Lessons

Lesson Info

Understanding Your Subject

well today we have a wonderful experience I am so excited about today is going to be an absolute blast because we have so many really different kinds of photographs we're going we're going to do today my goal is that everything that we did in the last two days thes air more nuts and bolts kinds of things that you have got to know whether you photograph weddings are due portrait you need to understand lighting and posing and you need to understand how to communicate with your subjects you need to understand howto howto identify who that client is so that you can make that person happy I think that's really one of the key critical elements in photographing anyone successfully is understanding who you're working with first because if you understand who they are inside here then you are in a much better position to interpret them and be able to create images that will flatter your subject and that'll make him happy before we get started though let's just just roll quickly tell you a little...

bit about quick references because a lot of people again sent me e mails last night saying well how do I get ahold of you my web address is www cantrell portrait dot com there is no s on portrait so portrait period dot com my email address is bambi at control portrait dot com I answer every single one of my emails so if you want to talk to me I am more than happy to respond to you on dh you know I answer all my own emails other than that I do I'm on twitter my twitter name is bambi at bambi cantrell and of course I'm on facebook and you can follow me at cantrell portrait design and quite often on our facebook page for control portrait will put videos up and we put some of our latest photo shoots on there as well and I have to tell you it's been kind of an interesting experience with me and facebook for my company because I've I'm very I'm very grateful for where I am in my craft as a photographer I don't take it for granted but I feel embarrassed because sometimes you because this is follow me I find that embarrassing it's like why you know I don't like that you know fan who kind of makes me think of a rock star and stuff so I don't like those terms so I always like to just say hey can my friends come on join me over here and then you can see what we're doing and see if that works for you because at the end of the day I really believe that we learned from every person we come in contact with I think every single person whether they're a novice and photography or whether they have been around for many many years that you and I can learn something amazing from one of my very favorite heroes of all time was it was an old photographer by the name of don blair he died a number of years ago but I tell you what that man taught me so much about photography now when he was teaching the seminars and stuff it was very very old school very very much he'd use the blue background and stuff like that and it was very much logical thinking about you know put your light here and turn the face three quarter profile blah blah blah and I remember thinking at the time oh you know that stuff that's just old school stuff you know that's out of date it's out of fashion and then the more the older I get and the more experience that I gain and seeing the wisdom of those words I start thinking well you know what I'm going to take certain certain elements in that recipe and I'll apply them tow what I'm doing and I think that's what my goal is for all of you is that I hope that you'll take you know maybe one or two tips that I show you one or two little concepts that's what I'm all about is teaching concepts and that you'll find a way to put your own spin on it because at the end of the day this is an art form this is our artistic endeavor you know it's kind of like you know you khun you could watch monet paint all day long you could watch him and you could buy the same paintbrushes that that guy had you could have them handmade whatever the case may be but you are never going to create a monet and it cracks me up sometimes photographers get so competitive with one another they're so worried oh I'm never going to show anybody this location because they'll steal mine I thought they'll steal my my ideas and I'm sorry I think that is just so narrow minded it's silly because they can't get it can't still this they can't steal your heart they cannot steal your vision I teach workshops all over the country and all over the world for that matter and I find that people can stand right behind me and they will not take my shot they won't get what I get and sometimes I like what they did better and I think that's actually one of the benefits of doing out taking a workshop is that you see how other people see your scene you know how they see the same model the photograph how'd they photograph that model differently than what another person did so it could be a really very positive experience of course we've talked a little bit earlier about some of the tools that I like to work with I like capote imaging tools and I love marcus bell's photo shop factions and precepts for light room and then of course you're wants actions as well and let's see how we might what you might do so we're going to take a little bit of a recap on what we did yesterday this is one of the photographs that I took of our amazingly gorgeous ramona and I absolutely love love love photographing ramona I was very pleased with what I got from her because I got inside of her I felt like I got inside her soul a little bit and for her she's she's a girl who likes to get it going and there are certain things about her that tell me that she's that way so and that's kind of what I want to talk to you about this morning is well how do you know who someone is how do you identify who they are beforehand so that you don't have to sit there and ask him all the dumb questions like what kind of photography do you want I think I touched on this a little bit yesterday and that sometimes you know we think oh this is a logical experience we'd sit down and we interview them and say well what kind of photography do you want and then they'll use those stupid buzzwords like I want all photo journalism or I want you know I don't want any post pictures when in reality what they're really saying is they don't want to stand around and deposed for ten hours if you do a couple of pictures of them in there mom nice close ups of them whatever they're okay with that they just don't want to be made not manipulated and put in these kung fu poses all day long it's just who would want that I know I wouldn't want that so I've learned that there are certain things about you and I that tell volumes about who we are and we don't have to say a word like when you look at me in the way that I'm dressed today would you immediately assume that I'm really shy if I didn't open my