Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Indian Model (Simi)

well we have an amazing model this afternoon to work with um her name is simi is that correct okay and what I'd like to do before we actually get into photographing see me I want to find out a little bit more about her because I just met her like five minutes ago so I don't know anything about subject and I want him I would really like to demonstrate you how I try to find a little bit about about who I'm working with so sue me tell me a little bit about yourself are you married or single okay good so tell me a little bit about your about what you like to do huh and tell tell me about that you mentioned dance like what kind of dance oh really that's okay so let me start over again get me to start over again okay so so semi I'd like you to tell me a little bit a little bit about yourself tell me like what do you like to do for fun I like to dance I like to draw I like horseback riding I like classical indian dancing is typically what I do value it dan see I really you know I've never see...

n some I've never seen that before could you show me could you demonstrate to me oh come on so let's see what it looks like okay I know we don't have any music so we have to kind of pretend but well something that most people typically like to see is the hip movements oh I love it I love it awesome okay now I'm gonna stop you right there for just a second you can have a seat sidney what is that tell me about her she's a little sassy girl she got it going on she could be doing some you know if she's if she could do that kind of dancing me that's gonna be amazing I like that very much it tells me a little bit about her I saw her eyes sparkle when we were talking about that so my session with her while I'm I will start in this kind of an environment I'm going to move very quickly from here because I know that that's not who she is I need to move with this girl she needs to be moving I want to see her I know that she'll feel a lot more comfortable if I can get that kind of that that flow and that movement from her okay so okay so you're telling me so where you from them I'm indian okay so you're from india okay great I know I've been invited to come there this year to do some educational seminars I'm very much looking forward to it so and so how long have you been in america uh pretty much all my life I came here when I was four five years old when good noise in here a long time yeah oh that's great so what do your concerns in having your picture taken um usually I don't sometimes like maybe the angles or shadows and you know and why does the angles and the shadows bother you I don't like my nose okay think okay see there you go that's what I need to know I want to remember we were talking yesterday about about comfort zone and what one we can't use our have our own personal judgment on what a comfortable you know whether they're feeling their heavy or they're not heavy well this is exactly what I'm talking about in her mind she her issue with herself is her nose so I want to think about that when it comes to the way that I photograph her and so I understand that and that's so now I will proceed with that in mind when I'm taking her picture and that's why you want to ask what are your concerns and having your picture taken because if you have somebody who's who's a rubenesque kind of gal who but she is really comfortable with who she is and she loves her shape then for you to say something like well you know let's try to hide this body part I mean that's a little bit of an offense and that's not right because they're really proud of what the the way they look and the same is true for somebody who's super thin my daughter in law is like weighs about eighty pounds when she's she's very very tiny girl and eats like a like a maniac and she cannot gain weight and so for her she gets very offended when people talk about her you too yeah people she gets mad when people tell her how skinny she is like oh honey you need a hamburger and she's like well you know please just she doesn't like that and so we want to not put our own personal hang ups about people in the way that we feel about them we know we need to embrace who they are and then if they have an area about themselves that they're not comfortable with that I'm sure they're going to tell us and will that's a great way to ask us what are your concerns now also it really helps we don't want to say what are your problems what your problems because then it sounds like you're trying to make a solution to something and I don't I don't think that's the proper way to handle it so okay great so all we've got let's grab the microphone from simi and let's get started with her and let's do a couple of really fun pictures of her and you know what I think I think I want to start we're going to start with you seated right there missy so why don't you do it yes let me have a seat just for your leg over that chair right there yeah I love it but now see me I want your going to lean towards me like I'm telling you something super interesting like oh really tell me more awesome love it gorgeous now I'm going to make this a bit more editorial I'm not trying to get I have a perfect pose on her yet I wantto work her into it roll your shoulders back that we're just a little bit and let's have you drop that shoulder down like that and turn your shoulders this way a little bit now there's a reason that I'm going to turn her shoulders to the left why is that because let me show you that I'm going to show you exactly why we want to do it hey simi put both of your feet on the floor for me and I want you to lean towards me and looking straight towards the camera scoot towards me I want your butt on the very edge let me show you what is what we don't want to do okay so it may just photograph her from here okay and now look at the picture turn your shoulders this way a little bit more right about there and now hang on a second the picture is going to come up on the screen got it right there you have a lot of grace girl I'll tell you right now we do not want to photograph her straight into the camera because all it does is make her look thinner and it makes her look like she has no shape so we don't want to do that so I want to keep those shoulders rotated a bit to the right hand side so see me I'm gonna have you back