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Know Your Light: Natural Light

Okay, today it is about light, all right? Light, light, light, light, light and, um, uh, gonna be shooting tethered to this screen and just so you know, this screen, like big television monitors like this are awesome for, like, you know, watching movies, news and weather and all of that they're not the greatest thing to tether to, they can't really be calibrated quite the same, and the contrast and sharpness, no it's kind of weird, so I want to shoot to try to make it look good for this screen, all right? But I'm talking through all the fundamentals of finding our exposure and working with our subject and and all of that kind of stuff today, I'm going to start with something really simple a head shot. All right? Um, I believe that, like if if you said zach, start over from zero something, man, I'd probably go do head shots because all you need is some window light, a reflector or to, um you don't need strobes, you don't need flashes, you don't need like tons of gear like toe have a suc...

cessful head shot business is pretty simple on the gear side. All right? And if you can establish yourself as a headshot photographer, um then like you can, you can do a pretty good business and and actors and actresses need new headshots oh, I grew a beard I need a new head shot oh, I shaved my beard off I need a new head shot you know, my hair is a different length I need a new head shot my hair's a different color now I need a new head shot um I've lost weight, I've gained weight, I've done this I've done that like new headshots kind of thing um and I'll talk more about head shots and it is a business model and things like that tomorrow um so with the head shot that I'm thinking I don't want it very simple and I want it clean and here's my with head shots is I don't want to see the photography, so I'm not looking to like, go knock some creative like omg image out of the park here I need that simple, clean head shot all right um you take one hundred head shots, put him on a wall. I don't need to see the photography you need to see the person I need to see the hundred people on the wall as a casting director or someone we recently did two days of casting for a personal project I'm working on and head shots came in and I just needed to look at the people eyes someone looking for for people to cast I didn't want to see super omg creative dramatic stuff all right um I also shoot headshots vertically all right um in my town of atlanta uh what rules the day are vertical headshots and available light head shots because the head shots all about the eyes it's all about the eyes it's all about the eyes it's all about a connection with the eyes all right um and and the reason it's vertical there a few casting directors that keep notebooks thestreet ring binders of head shots and they hate having to flip their notebook around they're sitting there going through head shots like this looking for someone and they don't want to stop flip for horizontal and keep going so vertical vertical, vertical, vertical, vertical, vertical every like talent agent that I work with like wants a vertical they will not accept a horizontal head shot for much for in my town in my market now the new york market is different new york market is most head shots are lit with lights uh market is um they're usually a little more lifestyle it's not so much a head shot it's more of a three quarter so if I was in l a shooting, I'd be shooting head shots a little bit different than if I was in new york ching head shots than if I'm in atlanta shooting head shots um and the best way to find out is take a take a casting director or ah a talent agent to lunch we'll meet him for coffee or go to their office and say, hey, I'm a photographer I'm starting to get into head shots um I want to understand what you need I want to be able to serve you uh could I take you out for a cup of coffee could swing by your office show you some of my work and just you just tell me your experiences with head shots and what you like and what you don't like if I'm going to do this I want to do it right and I wanted to do it well by you a lot of people take five minutes half an hour an hour to meet you and tell you yeah, this is because a talent agent wants to make sure that if they send someone to get head shots that that photographer knows what they're doing and knows what that talent agent needs and if you're proactive about reaching out to them first, that could go very well for you. All right, so uh I'm looking for a shallow depth of field I don't want the background to be all busy I don't really want to see much in the background so therefore I already know my aperture is opening up all right but I want both eyes and focus in a head shot so I'm not going to shoot a head shot at one point two or one point eight and get one eye and focus and one eye out of focus but I want both eyes to be in focus I won't use the viewer to connect to that head shot okay, I see that head shot I see that person and in one eyes all blurry out of focus and one eyes sharp like that's fine for other portrait situations, right? It's it's going back to knowing your assignment your assignment is shoot a head shot ok then that's not super creative I have to keep it in these predetermined um areas all right um there are times that you you are the creative and there are times that you are a technician and you were properly running your camera all right? And this is one of those technicians I want a clean background heading a clean spot um things like that. So the other thing is is when I'm starting a shoot like I'm not going to get into the most technically challenging situation I can get into from the start, I want to kind of ease into a sheep, whether I'm up here teaching