Lessons

Lesson Info

Shooting Introduction

our first two kids that are coming in are the little ones and it's kind of funny when I went out into the to the back room and asked them a little bit I was meeting the children and typically I don't do that too early because I don't want to engage too early but I went out to meet them and um I was explaining I said well the first things you know because this is a live scenario you know don't worry if things don't go the way their plan of these little ones you know kind of fall apart or they're running around don't worry about it because in this case normally I would want a good session but in this case I definitely don't mind chaos in fact I want to show that so people could see how I solve the problems and the mom of the little guy said oh he's perfect for the job than this it's going to be gray so I've had my warning I know that he's going to be a mover and a shaker and that's ok so our first little one it's around twenty three months little girl are second when I believe he's a lit...

tle over two actually gonna get equipment first so you're going to see the difference between twenty three months and even two years old there's a verbal the way they articulate uh and there is also the difference between the way they're going to move and the way they're gonna handle things so you're going to see that right out of the gate let's talk a little bit about the equipment I'm using this side we have to set ups here and that's really just for a flow purposes most people do not have big rooms like this so understand we get that you know we're going to show you two scenarios so that we could move quickly but this is a typical studio set up for me this is a td six west got continuous light it is on that awesome handy dandy light stand that I talk to you about from man photo you can see that it's a pretty simple like one hand up and down and when you work with little ones definitely being able to go all the way to the floor I mean I could take this all the way to touching the floor that's something that you don't realise until you're working with a two year old how frustrating having your life remember we said lights in the eyes if your lights up here that's going to just be an issue because you're unless they're always looking up you're gonna have some really tough lighting to deal with so that does make a big difference so what you're going to see me flying around and it's just it's speed and ease of use so way of the west what's got to be six is a three by four back soft box and then we have a smaller unit and so this is a strip light and strip lights are definitely my favorite light source I like narrow controlled light sources so this is our kicker light this is the light that's going to separate the subject off of the background and then of course moving over here we have a soft box this looks like a two by three maybe I think it's a little guy soft blocks on and it is really light in the background now to be very honest in this room we do have some extra lights in the room that are lighting the set so I'm kind of lucky today because we have a little more volume of life than I would normally have in a room like this typically especially when I'm shooting on the road I'm in these dark convention rooms with big ceilings and my life is just sucked away I go on the stage and sometimes I'm at s o you know four hundred five hundred because I just can't get that light so here I'm lucky because kind of pretending like this is a sort of more of a natural light environment and uh what I metered out at already it would look like it was around I believe I s o four hundred at f ate at sixty if they're one twenty fifth of a second so that's probably where we're going to go normally I would probably shoot it five six but just to make sure everything is good and clean and sharp we're going to go that route we are going to meet her and we're gonna white balance before we get started and talk through that a ce faras backgrounds I kind of mentioned these before these air silver like backgrounds most of what we're using right now is there on that velcro system with that piece of velcro up there so we're going to show you some quick changes we have the floorboards are awesome this is the baseboards I love these because this is something that takes a background and now we can make it look like a wallpaper or a real wall and I think it gives a lot of realism to what we're doing so keep that in mind these are the tools today we're kind of lucky because we have a real floor but the floor is you're going to see us move in and change out uh those are actually from silverlake so uh that's our continuous light set up now over here wei have uh these air studio stroke so these are photogenic studio strobes and with the photogenic strobes er typically you'll see this is that x set up that we talked about we have to light sources here and two light sources here so we're starting with their three by four on the man photo stand we have a photogenic six twenty five is our main light and then back here we also have a photogenic and in this case it's also a six twenty five it's on a fourteen by forty eight strip light with grids with grids now the grids r I told you this last time my favorite I mean the strip light is my favorite life source but to control that I love using grids they create a narrow light patterns so that I can literally put the light exactly where I want it to be this I'm using to shape the body and then of course this is our background light and we're kind of modifying today because this is typically in my studio I would use a grid spot so a honey comb grid it would be aimed at the background and it would kind of create a natural vignette so we would have a little bit of brightness here and it would slowly fall off we did not get a good spot so we're modifying we're actually using a see through umbrella I'm gonna try this I'm not sure I'm gonna love it I've tested it out it looks good and clean what it's doing is casting a little bit more like than I would normally have and as long as it doesn't look hot where it's bright here and then fades too dark I'm going to be okay with it so what I did to compensate for that is instead of shooting at s o one hundred which I would normally do with thes studio strobes I'm shooting it s o two hundred that way I could take into account the the volume of light we have and I can soften neutralize that a little bit more so it won't be so speculum and if it's not working I'm gonna kick it off and I'll just I'll settle for a darker background and that's okay too so uh background this one happens to be by design revolution I believe baseboards by silver lake and the floor the fake floor the little brown floor is also by silverlake this is a three by four rigid reflector this's called soft silver this is the choice that I typically make with my backer are with my reflectors um when we talked about the x pattern you can see we have a main lighting the kicker they're always opposite of each other the reflector is used to balance out the main and the background light is the one that's the variable I don't have to have that fourth wife but that's definitely you know something that if I were going to perfect something I would use so this give me down with two lights and a reflector certainly for many years when I first bought lighting equipment I used on ly one light and a reflector and so that's all I could afford so keep that in mind you don't have to have all these lights but the more light you control the greater depth you have in the image so shadow is what we're looking for we're actually not looking for light we're looking for shadow uh remember the rules tell me away from the light knows towards creating shadow across the body now with little ones that's not necessarily an option I cannot get a twenty two month old to turn away and turn their nose into the