Lessons
Day 1
1Class Introduction
08:26 2Learning to Light
29:28 3Lighting Approaches Part 1
17:49 4Lighting Approaches Part 2
21:11 5Shoot: Athlete Portrait
34:57 6Shoot: Edgy Athlete Portrait
37:16 7Photographing Motion
17:52Shoot: Athlete in Motion Portrait
43:17 9Background Creation
20:48 10Retouching in Photoshop
17:34 11Compositing
40:41 12General Q&A
10:56 13Shoot: Beauty Headshot
44:39 14Shoot: High Key Beauty Portrait
37:10 15Skin Retouching in Photoshop Part 1
36:28 16Skin Retouching in Photoshop Part 2
26:38 17The Truth About Marketing
22:20 18Overcoming Rejection
34:58 19Marketing Yourself to the Industry
32:28 20Reinventing Yourself
25:40 21Branding Yourself
22:24 22Pricing
22:15Day 2
Lesson Info
Class Introduction
I would love to help have you and everyone in here help me give a big worldwide welcome to mr joel grams joel welcome good to have you how you're feeling well, good I'm really glad to be here I've been kind of waiting for this opportunity uh I'd love to talk about what I have a passion for and I when I said yesterday to you I have to kind of pass I can take I can try to impress you guys uh but there's a limit there uh but my goal is to inspire you and I believe that there's there's no end to that so no matter what you do you say well I really don't do composites or I really don't do this kind of style I don't like that style I can still inspire you to go out and create that's my goal so that's we're going to do over the next couple days and we're going to start with lighting and then we're gonna go on to some marketing we'll do some photoshopping do my little compositing techniques were gettinto you said hd are a little bit uh talk about how I get backgrounds and then the last day we'r...
e going to save the best for last and that is really my whole sort of on the creative process and I believe that's what I'm all about so that's sort of the grand finale and then um well, hopefully it all makes sense and I'm very excited for it so I'm gonna hand over the clicker to you you take it away joy thank you. So hopefully most of you look at my work and you say that guy knows howto light and and that's a lot of what I do I love lighting I love tto look how light strikes of face and so I'm very meticulous about that however, um for the first twenty five years I've been around for a while. Well, um I was a one light cross light guy and that's all I did one light cross light the rembrandt cross light and about and I actually was doing national ad campaigns with that one look now when I did a group shot I would bring other lights in or I might throw light on the background but really on the face it was one light and then I did a project for the u s olympic team that it was going the boxers that was goingto to athens and I thought, oh, you know what? I'm gonna add an edge like I never did a hair light and it has nothing to do with the fact I have no hair but I thought I'm gonna have edge light I never done that before, so I did my cross light with an edge light and I thought, that looks kind of cool, you know, it kind of worked didn't think much about it. And then, um, as the industry started to change, doodles, digital started really come along, and, um, and we'll talk about brandon and trends and all that, but basically, my look that I was doing had to kind of run its course, and so I thought I had to reinvent myself. What am I gonna dio? And so I began to bringing other lights modifiers, experiment, and so it was during that process, about six years ago, I learned so much about lighting that today, people think I'm the lighting master, right? Well, I'm still learning, but it was really during that time that I said, what does octo box do? What is a beauty dish? Do what isn't umbrella do? And I started playing, and all of a sudden this this I guess these basic principles of lighting came together, and so what I do is, I try to, um, I try to make the lighting or teach alighting on a level that I say this jokingly, but that a third grader could understand, because, um, I think most the time when I turned to say, a book on lighting or even and I think you know, because of the internet we have a lot of resource is toe look and see what people are doing behind the scenes especially um but it was still very confusing lighting's a mystery so I say you know let's take the mystery out of the lighting and so what I'm gonna do is I am not going teo use lighting ratios a schematic uh don't use the flash meter uh see history graham could use history ma'am uh I'm going to use something that's literally a thousand times better than all those combined and what do you think that is? Your intuition is right because and we'll talk about this moron the third day saturday that is that your intuition is hopefully the driving force behind you are the creative process because you're an artist and so and we have this amazing thing today has called this little monitor in the back of our camera so when I go click I look at it I go I'm on track or I'm not on track your intention your intuition tells you that so that's a thousand times better than a technical instrument or a schematic some diagram so people e mail me all the time where they asked me how what's the dismay distance between your subject and this modifier nice I don't know what's the output I don't know this hawk how's that possible that you could do lighting and not all those because I'm building and I'm gonna show you guys how to do that I'm building my lights based on the subject that walks in the door um if I have a client, obviously that plays a role in it, but however I'm still the most important person in the room and not because I have a ego but because client hires me to build my look right? They say we want the jewel grounds look so I'm gonna give it to him so if they try to distract me and say go do down this path I say, look, you know what? That's not what I do and so let me do my thing um but I'm building my lights based on what's happening on the back of that monitor that's the most important thing so that's the beauty of it so here's here's the fun part about it? You don't have to do a mathematical equation to do lighting, so I always say if you have to do math, you're in the wrong profession get a calculator and go what's my lighting ratios click click click click click you know what's the distance you're in the wrong profession um you could do that and there are people in extend there are teachers and it's a good thing we have him that are very technically minded and they have all this stuff that they could you know, teach us and there's a rule for that but here's the here's the problem we have we have this uh dilemma that we're in we have the technical and the creative two worlds somehow they got a match they're gonna meet and most of this are born with a guess ah you gnome or on the creative side and some was more interested in the technical side we need people that are engineers that could tear things apart put it back together have a mathematical equation that fits it then there's people that blow with the wind I'm kind of like, you know, the blow with the wind type but I do know a lot of technical things so I don't discount that in a I have a foundation that is based a lot on technical stuff so um there's a rule for both those but what I'm gonna do is I'm going to try to emphasize the creative process I want you guys to walk away with a mind set that says I can do it so you not intimidated so I give you a bunch of mathematical equations in a schematic and you're gonna be overwhelmed or some of you will and so the beauty is is that you can take the way I approach my lighting and immediately dive in and be able to create images and so that's what I'm all about
Ratings and Reviews
x-man
Fantastic!! He is so down to earth and humble. His work is unique an exceptional and he shares his techniques, experience, tricks, and best of all his life stories that took him to where he is now. One of the best instructors in CL. I love how he checks the ego at the door and just shares his art and techniques with us. I definitely recommend this course and I was lucky enough to get it at a great discounted price but it is worth its regular price imho.
Dee
He's my new favorite instructor, there are many CL instructors I really like but the second I watched and heard him I bought the course, love his style, love his knowledge and the way he conveys it. His way of Frequency separation is fantastic and pretty precise and takes care of a lot of flaws. Learned lots! Thanks Joel! Thank heavens I am not color blind ;)
aracelibotello
Joel makes it easy to follow when it comes to editing and shooting. He is a wonderful teacher and very easy to learn from. I enjoyed the photoshop techniques he taught as well as his approach to lighting. My favorite part is his advice on business it's very motivating and inspirational. I thoroughly enjoyed this course!