Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Cherries

So we're gonna take everything that we talked about two practical and how we're going to start to start with a really simple subject, and sometimes those images are the most beautiful images we're going to talk about propping or anything that's for later. So one way to give yourself a lesson or home worker science homework assignment is to find a really beautiful ingredient, and in this case, it's the cherries, you don't need to think about all the different layers, and if you're going to glass or if you're going to need linens were gonna keep simple, keep it simple and that's why I didn't bring bring bring in any linens, but what did find were some really beautiful cherries, and this is what we're going to use to illustrate light, um, and the clock thing that we talked about. So this is what we're going to start with and todd's going to photograph the cherry with this wonderful natural light coming from the back first, and then after that he's going to be moving around to show the dif...

ferent angles and the different moods on all, we're also going to be using a lot of these, um, black outboards and reflectors right here and that we're going to use to control light, so this lesson is not only learning about directional light but controlling light. Because when we talked about light and having too much it definitely is a problem because in this situation for us for a lot of times it's too much light you know, some people will look at the situation with his two wonderful banks of windows particularly with moody shots they think oh that's what I need I need more light we're here to tell you that sometimes more light can be hurtful so yeah so it's you know, we talked about earlier it's like with the delight room it's one thing to kind of here to see it but then hopefully when you see it starting to move around and to shoot it you'll start to make a little bit more sense if there's a little bit muddy before like diane talked about you know you see a lot of times you see these big beautiful banks the windows like oh, I need I can't get great shots unless I have these big beautiful windows this huge light source well we're shooting through photography a lot of times particularly if it's individual dishes that's just too much and so you're goingto start narrowing it down sir, sometimes you want that sometimes you don't so you'll see how we rock it yeah it's a story of light and after we shoot a dark and moody sample which is what we're going to shoot course we're going to shoot it on light because not everybody loves dark would not everybody loved that dark, moody stuff? They want something playful and fun. We'll start switching it over so let's rock it so let's first, uh, look at our lights and they're gonna kill these tops so we have just our natural light coming in and that's a great lesson. Sometimes when you're shooting let's, say in the kitchen you have ambient light, you probably have a really warm kitchen light or something when you're photographing you want to keep the light, is neutrals possible to daylight? You want to turn off all your ambient light? A lot of times, people forget to turn off the light, so you get a lot of that white balance, the yellow or the blue, whatever bleed into your image, so if you can't try to start with as much neutral natural itis possible, and sometimes it will be also the matter of let's say you have just a window that's bleeding in from the other side of the room, so last times we're closing off the extra windows that we're not using, whether you're just putting something in front of it would use black fabric that will just clamp in front of it if we don't have a blind that could do it, but we'll try to minimize our light sources just tow one, keep it simple, use the kiss method and then you'll start seeing how that one individual light is affecting your subject, and then you can build from there, then you can decide if you need to fill it, or or if you want actually blocking more, maybe it's still too much light, but tryto for us, what we do is we try to first minimize that light source to a singular area, and then after that work on the rest. So, you know, I have these two light sources here, the windows and then for a subject, and as I walked around and start seeing how delight is changing and affected my subject and let's say, I have a particular front that I like, I like the way the cherries lie and the dish, so as I move around, I can just keep moving that with me, so I can see where is the light that I want? So if I'm here that's, my twelve o'clock, right that's my back light, so if I want you back, what I would be there if I want to move around let's say I like it a little bit more right here. I'm also not looking just at how it shooting on the subject, how the lights fine on the subject, but also in how it's reflecting off my surface, too, because the surface is going to become lighter darker depending on how the light's hitting it so that's gonna also affect your image that's going to give a darker tone or lighter tone to your image just based off of non your said not only your subject but your services in the surrounding areas so you notice one before we're shooting we're not using any boards at all we want a starting point and that's what todd and I always do whenever we shoot at any point sometimes we're overthinking it we start laying a bunch of reflectors and everything we always remind ourselves to shoot it and getting a starting point see what it looks like so we know where the light falls because sometimes you might not