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Lesson Info

10:45 am - Portraits Coverage

this is totally unrelated What we talked about earlier. But I always like, you know, with the instructors. You're kind of your signature shock. You cannot describe that happened. What about light riel coming through the door? Yeah. You know, I get that asked a lot, actually, interestingly enough, this is an actual real wedding. I entered that in a WPP I competition. And initially the judges didn't want to scored because they thought it might have been Photoshopped. You know, they questioned that the church was emptying the back. Well, it's a real wedding. Small 100 people, big church in Santa Barbara. And the whole back of the church was empty. So what I did here was this was in P mode. I'm gonna actually stand up and do this. And when I initially the doors were open and I watched the bridal party walked through one by one. The, you know, the ring bear the flower girl everybody is walking through and I'm shooting it. And I had a chance to look at the back of the camera a couple of time...

s and I said, You know, I'm wondering because I know in this church have shot their before they closed the doors. And then they open it as the bride comes through. Right? So the two ladies on the other side, they open the doors and the bride walks through. Now, this was one wedding where the groom had not seen her before. So I said, I really want to make this a very powerful moment. And this is always backlit by the sun because they keep the outer doors open. A lot of churches, they don't. But in this particular church, they do. So what ended up happening was I tried to figure out in my mind's eye, what would this look like if I overexposed it? Because if I'm in program mode, what's gonna happen is gonna pick up all that light and completely under expose it, and she'd be silhouette. But what? I want to seize a the details and I want to see her face on the shot. So I thought of this right as they closed the doors and I'm going. Oh, my gosh. So what I did was I. Quickly as the doors were being closed, I locked my meter right here on the ground. I took a guess, somewhat educated, one that when they open it, it was gonna be blown out here, but not so much that this was all going to go away. So this is actually her father's arm on the outside of it. And when he saw her in the actual image here, you don't really see. She's got really angelic face right now in this shot. And he sees this for the first time. And I turned around and I grabbed with a long lens. His expression, that was the whole point of doing it this way is I'm on on my knees on the floor, 70 on this one, turn around 72 200 on him. Gotcha. And then in the book, I'm in my mind. It's opposite each other so that it's a moment, right? What was really cool? A. And worked right. And then when I showed him at the reception this image, he wept just like he did. When he was in the altar, he wept again. He relived it. So I'm thinking too. I'm really cool with this. Aren't because next week I got another wedding here. I'm gonna do the same thing, all right? And that the same son the same time. Lo and behold, I know I'm got this down. Now I know what to dio Doors open up. Being being being being being I look at the camera. No, it wasn't there. Que pasa what happened? And I'm looking this image across the next week's images. What the heck happened here? How come not even close? So happened The only difference. Waas how far parts these doors were? I timed it in this one. So perfectly like at that split second, the light creased often the edges of the doors and created beams were in the following weeks wedding. They were either too close or too open. They hurried opening the doors on that one. So it was all about the timing between the ladies and me. So this is a lucky shot. I take it, I'll take, I'll take it. But that's it, right? It's that that's that's what it's about for me. If if that group comes back at me at the reception and starts to cry again, that's what it's about because he remembers what he was feeling and he's just reliving it. That's the same. I think he saw that I saw. It's like an angel drop down from heaven that walk through those doors. That was awesome. Okay, I now I'm a second shooter. It's a really seamless thing dance that we do. This is his gig. No. Now it's his turn to do what he needs to do for me as you can. I'm just hanging out A My So, you know, we walked around previously to this and tried to figure out where to do these set ups. I mean, we had nowhere outdoors, that we could do this. And then I thought, You know what? Why not? This deck just is just this front porch I think would work. Got an overhang. It's got some available light. And I told him, You know what, Flash? Feel it a little in case it's a little dark in there. Yes, that's great. That's rich. Looks great. Let me get my settings right, cause that's kind of part of the whole deal. Yeah, because you're a photographer. Rich, Can you not like that face? Jo, just quick. Question is rich. Also shooting on p. Not rich actually likes manual. Okay? He lives on manual mode and we bandy back and forth. Like, If it isn't about Nikon and Canon, it's about M and P, you know, and it means I say P for professionally. Algo m is for master. Thank you. Yeah. So I'm looking from the side again. It's available light, and he's always double checking because that's that's how he functions. He wants to make sure it's all nailed. The lighting's there. The flash went off. All right, Is there any breakdown of this that you'd like to do? Maybe we now we didn't get a shot list. So now we put it to them. Is there a breakdown you would like? Is there combinations? And we'll come up with our own first. But we don't know the family dynamics. Sometimes there is Ah ah, stepmother, that maybe not a favorite person in people's lives don't want to be posed with. So instead of forcing it, we're taking their suggestions. Three view ladies. That's the guy. All right, look great. Don't worry. You don't do that. Click out Over there to me is a second shooter. That was my shot when she went. She's very animated. Yes. Uh, let me get one vertical version and will be in good shape. Let me see. Let me see. Let me see. Very good. Yeah, that's way. That what happened? So that was great. I missed it. Um, do you want to do one with your grandmother? Just the two of you. Come on, let's get her over here. And then we'll add death into that shot afterwards. Okay, Perfect. That's it. Very. I'm just letting you do this thing. And he's, you know, again, I pick people for who they are. I mean, yes, they are. They need to be good at what they do. But I love riches personality, and people love him. And that's that's what gave me the heads up first, right when I took him to the first few gigs and all the people