Lessons

Lesson Info

11:45 am - Reception Coverage

being a look at that rim lighting right there. So imagine it from my point of view. Okay, now granted, as you can see, the overcast of this thing was purple. Uh, and it'll have to be corrected later. But having said that, that little phrases that tungsten light and is throwing some yellow on and actually the skin tones look a little more normal. And it's not purple now from that perspective, but you can see the light that fell on that from from from that side from actually from the other side. There's a rim lighting on it. So on my side of it, what I'm seeing is a beautiful kiss of light. It's absolutely stunning. See the difference when that one off boom lost my life now full frame against bouncing my life as much as I can. There's my light again. See the light that I threw on it? You can see it. It's beautiful. She's the hint of light, and it's constant, and I can control it because it's got a variable switch on it, right so I can make the mood. Whatever. I wanted to look at the ligh...

t coming on him right there. you can see it and I'm trying to time because they're talking. I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to say, Hey, don't say anything. It's my job to time it questions about frenzies. Our lighting was really curious about the video. Crazy. Okay, it's a video, right? So let me tell you how I got to that it is actually a cool little story. Um, in the beginning stages, I I used to see a lot more videographers on my gigs than I do now. There's less and less of them. That's a shame, because I think video still a good idea. Um, but what I would do is there was for a while videographers had this nickname amongst photographers. I wasn't one of them cause I actually appreciated. And that's how I got to the frenzy. They used to be called video. It's photographers hated their intrusion of light. I'm going, But why is that? Because they're actually adding light. If you know how to work this light and what to do with it when they do it, they're pretty cool. You just got to figure it out. So whenever a videographer be on a dance floor shooting the bride and groom dancing, I'd be not the opposite end because I wanted rim lighting. I would throw in program mode and I would get these beautifully silhouetted shot with this beautiful room lining from the video like and then I would go on their side of it and have their available light. And I never use my flash. It was amazing. And then one day I'm at a wedding and no videographer, and I went, Oh, my God, what am I gonna do? And then I realized, Why don't I get a video light? And so I stuck it on the hot shoe and now I'm the videographer that shooting still sort of kind of. But that's how I got to the video light is that I can add as much or little light as I want. Not only that, but can you imagine the cake cutting there is the bright and white. There's the cake and white and there's your flash boom And what do you get totally blown out stuff. Okay, unless you're bouncing at number one and you bounce it a distance away and you're just adding a little bit of light. But with my friends. It's awesome because I just asked my assistant like me, and she'll, like the bridegroom's just their faces not really touched the cake that much. And I'm in p mode and I'm shooting program beautifully lit scenario with the video like So I love that video like So, Joe, you're using a tungsten yet light there as a poster and led about How's that power? How long does that last? Okay, so so that particular one is 30 watts, the bulb on it. The battery at God is ah, battery pack. That wasn't part of Fred's Illini. I bought it outside of France. I. D X, I believe, is the name brand. It's three hours on full power. I don't need it that long. I think one charge on that battery last me about 10 weddings because I don't use it that often. I just use it when I still shooting in P mode long lens, and I just need a little hint of light. Just add because they're in a dark space, and rather than trying to move them somewhere where it's light beautiful for me, I need to leave him alone, maybe, and maybe add a little bit of light and maybe the flashes in the right light and Ellie knees. It's cool. It's on the blue side. I like him warm, so I like tungsten. Where it's a yellow side, it's warmer. Eso That's just my choice. Now those lives do get hot. Led is don't get hot. They're nice. There's this. They cold and cool. But again, you know it's all about your flavor. What do you like? Because at the end of the day, you throw it in post and you tweet the led lighting. You tweak the tungsten lighting and whatever. It's all good. Yeah, um, so pretty much. This is what I do. It's It's It's an and for me and weddings, by the way, At this point after this is done, I'm done with my wedding. My part of it. Here's where Rich takes over until the end of the wedding. He is not done until his hours air done. OK, so first dance is usually where they cut you loose goes from here on out. It's it's eating. There's toast there, like no brainer kind of photos, and it's cake cutting. And sometimes I'm there for that. If they move it up, but otherwise and we I don't ever see that much more of the bouquet toss our garter toss anymore. Very rarely, we did do one yesterday, but see, it's just back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. It's the long lens because I want to get the portrait's of them. I want to see