up a little bit that way and I went just to throw one leg over the chair right there because I feel you are sassy girl and now with your chin lean towards me a little bit this way beautiful that's nice but keep your shoulders rotate a little turn your face back towards me this way nice excellent hey simi oh that's beautiful hey sammy what's your boyfriend's name I love it hey we can fix you up nika awesome very this is it's all about the experience we're going to make we want her to have fun take that let your leg that's up there and bring it down just a little bit like bring it towards us x and y o action like that better that's gonna work out really nice for me okay wantyou to kind of shake it out for me love it darling oh yeah love gorgeous lean towards me right here sammy and then to turn your face this way a little bit love it very nice with your eyes that's it stunning darling beautiful chin up just a little bit awesome gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous beautiful that's my girl she's doing great ok let's get rid of that chair and I want to raise this these lights up because I feel we need to move her we need her moving and I think I'd like to back up the lights it because I don't want her to close to the wall because if she's too close to the wall then guess what's going to happen it's going to make her she'll cast a shadow on that wall behind her and we don't want to have that so let's see what we can get right here is that gonna work out for good for you john um come right here in the middle for me scooter beautiful and I'm gonna have you move this way just to hear and uncle john you might want to back that light up a little bit for me and can somebody moved that picture off the wall right there that one of my images that beautiful picture that's on the wall back there and let's see what it looks like here I'm going to just take a real quick test simi step this way a little bit beautiful right there's fine and what I want you to let's see the other side of your body don't you turn your feet this way beautiful and I'm just going to a really quick head shots so I can see where my exposure's going to be I'm probably gonna have to drop it down a little bit or did you raise the power okay okay let's see how that works oh I like that side of your face girl yeah I'm actually I think I'm going to be pretty good I'm liking that yeah I'm feeling that works for me right there okay now here's what many the normal traditional photographer might do simi put your way on your left on the left foot a tilt your head to the right push your butt the other way I mean you see how boring that sounds we need to get arrested but I want to get some movement so sammy you were telling me that you like to dance well you know what so do I and I want you to know this is a dance contest I am so going to kick your butt because you don't you and even no you're messing with chick because this is like the queen of soul right here I know you believe it how you can tell I know you can tell just by the way we're doing love darling right in there baby right here gorgeous hey simi switch your feet right here bring this foot forward to me on this side right here go boot like this and what you push your butt away from beautiful and now I want you to drop that head that way nice love that's a girl love gorgeous hey samy lean towards me on the shoulder right you're beautiful very nice and tilt your head back that way love it love it dolling awesome perfect gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous love and if she's doing great hopes hang on I'm getting carried away in my lights on the wrong spot so I have to be really careful standups before me tall honey okay because I have to get light up in her eyes she has very deep set eyes and if I if I'm not careful I'm gonna kill it but not like those eyes will see what looks like from here uh see what that works right here let me just get my check my life's really cook actually I'm liking this a lot you don't see me I want to get you moving your hips a bit I want to have your arms moving I want you to stay where you're at from a physical standpoint but I want to get some movement in your body okay love okay ready nice awesome love can you turn your face a little bit towards that light right there oh nice gorgeous they do that armed back up on your head like you just did love beautiful oh nice beautiful no smile we don't even care uh you see what happens when you tell somebody not to smile when you tell them not to smile they cannot help it smile so I will tell you if I'm photographing someone moving like this I'm gonna obviously take a lot more pictures because by time and you know it may not be perfect so you know you see me bring your hand like you did like this I really like this right here but and bring real close to your face right there love it nice beautiful very very pretty honey turn your feet back this way a little bit and no smile real real tall let me let me see what it's like to have you cross your legs in an x pattern beautiful and then I want you to lean towards me just like this tilt your head that way just a little bit love it let's try that look someone come in really tight on your face right here turn your face just a little bit towards a light right there gorgeous right there awesome very very nice beautiful you said you like to draw you like art like what do you like to draw okay that's okay oh really can you shake your head a little bit beautiful this hand on this side right here would you just bring it up in your hair oh nice semi that's beautiful love it gorgeous just shake it out a little bit right there shake out here nice excellent gorgeous like that love it honey how lovely very nice sweetie that's beautiful for you that's gorgeous beautiful beautiful beautiful okay now see me I want you to relax right there just a little bit and cross your legs the other direction oh and you know I'm cross your legs for a moment back up to the wall okay on a count three I want you to walk towards me okay and when you walked towards me I need some sass and those in your little boo tay okay ready one two three go uh worst job I ever saw and you know what hey simi when you walk towards me I want you to like turn your face a little bit this way I need to play towards that light you know uncle john can you bring that light around this way