need a bounce sometimes you might so we all start off with that being bare naked and see what the starting point is so we have kind of been like initially a little bit more of that little bit of love you're like not everyone we're going to shoot awesome kind see we're not we're not just doing one but we'll do that starting part is a little bit more dramatic it's not going to be overly dramatic at this point because we still have a lot of light coming in now if okay so I'm doing a little bit dramatic more the silent right which side am I gonna choose my gonna do one side or the other well, it looks totally different from each side probably because I'm also not centered on my light source sometimes you have a wall which is going to basically help block the light so you have the lights kind of coming in here it's not coming in here but over here you're catching the edge you catching little bit that feathering of the shadowing coming from the light source we used that to as as part of the image and understanding what is doing for the shot so I want this to be a little bit darker so I'm going to come in from this side because on diane's side right now it's like I have the second bank of windows which is casting a little bit more light making this liver the brighter this side is a little bit darker so he's going a little bit of sidelight he's not starting out my favorite well, it only does first ganging up on me she doesn't know what she wants most of my lot always waiting rob bare naked natural light and then these guys come in later so we'll see what that gets going to see what this sort of light and then after we take a look at it and then we start adding all the different layers so that's not bad that's not bad so starting with that the goal at this point let's say you're the art director and you've already told me that we want it moodier and darker no problem then we start adding the layers so for situations where you have to not enough light normally everybody would use white to reflect and situations where you have too much light you can block light and this is where we're going to create the directional light and create this basically little tent of cardboard or a blackout boards so let's go ahead and see what it looks like with one board first so let's say we wanted a little moodier so you can see where we start playing and feathering a little bit you just just notice the subject put the camera down and just look if we just do this you see you immediately that that darkens and immediately creates another mood so what we're adding now is one element not to it's so easy to say I'm gonna have three boards let's just add one at a time so let's go ahead and shoot that again what a day what do you know what I how I like to think of the light is actually coming three stages I like to think of how the lights find my subject highlights falling the background and how the light's falling in the foreground I will actually do the same sort of thing later was styling and with playing multiple dishes but keep it simple start with first your subject find out your lights fighting on there and then start working around it's like the man says like, okay, we had the one shot we want to change a little bit we wantto make things a little more dramatic a bit more moody so we're going to start we're going to try to make our background a little bit little bit darker lubin moved here so I'm gonna and it's also going very for angle too so she's seeing one thing but from the camera side is going to be a little bit different so usually if you having someone help you, you can't just tell them block this for me you have to help guide them because you're seeing things a little bit different just get your angle is slightly slightly scared let's go maybe about right there this is if you have kids it comes in really handy go the voice activated stand system well there so we're starting and lazy want to make it darker by controlling light and can you won't see us, you know it should be come up with a minute so what unity is um one and then I'm going to get a second one ready to go um so there it iss if you can flip through the first to the second so you see this some of the difference already in the background you see, just by adding one layer of dark, you have the light background, which really gives it a little bit more airy feeling, but now we're starting to block off and create that move to the background here starts to get darker, so we're still in the same direction of light, so here's another way to make it even darker is toe add two boards and so let's really make it moody probably were also washing in ways that you could do it without I'm having a lot of having to have a lot of complicated equipment, you don't necessarily have to have stands there's c stands, clams, all the sort of things which can make things easier, but it's not necessarily necessary. Um and actually I might be able to set this up so you don't have to hold it, but okay, going let that one down, I'm gonna use this one here. Wei have clips were using two and but I just don't wanna hold it cause we want to be able to control it a little bit more. So it's actually just leave this? I'm going to use this light to basically be the same way that she was holding it before I could just move my subject a little bit closer to it because I'm not falling off that much, so now I see like a my shadows falling crossed here I'm kind of is basically begin to feather off about the point words hitting the cherries I'm going to get about the same length double check quickly and what you're going to see is with one