or whether I'm out shooting with a client so I don't walk a client into a really weird technical shot where I'm living at all the limitations of my gear because my brain suddenly goes up into that and I'm trying to think about oh my gosh, I got four lights going on and I got this available light coming in and I'm trying to do this and, uh I'll build up to that, but when they first walk in the door, it is how simple can I start this photo shoot? Because I got to get my head in a clean spot metaphorically, right? I've got I've got to think through this implies I'm trying to build a relationship with this subject I usually have never met them or you know, we got a guy coming in is going to sit down in front of camera and I've never met him never even seen uh I might have seen one picture of it somewhere, so um and I got a shoot a picture, right it's got to be properly exposed it's got to be a fit head shot it's it's just simple all right, simple stuff, eh? So shallow depth of field both isar and focus clean background uh, next thing I'm thinking about is, uh, it's going to be an open aperture um but I've got to watch my shutter speed right let's say I'm shooting with a seventy millimeter lens or one hundred millimeter lens and I'm taking a picture intimate one hundred millimeter lens at sixtieth of a second, then I know who aiken aiken blow my sharpness because slower shutter speed, right one over focal length so if I have one hundred millimeter lens on, I want to at least be at one twenty fifth of a second, and if I want to start at a low I s o and if that low I also is not giving me the shutter speed I need I esso starts to go up so my shutter speed khun go fast and you have to think through I've got a client walking in the door any minute I have to shoot a head shot and I'm already thinking through my settings, right? I know this is what I want from the picture. I know that these air, the basic settings, I know that if I get too low of this shutter speed with the lens that I'm going to use, then I'm gonna have to change. I s o and I'm thinking all that stuff through before the camera goes in my hand and the subject sitting in front of me and then I'm going, oh, what do I do, I'm thinking it through now. All right, but as a photo shoot as ah like, okay, we got this and we got that we gotta do something over there and we got teo as I'm thinking through this somewhere in the back of my brain somewhere and thinking about the next shot, and then I'm thinking about the next shot and I've got the one, two, three and I don't know where I'm going after the third, and I got to figure that one out, all right? So a lot is going through my brain right now as I'm just trying to set up a head shot. I'm talking to all of you, I'm teaching, but I'm also thinking of my last shot of the day right now in the back of my brain is I'm talking to you going ruptures and shallow depth of field know that somewhere I don't know how you can think multiple thoughts, but up in my brain, I'm going, oh, god, okay, what am I going to do in that last shot of the day? I hope it doesn't rain, so my whole brain right now is like crunching through a lot of stuff I'm already thinking about what strobe, what modifier what linz, how am I going to get that shot at the end of the day? Is it going to rain on us and if it rains what I'm gonna do what's my backup plan but I also got to do a head shot right now so I'm not jumping into fourteen lights bam right because I'm gonna freak out and you watch my head explode and as a working photographer start simple and don't worry about it these first ten shots are not going to be a cz good as the last ten shots of the day right? But you have to get through these ten shots are you all often about over there? I just was saying yeah we did start simple real simple yeah let's start simple all right, so then I'm going to move into seamless and I'm looking for an action shot over there when I moved to the seamless it's all about strobes at that point all right, so I want to go available light to strobes uh later today we're going to start mixing the two mixing available like uh the ambient light and the strobe but I know this I know window light and I know that and so I go to what I know this is simple that is simple, all right? I'll go to something kind of simple over there kind of goto something over there and build up and once I've got some shots under my belt like ok everything's working I'm interacting I'm getting to know my client then all right, all right, here we go let's do some more all right um and then by the end of the day I'm like whatever here's fourteen strokes cool let's turn him on was pointing here and there and my brain is now like I'm on my rails and I'm going right now I'm not on my rails at all in my head I'm freaking out that's all right, like I said yesterday I have a lot of fear a lot of anxiety new forward through it means right now, huh? I mean, right, yeah, but they got the internet watching monkeys that go through it and I'm just like a big idiot from georgia like you know, anyways so, uh, amateur only over there I'll be at my sink speed of my shutter speed that's the fastest shutter speed I can use uh for off camera lighting officially on the five d mark too, which is I'm shooting today is two hundredth of a second that's kind of a fake it doesn't really think that well a two hundredth of a second it's really one hundred sixteenth of a second but I want you alien bees over there on alien bees have this uh they're just take forever toe light up ah flash duration why I think of them is flash powder the old flash powder days so I'll be a one hundred twenty fifth of a second over there and then it's all about aperture and not about available hello sir how's it going excellent that's perfect for well yeah that's perfect I'm zack