look but I feel like I need to just a tad more light on her yeah no I'm okay that's good and now a semi walked towards me one two three go love shake your head as you do it good job beautiful honey very very nice okay I'm gonna move you from there I want to try a different kind of light pattern on you so uncle john I'm just going to kill this right here sometimes take off this and can we get her up on that little landing right there I think I want to see I like the opposite that we're seeing with your with your top I think the opposite um on the color wheel could be very nice to have that contrast yeah I have yeah okay great could you explain the placement of your lights and why okay replacements of the lights this is our main light is the one that has that that is the silver dome over on the left hand side and the phil light is the the umbrella the main light is said it what we're about a quarter power and half power so this ones have the power of this I set that one up there on the side there to get a light across the eyes to try to get some light in and we brought the filling because she has dark eyes and their little deep set so we wanted to catch some light from the front I was doing a wider flick or if I was doing you in here it probably just made you use the one light in a phil cord but because of her dark eyes I just wanted to bring more late in with this phil here okay great okay thank you okay and my camera is set eyes so one hundred and my f stop is five point six you notice that I was trying to work with her a little bit away from the back of the wall I feel that that's really going to be a very very beneficial thing for her okay simi let me see what looks to have you walk towards me a little bit and I may not have you there I don't know for sure let me walk towards me a little bit good just good walk normal and now okay I want you to turn your feet towards the windows a little bit okay now actually there's a couple of things I like about this and that and one thing I'm not sure if I'm going to like about it so let me have you walk back towards the wall I may move you and have you come down here if we bring her down here could we move that wall down this way okay let's move the wall and bring you down here honey just going to come down we're going to take you off there heels to it that you want to do another house let's do a couple questions so question from shell is um how do you decide to do head shots when you're doing three quarter shots or full good question will I always do both and I'll do a variety of different kinds of images I'm not going to just do head shots I'm not just going to dio in fact stay right there hang on whoa slow down trigger put that wall right behind her in front of the doorway right there you just showed me where my life was that that was just beautiful and I like that so I I I always do a variety I want a variety of different experiences I want some that are close ups the close up images are good because they helped me to see their faces really clearly so that so that kind of warm into where I want to go with them with simi she's got a natural flow about herself she's very graceful her hands fall very naturally so I know that I might definitely want to do some things of her showing her hands and pulling shots khun b will be really fun as well with her I love her little out that she probably if she went to the trouble to dress like that then she's gonna want to see you know she'll want to see herself in some of those images so it's it's just a variety the more variety that you give your clients the more opportunities you have to sell them pictures and to give them a variety of different experiences and so I prefer to have that kind of approach I want to be able to do that if I can so that's a great question do we have one more question savannah is wondering how you would work with someone who has experience in modeling do you embrace their knowledge of how to pose and work with them off of that or do you know that's a really good question because and in fact I find it personally more difficult to work with a professional model then I do for someone who is not a model and the reason is that ah professional model tens they're used to modeling clothes so they're usually they tend to get a little bit too exaggerated in the way that they do things they kind of like ten to do get to bogey on you and it's not because that's not who they are that's because that's what they're used to doing for their job and so people who are not professional models tend to just relax and then if you need to turn them a certain way then they're fine but at the end of the day my goal is that the client forgets that I'm holding a camera you see no matter who they are whether there are professional model or whether they're they're you know um amateur someone who just has a picture taken the key to success and finding out what's inside here is to get them to forget that there's a camera in front of your eyes if you can make them laugh and have them have a good time then they start becoming real people that is the holy grail of photography because then then when they look at their pictures they don't see that professional mall they say hey you caught my smile and that's important to me is I want to be able to see that beautiful smile that they have and you know that all of us have that that is like kind of who we are inside and I really want to embrace that and one last question question from fx photo would you prefer a silver or a white beauty dish on indian south asians great question that's a really good question I personally prefer the silver side with anyone who has darker skin tones because as we showed you this morning when I was photographing our beautiful ramona yesterday the silver side the silver side of the reflector the silver beauty dish ten state just give me a shiny or a little crisper speculator on the face which I find just makes that skin glow it tends to get a little flat and kind of money is not the right word but it just gets a little bit too muted for me so if I have a choice I like using that however the reason I chose this location where you're standing at is because it's going to give me a very pretty lights or it's a soft light source but it still has a bit of up to it it's like soft but crisp so this might give me something I think that would be really