board and the next subject afterwards we're gonna make it really dark curly moody so there's about the same I change angle little bitches so I'm not getting the board so it's a little not quite distracting in the back I still like the angle on the cherries falling into a nice now let's make it a little bit more moving you just keep adding a little bit more. I want to stand over here so now basically what we're looking for us to kind of create just a little pocket of window that's actually going through that's actually can I have it? Come on let's do just a slight window here almost become just that little bit of stream, the light and I'm gonna basically just shooting just passed you see how it is literally only giving a sliver of the light now because we felt it was too much light for a movie we want to make it really dark getting just past those cherries so that way it's like now it's, like I've dealt with my background was the backlight now and deal with the foreground and it gets a just a little bit let's even cute let's even keep blocking in a little bit more let's go appears go top there so sometimes because we have the light source is so high you're gonna have to feather on top down so let's do this go ahead uh here you go here so now it's like we're having we're blocking a lot of our upper light and getting just enough that it's sneaking in underneath the blackboard in this case I think your kids are going to be tired so that you could do is probably invested there gonna be starving by now but yeah just a lot of play this is just a lot of play going back and forth moving it front and bath so it's still not dark enough for us we're not happy with it because we really want to go dark and so we're gonna actually bring on a third board and sometimes you're gonna need three threes about the max yeah theories about the match we're going so we could tell already that you're going to need a bounce here so it's like do this one here this one here so we're gonna literally create a box now see all these things and that's where like this tense could be handy but we're literally creating box and for a lot of the shots that where we want it dark and moody it's it is a box of black foam core boards ah, a little bit tighter. Yeah, and it does it's just a lot of playing and sometimes we'll use for if we have to to create that mood and this world because there is so much light. So do you see that? How darker that's starting to give little bit doctor so let's change the blacksmith backlight now and then we'll make the move from the back light again, so we're list again start back in zero. Start back at finding just the initial light how we like on the subject. So moving from here to here what? I'm moving just about a foot, right? Let's keep our we go love it more backer we're gonna we'll do a few different. Okay, um we could have everyone decide what they like and it's always great to start with one basic subject and then when you're building your platelets eights just the salad and you want to show a drink or lenin just start with the salad first that's what really helps so see how he's turned around? You start to get a little bit that back fresh field? Yes, I'm sorry. Did I notice you haven't changed your s o your f stop that's typically something that I'm finding I'm doing more, but it looks like, is there a reason why you're not adjusting that is supposed to so for you basically have your three components which you're making up your exposure, right? You have your f stop, you have your shutter speed and you have your eyes. So um the first thing that we want to send is going to be what's most important for our image and for most food photography, the most important thing is going to the depth of field, which is of course control through your f stop, so I'm going to set the f stop to be about the depth of field that they want using which and that's going to be dependent on whichever lens I'm using and the distance I am from my subject so it's always relative so there's never like one answer like what have stuff? Um I'm going to shoot and also the subject is going to kind of help dictate that as well how deep I want to see into the subject and then after that it's you it's biscuit, moving the other two to help get your exposure and everyone kind of has their own personal preference of how they do it. Usually I tend to like just setting my s o at a point where I have arranged to play with depending on the lighting situations and I can just forget about that and then play with my shutter speed teo get the exposure that I'm looking for is particular, I'm hand holding it, then it's like I'm goingto just push that I sew up enough that I can kind of comfortably handhold and in a variety of situations that should pretty much cover it, so I don't have to kind of think about that if, unless necessary by no other offers that do it, put flour, they will basically they'll set their shutter speed and they'll shut the first that there apter than they shut their, sutter said, set their shutter and then move there I so teo accommodate so it really kind of depends on your own personal sell. Part of it is also the camera um some cameras it's easier to move one or the other, it might be easier for on your body, teo, you move the ice around others is easier to move the show speed around. So and for me, when I'm shooting, I usually set shit set my f scott first because that's usually the finding factor for me because there's a no depth of field that I know I want to maintain throughout the shot or throughout the shoot, so I'll set my f stop and then alice changed either