Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: From One Light to Three Light Setups

So obviously we've changed locations. We have gone from the stayed moneyed environment of Park Avenue, where there's the occasional lady with the funny hats or a wonderful person walking a wonderful dog to the more raucous area of town just north of Times Square on Broadway, the Great White Way as it heads down into the intersection of the world Times Square and behind me are all the lights that everybody knows about and has heard about in Times Square. Neon City led is like crazy advertisements, trademarks, logos, movie marquees, everything you could possibly imagine. So what we're gonna do is try to minimize that and just come up with a photograph that shows the glow of the city in the distance up front are upfront. Activity or gesture is gonna be a little different. We did some simple stuff so far. Tiny little soft box, One model. What we're gonna do now is in large are surface area of lights were going to go with a big actor to speed light Octa made by the last light corporation. I...

use it a lot. It's a lovely lights, and it covers the waterfront and specifically on enlarge the light source in response to the fact I'm gonna have to subjects now. We're going to do a simulated kind of engagement or romantic couple portrait of Andre and Samina, and we'll do all those things that you ordinarily do arms around each other, affectionate looking, a camera not looking at camera. And if you have a very specific light source, such as we had before, there's no way you're going to get coverage on two people. Hence a bigger source amore, lustrous source, something that's more wrapping and, frankly, more pretty. Then the other light. We're also going to introduce a flip off the floor. We're going to throw a try grip down on the floor, silver side up, and flash a little light off of it as a Skip Phil simulated kind of a beauty clamshell type of deal. But that's really stretching the point. It's not really a clamshell, which is classically over and under, but a little bit of low pop, because in the city, lights bounce off of everything. They come at you from all directions, and there's really nothing more flattering than a little bit of low glow. It's very romantic, and it really treats people well and kind of sparks the eyes and clams everybody up a bit. And one of the reasons I'm doing that is Sabine is in this wonderful read fancy dress, you know? So she's changed persona from the denim jacket of earlier to the more elegant dress of now. So I have to correspondingly change up my life. You know, it just is something that you do. You don't use the same solution all the time. For every kind of subject you run into. It's the nature of being a photographer. We have to be fluid in our responses. All right, so we're going to do a quick test. We're waiting for a wardrobe change for Andre. So what we're gonna do is use the time. Oh, there he is. There he is. Okay, um, why'd you still stay on the wings for a second? Let me get a couple of exposures down of Sabina. Then I'll bring you in. You look Ingrid looking good. All right. So I said earlier, we changed up the light source. There's to speed lights into the soft box. It's a nice light. You can see pretty sizable relative to what we've been using. All right, So cow is going to come in from camera left and drift. Maybe. Callie, if you could get on that small green dot there. Yeah, it's making sure we got everything said Good first exposure. Okay, let's do this. Let's take it a step at a time. I'm actually gonna shut my flash off. Shut the flash off Callie, Shut the flash off for a minute. First thing you do, let's get the background exposure down. Let's lay down that exposure template for the background. So for this instance, I'm going to be wide open on my lands a 2.8. I am going to just ratchet through some shutter speeds to get the proper density for the neon. And led is down the way important, I think, to stay in manual in this instance, if I'm an aperture priority and all sudden a marquee flashes or maybe I catch a headlight or something like that, it's going to change my aperture priority exposure. Definitely gonna change it. So I'm gonna go manual so I don't have that fluctuation. One of your jobs, as I always say, on location as a photographer, is to eliminate variables. So aperture priority right now would be a variable for me. So I'm gonna x that out of the equation, I'm gonna know lock solid what my background exposure is. So just take a look here. It's pretty solid at 2 52.8 but I'm going to get it a little bit brighter. I up to my I s 0 to 400 and I dropped my shutter speed to 1/60 of a second. Now you would say maybe. Hey, you should You have no business shooting this size of lens at 1/60 of a second. But the flash is going to give me the sharpening power that I need. The flash has this quality or aspect of it that's called flash duration. Flash fires very, very fast. Even my shutter speed is in the middle range. Not so fast. Okay, turn the flash back on. Let's do a quick test on Sabina. Alright, Callie, here we go. See what I mean? There you go. That was like a was like a plus three evey highlight that just drove by. You know, this is kind of why I like t t l first