expressions, feelings and then full length because the bride's gonna want to see her dress. Um, yeah, And then what we end with is this which was a surprise for most right? Which was I thought was cool. This was school. So when I saw that, we were going to do this and I was trying to, I was telling you is trying to gauge the distance where the fireworks gonna be and they were going to be down here and all the cars were there and I go, That's not the shot I'm looking for. And then the fireworks. I don't know where they're gonna be exactly. They might be too high to where I'd have to incorporate all of those cars as well to get the shot and then crop it in. I said, I really don't want to do a lot of cropping either. I end up doing some anyway. So what ended up happening is I'll move it along and see where we are on this thing. We walked. Was that afterwards? No. We're going out there now, so check it out. I saw a car. Let's get a car out there amongst the other cars. Let's pop the bride and groom on there. And then this brilliant guy John, working for creative life said, Dude, we got a truck. I said, All right, 10 feet, man. Dude. All right, bring it out. So we parked this 10 foot truck will stick a ladder up against it all incorporate. The latter is part of it, will throw the bride and groom on top of it. And then I'll use my 14 millimeter so that I can go because I'm stuck. I'm stock where there's a fence right here and the shot would be with the fence in it, and I didn't have the right lens. I would have to move back, and you haven't seen this yet, But in a minute there's 200 people standing here, right right in front there so I wouldn't get the shot I was looking for. So I'm thinking I might do this, all right. She needs to be up high, both of them. And then I'm gonna use the wide 14 millimeter. I'm gonna shoot it. So you see the truck and I'm probably gonna have to crop it. But the shot And I wish I had it here. Now you'll see it. Tomorrow is out. Rages. They look like they're right in the middle of this. This huge fireworks display, right? Dead center as they're looking up. Oh, my gosh, it's amazing. So that was a little bit of Ah, you know, I had to think about this for saying so There is a little more thinking c So there. Here's where I have to do some planning, but his brief and then boom, It's whatever the moments are and what we end up with at the end, I think we're gonna I don't know what So they were shooting there, so that's my frenzy, right? Seeing CCK holding up the frenzy, and that's for focus. I want to be able to focus because it's dark without that frizzy. But see all the people and I said, I have to be closed. It has to be 14. Is she grabbing his? But yeah, she was okay. I'm just checking. So when I knew this was gonna happen, I had toe work around that. So once I knew they were gonna be that many people there. Okay, We have to have them higher up. And then I have to shoot from behind riches from the front. When you see his images from the front will be blown away, it's frighteningly beautiful. That's what's cool that I can say that about another shooter, right? I'm so proud of him And what he what he does. And I'm always so happy to be able to say this kind shoots for me. Did we lose sound? Uh, that's my friends, the lighting and the purpose is simply so I could focus now imagine from down below, right in the middle of that, I wouldn't have had that effect if they were standing on the ground. So it was something that I had to visualize beforehand. Now I asked him to do that because sometimes couples get so in all of the fireworks I forget. You know, that's a romantic moment. Kiss him. That's pretty cool. Scary. You wait, wait A I'm gonna have to show you guys the, um, the info on that because it's probably quarter second at 2.8 now. 14 millimeter, 2.8 quarter second doable. 7200 two point 1/4 of a second. So the wider the angle lens, the easier is to hand Hold that thing for lack of movement. Right? So think about that. If you're using a telephoto, don't try and drag the shutter. You'll get movement. Sometimes it's beautiful. Most of time, it's not. But if you go super wide, you can risk it still easier to do. That's how we ended it. It was an awesome day. Yeah, it was really an awesome day. And it was Mawr, and it always is for me about who the people are versus where it's being photographed. So one ever I'm asked. You're so lucky to shoot in these events that the Beverly Hills hotels or wherever Malibu it's It's not about the space, it's about the people, and it doesn't matter. They can get married around a set of trash cans, and I'll get beautiful images. All right, a good question in the chat room from Sabina Patina. How do you work with people that put tradition first instead of following their heart and doing a first look before the ceremony? So the people that hire me that they're not about tradition? That's what I'm saying. So you know, I people that come to me when I do my pitch, it's based on, like I said, who I am and the work that I do and that's far removed from traditional imagery. So if you want to attract those type of people, you should show that kind of work that is devoid of a whole lot of tradition where maybe, yeah, you got a formal shot here or there. But you want to show more of your art more of your heart than those of the images you show them. Show them why you want them to hire you. Um, you can convince him otherwise. So there are couples