bobby air shake awesome um so yeah so we have bob body once you come on over here let's get it started all right so how you say thanks for being part of this s o this is the class and that's the internet all right um and now you're a break dancer right and um I am too yeah world champions I know right world champion I'm not so I break things when I dance that's for sure s o I won't even break dancing six years and um in these particular style or yeah like climbing a lot of stuff a swing dance in charleston I do a lot of like uh choreography like god what else do break in so I mix things together and get you end up getting out some of these interests but they were doing a lot of flips gymnastics seriously wound so generally breakdancing that appeals to universal okay right. So where do you perform like what kind of like you do you do street performance or is that competitions or what? Yeah, I primarily compete for breakfast but sometimes I'll be making a commercial for this yeah competitions and sweden for for swing anything great competition break dancing in sweden yes that's awesome it's not all just about the metal there no serious the swedes are serious with swing dancing out there yeah, they're very very serious normally when I have a client I don't need to hand them a microphone all right so um I'm going to kind of be talking to you and then I have to talk teach and then go back and forth so these kind of situations from these kind of weird like I just want to interact but then I have to tell you what I'm doing and then I have kind of come over here and I've got to act like he's not listening to me and you know whatever and then you have to act like they're not here that's why it's called acting right yes I want to act like I care no uh uh so um I need to get to know my subject and say I'm just asking questions I don't know all the break dancing styles honestly I don't have no clue but I know there are different styles of brick means right? So I just being I know that they're different styles of break them thing I say so do you do different styles of break? They're like I don't know what I'm talking about but I'm just I'm kind of just trying to see and then he says sweden I'm like whoa sweet break dancing in sweden like like what's that like like that's got to be pretty interesting yeah um so I want to ask about sweden I'm going to ask about his travels I'm going to ask uh like how'd you get into it like like, six years ago you say I want start breakdancing like what was the transition from one style of dancing you're doing tio like this is something I wanted to start working at and do what was that translates in like what? I started dancing I just saw some kids at school do it another school and I was just totally impressed by its like it's obviously very impressive dance and difficult to do and flashy rights but I was just like I have to do that so I started practicing on my own and uh four years later I was at a church dance and I saw swing dancing happening and uh girl says you want to try this out I go yeah just you know what you're doing? I go yeah, I had no idea is um and uh so I messed that up but she invited me deal this week against later and I actually did like that hooked on that it was kind of a transition from breakdancing the swing dancing not everything is really the same, but right there some movements that break dancers took from the nineteen twenties and thirties that you could incorporate so it's been it's kind of like been a an interesting learning experience finding these these dances that start african and then you go to african american jazz like swing dancing and tap and then you go to break dancing and there's actually these lines all the way through to find the similarities that's awesome do you teach this is well do you do anything like that? I'm teaching right after this all right? Awesome. So let's talk as questions like I ain't got nothing to say to a break dancer I can't tell him nothing about his job but I'm interested in it and I'd like to know more about it and it sounds really interesting and um and and I just I'm just asking questions I'm just talking the first part of the client walks in I'm not okay now sit down look here looked the camera and smile and click like rather whatever just kind of ease into it right? So as your client like before I had a studio I would meet everyone at a coffee shop and I'd get there early I'd get a table I treated that as it was my office I was set up there had a table I'd watch for them in the parking lot usually like four dudes walking out with white belts like there's my client and I'd meet him at the door, I'd buy him a coffee we'd sit down and we talked for a while and and stuff like that so when I'm transitioning out of just normal conversation about what bobby does and where he's been and how he got started with it um the next thing I want to know is what do you need out of a set of pictures like if you have photographs of yourself do you need head shots do you need action shots like like how do you use these pictures for your needs and business and all that it's not just your facebook profile picture I imagine I imagine it professionally you need photographs of what you do yeah something yeah actually yeah both of those are very important for me head shots in particular portrait's where I'm just being me but also action shots to show what I'm capable of so as a dancer and also just right because sometimes you know it's sort of gigs you're going to get you might be a model or might be asked to do some break dancing for a photo shoot right or I imagine there's like corporate events that yes that's huge for entertainers right corporate events and and all the pr people that a corporation they need pictures and press packs and all that kind of stuff yes do you have an agent or