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How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

Lesson 1 from: How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

Brooke Shaden

How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

Lesson 1 from: How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

Brooke Shaden

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Lesson Info

1. How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

Lesson Info

How to Transform a Photoshoot for $10 or Less

I want to talk today about how to transform a photo, and I want to do that for $10 or less because I don't know about any of you guys, but has anybody in here at one point in your life not had money? Okay, that's good. Okay, so I'm in the same boat. I also started photography with nothing. I had lots of student debt, you know, I was coming right out of college. I was trying to live in the big city of Los Angeles. And how am I going to do that? Well, by not spending any money, So I started to use little techniques that I felt could really help what I'm trying to dio. And, you know, I started realizing that other people might be able to benefit from this. Now, the thing about my style of photography is that it's a pretty specific genre. It's like kind of dark, kind of creepy, kind of fairy tale whimsical. Not everybody does that, and that's totally cool. So I want to show a few different ways to transform a photo that I feel could be used in multiple genres. So some of them include wrapp...

ing people in different kinds of fabric. Some include changing the background. Some include bringing in a little field that I've created today we're gonna be playing with baby powder. We're going to be playing with cobweb and at the very end, we're going to paint our model white and I'm really excited about this. It could be any color, but you'll see why I chose White. So let's just get into a little bit here of what I want to talk about, which is how I began transforming images. Now some of this is about the just absolute photo shop. We're not doing that today. So what I'm not going to do is create an image like this where I had to spend a lot of intensive hours and Photoshopped moving individual leaves onto her body and stuff like that. We're not doing that. Instead, what we're going to do is show how you can transform an image without taking it into photo shop. So my philosophy is that you know the only thing that's better than cheapest free. So if you could do something for free, do it for free, you know that. That's kind of like where I get most excited is if I can say I paid no money for this photo, that's that's good, because that means that you were basically maximizing your profit. If you do get to sell that, it's really awesome to be able to go into a mansion and have props and stuff like that broaden. Although I've never had that happen, I just assume it's really awesome to do that. But let's just say we don't have that option, So let's go over a couple of different things now. I just wanted to show you really quickly how even if you don't have anything at your disposal if you want to jump into photo shop, if you want to try to learn something about how to create address and photo shop, it can be done. So this was actually the original image here. I shot her on location in a forest. I was in Florida. This is my beautiful sister in law, and in this image I was going to cover her in ferns. I later decided, Forget that I'm gonna do something totally different. You know what? I'm gonna move her to a different background. I'm gonna teach myself some new techniques. And so I spent no money on this. I mean, I didn't have to, you know, like, go out with an agency model and pay fees and stuff like that. It was just a fun time in the forest. So let's get creative here. How can we start to build something for nothing? One option is to use homemade props. So I have been trying to get really, really crafty. I have a very difficult time doing things with my hands. So that's not so easy for me. But I learned how to make origami this year, So it was making origami cranes to use in a photo. And can you imagine this photo without that element? It just wouldn't feel the same. And I feel like if we could just embrace paper and crafts and using things to fill the space, it could make it a lot more interesting. Especially if we're talking about Let's say you're shooting a child. How fun would it be? Toe have all these homemade props there for them to play with and be to be able to build a scene around them for them to play in eso I like to use these home made things. Now, in the other picture over here we have snowflakes that I had cut out and I had help on that. Thankfully, my snowflake has kept turning out to be square. I don't know why, but I don't know. Maybe you're better than I am at that. But I started to build address. Now I did end up doing this in photo shop, building the dress. But it didn't have to be done there. I mean, if we wanted to spend the time, it would take a few hours, cut out some snowflakes, paste them onto you know, the body of the model. There you go. So neutral spaces also help with this. I feel now if I am trying to build an image from from the bottom up and fill it with my things. I like to work on a really neutral