exposure out of the gate is bang on Perfect. So when it works, it works. So okay. And it's nice light. It's pretty light. All right. Just a test. Not the proper framing. Okay. All right. Cool. Beautiful. Sabina. That's gorgeous. Nice. Nice. Okay, relax for a second. Okay, So I know if you can see this or not or care to, but that's kind of the look that you're looking for in the city. You know? That's the bright lights. Big city aspect of this. So Okay, now, where's Andre? Andre, go on the camera. Right side of her, please. All right. So why did you do a traditional kind of couples pose? Um, yeah, shoulder into hit middle of his chest. Maybe you bring your hands, grab her hands, lift your hand up. Sweet. Kind of come across like that. Okay. Everybody comfortable with that? Okay. Nice. Callie, we're going to need a little more rap guy. Cool the head and a and a family of 17 just walked by. Wonderful. Nice. Perfect. You guys. Perfect. Nice. Pretty awesome. Awesome. Beautiful. Get a little low here so I could slide under that. There you go, Callie. There you go. Good keep your keep everything up your hands up just a tiny bit. There you go. Good, good. Beautiful, beautiful. Okay, relax for a second, okay? And you know, they're kind of very sweet together, right? Even though they didn't know each other until two hours ago, this could be the start of something. Really amazing kidding. All right. Going to check my sharpness? Do you notice one of the reasons I posed them the way I did? I'm a 2.8 with a long lens, so he's got his chest into her. She's leaning this way. I have to keep their eyes in the same plane pretty much. Because if he's way back from her, he's gonna be soft, so I got to keep them right in the same neighborhood. All right, let's do it. Same pose. What? I was just saying You guys did actually perfectly intuitively get into your pose, If you don't mind, You got to keep those eyes on the same plane because otherwise, if someone's not in even you're gonna be out of focus. So you're perfect right the way you are. Okay. All right, hide. All right, Go up a little bit higher cool. Actually, Only extend this real quick. You just broke it their way. Nice way to go, you guys. Perfect. Perfect. All sorts of romantic going off on the honeymoon soon. Beautiful. Beautiful, gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous. Nice. Nice way to go. Way to go. That's it. That's it. There you go. There you go. Nice. Perfect. I swear to God that they looked like the real thing. I see a real quick This looks good. I'd have them do that again. I just noticed the very end. Like when he crunched into her, like, a little bit. So your hair in the back? Yeah. So I could just, um we'll get them into the post yet, and I'll fix that real quick. Let's do this. Let's get a little more wrapping dimension out of the light. Okay, here we go. So that group in that light is group A two lights operating in tandem through that soft box subject. All right, we're gonna throw this down. I mean, you need another flash. Yep. Here, I'll hold this. Got it? Yep. Like you guys look beautiful. Two of you look like, you know, like a we known each other 1,000,000 years Okay. The exact same thing, guys. Exact same pose. You look absolutely fantastic. Uh, let's see. Scoot your tiny bit this way. Okay, Good. When you kind of lean into your hair, last time kind of popped up a little bit. So maybe if she when she leans it, you just kind of put your head back and then let it drop and then come back in. All right? Okay. Let me do a quick test here. Just relax is just a test. Here we go. Beautiful. Nice. Nice. Good. Look, you guys. Good luck. Good luck. Perfect. Tickle each other or do something nice. Nice. Nice. Cool. Cool. Perfect. Perfect. You guys are great. Cool. Cool, cool. Nice. Nice. Sabina, just pull your hair back a little bit, okay? Another said, Here we go. All right. Nice. Perfect. Great. Great laws. Great. Look. Great. Look. Great. Look. Great. Look, that's awesome. Perfect, You guys. Perfect. Perfect. Nice. Nice. Nice, nice. Awesome. All right, relax for a second. You guys look wonderful. Oh, yeah, It's fantastic. That bottom blights. Really nice. So what happened here? And you'll see this Kind of, You know, when when you take a look at the video is the little low light puts a kind of a nice little glow into their face. It's very sharp, but I my So I'm gonna die So I'm hovering between Let you take a look. I'm hovering between 1/40 and 1/60 of a second If you notice. I just gave the camera to Cali. I emphasize this a team effort out in the field like I'm not gonna charge off location. I'm gonna get another pair of eyes on what I just shot. Believe me, I'm the most fallible person in the world. I'm a photographer, you know. So you know Callie, backstops be checked. Sharpness and stuff like that makes suggestion. We are a team in the field. Back in the studio, we have Lynn Del Mastro spent our studio manager for 26 years, and she does our production big, massive productions and she works so hard at it. Annie Cahill, in our studio handles all of our social media marketing on the 1st 1 to tell you this is not just about this one lone photographer out there in the field. It's very much a team effort, and that's an important thing to always