manager or you know actually no I'll do a combination of things so talent is usually actually not talent on sets him I'm usually a photographer or a film editor or sometimes director so so it zits really nice to mix everything together for me because I both cast for things and cast people too ok all right uh is there anything in particular have you had any photo shoots in the past where um pictures just didn't work for you or anything you particularly need or don't eat or anything like that from the side of pictures now I can't think of anything uh I think that's the sort of thing I know it's like as I go along all right, so I asked about previous experience photo shoots I've had, you know, people like oh yeah, this one person they tried to photograph me teo, you know, I'm on a train track and I really hate those pictures like I didn't want to be there or or or something like that if I know specifically if I'm going on location, I've already asked ahead of time what kind of look of location are you looking for from these and a lot of times like I don't know just something cool, okay? You know then I just got to go find something cool sometimes you'll say I definitely want to be urban and like street and things like that are people like I wanted more natural and organic and environmental um I want I don't want to be photographed in this kind of location or I do want to be photographed in this kind of location um and I ask those questions and that leads me where I'll go on location with them all right? So uh we've had a little bit of banter that to meet talk um I say ok, so what we're going to be doing is we're going to start with just some simple headshots just from the start now this kind of weird process I'll be shooting some pictures of you and then um kind of showing them on the screen and stuff like that so when I get you in position you're just going to kind of hang out there and uh yeah cool all right awesome so um you see across the board their eyes to the light eyes to the light eyes to the light we're talking about light for the lighting the face the light source right now is this window so I'm goingto have my subject face that window that is the light source all right so eyes to the light if he's facing this way he's backlit his eyes are away from the light if I'm going to side like him from the window I'm going to put his face a little more towards the window he doesn't have to be looking at the window the whole time but his face just has to be toward eyes towards the light eyes to the light if here's the light source and he starts to look away then this side goes dark except we have video it's all right, so I just primarily want to work with this uh dan can you get me a half apple box um just in case I need it I love little apple boxes like this is posing stools um sometimes they're a little too high um so I have a half apple here that I can put uh you know, subject just kind of raised their foot up I sit down where the subject needs to be first I sit there first so a aiken demonstrate where I need them to be and then it gives me an idea of what's comfortable is this a comfortable position? Is it is it more sitting up straight or you know, do I need this other box or is this high enough uh about my height? I guess so. S so you know, if if he was six foot three he'll have a whole completely different feeling sitting here if he's four foot nine he has a different feeling but I kind of like, ok he's going toe just gonna be good and the sun is like coming in right through the top of that window right now and it's pretty bright and you have yeah, absolutely yeah, yeah running go do that record with um so he has lighter colored eyes, lighter colored eyes are going to be more sensitive to that bright light. And if that sun comes full on through that window and he starts to squint, remember, this is all about the eyes and if it's uncomfortable for him and he's kind of like this, this is bad light indicator, all right, your subjects like, oh, god, you know, that's not a great place to photograph someone. All right, so there's a couple things I've got to be thinking through, um, I want and the even lighting on his face again, I'm not trying to go real dramatic or anything like that with this it's a simple, simple head shot, so I just need him facing straight into the light source as soon as he starts to turn away from that light source, I get more and more shadow. I bring his face into the light source it's a mall lit here. I'm looking for the whole face to be lit. Yes, since it's all aboutthe pay particular attention to catch lights and where they appear in the ice, I don't get really I don't really start getting real particular on the position of catch lights in the eyes, you know, some people say they need to be a ten to two o'clock, um I don't break it down that much but I do want to catch lightning and one thing that I am looking for particularly is I don't like having a catch light in one eye and not the other and you get sometimes you get a subject of your lightened a certain position where the little catch light shows up in one nine and the other one's not and I don't wanna have to go into photo shop and and you know clone tool that over so I try to get their face around in some situation where the two catch lights show up um you know, so as faras it's at ten o'clock or nine o'clock I'm really not too worried about that personally all right so much bobby you got a new shirt on I don't think you'll need a microphone for this I just want you to be ableto be our subject so here's what's gonna happen is you're going to just have a seat here and be facing this wall I've got to get my camera I got to get everything kind of set up and and all of that and find my exposure I'm gonna shoot some test shots and then once like I'm ready to go I'll be