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End of Day Q&A

People are really trying to get their minds wrapped around this you started a little controversy e somebody in the creative live chat room, I think it was mechanistic who had said folks, he's basically shooting he's shooting in program and it's just a difficult as man in the way that he's doing it he's just you could just shoot in manual quicker basically is what you're doing. The only scenario this is why I would do it this way, and I've kind of dial it, and it's taken me a while to do that is the fact that if I'm in a scenario where I'm using this tool, it is faster for me to do this when that door opens up and there is a five six stop f stop difference in light like that father in that slide show that was coming through the doorway I had dialed her in program locked a meter fire on her because she was in the available light room with the window light it was beautiful, then dad came and he knocked on the door door opened up, he says, I have something I want to see her, I let go of th...

e button that was so under comparatively speaking, and had I look down or try to change it in them, I would have been at least a second or two off and I would have missed his first smile of the face with the door open I would have missed it and that's why I utilize it so let me explain something to you as well what works for me may not be a model that works for you it's not a writer wrong issue I have found this method it works for me and again it's not better than something else it's better for me that I utilize this system I brought it up because people say professional photographers say that m is the only way to shoot and initially I was of the same mind set that's how I learned how to interpret light and see it but having said that I found a way the use p mode and be a tad quicker than I wasn't again not right or wrong I'm just a bit faster and that split second and capturing that moment of her in the doorway is that tear rolls down her face and then all of sudden she noticed me while I'm looking at her and I'm trying to change something the whole demeanor changes on her so if I'm here and I've got that button pressed and I dialed it in in pee mode and I see that out of the corner of my eye and I let go and I go boom then she sees me too like I got you because when she sees me everything changes and so if I am quickly trying to dial down and dial up while looking through the viewfinder she notices me and the whole thing changes everything that I see in her demeanor her essence is gone so in that sense pee and the way that I use it is much faster than him cool question from sue mac and the internet was actually similar question some of the students and we were discussing just a few moments to go out there and does this work with an icon that has auto exposure lock and otto focused lock as the same button yes uh I believe in icon you can go into the menu and turn off the auto focus lock since pressing halfway down on the shutter button and leaving it there and moving is actually a locking mechanism both cannon and nikon you khun turn off that back button e a f flock and make it just either a lock or a flock you khun turn either one of them off so you can definitely turn off the out of focus lock on the back and make it simply uh exposure lock and that's it all right brother seems to have been a surprising number of questions about your white balance when shooting in p e a w b otto white balance I leave everything there sometimes most of the time I find that when I'm in weddings it's mixed lighting it iss you know tungsten is it's, fluorescent it's, incandescent all mixed together colored jail lights up lighting that they have been spotting on tables all over the map. So for me to do a custom white balance and in the way that I shoot and then point somewhere where it's strictly tungsten or fluorescent lighting, you know, maybe the ice sculptures, just all fluorescents, it just messes everything up. So what we do is its post production. It is a change in white balance in post production and it's actually simply that you can do it in batches if everything around the same area five, ten, fifteen shots are similar. Looking down the same, you know, pipe and having the same kind of lighting that's a batch post. Okay, let's, say it's a mixed bag and darn the lightest, simply ugly there's a click of the button. It says black and white wait go to black and white. So instead of trying to do a custom like bounce for me again, I'm trying to find shortcuts to be quicker at capturing moments, um, and not sacrificing the quality of the image, my clients, because they see in my pitch a lot of black and white work when they book me, they like to see the black and white stuff a swell so when I changed an image that I give to my client online through picked taj and it's black and white sometimes it's to give them an idea what the black and white version will be from the color sometimes it was a really ugly color shot and it's gone black and white add water from brazil is asking when you're in puma do you use the auto eso as well to help in the light situations so um if someone else suggested that to me I haven't gone down that road yet eduardo I have absolutely it's manual controls on my eyes so I dial in on my eye so and for the sake of when I do go to m and manual in the reception area and I'm bouncing light I need to manually control my s o so another thing to forget or not add on when I'm in otto is so in turn it office I gotta dial these things in manually so that's the only time that I will utilize the three buttons to control everything f stop shutter speed so so I've never really seen really and I know I think at some level it makes sense they have otto, so I just haven't used it I've really figured out how this system that I'm working with now how I've been able to dial that in how well that works for me and I'm very happy right here okay, another technical question from a win photo who says, um that you said you shoot in lower ross settings? What if the clients wanted large wall portrait? If you've got a lower, raw and mean, doesn't tend to be really grainy here's not actually here's what we've been managing d'oh so small round my cannon fifty mark two's, ten megapixels um, if they want a larger print and recently I had one client wanting a thirty six by forty or thirty