'm going to do more shooting I will explain I kind of want explain a step by step process here so when you see it in action you actually understand what I'm doing so let's just say whatever's behind of course it's great paper this is where I want this is the site shot that I want like when we get on the roof I want downtown seattle so this is behind in downtown seattle so I know I want the light here we don't have the stage lights I don't ignore those so I want my light here don't be shooting here, so as I'm talking to him I'm just gonna say, hey, you know how you doing whatever you play football, whatever we're making small talk I've already knowing that's what we do pre consultations with our clients to because I get to not only know what their want in a session, but I actually get to know this young man and I could actually communicate with him instead of some old creepy guy just coming up with a camera so it actually helps you be amazed I'm still here. I want to be honest, a lot of our high school seniors don't even know that I'm a photographer back home because susie is such an amazing senior photographer they just think I'm the old creepy guy in the back room and that's fine, because it's business and as long as they're happy with business and it allows me to go out and do business other way so it's funny, when we have the magazine articles, everything else and the people, a board of directors and all that stuff, then you start reading it like him and you, you actually your photographer to? Yeah, I'm going to take a few photos here and there, but that's fine, because susie actually tell my wife is actually more popular today in high school than she was when she was in high school. So all right, so I would leave this light off right now, my master flash off, but I'm gonna put the light in my head where I think it needs to come across his face, and I would come back here, and if I was shooting manual, I was shooting manual, I would actually have my light meter, and I would set it for ambient light and it would come over and sit with his faces, and it may be sent with the sky is because I want the background and I'd stay with skies, and I would set my camera and manual I'm all manual on my camera and I would set it if I'm shooting manual on lee and I would set my camera to what the background is. So what the bag around reading is whatever the sky is whatever I want so that way it's going to allow me in that photograph to visually see that background in this case this seattle skyline but if I didn't have a flash so by exposing the background I'm going under expose him so now he's really really dark but I don't worry about that if I'm stepping it up if I'm doing a step process I only worry about what's in the background first I got that down so I take a shot and I got it down don't touch your camera settings at this point then I would actually turn my flash on take my light ruins pop my flash and read what it actually says on his face and then from there I would back up and I can actually just my flak take shot and I would actually have my foreground and perfect exposure so now my flashes exposing him my camera exposure conversation is exposing the background and I've kind of made a happy marriage that's great now comes the art part now comes what we've all been talking about like placement posing and everything else but in my mind that's the steps that I take I get the background first happy then I moved to the foreground happy then I moved to the r process if you do it in other directions for from my personal opinion first of all if I only think about art, all the technical stuff gets really, really lost in my head, so to me the art part is the last part of the process if I do the light first and then adjust my background that also just the power of the light because technically I'm exposing the ambient light is my background and why I said yesterday while this is artificial it's still ambient light, so I want to do my background always first, then my foreground, which is my flash and then the art process does that make sense? So with that said I would do that, I would have that if I'm doing tl, I don't worry about a light meter it use the meter in my camera used the exposure meter of my camera, but it's the same concept, but what I would do is I'd be on a ray v mode on my camera, and this is how I'm probably going to shoot upstairs, I'll be an heir, a v motive, my camera, I'll meet her for my subject see what the camera meter says, whatever that says, I'll underexposed from there now when I go upstairs and creative live, you'll see it in people here see, I'm actually going to take a shot, even exposure across the board to show you and I'm going to step this down, but I would take a shot even exposure underexposed from there and the reason why under my meter for him and not the background like it emanuel if I meet her for the background and t t l worry for my camera these little guys many times that background is so much brighter then my foreground that if I get proper exposure of my sky this guy's not gonna have enough juice to properly expose my subject so I find a happy medium because again, if this was a big strobe I could meet up for the sky all day long have enough power out of this guy to expose him no matter how many stops have changed that background is brighter than this person because I'm sometimes your meter in the sun I mean it's very, very bright so I'm meter for my subject and then I would under expose from there stop two stops again this is where it goes to you had flash to taste whatever you're happy with and I'm gonna do examples I know it's probably a little weird me talking this I'll show you all come a lot clear so and the way you do that with cannon well let's talk about nikon first the way you do that with nikon is same way once I activate my t t l push the button halfway down and I get my half stop and shutter speed reading all my lcd nikon, you have a little plus minus button right up here on top of your camera and you can turn the dial that's right beside and well actually under expose the image your meter in your camera you're gonna under expose its going to go to the right, you can do one, two, three, four usually, most of daikon cameras have five stops of adjustment on each shots of ten total stops, so I would under expose to stop