remember as a shooter. All right, here we go. Here we go. Good. Way to go, you guys. Nice. Perfect. Perfect. Nice, perfect. Perfect. Hang in there like I'm making certain adjustments. A camera here, going back and forth, my eyes So a little bit, but a little contrast. Little pop in the upper light. Just playing. It's basic math. When you're kind of involved here, it's just is, you know? So you're kind of like a little stronger, A little less You're adding and subtracting light. And it's like cooking like a little more salt, a little more pepper, whatever it might be. There's not an exact science of this. It's about the feel of the photograph. Perfect. Nice school fights. All right? Yeah. Lights. Good. Nice. Stay with May. Okay, Perfect. Nice. Nice, You two. Cool. Cool. Good, good. Nice, perfect. Nice. Awfully pretty, awfully pretty way to go. All right, hang in there. We're gonna do a little more quick tests. Cool. All right, again. Here we go. Here we go. Good. Good, good. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice. Perfect. Perfect. Awesome. You guys all right? Got you. Okay. Now, let's put in that that backlight, Please. Let's push that back like I know you guys. We're fine right where you are. So what I did there a couple of moves that I made. It's like an insurance policy. I was happy at 2.8. They were kind of operating in here and I was sharp. I was fine. But paranoia strikes deep into the heart of any photographer. Am I screwing up? So what I did was I double my I s O kept the ratio of the lights the same and then pushed to F four, So, yeah, lose a little tiny quality. But, you know, on a d five, pushing toe eso 12 50 or something like that is no big deal. And so I push my eyes so up a bit so I could gain mawr f stop. And I didn't have to bother altering the basically pleasing ratio of my lights. So now I'm a f four, which is, you know, it's a safer f stop to be. So now I pretty much know I can leave that set up behind. I've introduced now a red backlight. There's so much red in the background. I have 1/3 group of flash on the floor. It's radiating up at the back of their heads. I'm gonna dial that in. That's going to be my group. See light, and I'll just run a full power for laughs. I'll started at full power. Just see what it does. All right, Here we go again. Too far. Is that feel pretty good? I think that's good. Group C program group, See his program any. Okay. All right, quick test, guys. Come on. 200 zoom. I take it more left, but it's in the bike path. That all right? No. Here we go. Hang in there and he got to shut your light off. Callie, I'm taking your light to manual T. I'll just going back and forth. It's Ah, it's bouncing around on me a little bit. All right? Relax, guys. Just a test backlight. Still going. I'm going to read. Um, I get green down that Yeah, Group A manual. All right, guys, you can hold this. I'm just gonna pull now. Let me see. Really? What's going on? Yeah, they were just working fine for a while now. It's be for whatever reason, it was just a So what I did was in short order. I re geared everything. We found the problem. Two lights had shifted into group B. My fault, not theirs. So we're back in group A. Then I rebuilt the photograph on manual. I got a really good shot on TT. Oh, but because I've added a backlight which occasionally contrive t tl brain a little bit wonky, I dropped everything into manual. So now my values are main light is manual around 1/16 power. The Phil is a stop below that, a 32nd and the background light is full blown 1/1, giving a little reddish quality to the background. I don't know if I like it, but I'm gonna try it. Okay. All right. Here we go. Way to go, guys. Nice. Pretty nice. Perfect. Perfect. A little higher, Calleigh. Little higher. Feather it. So the hits more Andre. Nice. Get dead. All right, relax for a second. We're back y drop for, like, 10 frames. Yeah, that's like a spot there. It's up at a little bit. It gives us a little bit. That's really nice. Yeah, that's pretty. That feel go back a couple like that way cause I was gonna see the difference. Actually, I prefer without the red. I do too. I do too. We're gonna kill the red because the red doesn't work. But I just You got to try it, right? So we went rapidly to a three lights set up for a three groups, set up two flashes in this one off the floor. Let's kill the red altogether. Let's kill the power. Pull it out of there, please, Annie. A couple more of these and we're done with the couple's portrait. So I have to say, I don't think our actor and actress are minding doing this. I think they're enjoying themselves. And the wonderful thing about talented models and actresses is that they're projecting. They really do look like they've known each other forever. It's great. All right, here we go. All right. Cool. Nice. Nice. Pretty way. Go. There we go. Nice. Perfect. Perfect. Nice. Cool. You guys look great. Hang in there. Cool. Stay with me. Very pretty. Very pretty. We're gonna wait on traffic. Give me just a second. This light goes, Get back here. All right, here we go. Nice. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. All right, Bravo! Bravo! Nice job. All right, there we go. Kind of bright lights, Big city. Kind of fun. All right. Next objective motion.