background. So I have a black backdrop set up today. And that's how I've been sort of enamored with working lately. Is just saying you know what? Forget the fancy location. Forget something really recognizable. So instead of going out to the forest every single day and and doing images that are sort of false with story and that there's a location, but I'm not putting my stamp on it. I would rather create on a dark backdrop and fill it with something that's inherently me. Something that I put in that space. That's how we're gonna shoot today. So right here we have some different props where I've actually challenged myself to shoot on a budget for these images. So the first thing is that we have these hula hoops and I got a hoop from Walgreens. It was actually the most expensive prop that I used in this picture, coming in at $7 and it was bright purple with lots of sparkles everywhere. So that's not gonna work. So I went to Goodwill and I got some paint, and I just quickly painted the hula hoop so that it looked more neutral. And I think that a problem that a lot of people can run into is you forget that you can turn something into whatever you want it to be. So I could have just looked at that hula hoop and said, Well, it's purple and sparkly, and that doesn't work for what I do, So that doesn't work, but instead how can we transform something to the best of our ability to make it look realistic and fit our style? Then I have the red yarn over here, and red yarn is something I've been just fascinated with over the last few years in terms of a symbolism that it can hold. And if we learn to see things in a much more symbolic way, in a much more meaningful way than suddenly we can use them in a way that we never thought before. So with the red yarn, now I see red yarn is being deathly sort of like blood. So I wanted to create an image with our subjects, sort of unravelling her her life force, leaving her and moving into the forest. And so that was, you know, the idea behind this image? Does that mean that everybody understands that? No, I mean, that's OK. It's not meant to be a literal story, but because I was looking at yarn one day, you know, in a store and I sort of had that vision, I was able to create this image. Because of that. I like to talk about texture a little bit as well. And I say that I want to talk about texture because texture to me is the quickest way to just add some visual interest to an image. So maybe you're sitting there and you're thinking, Well, okay, I don't shoot, you know, people with clouds attached to their neck and stuff like that, and that's fine, and I am not always in the mood for that, either. But what I always looking to do is to add texture to my image is not just an overlay, but how many different textures can I bring in? So using cobweb? Obviously, this is used in a bit of a literal way here, where there is a model in the cobweb. However, what I want to point out is that you can use something as simple, as inexpensive as cobweb to just pin up in the background of an image, and that's gonna add a lot of visual interest to the backdrop. So instead of changing out the backdrop every time, why not just add things to the backdrop? To see how that can look, you know, pin stuff up, spread it Astana's you want, do whatever you need to. But that could be a really great way. And the clouds in this other image that's just like pillow batting. You know that you would stuff into a cushion. You can use that to do the same exact thing. So I have before had model sit on top of it, sort of Teoh give, like a fluffy effect all around them, and that can look like they're sitting on a cloud, even though they're not sitting on a cloud. But you can use that in the background was, Well, pin that up, spread it out. It's just another way of adding some nice texture to an image. This is probably my favorite thing here, which is to use your drawing skills. Who here has drawing skills, Not me. Okay, so if you dio pair up with somebody next to you, doesn't and make a drawing. But my point in showing this is that that moon in this picture was just a drawing. I called up my friend. I said, Will you just draw moon for me? And she did, and I asked her to do very specific things so that I could use it in the final image. For example, I had her draw a dark background all around the moon so that I could easily put it into the night sky. Things like that. But have you ever thought about just using elements that you can draw to put in an image? It can be a really interesting way of proceeding with being able to add something that you never thought was possible. And the best part is that it's free. I mean, you don't have to go pay somebody $100 to draw on elaborate thing for your image. Um, you know, you can trace something, you know, take a picture of the moon and then trace it or, you know, something like that. It could be an amazing way to add something into your image and then creating something in photo shop. So, like I said, that's not what we're gonna focus on today. However, in this image, both of these images, at least one thing in both of those images was not there to begin with. It was completely fabricated in photo shop. Now it might be obvious, because you might be thinking, Brooke, that doesn't even look realistic at all. Maybe, and