from eighty three stops the pit on how bright the sun is outside to get my background my flash is not on at this point, I'm on ly concerned with the background so literally I would turn my flash off and I would and you don't have to show this your final powerpoint, but I would take a shot, I would look and go no, I'm not happy with that and I would under expos are overexposed till I get just my background where I want it now when you get good at this, you little be able to everything I'm doing in one top one shot. But right now I want you to take it a step by step while you're learning the process, so I have my background down where I want it now then I actually would move the light where I want it turned my flash master flash on now I would actually take a shot and I would have just and even exposure leaving it I mean even flash compensation leaving it zero see what the camera thinks his proper and then it just from their upper down to get my flash where I wanted once I have those settings then I'm gonna find tune my male or female whoever I'm photographing toe where I want it to be I'm not gonna worry about all that and then if I have a second light I'm gonna then apply the second light art I'd put it where I wanted to be and when I just that power I would look and that's when we do the manual ratio's still talking to him and I just say come over and say yeah talking blah, blah blah and move it back and then I'll come back and take the shot they have no clue that I'm actually adjusting the light power at this point they just think I'm coming up talking to him and I just move it a foot back and they said that's not gonna do anything that's almost a stop of light to a photographer but to your client is just you just having a good day yeah, just out there joking around so that's this is the process of how I go through photographing every single time and the beauty of using tl in the a v mode is once I underexposed and I get the background where I want it to look that one if it's a half a stop if it's a full stop if it's two three stops whatever once I get that I'm gonna be that under exposed the whole time so if the sun is really really bright I'm gonna be two stops under and when I pushed my shutter speed halfway down I mean my my shutter release halfway down it's gonna give you my shutter speed it maybe one for thousands of second cause I've been high speed sync and then the clouds come over I'm still gonna be two stops under so I'm still going to get the background where I want it but now my shutter speed is not gonna be so fast it might be one four hundredth of a second because the clouds come over it's not so bright but it's zach same exposure but the camera does all the adjustments for you does that make sense does anyone ever shot like that here before you tried what did you fail on uh blowing them out so I think I missed a step probably the high speed sync stuff yes blowing them out of the background out the subject ok so but you had your background where you want background was great you probably just push that button on the back the back your flash and again we mentioned it yesterday and you're still going to do it? I'm gonna mention again today a telltale sign when you don't have your high speed seem calm for cannon users is when your shutter speed is blinking if you're a navy mode, you've set your f stop to where you want it to be from two, eight, two whatever and your shutter speed is blinking your flash think speed. Which what? Camera? To use cannon but what? My mark three. Ok, so would be one two hundredth of a second. So your flash sinks be whatever will be two point eight and two hundred is gonna be blinking in your lcd. When you look, you'll see the two hundred blinking and that is your telltale sign. You have to turn in high speed scene because as soon as you hit high speed sync button it's going to jump up to like two thousand or whatever it needs to be and then you just find tuna. Just your flash compensation up down. Have you guys ever shot it this way at all? Are you just all manual planning to it's? A little scary in it. And I talked about earlier. Is that rebooting your brain shooting that a v giving some of the control over to the computer, which is very, very hard to do most of the time. Very difficult to do but if you think about it from this stop thought process one two three it doesn't matter if I have ten lights in here it's all the same and that's what I like about I could have multiple lights I could stand back having all the same channel all in the same group take the shot looking my lcd and literally fine tune each light I could see it and I literally could just go back and moving forward or backwards to get the light that I want that don't use up any lights I used three at most generally only used to when I'm outside because the sun is my third light so this is my set up when I go outside one to the sons usually gonna come over here if you look at the stage lights that's my son so they're coming here you don't have to look at him so I was just saying look at so the sun's coming here would actually push him about right turn around about right here so they're nice hairline on him so he's not squinting he's not having a hard time it's got that beautiful you cannot emulate son it's just beautiful light even in the harsh day you're gonna get that beautiful rim light all the way down which is what he's got from the stage lights and then I would actually put my main light here and if I wanted another hair like I could put it over here for that strong room, like on both sides, or I can actually put another light over here to balance out the ratio on his spaces for feel like and when I say mainline, I'm saying key light to some of the people who've been around for a while, he is the old terminology we seem to forget a lot of people when I say key like they're like what you're talking about, I have no keys, I don't know what you're which you're assuming so it's keer main light, and I say maybe so, but that is the general concept, the sun's in the back, I'm going to place him away from the sun, and then I'm gonna just so I can not control the sun, I can hide from it, but I can't control it. So if this is the case when I'm exposing for my background, this huge bright light on his hair is what I'm really going to expose my background. I don't