by forty canvas very rare that that happens, I usually don't go don't go above eleven by fourteen uh, but let's say this client wanted a thirty by forty canvas and clearly the small raw by the time I give them j pegs are about five megs not big enough, so I take that same raw file and convert to tiff. Once I have a tiff file, I got thirty to forty megabytes on a on a tiff file that's planning and that goes thirty by forty very easily. One of the reasons I don't go to the higher raw files, which were twenty one mega pixels, is the storage space, the amount of time of post processing, it's huge, and I rarely get that client that wants a wall portrait that's thirty by forty you know, I just don't get him there were a lot of questions earlier that we weren't able to address is okay if we kind of reversed some of the questions go back. Ok? Tara v photo had a question and quite a few people were wondering about your assistant. Do you require your assistant primary here to shoot with the same camera type you used or did they use their own uses? A nikon equipment you know again everybody shoots differently and has different equipment, has different mindsets and he shoots with nikon and you know I used to shoot down so it's not about a nikon cannon issue, you know so it's it's what's he comfortable with he's a total nikon sheer good for him as long as the images that come back speak of what he could do, why I hired him I'm fine with whatever he shoots and what I look for in a primary shooter is someone that shoots the opposite of me. In other words, I want someone that's thrilled to death to shoot setups and formals. This guy rich in particular that's who I'm using now he's excited he's a total people person he's an actor you know he's waiting for his big break I hope he gets it but he loves people so he's in there and he sets him up and he's got his flash off camera it's got a camera here for fill light if it's outdoors inside he's got it full tilt boogie sometimes he bounces it he bounced us this way that way but he's directing and that's who he is he's not going to look for the same thing that I look for so when I interview people I interview to get someone who is opposite of what I want to shoot I want to shoot moments captured some beautiful details and I want someone else to be the opposite of me and that's the shoot what mom wants which are usually table shots who's comfortable doing that that likes doing it, who interacts with people who makes them smile and comfortable that's who riches he's brilliant at it and, uh who does the formals? I mean that's perfect blend. All right, this question is also going back to her earlier in the day a couple people had this question including three p photography and a pr milton how what would you charge for the day in the life type session that you talked about earlier and he's from las vegas? Yeah, so here's so what you do for the day of you make thie session not so much is too expensive but let's say four grand to shoot for the day four grand now the book is a value, so now you can actually you know the book could be four, five thousand dollars so in essence for the day you probably get eight or nine and that's where I'd be with that I do the shooting session kind of on the low side and without fail I mean this is why they would book me is I would show them these little scenarios of these little books with with the whole day in the family life kind of thing and that's why they would hire me so again I'm pitching an experience I'm expecting now the experience of this particular book tohave to pass down from generation to oration right? So they're not all those sun deciding and they may just decide to get some princess well but they got sold on the whole book idea. So the idea is that that's what I pitch that's what they'll buy so you go in on not too high of you know this again is usually made weak I would I don't do them on weekends it's always mid week because weekends are weddings and I don't interfere with those so it's a wednesday so thursday sometimes it's a friday it's all good um and it's maybe four grand to go do the whole day from morning till night and then I rely on the sale of the albums sometimes it's multiple books because grand parents want it so you're looking at three books you know um having had steven spielberg harm a couple times birthday party I think we sold I want to say four or five albums at about four grand apiece so my sales are in the album part of it uh at this point for that for weddings it's not so much it's creative input for the day of that's fee based going back a little bit to the second shooter j frost and a couple others were actually wondering when you have a second shooter do you have them sign an agreement with working with you and who owns the photos? Ok there's a couple things about and well, you know on the third day we'll talk about copyright intellectual property but you're making a big mistake if you're a studio and you hire a second shooter and not locked them in on a contract because I don't know about the other state state of california's whoever clicks the shutters the copyright owner unless they signed a work for hire okay now with my clients I don't do work for hires so they know that having said that I also while I stand on the copyright I allowed him to do whatever they want with their images and when it comes to clients that are my celebrity clients it is ah you know from the beginning and there's a three page contract you all will get but with celebrities it's often times ten to fifteen pages deep because attorneys are now involved and I understand their privacy issue's selling thie images of celebrity could make a lot of money so they're very well aware of that and I understand that with second shooters this scenario could have happened to me it hasn't I've had good really good people working with me but let's just say I've hired a second shooter and he grabs an amazing moment and he says I own the copyright I shot it because I didn't uh buying them with a contract to the studio right and all of sudden the client sees his image of theirs online and goes what and then comes after me because I never gave you permission for that you know you never ran it by me and the thing is what I have the agreement with my client's air this is before I will do anything with the images I will ask your permission even though I own the