that come to me because they've heard that I photographed J. Lo's wedding or whoever you know, that I shot for the Spielberg's. When they hear that they sometimes go. I have to have this photographer at my wedding, but when they come to me and they sit in front of me. I realize that they're all about tradition, and that's okay. I'm just not the right person for that. So in the interviewing process, when I get a heads up that this might not be the match, I start to interview them and ask them questions. And if I hear that that there's, you know, 150 formal setups to do, I'm probably not gonna be the right person for you unless rich or third shooter, I will dedicate 1/3 shooter toe having those things done. But the problem without sometimes become. If this is a two hour shoot, it's two hours, and I don't have the opportunity to get the important people at the wedding the immediate family, the bridal couple, the bridal party in moments because they're in a shoot, that's hard to say. It's not my cup of tea, so I'm very careful as to how you know to say no. But I have said no. Joe Blue Lace photography would like to know, and I'm just going to jump in for a sec. It seems like you enrich you guys have just this great relationship and speaking of assistance when looking for an assistant outside of your second shooter or even choosing your second shooter, what are the basics that you feel they should know? What do you look for? And what advice would you have for that corporate person that wants to be a weekend warrior and is ready to jump into this? A lot of questions. Good. Well, is it? No, that was a triple shot. That's good. So you know, it's I tend to look for second shooters that are opposite me. So what I need and that's why a hunt for second or third shooters in college ists. I hunt for people that are comfortable with lighting that know their cameras. All of my second shooter's pretty much have been educated in photography, so they've gone toe Hallmark. They've gone to Brooks Institute. They've gone to a local college and taking photography. Two years of it. What have you are in the university and studied photography there so they know lighting. They know posing, and that's what I need them to do. And if they're comfortable with that, that's the person I need, because I need to be free from having to do that so I could do my PJ style shooting. Okay, that's number one. Um, I think personality is huge. I've had a couple of shooters that are very uncomfortable there. They're probably more PJ style shooters because they're flies on the wall and they have a hard time interacting with the clients in my style of shooting. And that's not across where my dear friend Dennis Reggie is completely to fly on the wall. The really lovely man has no problem speaking the people, but it's his style not to shoot the way I shoot his PJ styles a lot more what you would want to call like newspaper photojournalism. You know, they're just whatever moments unfold unfold. I ain't touching it, and that is a very honest way to photograph. However, for me, this is a wedding, and sometimes I've got to move some things around and no longer becomes P J. And in order to do that, I have to interact with my clients. I need my shooters to be ableto do that as well and be comfortable with interacting with my client. So personality is huge. For me, Rich has a very big personality. Okay, and people love that about him, which what happens for Rich and me because of how we interact with them. They open up to us right because they get a feeling for who we are and that we love what we do. They open up like books. So it's not that were brilliant and grabbing these moments. It's that clients let us see these moments. There's a difference because of who we are, right? So personality. I would pick personality for sure. As a corporate person jumping in to this game, which is now becoming a part time gig, I think wedding photography's on a track of becoming part time. US. Full timers are. There's foreign few in between us now, Um, most of a shooting are part timers. They have full time jobs 9 to 5 Monday through Friday. And if you're new at this, my suggestion, as it always has been, is learned by shooting for someone else. First, don't just jump into a wedding, thinking that you're gonna fix it later, or, you know, I know how to do this with the rebel, and everybody in my family's told me that I'm a great photographer and I should do this for a living. So I'm gonna shoot a wedding next weekend. Um, get a clue as to what weddings are about by actually following someone around lugged their bags if you have to at first become a second or third shooter. If they allow for that, even if they say to you, you can't use the images, get the experience. I've had clients come in and hire great amazing fashion shooters out of Italy to shoot their weddings. Because there stuff is brilliant. It's beautiful. Problem is Mawr. Often than not, I've had these clients come back and said Should have hired you instead why he missed all these moments. I mean, the formal stuff was gorgeous, but he missed all the moments A fashion shooter is in a wedding photographer. A corporate person isn't a wedding photographer. You really got to know the lay of the land before you jump in and go. I'm gonna be a wedding photographer. Know how to anticipate a lot of what I do is anticipate because I've practiced it right just by being at weddings by shooting them. I've