that's fine. But that was my attempt to draw something and photo shop. So with the image with the tree, for example, um, I had to get rid of a lot of branches of a sort of a big full tree with lots of leaves. And I didn't want that. So I wanted all of the branches to come down so that I could be holding them. No, it was impossible to find a tree like that. There was no way. So instead, I just drew in the branches that would come down to my hands. I took some of the natural texture from the tree and applied that to those sort of squiggly lines that I drew in. And then in the other one with the kite, I made that Crichton photo shop. I just I mean, pretty much the only thing I know how to do is to make straight lines and four shop. So I did that. I colored it in. I made the lines a little bit jagged on the edges. I put some cuts in it, and then I put that rope sort of sweeping, sweeping down into my hands there. And so that was all just photo shop and it's amazing what one conduce a with just the lasso tool and the brush tool find. So that's going to my favorite way to create a photo shop is to sort of see what I can do. Baby powder. We are definitely going to get creative with baby powder today. Everybody is going to be a message. Just if Well, if you're in the front row, you're gonna be a mess, OK? So we might move you back a little bit, but we're going to be playing with baby powder for the sake of making it look like fog. I want to create a fog effects sort of happening here, and my goal in doing that is how many of you guys have thought that would be so need tohave some fog in this picture. But I can't bring a fog machine out to the forest or something like that. Now, obviously you can bring a fog machine out into the forest. But as you do things like that, your budget has to grow. It becomes more of a hassle. So I use baby powder for this kind of thing. If I'm not using baby powder, I might use a smoke emitter something like that. But the wonderful thing about baby powder is that it's very light, so you don't to worry about it just falling to the ground. So if you're thinking well, I have some flour in my covered. I could use that That clumps a little bit more, falls to the ground a little bit easier, it a little bit more difficult to use. So I don't recommend using flour as much as I do baby powder, talcum powder, whatever you call it at home. So I use that it floats really nicely, and it's kind of meat and a forest, because if there's any sort of wind, you can just sort of throw it all over the place and the wind will carry it. It looks like fog in the background. It's really need. So I recommend doing that now. In both of these images, I have placed the baby powder on top of the models and had them just jump. And so that's just a really fun technique. If your model doesn't mind getting completely messy, it could be really fun for that smoke emitters. As I just mentioned, we don't have any here today. I was told very sadly that I could not bring them, so I did not bring them this time. But, um, it's an awesome thing to use. If you can get them. I get mine from Inspect USA. Usually it's just ah, cheap way of getting them. I think it's like $10 for 10 of them or something like that. Um, they usually last for about 45 seconds, which is a surprisingly long time. And that's what I've used in both of these images. One to create the effect of a train sort of puffing smoke and the other one to create a fog effect in the forest. So baby powder smoke emitters, they all work for that same type of thing. Now I want to talk about designing your own clothes. So who here has ever sewed something? So that's good. I sold that thing. It is awful. It looks like a ridiculous mess hanging in my closet. But for the purpose of the photo, it almost worked well enough. So what I try to do is I get an idea of something that I can create, and I decided, well, you know what I'm a pioneering woman. I'm going to go do it myself, and then it falls apart usually. But I usually make it with enough of it put together to do a photo, and then I can just sort of discard it. So the 22 I made that with a friend of mine. We ended up making several just getting a whole bunch of cheap tool from the fabric store, sewing a band around it, um, the cloak I made with just two pieces of cheap fabric and sewing the edges together and then kind of tying it around the neck, things like that. So that has been really useful. But the other thing that I want to mention is that you can always approach people to make clothes for you. So if you happen to go to a design school, maybe there might be somebody. There is totally willing to get the experience and create something for you that you can collaborate on. And that's actually something that I did in this last one. With that image in the forest, I approached somebody who was really just starting her career. She's an amazing designer, Michelle a bear, and she ended up saying, Yeah, we'll make a dress for you out of sticks And we worked together on it, you know, I gave for the design and then she elaborated on that. And so I ended up creating this just for the cost of the materials. I mean, I I didn't have any money to spare on this than she was getting the experience of creating more often garden. So it's a great way to go if you're looking