pretty and I'm going to see how it's going to look for her so all right with that said sammy come on over here let's weaken them I'm not sure from what use it or not but we'll leave it there for the time being let me come right up here and I'm gonna have you set up on top of that stool and there you go so nice to me what do you do for work huh and what do you like about your job can I get a silver reflector uh you like the people can have you put your elbow up there and you're going to die just lean into that a little bit for me beautiful very nice turn your children that would just let it turn your face this way a little bit and on that reflector you got the reflector I want to make sure that it has the silver sign awesome come right over your uncle john and I think I want to have you come a little bit yeah that's going to actually be nice but come hi john right come around here a little bit more and basically what okay coming just a year closer to her john you can come in pretty close what I'm looking for is I want to just feeling a little bit on that skin tone I just don't want it to be too dark on that one side I think that's going to be really good for let me see how this looks for you oh hang on a minute here I can kill that light and I need it has changed my aperture I want my aperture to be about two point eight because I want that background to go very just muted I don't want it to detract from her let's see if I need to change my f stop here love it right there gorgeous beautiful let me take a picture let's just see what it looks like through here hey uncle john let me see what it looks like to have you take that reflector and then push let's do it right there see I'm kind of liking the way that looks we'll try one like this and then I think I might even have you fan her good right there very very nice so see me turn your face this way a little bit more more more more more with your channeling towards me right in here I love it there you go tall with your back that's much better did you see what happened go back and do that one more time did you see what happened could lean towards me just a little bit see how she was kind of goose ing her neck we don't want to do that we want to keep that neck and and her casey have her body her chest has turned straight towards the camera so turn your shoulders more this way beautiful and then turn your face back towards me good job tilt your head that way a little bit I might like the other side of your face better let's see how that's gonna look through here beautiful very nice okay let me see how that's working actually that looks like you know I hate uncle john do something for me come right about here and I want to get a little bit of animation from her right you know what I need is I want you to stay where you're at uncle john give me a little more light on her coming closer scotty I need more power there you go love it right there and then hey dad give me some fan fan her beautiful chin down a little bit simian look at me with your eyes beautiful oh simi that's my girl loving it excellent really beautiful what you were just with your eyes just turned your face that way look but you know what hey hey dad put that black reflector on this side of her face I want to see what happens and then put it like almost behind her turn your face this way missy I think I'm gonna like the other side your face but unless you it looks like hang on a second can I get you to come over on this side right here I'm going to switch my angle on her because I want to see this side of your face I think I'm gonna like this side of her face better let me see how you're looking okay now uncle john give me that reflector right over here silver side yeah let's see how that works for her and what I want to have you do miss c as I need you shake your head I want to get a blip more hair in your face yeah that's nice that's actually very fierce looking gorgeous let's see how you're looking right here beautiful tilt your head just a little bit of love I want to break it just a little and uncle john I need that reflect her up a little higher actually you know what keep it down like that so I can show people what not to do okay now I want you to notice this see how it's getting a little bit dark underneath the eyes and also the catch lights are on the very bottom of the face and that's not gonna be a really good thing for her so I want to get the catch lights in the proper spot turn your feet this way missy and oh you know what hang on can we bring that that chair right there because I'm gonna have to sit on the arm and you know have I want you to know what this is what I want you to do you're going to sit on that arm with your feet up here can you do that without hurting yourself okay good actually I'm liking that can you do your feet just like this and I want actually one you would take this you off we're not going to see your feet too much you have tiny little feet what's the shooting where do you really oh my god shit little bitty feet okay I want you you gonna curl into your legs there love it let's see how that works I might even have you take your shoe off too I love it and write their uncle john that looks really nice very very nice wow actually I like this it's very pretty beautiful and you know uncle john coming closer to her beautiful very very good and now let me have you bring your tall with your back for me love it can you bring that elbow on your knee right there good lovett and uncle john bring it down this way a little bit like maybe come over on this side can I have you flat light her on this side of her face and hey john if you come over here you can skim it towards her that way right here this may not be big enough for there you go right there see it did you see what happened kids see how we're flat look okay no light her that keep going right there see how it just kind of give her a little bit of light on her face beautiful I like that very very much except the only thing that's missing is what if there's nothing going on in the soul right there were it's over over over so let me shake it out for me love it darling good girl except chin up a little and look at that ugly dude right there awesome whoo doggies is he won but does the world bow lovett right there look at me with your eyes once you're through here love it darling very very good good job excellent