Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Engagement Session (Alley, Off Camera Flash)

so here's the set up uh I probably want my sixteen thirty five so now I'm shooting for that big shot that I wanted that I want to sell let's move this back for me get out of the way for a bit just long enough to yeah we're just going to stop for a second taking questions was that you'll take take the bullet do not let anything happen to that bag so here's we're gonna d'oh we've got two two flashes okay stop ok did we stop broadcasting we're still broadcasting okay perfect good to go all right so we're back at it so here's what we're gonna do here um I want to do off camera flash on what I want you to understand is conceptually how we're going to do this okay I want this is very important everybody if you've ever wanted to do off camera flash this becomes very very important in order to do this first of all I'm taking this battery pack this cyclone okay so we're gonna get this court and normally I'd have this set up in my car as we're switching locations okay my assistant's gonna hold t...

his this flash is gonna go on battery's dead I love it okay this is gonna be in master mode so this flash I'm sorry is going to be enslaved mode we're shooting an e t t l so we're letting the camera's media ring system deal with this okay so it's enslave mode now what I'm doing okay so I've got another tree a trigger here from town and this is their speed like transmitter so I don't have to kill a flash okay I'm putting this on and this is gonna be in master mode okay so we're going to switch the channel here for some reason one second all right so now we're linked up and we're on the same channel so what's happening here let me break it down for you this is the speed like transmitter it is controlling the off camera flash all right I don't have a whole elaborate triggering system I don't want to spend twenty minutes getting set up with this thing on camera I'm dialing down the I s a one hundred or so low which is fifty uh this is a custom function in your camera to get it down there why am I doing that because I'm trying to get my shutter speed down below to hundreds of a second I don't want it to be all the flashes support high speed sync but if you don't understand how high speed sync works let me explain it to you really quickly your shot our first curtain goes up right you're making an exposure first curtain goes up second curtain comes up if you've ever taken a picture with your flash and you step black bar there that's because you're having high speed sync issues and when you photograph and turn your flash on high speed sync what you're doing is you're having trouble with the flash keeping up so what happens is the first curtain goes up flash goes pop pop pop pop pop pop and he can't keep up and so what I do I don't want to high speed sing I want to get it down below two hundred of a second so all I can do is I can point here with them and just looking at my meeting system in the camera I could see that I'm a two eight fiftieth of a second so I can actually come up two two hundredth of a second s o two hundred anoma to eight two hundred of a second so I'll go back to aa one four one twenty five and now I'm down below two hundred here is the trick toe all this working okay this is off camera flash one oh one is this how I trained my entire team on how to use off camera flash on camera using aperture priority we are minus one guy's at home get your cameras out because it's how you do it practicing the window minus one on camera on the flash we're gonna go to plus one and here's what I want you to understand okay let's get this plus one let me explain to you what we're doing the camera is exposing for the sky I want big dark dramatic clouds so I just take a picture up here I'ma focus recompose which you're not supposed to do because I'm trying to get that sky and focus don't fall where was that flash fire I don't want to fight I don't want to fire it at me at all okay I just want this guy to be super super dark now you guys can see let's bring that picture up I want this big these big black dramatic clouds okay that's from going at minus one on camera okay but now if I photograph that way photographed a couple they're gonna be dark so what we're doing is we're using the off camera flash to expose for the couple every with me you look like something you okay okay you have a question about that okay so remember camera is exposing for the sky minus one the flash is exposing for your couple plus one and what we're going to do here is I want to create a dramatic looking image I'm already thinking about a big print so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have them stand right here and it doesn't matter what pose we're doing I want to be able to learn this technique ok so you two hold this ring for one second okay here's what I want you to do I want you guys let's do something super dramatic here I want you to pose like this devon okay actually switch you devon I want you this way good god carmen I won you coming into devon put your arm around him good go around his waist for me yeah and here kick your leg back for me good devon let's do hand in the pocket film and just to thumb in the pocket I like that better does that feel more comfortable ok pull into each other hand on the chest okay you're not kissing her no more kissing I want you both looking off this way yes so here's where I'm gonna have you look and what I want is him looking off camera I don't want them looking right at the camera not for this shot okay so carmen sweep your banks for me good devon bring your chin this way just a little bit more good and I'm gonna have my assistant right here okay so here's here's what I'm looking for you guys to look there right