learned when the next things come up, So when people say to me. Oh, my gosh. How'd you get that moment? I've tried to get that look, I have a sense for it because I've seen it more than ones. And I have a feeling and I trust my gut, my intuition. I gravitate towards it. So it's experience. So as a corporate guy, part time find someone has been doing this for a while. Tag along, carry their bags, you know, ingratiate yourself to them. I mean, figure out how you can work for this person, so you can learn. We just have a couple more questions before we wrap up our day here. Joe, uh, Melanie from Austria has a great question and brings me back to the wedding last night when I was watching you photograph you enrich photograph thin, cutting the cake for the first time. There's only so much real estate at a wedding. Photographers and videographers and family and everyone toe watch. There's a small little area you enrich were photographing there Two videographers from creativelive of the cameramen and there was and Nico had a video camera for 1/10 covering. I think there was like six or seven cameras right there in like a little tiny table. So, Melanie of Austria's question is, how are you handling Uncle Bob? I want to take photos during during all of these important moments. And how do you handle that? Ok, really easy. I know when cake cuttings gonna happen, Melanie, before anybody else does. Because the coordinator will give me heads up. Hey, in minutes or after this song, we're going to cake. I'm the 1st 1 there, so I position myself exactly where I want to be in. No one's gonna move me. I don't care if it's Uncle Bob Videographer. They all gonna have to stand next to me behind me somewhere else. And I use the position so that if Uncle Bob wants to take a picture, the only picture you can take is from my vantage point, because otherwise he's behind them. He's not going to get a great shot, right? So he's always gonna want to look like me, the photographer at their faces. So they're gonna be all around me. I'm fine with it. I really don't mind that there are other people shooting at all. And so what happened with Rich yesterday? I don't know If you've noticed. I realized the great shot would have been through the window where I was standing was locked in tiny little space. I was using a wide angle so I can get the cake. I tend to like to shoot where the cakes part of them, cutting and feeding each other instead of close ups, right? So I like wide angle positions. And then I said, Too rich, too. I'm seeing it. I'm not there right now, but shoot it from the other side, from the inside, through the window and he got on the inside. So wow, that's great. So he was really happy to be there all of a sudden, and I'm sure he was shooting with that. The 85 or 50 hey likes to shoot prime lenses, but I'm I guarantee you got amazing stuff from that point, so I don't mind other other people shooting. I just got out the turf for myself. First assess, often as I can, and you handle it similarly during the formal shots as well. Yeah, here's what I do with formal sometimes and and typically, you know, sometimes we do have cultural weddings, whether it's Chinese or or Indian weddings where everybody has a Cameron wants to shoot. They're entitled to shoot their part of the wedding. Right? So I set it up. Right? Everybody stand like this. All right, All you guys here shoot it and I let I sit back and they go to town. They shoot all from you done. Okay, Step back, Jos. Turn And I rearrange it and I do my own thing, Teoh. So at that point, I let everybody stand out. So I let them take the first shots. Do whatever you want, go for it. Have have a field day, and then I rearrange it and do mine. Thank you. Awesome. Joe, Um, this is a great question, Christine. L would like to know. And I I think this is not just for photography, but because we're kind of feeling you today. And we felt you yesterday. How do you keep your passion for shooting weddings with all the all the winnings that you've shot over the years? Because each wedding to me, is new and different. Right? So, um, I also do things for myself. A few years ago, I shot a book called Autism Heroes. I have two Children are on the spectrum, very near and dear and close to my heart is autism. And so what I try to do is find work for myself that's not related to a moneymaking thing. So I will shoot for causes. I will play and go out in the country. I I will go on a hike and bring a camera something other than shooting on just on the weekend shooting weddings. And even though that is my passion, it always will be. There are other things that I can shoot that makes me just this passionate. So if you do something from the heart to the heart and I had zero money involved in it, what ends up happening is that you rejuvenate yourself and your battery gets recharged because you're doing something for you, you know, and you're touching someone else's life is well, and there's no exchange of money, so it's an awesome feeling. It's absolutely frightening. So if there's something that you love to do outside of weddings, that's just a thing that you have to shoot. Whether it's, you know, tabletop stuff or whatever it might beep kids anything that you want to do or you want to give yourself to an organization that helps others and you photograph something for them. It is an amazing, powerful experience. It totally just every time I do it, I'm good for another 34 years.