tanya ok, I'm ready to go all right all right so have a seat here however is comfortable for you all right? I'm going to switch to a live you first that was was it too for live you uh just so you see what's going on through the camera again this is a much slower process than than I would normally be accustomed to because it's just a teaching environment I don't need my frankenstein uh camera let's go with this hundred millimeter lens right here I really like the hundred uh millimeter range like if I shoot my nikon I'd have my one o five on um I'm gonna go with this one hundred millimeter to eight lindh's to eight is is open up is you know, open enough forming for a shallow depth of field um and I can already tell standing here that um I'm going to need you to be lower so let me have you hop up for just a minute because I've got you guys have got shoes in canada back here in the background um in fact why don't you do this for me? Why don't you just have a seat here on the floor perfect like that as soon as he's lower my background is cleaner for a head shot I'm going to shoot from a higher shooting angle but not this high they're not something is really a natural like if he was a two year old, we'd see him from this view point you know, he's not so I'm going to be going just a bit lower as well but I'm going to shoot slightly at an angle down I'm looking for both eyes to be lit I'm looking for clean exposure on dh er let's make sure my live view is working and what happened to that tripod? Alright live view is on zach that is that the macro or just the one hundred macro? Okay? Yep. And this doesn't have the tribe but mouth on it. Awesome. Okay, let's do this now what I would do I ma na detected it. I'm going to go to let's say shade white ballots all right? And I'm in to eight fully focus and let's take a meter reading our meter. You got a good hold on, please stand by. So where you from originally? California. What part cyprus cyprus was. Was that close to anna? Okay, okay. Okay, I got you, um knows how long have you been here in seattle? Sixteen years for quite some time. Um, what brought you here? Like parents move up here? Yeah. Also you like it? Is this like, call seattle home or yeah, yeah that's also, now that I noticed that there's really bright for you very bright for you. So let me help that out. Us that's a little something something all right, so he's got blue eyes and bright light sources for people with lighter eyes just it's worse if they had dark eyes usually people with darker eyes are not quite so sensitive to bright light if I bring this in here is that more comfortable for you? Perfect okay so what I have here is a silk or a scrim this is a translucent material that light khun get through and window light is already a diffused light source all right so it's already defused but that's a big, huge massive bank of windows that the sun is coming through its frosted glass it's defused it's a nice beautiful soft light the way it isthe but if my client is having a hard time seeing um because of its so bright on their eyes remember it's all about the eyes here then I need to somehow diffused that some more simply to make it more comfortable for them. So I don't need to defuse this light on bobby anymore like as a photographer I don't need the light to be more diffused um I'd probably rather it not be that means I'm cutting the light by a whole nother stop or so that might mean a difference between an s o four hundred and eight hundred shot moving this in and out right so this get the light on him gets darker but he's more comfortable with it over him and that is more important then this quality of light that he's in now simply because he can be like I love the light following on him right now but if he's so freaking uncomfortable that it's hurting his eyes than then I need to make a change so he's comfortable the more comfortable he is, the better the picture is going to be right if you're uncomfortable in front of the camera and you think that's gonna look too good for you probably not you need to be comfortable in front of camera right? So you do direction as well, right? You say you do direction so, um, what are some things that you do when you're dealing with talent on set to get what your vision is out of them like you have any little tips and tricks that oh, sorry you will need the microphone what I usually do is, um is begin shooting as a test to see how they react to that and go from there sometimes people are natural and they're just they're just fine in some people are all right they're uncomfortable like to a certain degree I literally just set my camera down and I just talked to him until until they're just they're relaxed and I don't talk about photography at all I just talked about whatever comes up yeah, just life stuff yeah if I'm just looking at the lens, then it doesn't actually hurt my eyes well the son went away like the sun's probably behind a cloud right now so as soon as it pops back out then is going to get right again and I got this stupid little clip that doesn't want to hold yeah, I was just trying yeah hand of god strength to open that up all right? So I'm going to take this reflector our scrim actually and just fly it out over bobby I also do one more thing what's that if I can I try and get them tio just do something else out of the blue or out of there they're they're box maybe just screaming really, really loud for mapping of making a running through a bunch of like normal faces like normal expression sad, happy, angry, unhappy and just get them kind of expressing themselves brexit they get a little bit more come yeah, I do the same thing like I needed to jump I need you to scream I need to know to some time asking sometimes I'm asking for them to do in action and what I'm looking for is their reaction that