and I'm going to move these garbage pails and yes if we were in an alley which I don't I would definitely be moving things around alright eliza you're gonna be over there here's what I want you to realize once you know your settings this is how quickly I would get things set up I haven't even taken a test shot yet but this is again how I train my second shooter's minus one on camera plus one on the flash test shot I'm gonna take a test shot this is why I love shooting aperture priority all right don't worry about it guys we're just gonna take a quick cash out here just to make sure everything is looking right one to okay and now you're seeing what came up uh in the studio and I'm zooming in making sure right the flash is too hot so let's go do you know how to do it on that one it's new plus minus let's go to zero so we don't need that much because we're not trying to overpower the sun or anything like that so I do one more time just is a test shot and that's kind of the dramatic portrait that I am personally looking for from my client so I'm zooming in to make sure nobody's blown out I'm then gonna look at my history graham to make sure I haven't lost any highlight details so sometimes got trust uh the history graham that's a great way to note didn't lose any highlight detail so I want to get back into post I can make this image look the way I want okay so carmen let's fix your hair a little the winds get gotten the best of it you got it you did good okay I'm a guy I could tell you you look good good get in their car you let me see that hand on your hip no I like it better on this child's yeah so let's go with that okay and let's go hi give me give me something dramatic there I gotta turn this on alright looking off there all right here we go one two okay I like that and let's keep going with this so guys both you looking at me I'm gonna give us much uh diversity as I can you got one giant curl over there that's good good carmen suite that I for me good chin down because now I'm down here I need you guys leaning at your waist towards me it's gonna feel a little weird yeah devon push out hip away from you so your hip you're sliding into me there you go perfect good and lean your chin towards me that's where I need you good sweet that I for me good looking at each other good and what I want you to do now is grab devon by the side of his face almost like you're pulling him in for a kiss with your right hand keep your left hand back there yeah I'm pulling and that's where I want you pulling in a little bit closer all right and carmen let your hips turn towards devon now square off twenty kick that right foot back there you go good good and almost kiss right don't really kiss devon grabber with that left hand right I want to show connection there you go but devon you're spinning away from me right so keep there you go good carmen looking at him beautiful stay there with you we're gonna get a couple of test shots here yeah there you go good stay there with it you stay there lissa looking at each other good and one more kids good and one more beautiful guys now here's what I want you I want to switch to my seventy two hundred the good news is is tomorrow you get to see how I'm gonna edit this picture and make it look like a little bit of magic okay I want to go actually want to come down here come on right there we're almost done carmen hang tight baby hiding from the wind get back in there I want to do one more kick that hair I want you looking at each other sorry brother listen move off to your left a little bit looking at each other yeah carmen kick out here off your shoulder though for me there you go good both sides carmen it's not cold carmen you love it outside in seattle in november all right devon put that left hand around her waist you lover devin turn into our turn your hips into each other there you go stay there with the guys test shot always take a test shot when I switch lenses nope didn't fire it's not linked up alicia turn it on and off this will happen with your equipment man it's never fool proof see what's going on with this uh it does not look like it's enslaved mode anymore so he's probably just got hit by accident there you go now it's linked back up all right it helps that you know your equipment all right we're almost done looking at each other no lis off to your left and tilt that flash down there you go good looking at each other one to test shot good stay there with it and kiss guys well that case you love each other beautiful both you looking away remember that pose where we had you looking off to the side so pull into each other real tight yeah alicia go off to my left keep going seeing a little bit eliza here you go good looking right elissa right at that flash devon stairs straighten up a little bit he's knocking you over he wants his camera time there we go looking all that flash evan devon here flush here devon yeah you're both looking at it right there no smile no smile devon wait go one two hey carmine get that hair out of your eye for me good chin down looking off there there you go devin shaken down this way looking right at the flash right they're beautiful but you got to connect with each other at that there you go that's what I'm looking for guys last one one two dot fire yeah bring that here it's not firing did a fire it's not give me the power I need I'm gonna dial this up zero last one guys let's make it count one two good plus one this will be the last one I take proving my point I want to get this shot because I want to show it tomorrow lean into each other good lean into each other one two all right guys we're going to call it on that thank you perfect I'm gonna take some questions it's not give me the power of one I don't obsess about it all right questions real world by the