for something a little bit more extravagant. Ace bandages are my best friend. I use them all the time. I think that they're the most beautiful things. That probably has to do with my love of death and blood. But if it doesn't, and if you agree, even let me know. So I love ace bandages. I use them all the time. It's a nice, neutral fabric. It's something that wraps really well, it's something that kind of holds everything together. You guys girls know what I mean? So, uh, so it works really well for that? Um, the other thing when I do is I just used bed sheets all the time. I mean, I would say in my 1st 6 months of doing photography. I only used bed sheets, and then I started getting dresses, going to thrift stores, things like that. But I still love to use bedsheets. They are incredibly beautiful. You can make whatever shape you want out of them. They have nice flow to them. So we're gonna be doing that today. Making a beautiful dress out of bed sheets. Get that brings me at this point, doesn't it? Bedsheets rule the world because they dio. So we're gonna be doing that. I'm gonna have a lot of fun, and we have some pins. We have some twine to sort of create a waistline. Things like that. Um, I have some binder clips, just anything that we might need to sort of keep it all together where the camera isn't looking. And from there, we're just gonna create a beautiful, sweeping giant dress. My inspiration was this photo that I did, which was very composited. I used about six different pieces of this bed sheet in order to create the stress. But you don't need Teoh. I mean, take extra bed sheets, you know, get some matching bed sheets. Put one on as the main dress And then why not just take another one and sort of tuck it in at the waist and have that going this way and this way, maybe pin them all together, so they're not all separate. And then you have a giant amazing dress and guaranteed people are going to save you over and over. How much did that dress cost? And then you're just gonna be like, you know what? It was $3 it came from goodwill. Isn't that amazing? It's amazing to me, every single every single time. So these are some of my favorite items for $10 or less, we have aced bandages which were using today baby powder bed sheets, um, Nature. So I did bring in some nature, but not in a way that I've ever used before. Some kind of excited about that paint paint I love. And I mentioned that because I know that that's a very, very specific thing to Dio. But paint, in my opinion, can add a really amazing texture to something. So if you are going for more of an abstract fine art, look, painting somebody's body can just do the most amazing things. First of all. It changes the color. It makes some sort of more uniform in color, especially if you have arm hair that you know, something like that. Which is also if somebody has a lot of arm here and you put paint on them, that is very painful. Just gonna put that out there. So shave. Your mom offers that goal here, right? No, don't do that. But it can be a pain, but it can create a really interesting texture on the model. So if you're going for something like that, it's great smoke emitters and freaky fabric. So freaky fabric is also called creepy cloth and you can get in any Halloween store, which is perfect timing. All the Halloween stores just opened if you guys noticed I was raiding them before I came here. So I have a bunch of stuff from a Halloween store, so I'm going to go ahead and just introduce you to all the stuff that I have here right now. So what we've have is the ace bandages, So these are just, well, these air, like my oldest ever a span that is really stretchy perfect for everybody. Just make sure that you ask what size test your model has. Roughly eso you have enough? I ran into that once. It was a very, very bad mistake. So make sure you have enough to cover this is freaky fabric. And so, um, this is something that I've been using for a really long time is also amazing in the background of an image. So if you want to just add some interest to your backdrop, it's really beautiful. But at the same time, you can just sort of wrap that right around your model, and it creates really interesting shape and texture. So we've got that now. I would usually use this in more of a neutral color, but this was all my local Halloween store had, so we're going to use that. I don't even remember what this is called. But it was my most recent find, and I was really excited about it because it's really stretchy, and it's also kind of it holds together a little bit better than the freaky fabric, so I wish that I could tell you what it was, but I can't. But it's in all Halloween stores. Apparently, that's what the woman told me at a bit of a freak out in the middle of the Halloween store, just like, Oh, my gosh, I can't believe you have all this stuff. And then she said, you know, that every Halloween store has all this stuff. So So now you know that you will be able to find it, too. So we're going to be using that now. This is the cobweb that we have. This is going to be used at the very end, and I'm going to do something that I have never attempted before. I don't know if it's going to work. My goal is to make a dress out of cobweb on our model. So we're gonna first put it around her waist and then