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Lesson Info
14. The Art of Making Photo Sets
Lessons
Intro
01:21 2Gear: Alex's Travel Kit
17:27 3Camera Settings
11:45 4The Beach: Sunset & Sunrise
12:41 5The River: Kayak, Underwater, and Drone
04:58 6The Ruins: Light, Lenses, and Composition
07:02 7Cenotes: Concepts
08:18 8Editing 1: Sunset at the Beach
15:17Lesson Info
The Art of Making Photo Sets
Now I'm in Lightroom. I have all my labels done, and I'm going to tell you which labels I'm using for what. So, I have four colors, red, green, blue and yellow for each image. So, my reds are for the action shots. My yellows are for the photos that will go together. My greens are for the more reflective moments, like I was telling you in the field days, I like action and reflection so this is how I manage that sort of duality in Lightroom. And then I have one, my final one, for details, which is shortcut number nine, which is the yellow. So, what I do now usually is that I export all of this as JPEG with these settings. Let me show you the settings here, into a new folder. This is Hungry Horse Camp. And I might rename or not rename them. I put them in sRGB because I'm using it for web, and web needs sRGB. If I'm using it for print I would keep it Adobe RGB. Quality 100, and then my size usually is 4, for the widest corner always. Okay, so I've already exported them, and I'm not gonna d...
o it again. Now, let me tell you about where I build my long-form stories. So, I could build that on my website, I could build it on Behance, I could build it in so many ways and places. But lately I've been using a site called Exposure that my friend Luke started. And this is not a sponsored thing and there's no plug or, I just been using it lately, and I wanna show you how I use it because it's, to me, is the best platform for long-form content you can ask for. So, if you're not using it check it out, it might be useful. Okay, so now let's jump into Exposure. So, I'm just gonna name this story Moto Camp, Summer in Montana. Keep it simple for now. Okay, so what I wanna do usually is this, I start with my cover photo, which makes a lot of sense. And like I told you, it's going to be this one of the guys rolling into camp with a cool light. I like to start pretty strong with my best stuff. And I usually also want to add my favorite photo. No, and I also wanna find what my last image is gonna be from the beginning. So, I usually add my first image and my last image kinda like a book, introduction and then end. Boom, so I'm gonna add this in the end as a, full width, boom, okay. So, now I've got my first photo, last photo, I feel good about it. It's kinda like my two slices of my sandwich, and now I'm gonna add the stuff inside. I wanna start with adding these two photos that I shot of the bikes. They're like my two details. I've labeled them blue in Lightroom. And I have them here in my folder, and I'm gonna add them as a photo set. I think they're a good way, a good segue into the content. They're rolling into camp, now I have my two sort of contenders, the XD and the PE. And then I wanna pick up with some more action. This one we're gonna do because there's a rainbow in the back, so we're picking up pretty strong. Oh, so you added it at the top, you just hit here to put it down. There you go, so easy to use this thing. Okay, now we got that. And I feel like after that I think I wanna get some more riding in. I wanna make it more action, more of my reds. So, I got all these reds here to add, let's see how this flows. So, I love building my sets into the Finder because I can move the images freely. In Lightroom I cannot move them. Here, as soon as I use an image I just drag it down to the bottom of the folder like here, boom. And it could be a little cleaner, but I've just been playing with it. It's just like a canvas. I like that it just lets me put my things like that, just a good way to organize it. All right, so we got, I got another image of Isaac somewhere here where he's jumping over a log, there it is. I think it's gonna go good as a full width. Hmm, yeah, so it doesn't work that well because they're both of the same, he's going left in both images and they look pretty similar. So, no, let's get rid of that, and I think I can do it better. I might have another one of, that could go well with it. Let me see what I got in my blues. There it is, yeah, this one. 'Cause it's the same light and he's wearing the same jacket, I think can work well. Let's try 'em as a photo set. So, this whole set building is just like chiseling away at a sculpture almost. You shouldn't rush the process and make afraid, don't be afraid to be making mistakes left and right. I'm adding, I'm deleting, it's fine. It's, I might work on it tomorrow it might be different, but right now I'm just trying to make sure that the story flows well, and visually, and then chronologically. So, this feels better. I think I wanna have this one first though just because, at least I'm gonna try it. Hmm, I think by now we get a sense that Isaac is a good brapper, just jumping all the time. Okay, feels all right. Let's continue and see what we got. I might go back to it later on, don't want to get stuck on it too long. Let's try this one, I think that it could be cool. And then this is, I like this one in Exposure because you can make them parallax. There you go, so it's a good way to sort of reset the palette. They're doing some drag races on this one. So, now I got the brappin' and then boom, I got this one that I wanna make it parallax here. There you go, so as you scroll down you go through it, cool. I'm feeling good about this. Let me just continue working on it, and show you how far I got. All right, so I feel like I'm pretty much done with this set here. Let me show you what I got. I managed to squeeze this one in as a more contemplative image between all this action. I thought I wanted to break it 'cause it was like action, action, action. You need to be able to place a rhythm. It's like music, right? You need to break, and then you go back into it. I think these two go well together like this, like this is we're far away and then we get close to the action. It's like we're showing the viewer leading in inside that. And then now it's time to take a break. Assemble camp, camp is set. I'm shooting this from the other side of the lake with the 7200, oh, with the 100-400 actually. And now we roll into dinnertime. So, it's just like I'm sort of reading a story but visually. That's what I love about making these sets. So, I built this one this way because, I could've started with this one of Eli roasting and then getting into this one and then this one, but I think this is more interesting like this. We don't know if this is his first hot dog or not. It's just different. And I want things that people will be like oh yeah, that's different. I didn't expect that. The unexpected is always great in photos. We roll down to camp now, they've had dinner, they're chilling, sort of blue-green hour has begun. And they're tinkering on the bikes, and then they've decided to go for a ride. So, I kept this image really dark and gloomy because it got really dark at that time. So, I'm not trying to save it, and I just kept it like this. They're going for a night ride. Now, this again, just like my other nature photo, it's just to reset the mood because we're gonna be more contemplative now. We're out of the action and we're more contemplative here. And that's it, we finish on this more contemplative note just by the shore of the lake. This is, I think, my favorite photo of Isaac just lining up Eli. Man, what a cool night. Yeah, I just wanna hit Publish, but I might work on it tomorrow, who knows? But I think it's good like this. That's sets, you never know until you just put it out, but this feels right right now.
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ZHIYUAN SUN
True Inspiration and amazing way to tell stories with photos
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Adventure & Sports