yes, you know, scream and they scream then they laugh at themselves for doing that and that's the picture I'm looking at and they forget about the camera at that moment and it's a beautiful thing okay, all right live you uh on a mic phone all right, so this is yeah, there we go that's nice like that so this is not my normal like set up here like I'm not sitting here on an apple box on a tripod looking at a live just so you know, somebody on the internet it's gonna be like, ok, so he sits on an apple box he puts his camera and he does life you no, I don't I just want to kind of if I put this box over bobby's have you sit right there and I'm looking at my meter all right? And basically I'm kind of center waited or spot me during his face you see my meters flashing at me plus two plus two plus two plus two that's telling me like, hey, zach, you are over two stops over exposed all right and it's trying to make his face eighteen percent great kind of thing, right? So, um, I know I want to be at two point eight thereabouts and I'm going to just make sure that at two eight both isar and focus if I need to stop down before than I'll do so, but I need the background to go out of focus as much as possible, but I need both eyes to be in focus, so I'm thinking through my shot and what is by I s o four hundred right now and as I closed down my shutter speed and I zero out that meter. And it's telling me two point eight, eight six fortieth of a second right now is at zero and let's, just take a picture and see what happens. All right? And for that monitor, that looks pretty good. Now again, I'm shooting for that monitor. Let's. Look at the history, graham. The history graham looks ah, pretty good. I would say I could take this history, graham right here and take it up about another third of a stop. But one thing I'm watching for is I like the red green blue. The rgb hissed a gram because skin particularly caucasian, lighter skin, the red channel starts going up in exposure before the others do that's usually a person's skin, all right, especially lighter skin tones. And that red channel could it starts spiking. And aiken start losing information in the red channel really quickly, but I have a little extra room to go. I would say I can open up another third of a stop. So I'm at six forty right now. All right, so six forty should be the next one should be five hundred. It isthe all right, so I'm five hundred to eight and my meter is telling me I'm plus third of a stop off remember it's just dropping you off on the block you're trying to find the door that you need to go to the door I need to go to right now is in that plus third or so so bobby you're hanging out right there and I'm focusing right that perfect looking right in the camera that's also all right so if we go between these two there is the one we just took I've pushed that exposure up a little bit maybe it could go another third let's see what it looks like one more third so I want to go now to four hundredth of a second right there oh I'm round action yes it is a nice all right I'm not going to take it any more than that four hundredth of a second at two point eight I'm not going to go any further than that because of this red hissed a gram as soon as I opened that up anymore that read history is going to spike and as soon as it takes a spike that means red channel information in his skin tone is gone now it's not a ruined shot that can be recovered one single color channel can easily be recovered down but if I'm trying to like I really want to just get this nailed and get it right then I want to keep all the information I can and all the channels that I can't and I probably look at the rgb hissed a gram more than anything and I probably consult that the reddest a gram more than anything else. All right, um I typically have my blinking highlights on a cz well, I like the blinking highlights feature so it's showing me you know, if if um if I really over exposed this picture looking right here and just open this up and really over expose it and info so not turned on me see if it's turned on highlight alert me enable that there we go so this has always turned on and this blinking highlight area here is letting me know hey, you're over exposed overexpose your overexposed you're over exposed so I've got to speed up my shutter from this point. All right, so, uh we got teo I s o four hundred two point eight right at four hundredth of a second I s o four hundred and for this camera body I s o four hundreds fine, but I didn't get eight by ten head shots out of this and I saw four hundred im at four hundredth of a second. Now I could bring my iast so down which is going to slow my shutter speed down but I have room to go if I want to go toe eyes so two hundred then that would be one stop and I think of when I'm changing my camera and stops I'm thinking of them and clicks my camera changes in third increments so one, two, three is a stop, right which takes me to two hundredth of a second so I could shoot this at I s o two hundred let's do this let's shoot it! S o two hundred and two hundred er to eight. All right, good looking right here. Hold that. And then I'm going to go. I s o four hundred. All right, play. So this is I s o four hundred to a four hundredth of a second and that's I s o two hundred two hundredth of a second. And the exposures look identical because they're reciprocal cz of each other the same aperture, but different esso and shutter speed combinations. And if I go back and forth between the two, they look identical because they are identical because of reciprocal tze. All right, um again, were it to eight at I s o four hundred. So hang out right there. So I'm going to shoot two, eight at four hundred. All right, then I'm going to closed down my aperture one stop open up my shutter, speed one