who flee all of us together will sort of start to pull it out from her waist to create sort of a dress type shape hopefully and then we have our fabrics. So this is my go to bed sheets on. And in fact, this is the bed sheet that you saw in that last image with the red and the umbrella. It was this exact one that I used, and so we're gonna be using this again today. You can see it's been well used. I've got paint all over it and stuff, but it still works just fine. So we're just gonna be creating address, sort of like this, tying it in the waste. And then we have all of this fabric toe work with for creating motion and flow in our image. This I brought along its just another little cheap piece of fabric because we're going to add this onto our dress toe, have even more flow off to one side. So we're just gonna pin that right in when we create the dress. And this we're going to use just for some motion in the background. So right when we get started, if we don't want to use this black backdrop exclusively, what I find to be really great just for adding some interest to portrait's toe have somebody in the background kind of going like this in the back because it reflects light really nicely. It has good motion. If your shutter speed is low enough, then you can get some good motion blur in there, and I just think it's really beautiful, sort of change it up a little bit Okay, so we've got all of our baby powder down here, and we'll be using that eventually, but not quite yet. So we can bring our model on set now. Hi. Thank you. I'm very excited. Okay, So we're going to start wrapping her in Ace's bandage, and that's going to be step one here. So I know that I brought her out. She looks all beautifully clothed, and she's about to not be close, but still be beautiful. So would you mind taking your shirt? You know, like I do this on a very regular basis. But usually people aren't watching me ask somebody to get naked. So Okay, so I'm going to start taking Yeah, that's great. So I'm going to have you hold this right about there, and I'm just going to start rapping you. There we go. And I asked her to wear, um, neutral color clothing, and I asked her Teoh wear strap with Brock. And that way we can sort of make this all work here. I'm just gonna start talking this into her actual bra just like that. And then I'll get one more. See, this one looks good. And I'll have you do the same thing. You can just hold that right there. Great. And I'm just making sure that her brought is covered. I'm not worried about anything else. See, that looks nice. I think. Pull this tighter. I'm gonna get dizzy very soon. Okay. Let me know. Is that feel secure enough? Oh, good. Thank you. Wonderful. Okay, so you look beautiful. Let's heavy stuff over here on the black backdrop, and I'm going to follow the court into my camera. Oh, I made a mess already. Let's just make a mess. It's fine. Okay. So first thing, I'm just going to take a quick test shot, so I don't know if it's possible to turn the whites off, but if it is, then that's great. And if not, we'll just go with it. It's not a problem. So I'm going to get my camera settings right now. I'm using Canon seven D, and so I'm on a crop sensor, but I have a 35 millimeters Iceland's on right now, which I'm very new to. So this is an Onley manual focus lens. I don't know how to manually focus anything, so I will see if I could get in focus or not. Oh, where? Let me see. Welcome fix. So it just Cayman pinned a little, and that's OK, because I actually have pins for you potentially somewhere here, so I'll pin it just for safekeeping, and we'll do it really fast with a binder clip, because we don't time for this. So let's go ahead and just re pin all pennant just like that since, Okay, that kind of comes undone over here. It's no big deal, but hopefully, Euro, you're all good there. Okay, So I've re penned. I'm just going to get a composition, and I'm not trying to do anything here, but just sort of crop her, like, right where the east bandages. Because I don't want toe. I'm not trying to make this a sexy shot, you know, I'm just trying toe get my exposure and everything. Okay, so we have a really sort of normal picture here. What we have is just a girl standing on a black backdrop. We have the ace bandage, which I really like personally, but we could make this a little bit more interesting so can actually turn this light off and see what the natural light looks like in here. Thank you. So let's work on oppose real quick. Let's have you faced the window and I'm going toe. Have you put this arm back like that? Yeah. Good. And then completely face that wall, I think with your body. Good. And then puff the chest out a little bit. Good. And swing your hair back off your shoulders. Great. Okay, that looks good. So now I'm going to come in here and Oh, yeah, I got auto focus. Never gonna get used to this. Okay, good. So I like that look a little bit better now. Obviously, I'm shooting her on the side where her bandages were coming undone. I would probably fix that, but for the sake of time, I'm not going to worry about it. You may relax. Thank you. So this is the start of how I would do a shoot like this. Super simple. I'm not trying to wow you with my photo skills right now. However, I am going to start to build on top of this. So