Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Lesson Info

Fine Art Compositing

We are talking about compositing and a little bit of set design, but we're gonna do it really, really practically now, because so far, we have done things a little bit more on the computer just showing examples, and now we actually get to take some pictures, and we got some really fun setups today that we'll see how they go when we get to edit them. I never know exactly, because how can anyone know exactly how something is going to go in editing. I definitely don't. So, we've got some fun things to do, but first I wanna talk about exactly how I'm approaching this setup, and why I've chosen to talk specifically about these things. So, one of the things is compositing, that being taking a picture, taking another picture, and then combining those two images later on in posts, and the other one is set design, which I've chosen to talk about just slightly during this segment because of the way that you have to understand set design principles to make an image look good. That's just a given,...

because that's what we do is we place certain objects in certain ways, we find certain objects in certain ways, and we choose to photograph it, because it already looks good. So that's what we're doing right now is just taking a quick look at compositing and set design, and how do those things fit together, how do they mesh, how can we make them look seamless. So, first things first, we're shooting on a budget. I'm pretending that I have no budget, which is not hard to pretend, 'cause I usually have no budget, so it's really easy to imagine, and I don't know about you guys, but I generally try to keep myself to about $10 or less for a photo shoot. If you can imagine, I've already photographed about 800 images in the last nine years of being a photographer. So if I spend a lot of money on every single image, I would probably not have made that money back. There are some people who are spending a thousand dollars per image, and if I had done that, well, that's a lot of money, 800 images times a thousand dollars each. So, I don't do that. I try to keep it really simple. So I've got really simple stuff back here. We have backdrops, and one is gray, one is black, and I'll talk about that in a second, but in reality, I would probably just use bedsheets here. That's totally fine, and I would use duct tape, and I would tape them up on the wall, and that's how I do my shooting most of the time when I'm at home. So, if I'm not out on location, I'm duct taping bedsheets to my wall, ripping the paint off my wall, repainting my wall. You know how it goes, it's probably not actually very practical, but here we have nice backdrops, so this is totally new for me, something that I don't usually get to work with, but it's even better than bed sheets in a way, because it's super smooth. So we've got these seamless, smooth backdrops. I think they're actually called seamless backdrops. Does that sound right? I don't really know. It just sounds familiar, and it's good, because they have no texture, and they don't have any seams in them, and that's perfect for compositing, because the more you have in the background, the more clutter, the less easy it's going to be to cut somebody off of that background. Maybe you guys have already had the experience of shooting somebody, let's say, in a forest, and you get that image home, and you're like, oh, I wish that I hadn't shot that at that location. It could have been a lot better, so you try to cut someone out, and then their hair is brown, and the trees are brown, and you can't decide what's a hair and what's a leaf, and then suddenly you're just stressed about it, and there's nothing you can do. So we're trying to avoid that right now by planning ahead, and trying to figure out exactly what we want to capture, so we can then maybe move somebody to a different background.

Creating a great photo for a client is one thing - but turning your passion and ideas into a series that is shared, shown, and sold is a whole different business. If you do it right, you’ll be shooting what you love all the time. Learn how to choose which ideas to create, how to turn your concept into a production, and steps to getting your work seen and even sold in Fine Art Photography: A Complete Guide with Award-Winning Photographer, Brooke Shaden.

This is an all-inclusive workshop that provides the tools you need to run a successful and creative business as a fine art photographer. You’ll learn creative exercises to find and develop your ideas, how to create an original narrative, how to produce your own photo series, post production techniques and skills for compositing and retouching, how to write about your work, ways to pitch to galleries and agents, and how to print your pieces so they look like art.

This workshop will take you on location with Brooke as she creates a photo series from scratch. She’ll walk through every step for her photo shoots including set design and location scouting, she’ll cover techniques in the field for capturing your artistic vision, post-production and compositing techniques, as well as printing and framing essentials.

She’ll round out this experience by discussing all of the details that will help make your career a success like licensing, commissions, artists statements, social media plans, gallery prep, and pricing your work.

This comprehensive course is a powerful look into the world of fine art photography led by one of the world’s most talented photographers, Brooke Shaden. Included with purchase is exclusive access to bonus material that gives exercises and downloads for all of the lessons.

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