shutter I s o t get my meter teo expose for me, so it just depends on watch factor of that light that you want take your first. Yes, I want to ask you about your s o I shoot for stock and sometimes some stock agencies you really don't want to go above three hundred and some you don't really want to go above one hundred if it's going to be for print. So for publications for editorial, is there an esso kind of lid that you kind of want to stay under? It does it? It depends on your camera body. I mean, you know, we have one of our bodies, it shoots amazing at thirty, two hundred I mean it's, like we've blown it's we've had a major corporate clients that I've blown it up to the size of a building, and it looked amazing at thirty two, thirty, two hundred, so I mean that's, you know? And so that's, what that's really dependent on just your individual camera body? Um, I'm comfortable shooting anybody in any everybody's under one thousand easy it's like, I'll move around thousand twelve fifty for everybody that we have and not even think twice about it, not worry about how big they're gonna go or what it's like it's. Pretty clean and then you know if it's not close enough to being like perfectly clean it's clean it's close enough that if you have to impose its you can just touch it up just touching post and it'll be fine e but again that's a toy depend on camera body that's that's where that comes into play got a couple of more equipment questions do you mind eso wondering if yu from photo spain do you ever use a tripod or is it always handheld? So that's a great question we will totally use a tripod especially you'll see is later when we need to keep the scene the same so it's like basically I need to find my angle, but things are going to change within the scene ah lot maybe you have a client that's approving it, so you're going to be tweaking and and you'll see that kind of as we're going through the styling we have are seen but we need a shift and just things we want to keep the camera angle the same or you have a low lights situation words like you can't push your eyes up that much so you have to have a slower service being it becomes really hard to hand hold it and a good get a good clean image um even though in situations like that we're using a tripod for the shot I still like to find my shot free him. The only problem I have it's not even a problem I have with tripods, but the tennessee I find with tripods we're lazy and if we put it on tripod it becomes cumbersome to move around and to find that angle and you see it's like, you know, moving just a little bit sometimes it's just like three, four inches, it will change a shot a lot, but if you wanna try five, you're going to be less likely teo, to seeking to find those angles so I'll still find that angle free hands and then just like my tripod underneath that point to where in pre close and then aiken, you just use the head or the tripod moving up and down teo, find tune it at that point was still finding it freehand initially and then using the tripod at the end. Cool. And how about tethering whether we do where we don't, um that's another one of those things is like every kind chained in or do you get a kind of a room free for client situations? It's always tethered. So any time you have a table top situation where you have consistency or you need consistency where it's that same frame and there's so many adjustments in between that's work tethering is is to provide double and really it's mandatory because you're never gonna be able to get that same exact same angle again, and you want to keep that variable consistent but tethering in terms of home and in practicing, I think it could be very useful because it allows you to get immediate results and immediately lee see where you are accurately, more accurately, based on what you would see in your computer, because sometimes what you see in the back of the camera isn't always reflective of what you could see on the computer. So if you're practicing at home and you have an opportunity to get to tether, that could be really great to on dh it also saves you stepping, too, you know? Because now it's like you don't have take it from the camera, imports your computer so it make it could make your work flow a little bit faster. Um, the one drawback you are a tennessee that can happen sometimes when he only each other is that you shoot it and then you kind of stop when you shoot you. Now stop looking through the camera when you're shooting, but instead it's like you're showing your real quick and and looking at the computer and so that's one thing I think just to become aware of, like when you do start tethering it's too still view the image through the camera, really understand through the camera and then just use the tethering and the monitor as just a tool to help view it a little bit more after the chopper. Make sure is that post this it's after the shot, not using the tether to capture the shot, get back all right, my back was a bag like this, keeping the same exposure so we can see the same exposure well, lets him exposure, exposing it. Okay, so he's got the backlight. So again, we're going to shoot with a little bit more, more drama from the back you can see again, a totally different mood just by changing. So he went from that side to this eye, which is literally maybe three steps and that's all it took. And then again, this gives it a very different mood to the cherries, and we'll do that sometimes find the angle, because sometimes we think what we started with this lights going to be great for the subject, it's not so we'll make changes, so