that were at thes receptions fell in love with him, said, That's that's who I want to be hanging out with right there that ask me today for all against that. I've heard of some photographers that are like This will be how your day goes like so they make sure they get certain shots and some, obviously the bride and groom, like they want it planned out the way they want planned out, and I want you to just deal with what their time by giving you, like do you mean like a timeline? Because I get timelines from coordinators all the time. So I deal with high end coordinators that you know will send me the week before two weeks before the timeline of the wedding. And then he and I will look at the timeline. But we already know what our respective jobs are, so it doesn't really matter what the timeline says. He knows he's on for all the formals he knows he's on. If there's going to be table shots and will be in the timeline, he knows he's on for those things, so I we don't even speak about it. It's just like we just go right into it. Once I have the bride and groom alone and I might do the portrait, okay, lets you go, and then he'll grab a couple portrait of the Brighton room. And when he'll do is he'll must sit up where all must sit up another. I want something different. So if I set up something, you change it for me. If you set up something, I'm gonna change it for me, you know what I mean. So it's It's it's it's It's a unspoken dance. We don't really need to speak to one another. We're hooked together now with for six years we've been doing this. So it's fairly easily. Yeah. In the beginning, I had to tell him. Okay, so now I need you to do this part and then we would right on the timeline. R. J, you know, I mean, we were racket out that way. He's always with the groom. I'm always with the bride. And that never changes, usually including with celebrities. As a matter of fact, if if this is already happening to me Male, he's still with me. I'm gonna be always with the bride pretty much that's who I salt. That actually brings up a question from the Internet for pro photographer Ah, longtime viewer here on creative life. How do you communicate with rich when you're are far away from him? Do you have hand signals or clearly defined shot list? No, it's way. Yeah, it's it's We don't communicate long distance unless I dio you know, handsome. Sometimes I might say Hey, you know, I'll get his attention, eyes, and I'll say, you know, when they you know, kiss and then I'll go around and he goes, You have your own baseball head, you know? It's it's, uh we don't have a shot list. We don't have directions for us. It needs to be free flowing day. So coming into the venue, this was the first time for Rich yesterday, you know, and we normally way don't go to venues beforehand to get the lay of the land, so to speak. I happen to have come here before the meat tests and Shelia first. So that's how I saw the venue. Okay, But we don't scope it out because we want to walk in that day free, open minded. Because if you think about it when you scope out a venue, you having presets in your head already, right, Mama, use this space, and then you know when they do their thing over there. Okay, maybe I can use that look. So you come to the wedding and what do you having? You had thoughts. You have these preconceived ideas from your scoping and out from the week or two weeks before a month before I'm trying to eliminate. I wanna walk in. He wants to walk in and go, OK, what are we gonna do? And we just do it. It's on the fly. Make it work one way or the other, and we don't worry about how stressful it might be. You know, we walked away saying, Hey, those rooms were kind of cramped and we had a lot of people in them. Well, we didn't feel it right then and there when we were shooting. I just work with whatever is there. I see and feel all the commotion. People walking in front of camera apologize. No, it's OK, it's all good. And then afterwards I'll go. Whoa, That was a tight space, dude. And he goes, Yeah, online was tied to man. But it's We work these things out. So if I have a shot list, if I have toe have communication back and forth, it makes it kind of hard to just flow with it. And I was saying yesterday to riches, it seems like we work best when we are challenged. When we have challenges on the plate. We really, really work well. I mean, our images are amazing. If it's all laid out and they spend $2 million on the wedding. It's a piece of cake, right? There's really it's all beautiful. And you expect it to be beautiful cause they spend the money on to make it that beautiful. Okay, that's cool. But I feel sometimes I really walk away with a piece of art when it's very difficult for me to shoot. I find something because it makes me go even further to try and nail what they're looking for. So I go even beyond. You know, I'm trying to be even Maurin the moment because I'm still trying to find What am I gonna do in here? And it's somehow just comes out. I concentrate on it, just feeling it. We good more. You'll notice Rich talks a lot back and forth and see, I change it up a little bit because I don't particularly care for Yeah, I want to see. I want to see arms. I want to see hands. I want to see them hooked together. Married? God, I love that. Okay, I'm good. Hey, I'm good. That's it? Don't know. Next. Um yeah. Do we want to do anything with anybody else? that's standing over here, right? What's the cabling? I'm gonna squeeze past this because we got a bunch more to look at. So you kind of get in the idea right now what I'm doing here and I don't know, video caught this while he's shooting the little flower girls in the top window above. And I keep seeing her and she's got her bottle in her mouth and she keeps looking down and every so often peeks out the window. And finally, Mom Smart opens the window, and the little girl sticks of heads out its that's smiling and pulls out the bottle of holding, and she's grinning from ear to ear. And this is huge shot of both windows in this little tiny girl in the middle of the open. It was so sweet, and I just kept my eye on it, and I kept seeing it over and over and over. So while I'm here, I'm also up there. I'm constantly watching wherever I need to watch. Look, I animated. He is together about 3000. My wife. That's great. Okay, lets see everybody else and then, you know, Father, see the girl up there? Yeah, yeah, I'm watching. I am Video did catch it right. Then the little guy click. That's another one right there as hes hanging out. If you're not thinking you're I constantly robes. It's in constant motion. And I'm just reacting to things that I see. If I have an agenda, I tend to see less. It's just like a horse with blinders on it, right? I see less because I'm thinking about things. And most bitterly, now she is. Um, actually, sir, what you gonna be up?