stop and going back in between these the exposure on him stays the same. Can I rejected questions that yeah, the internet people kind of wonder why you're using four hundred when you don't when there seems to be a lot of light and you don't need to. I was just kind of saying that I have room to go, like at I s o four hundred mike shutter speed is four hundredth of a second at the moment, so I've got room to go. I can go back down and I also now, like I could go toe s o two hundred at two hundredth of a second by a so one hundred, I'm going to get right at that handheld kind of limitation and this camera I know my camera and I know that I s o four hundred and eight by ten will be fine. It'll be right. It's gonna be great. So, um, okay, um I could shoot that I could shoot this camera head shots that I also eight hundred and put him up eight by ten. And there the break s o eight hundred and a well it's situation like this is going to look fine. All right, so I'll stay. I'm going to stay at the higher end of my shutter speed. I don't want to live at my limits I don't want to be sitting here click in that picture going oh god, I better stay sharp he better not move I better not move because I met a hundredth of a second on my shutter speed and I'm at one hundred millimeter lens I'd rather have a little more breathing room on that shutter speed and I know that it s o four hundred I have a four hundredth of a second shutter speed it's going to be sharp I'm not going to get any weird camera motion he could move a little bit I could move a little bit and everything's going to be okay, right? If this was a night county seventy it's not happening, I'm shooting it I s o two hundred because my nikon d seventy eight s o four hundred is going to suck but the five d mark to I'm going to be okay and that comes back to knowing my gear knowing its limits and I've printed pictures at one hundred, two hundred and four hundred you know and things like that I do not get so like I was watching laugh arrays film class on he's saying he keeps his eye isos in one sixty increments because it's cleaner noise um I myself have never done those testings to go wow look that yeah but I know he has and he sat it monitors and tested it all out um I myself have it kind of thing I'm not sure if I'm correct in saying this but I think he was talking about when he's shooting video is that only for video yeah, not for stills there you go right away that's great to know it's the shutter speed and I appreciate that yeah ok, so I have found my exposure I s o four hundred at two point eight at four hundredth of a second and I find that to be like a good solid exposure and as long as this light isn't changing if this light doesn't change by exposure shouldn't change as the sun comes in and out from clouds back there than that my exposure will change, but as I'm shooting head shots here I just need them to be consistent so I've got I know that the lights changing in and out of there and I've got to keep an eye on that and if I feel like oh it's gotten brighter then I might need to stop down a third of a stop or something like that I want to stay consistent I don't want to see my exposure's going all over the place so if I have I want to take this off of live view right now tonight and I'm going tio just yank that out altogether and I'm gonna goto turn this on and I want to go I wanna watch my meter as I just change I need to be on auto focus you're just kind of hanging out right there, bobby all right, so I know that a four hundred to eight it was telling me plus one third right on my meter and as I move this meter around for different like if I want this composition right now my camera is telling me I'm minus two third are minus one one and one third stops because it's reading different tones through the lens right now and then I move in like this and it's telling me that I'm one stopover exposed I'm watching my needle jumped as this limbs sees different things in the viewfinder it's I'm watching that meter moving back and forth back and forth back and forth remember if I'm shooting aperture priority then it's going to be giving me different exposures, different exposures, different exposures I've already tested the exposure on his face. I know what that light is. I know what that exposure is that is not changing I don't care what my meter thinks anymore as long as this light stays consistent, I don't care about the meter I'm locked in I s o four had two point eight at four hundredth of a second done that on ly changes if that changes make sense my will watch my meter go to did it did it did it that bouncing around going hey, you're over exposed your underexposed no I'm not I'm where I need to be following on all right so mr body uh let me have you kind of like pull a leg up kind of and just sort of lean forward on your leg there, right? Excellent that's good. Bring your arms down just a little more there that's perfect right there and this things in my way just a bit so I'm going to move this you're comfortable you good? You need anything you need a water anything like that? Yes, we can get your juice. All right. Okay, so just simple head shot you're just going to be looking right at me. Um and let me just have you rotate just a little bit that way I mean you're not going to shoot straight into the chest just what I like that kind of body broken at a forty five degree angle kind of thing it's all about just head shoulders kind of thing and I'm gonna move my f point near his eye oh, you know what I want to do a quick I want to switch cameras pardon me? I forgot so we could go tethered you do have to do and I think that was was it backto one backto one all right I'm on cloudy white balance that's somewhere it's somewhere between cloudy and shade in here I don't know which I'll deal with that later