copyright I will absolutely on our privacy so if there are images that you really don't want me to show that our private you and first of all I will be very select and what I pick and so really private moments I may not use anyway some are just really beautiful you know leanne with a tear running down her face that could be considered a private moment but she loved it I loved it was very powerful and she said okay but I asked her first I ask all my clients first so let's say that second shooter decides I own the copyright I'm just going to run with it well, that puts me in hot water so what I do with my second shooter slash primary shooters is they sign on agreement with me that the studio ultimately owns the copyright but with my client's permission I will allow the second shooter they take their images and use them for their own portfolio for their own websites because I expect them to eventually go out on their own so I'm not going to try and make them beholding to me that they should be locked in with job you sink and you know I could never use the same just know you can I will absolutely let my second shooter's use images with my client's permission and the only way I can control that is if I take the copy right away but they have total use of images of client says okay, so my second shoes I have these amazing photos I'd like to use them for my website and they're doing maybe a few weddings on the side by themselves and let me see that let me see the images and we'll put him up online I will contact my client could you please take a look? This is my second shooter stuff is are you okay with him using these photos for his personal website for his business and they'll say most of the time yeah, sure it's fine so yeah, you can use it that's a very respectful system you have it work really, really well and every one of my second shoes without question said no that's not a problem, you know? And they're actually thankful that I let them use because ah lot of the studios in l a as a second shooter, you can't use any photos taken on that studios gig you're second shooter, you're hired as a work for hire you let go of the images none they're not yours that's very generous, especially with sam with hollywood and fans people have pictures of those people on the website. Yeah, very cool okay les w photos from south florida asked you scope out locations I had a time for weddings or you do you just see the shots as they happen? And did you ever do that when you first started? When I first started, I scoped out all the locations as a nervous little nellie I wanted to make sure a three o'clock on saturday I would go up friday at three o'clock to see where the light fell everywhere I made notes but what does it make me do have to think right? So now I love finding the light and alone behold, I'm one of those people that works best under pressure I really thrive on it so when I walk into a situation in the light absolutely stinks man I start panicking a little bit but that just gets my juices running to where I have to find a light and improvise it's all about trying to work out of the box and trying to, you know, work these scenarios that you usually as a tower trying control so now I'm a little out of control I really work really good out of control, so no, I don't uh look at then use at all I literally in the moment we'll find the light. All right, one last question for the day you know what ready and this is from earlier this morning from p to carry how do you remain calm during the wedding and not feel like you're rushed to capture every moment devil list you go by or do you just capture those moments as they present themselves? Drugs excellent lots of drugs no it's funny because I make a joke about that when I see the bride when I first walked into the bride getting ready room usually there's a little bit of anxiety, the energy's a little anxious because she's thinking ahead and all that stuff and I'll walk up to rest she's a little nervous looking into the mirror and the girls are all talking around there's all this chaos going on, I said I'm here I brought lots of valium for you most of it's for me right now because I'll need it, but if you need to slip mom a little piece of it cause she's bugging the heck out of you, I'll happily slipped something into her drink humor humor breaks the ice like nothing else and she'll laugh and also now see her shoulders kind of like sink a little and I've had her comeback the bride say to me, oh my god, thank you so much for that I so needed toe and then I take a little control of maybe moving that loud chaos into another room because that woman that brides she's mine that day and she's the most beautiful woman on earth on that plant next to my wife she's first and always will be, but for me that bright, I don't care what she looks like is the most beautiful woman on earth that day, and I want to make sure she stays that way, so if I see chaos around her, I help remove it a little bit. Do you mind if I tell the girls toe just sit out there? You look a little and I don't know I was just thinking that thank you, can you do that? Sure, absolutely so I don't really I get butterflies before every wedding, but the butterflies are about what am I going to see today? What am I gonna feel today? I'm really seventeen years later I still get that I will get worried when I don't feel those things before going to a wedding and my nervous or pressured no, no, because every wedding to me bar none all have moments in it and they're all different and there isn't one wedding that I've been to in seventeen years that I have and found some beautiful moments, so I'm never nervous about that. Most of mine is just pre anxious stuff about my guess what? What what is it today? You know what is my juicy portfolio piece that I'm coming away with ice to this day? Seventeen years later print from every wedding, some images I have stacks and stacks I have a storage unit with nothing but mad at prince from day one to know because I continue to print and eventually I'll revisit it and look through them again oh my god, I remember this I remember this moment ah, the feeling's coming right back, you know, and that ultimately, folks that's what you want your clients to get out of what you do you want him to feel that wedding all over again like it was yesterday and it could be thirty years down the road, but like yesterday