don't be so so locked into thinking that that's always the direction of light that you shoot. So you see here, um, that back life, that strong backlight, it really highlights the shape of the cherries. More it kind of gives it to me like a sexy wrap around the fruit um maybe shoot one darker so we can see a little bit more so he's gonna drop exposure for one step so this backlight khun b really bright and airy and it's great for shooting the liquid stuff which will be talking about later so again some people love this backlight look, some people hate it and some people love the contrast some people don't but this type of light gives a lot more contrast so if we're able to take a look at least a comparison between this one and one of the previous ones we shot maybe from three o'clock and then you really start to see the difference between the two and from that each light will kind of reflect differently on different subject so let's say the front was a little too dark we can always fill in a little bit more to expose from the back light it's very come around come around a little bit to balance it out so you see how he shot the right photo little darker um but it's me that you know the back light gives a really nice, bright fresh harry look, you know um and I just feel that in a little bit and with exposure to drugs job exposure to but when that could be helpful is if you love pinterest and you love um, adding type to your image that you put on your photos, this could be a great situation where if you can really expose the cherries, get the light right, and you have that really bright in the light in the back, if you put a really great fought on there that'll really pop like a dark color, you know? So that's, another occasion where this type of lighting could work because a lot of people are shooting, not just for mood, they're shooting for graphics, um, and that's, what a lot of our editors will do is they'll talk about it with us, and we'll talk through the image and say, we need to shoot this, but I really need to put a red graphic on it. So if we know that you've got to put a dark graphic that we've got to shoot something with a more brighter back light so we can compensate for that the dark graphic showing up so there's a lot of reasons why you would use different types of life, but the goal is to let you know that you have control of that, you know, and that would make it really, and also like these air, fairly tight into the subject's let's actually shoot these lubin wider machine, my was a horizontal so you can start also feeling a little bit more of the ambiance is not just the subject, but a lot of times were shooting beyond the subject and getting getting a bit more of them the whole scene going in there, even though this is just a simple subject, a simple surface let's go somewhere about here. So there's a strong back light just framing just a bit he's going to just framing so let's say this situation you live in a really small apartment and this is the only direction of like that you have and that's the only space that you can stand okay? And we know that many of you live in small apartments that are like that situation where you really only have one place to put your camera, you have no weather, place to move and that's okay? And how you want accomplish the stark image with that backlight is through these barbs here, and I'm gonna let's totally make it so you didn't seem like this we talked about were using your graphic may be in the top of her side to give that big open space um, for composition. A lot of times we like to pull things onto the third's rule of thirds. You know, its artistic elements have been used for forever where if you divide an image into thirds right left and then top down and then where those points are intersecting and along those lines of thirds are rising to be drawn a little bit more than if I place this image just dead center kind of give a different feel for how these two images look for this onwards after the edge and versus one that's going to be framed starting and particularly started with the beet subjects so in the centre it just it just you kind of feel a little bit different it's like with the the one that's on the left we're in the cherries reaction on the right it's like you can allows your eye to wander around the subject or the whole framing finding out what's happening in that empty space released you kind of feel that empty space center it's that's your kind of focused and great directly to that middle so you know composition where your subjects lying well let's do the same thing let's just say I'm a say mingle and back by dark yeah let's just make it totally dark let's say so you're in your small apartment and your this is your only light source your best of against everything else she lays in the same position back light with this yeah docking it up so you can see the two different moods here okay we're going teo horizontal yeah same so we can go see the before and after with the two different lights that you've seen that backlight and how if you've even if you only have backlight blocking the board's concretely that darker mood let's who were expecting to see where exposures at but you know it really is that I interpret you see how immediately it changes yes it's a darker mood so let's say you only have a wooden table top and you only live and we're really giving you situations where you have no options and there are some people that don't have options so if you don't have options you definitely have ways to think about like to create the different mood so here's something that's a