light so you're going to see in the beginning with the little ones lighting direction is not as important as capturing the moment as they get older as we go into three and four and five you're going to see me more controlling the lighting and if the children are doing well you're going to see me controlling where the direction of light goes as well so keep that in mind I'll sacrifice quality lighting for an expression when it's a little one as they get older I'm definitely going to try to go for the volume the beauty of the situation all right I think I have everything we have ready here so I think we're about ready to bring in our little ones let's go ahead and if you guys have questions you can throw him out now we do have to go through the tripod first so let's get that because we've already had a lot of questions if your tripod is a girl and should wear a necklace okay that's not true uh that's for our little model this is the zero five eight b uh this is the tripod of choice so when we talk about this and I'm gonna get the meter that's attached to it off of it so I don't break it this tripod I said I've had since I was seventeen years old not this one but this brandon the style and this is one that I live and die by now the biggest thing that I always get from people is that it's too heavy especially women photographers it looks like a beast but to be very honest with you I travel all over I mean this is kind of where I am walking through the forests and the words whatever I mean I have a permanent rage in my shoulder where this actually lives I couldn't put it on this shoulder if I tried it wouldn't know what to do so it's something that it's just very comfortable comfortable to me and doesn't bother me at all but what people are really interested in is this when people think about tripods they think about this they think about oh my gosh by the time I get those legs out and then if the child lose you lift him up on a chair it's another you know bringing that up and so that's really why why people avoid tripods what this has with the man photo it has an easy release their three levers here they're actually more than out but the three that I'm focusing on I'm using these two fingers the l and the thumb and if I put my fingers in there I could just torque it a little bit and it's a release system so each leg has an individual release so I could drop one down if I want to um I don't think I've ever done that in like twenty four years I always shoot with all three and that gives me the ability to go all the way up and all the way down and it's really just a quick little kick to get all the way to the floor so you'll see I'll go down and up very very quickly um I have control you're gonna watch when I'm shooting you're gonna see that my legs and this is just something from years of doing this my legs do all the work so most of the time it could look like a clown out here but usually I'm using my legs my hand stay on the camera for support and you'll see a lot of that movement but when I am shooting pay attention to this because I will focus compose there we go and of course then I will be working with subject this gives me the ability to with a twenty two months old be out here tickling and then come back and I can catch those shots I can hear my camera that it's in focus and that was that question do I use a wireless remote or right wireless slave to trigger my camera and I don't need to because I have that control here I can hear it I'm connected to it and then of course if I want to recompose I can do so and then I'm back to playing with the children now today with the little ones one of the things that photographers always talk about is well you have an assistant I don't have three people running around to help me do everything I didn't always have an assistant in fact first thirteen years I couldn't afford assistant I have had assistance throughout time I've had good assistants I've had bad assistance my preference is not necessarily tohave an assistant shooting with me it's actually mohr they're really good for putting stuff away and getting stuff out you know helping me get things done they are important for quality though for quality of light and control so that's something that if I can have an assistant I would obviously I would recommend to anybody if you can afford or can have or a friend or somebody that can help you the quality of your work will always be improved by the extra hands that you have so I would say an assistance a great thing but if it's not in your budget or it's not an option don't panic everything I have ever done I have done it with um with myself by myself it's something that you know I could pull mom and our dad and have them help me as well if needed so that's just something that you need to consider is that again for thirteen years I had to learn the hard way and eventually you'll find somebody who works well with you in fact helen who you are about to see running around hell has been with me for ten years now when she started out of course she was nervous and had to overcome that and eventually see she excelled as a photographer and she got to the point where she absolutely can do sessions by herself but we find as a team we really enjoy that tag team approach because we have in the studio what we call the monkey and that's basically somebody's whose job is to play with the kids somebody's at the camera somebody's the operator somebody's the monkey and we work together there are times where if I'm losing a child all switched with the monkey and I'll be the monkey and somebody else will be the operator but that's something you kind of work your way into today I'm gonna show you sessions primarily by myself um the only reason that I will I'm gonna have hell and help with the first because their little ones and I don't want to take too much time but I'm also going to show you what it's like shooting by yourself because I don't want anyone to feel like you have to have a person to help you but remember quality does improve with the extra set of hands so don't be you know don't be afraid of adding somebody else as well so I think we've pretty much covered everything are we starting with continuous light or okay we're gonna start with studio strobes I also should give a big thank you to helen and brandon as you saw on the break they kill themselves I didn't want to sweat it's really warm and I didn't want to like be making myself crazy cause I'm about to have that opportunity so they got all this together and one thing that is that makes helen and myself very uniquely different if you were paying attention on the brakes helen has a list and all the props mapped out and the ages and the stages and everything free thought out I am completely opposite when I shoot I would walk in the room and say give me that and I'll take that and let's just do this helen as I said before dynamically sells more when it comes to product and when it comes to product lines she's sells a lot more collages and collections and wall collections I tend to sell more wall portrait art and it's just because of our styles the way she shoots with thinking out all of this stuff gives her more to work with the way I should I'm kind of thinking big wall portrait and that's kind of where my mind is so uh there's no right or wrong with that I think it's it's really nice to have somebody one that handles both all right let's get this is paige correct let's get little page over she's doing well she's in a group of people does not seem to be affected by everybody around her which is wonderful because that could have been our first problem I did hear that she was recently with a bunch of cousins where's mom and dad there's dad she's recently with a bunch of cousins and so she's had cem group time this section not very normal for like a standard twenty three months old they usually be pretty cleaning but she's just very social