way welcome to real world a car's pulling out in in in lighting problems and everything else live tv folks all right so we did have some behind we have some questions about where you place the light in terms of the distance from the couple the angle that you were asking for it to be a place yeah that's really good so here's what I'm looking to do okay uh what I was doing was normally when we have off camera flash I see a lot of photography fired this way okay and what's gonna happen is that spreads gonna come off right at pretty much like a seventy degree angle out of there and that's not what I'm looking for because it's gonna happen it's just gonna like the top half of their body and then the bottom half of their body is going to be dark and it doesn't look natural eso instead what I was looking to do is have this flash elevated firing down so that we get some of that natural life fall off so their little higher of top we're hotter up top right and then that light gradually falls off so we're getting into some ratios and but it looks a little more natural now I will say natural is all relative because by bringing in this off camera flash I'm clearly it doesn't look like a natural light source that is what I'm going for by the way though I want a little more dramatic in the shot now I didn't do the whole photo shoot that way right did you see this one set of images and by the way you guys could go inside change into your second outfit okay so that's what I was looking for is a little bit more drama and I hade the camera the light brought off camera to pry about a forty five degree angle from the subject to get that first firing direct onto them right so I didn't want perfect even beauty lighting that's not what I was going for here I want a little more dramatic lighting and you'll see how we edit these images uh tomorrow so that you can see wow look what was coming off camera compared to what we made that look like is a piece of art for our client cool I have a question from jenna michelle photography who says asking about light modifier would you typically use a light modifier in this case are you not doing it because of the situation or I never use a light modifiers don't use the road even every sigrid are great all used the only time I'll use the grid is when I'm trying to really control light spilled so if I fire this flash right as it gets further and further away from the source it spreads more and more and more away so let's say I'm firing against a wall or something like that it's not only gonna hit them it's going to light up the entire wall and it's not gonna look good so that's where you would bring in a grid and really isolate where you're hitting them but in a situation like this in my style I'm not looking for that I want the spill I want the hard light I want that edgy gritty look and that's for now that's my style for now we come back around a year from now two years from now our lighting scenario or lighting kit my change and evolve but for now my bridegrooms are attracted to that harsh off camera light and again I can't stress this enough that's not every shot we take I'm only gonna take a handful of shots that have that because guess what if they don't like it I don't want the whole photo shoot to not have images they like so I'm giving them a cz much diversity is possible if you did not have an assistant what would you recommend somebody brings for the camera yeah for the off camera flash we'll have these uh tomorrow or the next day when we're shooting the part of the wedding but we use from amman fratto they're called nano stands and they are they collapse to about nineteen inches somewhere about this big and they'll go up to six feet tall and there are about fifty nine box yeah being each carries them we've got like three or four in nano stands I have him I'll be showing them on thursday but if you don't have an assistant that nano stands sits right there it's not this big of noxious light stand it's a small footprint I can travel with it and I just put it there and it does the same thing as having an assistant so adam had asked can you have your clients change clothes if there's not a not a place nearby like what do you use yeah we use a changing too so we have on actual tube that we get it's from sun bounce it's about one hundred bucks hundred twenty five bucks somewhere in that range and it's a tube that pops up and we hold it for our clients and the bride will change or the feet my fiance right that our marriage and I don't do it on our wedding day we have her change in that and that's how we get them to change location location grooms don't care they'll change in the middle of st si I think so are they coming back out no we're going back in so we're going to break so I'm trying to give you is much it is many difficult lighting situations as we can so we did one with absolutely no flash just available light on a cloudy day all right poor carm and she's freezing to death uh right now because it's chilly here but we then we did off camera flash used to get one dramatic shot and now we're gonna go inside and we're gonna do some video light inside and just showcase hey man you know maybe you got a hijack a hotel lobby sometimes maybe you gotta you know go and work in their and their apartment lobby I've done that before so we've got to figure out how to do whatever we can do to get great images and the best part about all this is that not only are we doing this but tomorrow right I've got my my post production team evolve at its they're they're here they're taking my memory card from my camera and they're gonna be editing these overnight so that tomorrow we can look at these during the sales presentation because we're going to sell to these guys uh take them through the engagement sales process