want this to be blown out because if that's blown out what's the first thing you're going to look at when you look at that photo, the bright spot and not his eyes were let's say about the eyes, and this sounds really weird, I apologize, but he has very pretty eyes it's okay, so you want to be able to see is that I promise you I'm all right I'm not that creepy maybe a little so you have to see the eyes and so you don't want the bride spot to be seen first so you wantto under expose and this is the difference between this is completely one eighty from natural light photographer natural light will blow that out because you have to see the eyes this completely opposite and this is why when I mentioned yesterday susan, I critique our works all the time because we have a hard time trying to remember teo capture this and with natural light because we're so like okay, the sons right here I got a lower here, I'm gonna expose that boom got it put the light here like here and we just shoot we're going just often running and we don't think about it cause it's just mechanical for us at this point it's just natural and so for us to slow down and say, well, wait a minute if I raise the exposure, lose that part that's part of it and blow up the whole background toward this bright spot is blown out the entire background where it's even now it's not this big bright spot right here the whole backgrounds blown out and now his face becomes the attention again and so that's the difference between natural and artificial when you're using flash and it's very it is it is it's literally one hundred eighty degrees thought process and but the beauty of it is and again I'm into yesterday and when you guys go home and try this and when you guys go home and try this or we're your home when you tried this afternoon, hopefully you will realize I want you to make big changes that said that yesterday, but I want to explain why even mohr because if I took this photo and exposed here just just a little, you're never going to see it. I want you to make the biggest changes you possibly can in your camera to where the images just like I've been shooting don't look great, you see the actual effect and then come back to a happy medium where you see the power you have in these flashes, you see the control power you have in your camera and your master flash and it just all that tore your happy because when you do that you could make a very edgy, edgy photo. I could turn the flash off and make a very natural light photo, and then I can actually turn the flash on and underexposed just a tad for the background and I just to kiss a lot and I'd have three different complete looks never moving any light and just adjusting my camera settings are gonna have a huge and then it goes even father, I could have a huge depth of field or I can have a shallow depth of field because using high speed sync, you're not set at that one two hundred one two fifth of a second and f eleven outside when I was in crime scene in the film days and I'm sure the older gentleman here excuse me the more educated gentleman here would understand what the old, um, sunny sixteen roll mint sonny sixteen rule we lived and breathed by when I was in law enforcement for outside and basically it means you put a roll of film in your in your camera, whatever I s so that is it you'd set your f stop two f sixteen you said your shutter speech the closest that I associate so if it's four hundred you set the shutter speed at one four hundredth of a second, so one, four hundred second s o four hundred sixteen you're going to get beautiful photos outside perfectly exposed when you didn't have a light meter. It was a life saver, and again I was a crime scene investigator I had to make sure those photos showed up I lived and breathed by f sixteen, but the problem that I don't like about that rule is the f sixteen I don't want everything in focus I don't want that huge depth of field all the time, there's times that I do if you look at the photos that they used a lot for for this class there's one of me in san francisco with the golden gate bridge right behind her and sunset and she's on the rock and it's beautiful. Yes, I want f sixteen at that point because it's beautiful image, but my beach like I talked about with the chemical plant behind I don't want have sixteen I want one point two if I can, so this is the on ly technique out there with the same equipment without having to haul out everything that you can do all that in one tiny little package and that's. Why I'm so passionate about teaching flash is because it actually allows you to be mohr are mohr actual, versatile artist than any other type of photography out there, because it allows you once you understand all the bells and whistles which I hope you understand least the foundation after these two days, you can go out and create any image. It might take you a while to think, but if you literally do these step process and I'm fixing to bring in, macy and him were going to do it actually live, but if you think about this step process one background get my background where I wanted to put my lights where I think they need to fall with the light patterns that we talked about and it's going to take experiment don't get upset when you mess up if you really have if your kid really messes up and you want to punish him or her make them do it for you and be your model and light him up take the shot you have the background where you want adjust your light up and down you have that then once you have that then you can start playing with the post and imposing comes and goes I mean that's that's that's a never ending process just like lighting it's a never ending process that's what my wife is so good that she'll go to opposing class we'll sit side by side I'll remember one or two poses it's like someone's going to a comedy special remember one joke she'll remember every joke she'll remember every pose and then she blends into her own which is why she's so good at what she does so get the concept down get the technical aspects down and then we're about the art later that's a that's a whole nother thing and that's so personal this technical stuff it's not personal it's black and white this is part of just like learning f stop shutter speed so it's not gonna change once you understand it you can adjust anything