mouth why would you say that I'm not shy I am I've got jewelry on I've got sparked a little bit of sparkle on I'm wearing a white blazer which hello draws attention to me I'm wearing makeup I'm wearing a little bit maybe more makeup than maybe some some wood so I had like style I'm a little bit fashionable now what about somebody who's dresses very very casually maybe they don't they're very earthy and they don't wear a lot of makeup what would that tell you about their personal style maybe they like a very clean simple approach now let's look at test for a minute test can use come here for a second stand up come right over here okay now I'm just and we didn't rehearse this part so she has no idea what I'm going to say but I want you to see how you by paying attention to what somebody's wearing you could I mean you got I could write a book on this because I know I can get it right first of all look at the way that she has her hair done is it pulled straight back in a very no nonsense mom sort of way no it's kind of in this funky little this away it's a bit messy so it's got that young kind of hip it's a sex appeal okay I'm sorry but you know she's wearing look at hello we've got one earring with feathers on it and it doesn't match the other one honey do you know who told you so so what does that tell you first of all it tells you that she likes to push the envelope a little bit and that she's she's comfortable and likes to be different she wants out a little bit of a different spin on things now let's look at the way that she's dressed first of all she's wearing a bolder color with a bright skirt lovett dolling cute little hip boots and she's got a little sparkly bracelet on her watch so that tells me that she's not afraid of a little bling okay and then she's got this little brown you know a little thing to cover up the girls here so but this tells me I'll tell you right now I know I could make her happy I know that I could make her happy because I see her definite personal style and how I would translate that into photographing her so this with this young woman I'm not going to be very quiet and go okay test can I have you sit in this chair with a blue background could you see me photographing her in front of a blue black background it is not gonna happen it is so not gonna happen so we're this is urban girl she's urban she's fun she's cool she's the gal I'd have out in the outside you know against a brick wall kind of walking down the street in a really cool fashion I would speak a bit more boldly and fun and get a little bit more animated with her okay you can have a seat q t so the moral of the story is this if you start paying attention to fashion it literally rules the world in my opinion fashion rules the world because it dictates and people buy clothes that they like that tells you a lot about who they are as people and so I study fashion a great deal I love fashion and I study it like you would study a textbook because not only tells me where the we're fashion is today but it tells me the style of photography that is going to transcend and relate in the future I can't even tell you how powerful is that the way that you use it as a key and as a tool for growth is you start studying where the market is going to and you can see how there's a certain trend that develops over a period of time for instance I told you yesterday I've been collecting magazines from the over like since nineteen eighty nine in nineteen eighty nine all the brides gowns in the you know for wedding gowns were big poofy ball gowns with lots the beads and dingle berries stuff all over them remember that pointed head piece well you're way too young to know that pointed head piece that had a little bead on the end of it right here the problem is ok can we talk about that they always had the bead right here hello okay so if the beat is right here which side of the face to photograph on this side because if the beads here guess what you can make it almost looks straight right giving you okay so there's no accounting for taste I guess I just got a real quick story to tell you all about that I had this one young woman who hired me as her wedding photographer she spent her entire budget on photography so the day of her wedding I goto to wherever she to the church where she's going she's going to meet me at the church I'm there two hours before the ceremony because she said being you meet me there two hours ahead of time so I'm there I'm all set up and ready to go on everything you know and ok then the wedding was at three o'clock so I get there at noon ok one o'clock rolls around no bride one thirty rolls around no bride two o'clock rolls around no bride still the weddings of three to thirty rolls around no bride three o'clock no bride four o'clock no bride she calls at three thirty and says hey I'm running a little bit late so all of our guests I mean they've got two hundred people there okay so two hundred people are this wedding everything you know and and then so finally at fourth thirty an hour and a half late for her own wedding she flies in by the seat of her pants okay and she has on this pink sing thiss pink thing that sort of looked a little bit like it was supposed to have been a wedding gown and she's got that headpiece the turkey thing up on the top with the bead right here okay and so I'm looking at her and I'm looking this is such a train wreck on so many levels and then I found out what the problem was ok ok the day before her wedding she was having her wedding gown made she never checked on it to see how they were doing never went for a fitting well guess what the day before her wedding she finds out that they never started her dress okay so what hap what would you do I'd go down and I go by the nearest dress off threat right new she decides she's going to have it made overnight so needless to say it looked like it had been made overnight and it just it was such a train wreck but the cool thing about that here's the here's where I'm going with this this crazy story it taught me that there's a camera angle for everybody on that you can hide even the biggest fashion explosion in the universe if you understand posing and lighting and so I did when I saw that thing that turkey thing on her head with that bead that's like right here I want okay we ain't gonna be photographing on that left side of the chief right there because it ain't gonna happen and and then I just made sure that I tried teo camouflage that dress as we did yesterday with our beautiful ramona you notice we could take we could we could hide her behind things if we needed to know she has a great shape we didn't really need to with her but our my little bride they had that little explosion of address on that kind of looked like you didn't know what it was supposed to be I could easily have hidden a great deal of her shape by by hiding behind something