Lesson Info
1. Managing Light on The Streets at Night
Lessons
Managing Light on The Streets at Night
04:20 2Camera and Lighting Gear on Location
11:42 3Working with Models: Etiquette and Considerations
01:44 4Releases and Permit Basics
02:41 5Pre-Shoot and Scouting
19:45 6Shoot: Male Model with Dusk City Traffic Background
15:16 7Shoot: From One Light to Three Light Setups
24:44 8Capturing Motion with City Lights
06:48Lesson Info
Managing Light on The Streets at Night
Hi, I'm Joe McNally and we're gonna take a bit of an urban adventure. Photographically speaking, we're gonna take a look during this class at managing darkness in an urban environment and not just any urban environment. We're in the Big Apple off all urban environments, New York City, and the challenges are steep. But the rewards are also really wonderful. I'll be straight up with you. I'm, ah, horrible landscape photographer. Put me out there with the mountains and the trees, and I just go to sleep, give me a bunch of concrete and I'm a happy camper. I always find urban environments that have a lot of inspirational kinds of qualities. The night time lights add another layer to that. And that's where we're going to talk about in this class. Lots of issues, right? Camera stability, managing your lenses. Well, the idea of managing light to match the environment you don't want to bring a white light into Times Square. You maybe wanna put a gel on that light, make it look more contiguous w...
ith the environment. You have to be careful of flare from traffic. You know, hopefully happy accidents happen. Not bad accidents where you get, Ah, passer by. It becomes a kind of Ah, a little bit of an actor in the play that you're setting up All those kinds of things can happen in the city, But you do have central core issues to manage white balance, camera, technique, lens choice and, of course, lighting lighting that will match the environment and also treat your subject well, because face it, you know the lights on the streets of the city are there not portrait lights? They're not kind to people. So it's our job as photographers. It's incumbent on us to bring a light that's appropriate to our subject. What do I think will happen tonight? You know, hard to tell. We're gonna find a picture and, as usual, is gonna be a little bit of a hectic hunt because we're going to be in the midst of this fast paced environment. Lots of people on the street, they are going their own way, and we're trying to do our thing in the middle of it. So, you know, one of the things to remember in an environment like this is watch your back. You always have to have a second pair of hands. When you're working on the streets of New York City, you have to have somebody watch your back, watch your gear. You know, make sure that you don't stray like you're following a composition and step in front of a taxi. Whatever it might be, it's a team effort on the streets. I would not suggest you go out there is a lone wolf. If you've got an environment where you have a year and everything all over the place, that's a recipe for disaster. You have to have a plan. And I've got a bit of a plan for tonight, though I'm willing to freelance off of it. I mean, it's like anything in New York like the bus going by, you know? You know, audio suffers. What you gonna dio? Yeah, Yeah, You punt. You find something else. So, uh, yeah, we're going to go out on Park Avenue. It's It's good to know the city, right. Like I knew on Park Avenue, there's this rise in Park Avenue in the sixties that might give me a good angle on some fading street lights. As the sun goes down, we're going to go maybe north of times square and get a little glow. We're going to go west of Times Square and see if any of the lights reached down that way. So we do have a rough game plan. But you have to be very, very flexible in an urban environment and be willing to change and turn on a dime. That's, you know, very important. You know, game plan. I mean, you know, plan bathroom stops. Well, you know when you're out there, because if you're on the streets of New York is a freelance photographer, you know, you got to know where you know. It's easier now because there's so many restaurants and Starbucks are everywhere. But back in the day again, you had to kind of know the hotels that you could duck into the men's room, you know, and take a break. You know, that kind of thing. If you're on the streets of New York all day long, you have Teoh be prepared for fatigue. You know, all that sort of stuff. If things don't go well, you also have to be prepared to do nothing. One of the best things I can recommend for an urban shoot. If things aren't going well, Stop. Sit down, have a coffee, regroup all that sort of stuff. You don't want to be in a frenzy. And I'll quote a dear friend of mine, J. Mays L. Who is the quintessential New York City photographer. Okay, walk slowly. Walk slowly because you can think there's a picture down the block and you're cooking after it and you'll pass five pictures along the way in your frenzy to get to that one. OK, so walk slowly. Look around. There's pictures everywhere.
Ratings and Reviews
Sevana
It's reeeeeally a fabulous course to lead me through the entire photo shooting process, getting to know how a professional team operate and especially how the photographer prepare for and sort of work like a director to make things done. Great course! I'd love to share it with my friends~~
Student Work
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Lighting