I s o four hundred four hundredth of a second two point eight um I'm all said I'm on one shot auto focus I'm on raw and I've already figured out my white balance perfect all right bobby just looking right up over here perfect right there hold that excellent and just taking a test shot and we're going to see there's a picture all right eyes look good it was nice catch light in the eyes the background is out of focus I don't see all of this junk back here this one little something back here bugs me just a bit um there's a good separation from his hair to the background I might want to make that separation a little more distinct by changing something in the background right now my background is the ground so all of this background behind him is the floor all right? Because he's sitting I'm shooting you down. Um one thing that I have to remember when shooting a head shot is I'm shooting a print size aspect ratio like eight by twelve right he's not getting an eight by twelve head shot he's getting an eight by ten head shot so I have to remember to shoot a little wide a little looser than I normally would so that I have room to crop that toe eight by ten I'm going to lose x amount of my photo to a crop and that's where I get in trouble all the time is a photographer because I see the whole viewfinder and I use that as my canvas and as soon as you make me crop it no that's it like when I made my portfolio eleven by fourteen my chip is not eleven by fourteen and I have to take my body of work and start greek cropping it and re composing it too a different aspect ratio and their pictures that I love, but it just doesn't fit in the format of my book because I didn't shoot for it and I have to remember I didn't shoot a little loose shoot a little loose, so head shot oh my gosh, I got a I gotta pull back just a little bit. All right, so, uh, bobby, you're doing awesome after this, we're going toe finish up this head shot, all right? We're going to finish up this head shot and then we're going to take a break and then we're going to be back on the seamless here, so you're staying right there, bobby, I'm just going to take this cheap piece of fabric back here, I got it, I got it and put it on the floor back there on I should do it I'm shooting one hundred millimeter lens so that's telephoto so what's it doing it's compressing background a little bit so a little bit of background back there will be compressed right? Perfect looking right back up at me excellent right there. Um I kind of like ten yeah that's good perfect right there just watching shoulder looking at all the fabric and looks great just kind of pull your hair just right there just a quick clean every fantastic awesome alright, almost there I'm just going to make a change to the background so if that pops up we see those little corners right back there I just need tio spread this out a bit back here should be all right so when you shoot a head shot so he could be like just anywhere where you have some nice light and you want to change the background up just bring a little pieces of fabric with you lay him right on the ground. Um if we were say outside shooting this, I'd probably have a little apple box or I have something for him to sit on so he's not just sitting on concrete but I shot a lot of head shots just in the shade behind a building somewhere back alley headshots dot com yeah have fun getting people coming in for that very right there that's awesome that's excellent. And focusing on his I re composing slightly uh, daphne pull that, uh back just a little bit like cover your camera with it. That should be great. Awesome. Great looking around here, bobby, I want you to just leave. Tilt your head just a little bit this way. Good that's. Good. Chin down. Just a bit, right? They're awesome. Good. A little bit of a smile. Excellent. Do you want something more serious? Or do you want something a little more approachable? Both right. Ok, some smiling for the corporate people. Something a little more serious for the creatives and some little smoky for facebook, right? Awesome. Good. If I could like if I could just get one little laugh out of somebody I want to try to get that shot because that's genuine, right? So I have a couple of jokes around or something now taking a look at, uh, that's so far you're doing awesome. Um, my background is I don't know this might be bugging me a bit, so I'm probably just flatten that out back there and just make it really clean, but notice it isn't thie most omg creative portrait in the world but it's a head shot it's not supposed to be right, it's just isn't at least for my town in atlanta okay a taste in my town in atlanta like that that that is good because when that goes up with one hundred other head shots on the wall you don't see the photography and that is the assignment for me you guys in class tomorrow at some point in the morning and we go shoot me a head shot and it's very simple and you just need to be ableto like fall out of bed and should have you have a head shot assignment today right now replace this with a bride you have to shoot just in a really nice bridal portrait just got her makeup done she's in the hotel room there is usually like a big bank of windows in the hotel room you so her at the edge of the bed you have her face the window and you come in with one hundred millimeter eighty five you should kind of f two two two eight wide open take the back the hotel bedroom out of focus in the background and you should just a very clean beautiful head shot with her makeup and and you just turn it into oh sit right here face the window click and it's very simple it's very clean and it's fine right and later you'll get into the omg creative shadows darkness dramatic pictures later but this stuff you just need to like head shot bam that heads up, heads up