little darker and moody so let's go do the same thing if you're gonna go light so let me let me move this poured over real quick these boards were made by the amazing creative life staff so we're going to switch over and create a different mood on white so let's say you want to create a light formers marketfield same situation with light because let's say your light shooter and you're drawn to this light really feminine wood textures so that here's ah well which way do we want start way back later you want teo site like whenever you want to do wait could even do a front like I'm actually won't confuse you you want me to do different things and so it's actually the start where we left off so was due back late on the way and also with the lighter surface is going to bring a little bit more light into the framing from thatjust thie exposure to compensate for you. And so for a lot of light surfaces, sometimes you're going to deal with this like a lot of blow out, and the other image had a lot of blow up to we would expose more, but it's more to show how to block out the light and create the mood. So when you're shooting white surfaces like this and that's your style, you've got to really pay attention more to exposure in light. This is where the little bit of light really can blow out the texture, and you lose the nature of the board. So in this case, if we wanted to shoot to keep the nature of the whitewood or any type of white texture, we would definitely use these a lot more, particularly in this case, because there is such a large bank of light or sort of fusing, yeah, diffuse so let's, go ahead and just start blocking a little bit more to get the integrity of the wood back onto the screen, because this is such a beautiful wood piece that say, you paid a ton of money for it dropped on there and you wanna be able to show it, or else it just looks like a white stock paper but also don't be afraid to blow out if you like it I mean that z again these air estate things there is kind of like the rules I go you know it's like you know you don't want to lose that information you don't want to have a blown out like it's you know it's just way too much but if you like it there's nothing wrong it's an aesthetic choice remember that gets your shot it's like what you like that's what's important so you know everybody had the personal style so you see the board starting to come back in again so in order for us to get that board back in again we would drop exposure going to keep blocking again to create more of a mood on the white but it's not necessarily creating at moody white it's getting nature of the board back in the shot because that always happens when you're shooting on lighter textures darker textures are just so much more forgiving when it comes to bright light lighter textures or not so this is where you're really going to have to control the light more maybe defuse it two or three times so see that there's much less blowout the little softer you can still see the nature of the board more and you could still be able to put the um the text on it if you want let's maybe show one angle going this way yeah so also, when we start blocking too much over the top that we're leasing a little ivar shimmer offer cherries too, so now we have a lighter surface, so even though we're wanted a light, bright area shot, we don't necessarily have to shoot that backlight our surface is going to help windows to that backlight as well. So now, if I move around to the edge, we're off to the side of women more and again doesn't have to be straight back, like, not yet, we'll start without you get the cherries and they're sitting pretty and, you know, in this case, two with cem, this one, this board, some things to look at in the texture this board changes quite a bit throughout the board, you have some that are much more texture than others, so placement is also key in surfaces that might blow out. So in this case, we're choosing the part of the board that's a lot more textured. What is? This is a step toward you see, that has just a little bit more texture and the cherry. So you all start to see, like, you know which one you like better? So now when you approach the ship, we kind of know the position of where you're going to stand and how you gonna block it off great. You dropped exposure to let's say you really want to get a lot of wood back on there so in this case we have so much of the bank of window so let's be really aggressive, you know, let's be really aggressive and literally just block out a lot of that light to get that board texture back in there so you spent so much time making about that border you spent a lot of money buying it you really want to show more texture we're gonna keep logging and with this this's where we would have clamps and see stand to hold this because this is where if you only have one kid your stuff and sometimes you're not gonna have anybody hold it for you this is gonna be oh, you see how the board, the nature of the board and the texture of the board starts coming back in just like you need to have it now but it's like if you want to get it that's that's what it's more about being out to get the shots that you want, not necessarily what's being dictated or away you think is impossible it's like you can make these choices and just by blocking or defusing and we could do the same thing through diffusing to it doesn't have to be a blackboard you could just diffuse your light more and that's gonna help bring serve texture and changing that difference between the shadows and the exposed part a little more. Bring more life back to it.