what I want to do from here is I want to grab my freaky fabric or creepy cloth. Whichever one you find easier to say, and I'm gonna start to wrap you again. So why don't we just make sure that can you hold that in place and let's see, Let's just will put it all in the binder clip that I had already set so into Oh, no. Now I'm tangled into the binder clip. Here. Hear that in? Yes. Okay, good. So this is just creating some more visual interest. And now because we don't have the ace bandage sort of cutting her off at the midriff. I feel fine. Just shooting a little bit more. Maybe getting a little bit more in the shot so you can go ahead with that same pose? Yep. Good. Okay, great. Thank you. Okay, now, that was not in focus. Keep that in mind, everybody, and I'm going to go ahead and just make it a little bit brighter. Okay, Let's see how I dio now. I'm shooting at 2.8 here. The chances of her ever being and focus are very slim, but it looks like she might a little bit being focused, so I really like the texture of that. And I like it because it has You mean you can see her skin through it. And I love that look. And so I can change this up. I could use the extra fabric if I wanted. I could, like, you know, create a strap here, create sort of a draped look, if I wanted Teoh, um, except that you are facing that way. So what? Streep it this way over this arm Like that? Yeah. And we'll do one shot like that just to see how the fabric looks as it's dripping on you. And you can hit the same position as we did before, just for the sake of showing what it looks like. Okay, beautiful. Oh, no. That way. That was really not in focus. OK, I'm working on it. I had the advice of just use the ones that you know how to work, but I figured I'd rather humiliate myself in front of everybody. It was beautiful. Thank you. So I'm gonna bring in this fabric gnome, which is the really stretchy fabric super stretchy. I could create a lot of holes in here if I wanted to, but I don't want Teoh. I'll just take this down. We can leave that right on there though, and so we can do the same thing here with wrapping this. But now we're starting to get into more of a dress. Look here, and I don't want her to feel uncomfortable. Like she doesn't have any shape because I'm forcing her to wear this thing. And that's where I would get out my twine. So I have this twine that I like to use, and I would just take this and and I would just wrap this like a little belt around her waist because it looks nice and natural. So I'm always looking for natural materials that don't look like like a leather belt or something like that, just to go with the style. So that's kind of what I would want to do to sort of bring this look together. This look, being the creepy Halloween. Look, apparently that's what we're doing today. But I'll take that right off of you. Maybe I will take this off of you. Maybe it won't. Oh, there we go. OK, so we'll leave you in your ace bandage ish a span dish. And what I want to do instead is quickly If I could get two people to just jump up? Yep. Just head up. Anybody? Anyone who is willing and able to hold a piece of fabric. Okay. Goods the world qualified. Let's dig a step just behind her here and make sure the shiny side is facing me, Which is, I believe, the other side. It's great. And hold it up high and then see if you guys can work together to move it. Yep. There we go. That is it. And so we'll just have you hit the same pose just to keep this consistent. Okay, good. All right. So we have now a different background happening, and I might move that in a little bit of a different way. So instead of just sort of jostling it, how about you wave it? Sort of in towards her? In a way. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And hold it up a bit higher. Great. Okay. Okay. Good. Yeah, That was really beautiful. So that is the kind of thing that I like to do it from. Shooting portraiture. If I have to be in a studio, let's say I really just love the look of fabric moving. You guys can just drop that and head back. Thank you appreciate it. Okay, So next thing that I want to do here is I want to kind of figure out maybe a little bit of a dress for her to wear. So I'm going, Teoh, choose this piece of fabric and let's see. First, I will have you hold that up there and I'm going to binder clip you in the back, which I lost that, doesn't I? I threw it somewhere. Hold on. I'll get safety pins. So we use Oh, I put it back where it was supposed to go. Go figure. So I'm going to use some safety pins here. And I'm just going to pin the dress once, just like right above the boo blind, we will call it. And that way it will be held in place. Okay, Thank you. So I'm going to pin pretty tightly because I don't want her to feel like it's gonna fall down without hurting myself. We'll see how we dio Okay, Go in. No, hold on, it's going. There we go. Go in. Okay. Is that to loose? Is it gonna hold? Okay. Good. I'll make you puff your chest anyway, so it should be fine. I've got my scissors. I'm going to cut my twine just like that, and I'm going to give you a waste. So, actually, kind of like how it would look over here. So I'm going to go ahead and tie it just really, really simply good. Pretty. Okay, so now you have a dress, right? And we can do a lot with this dress, and we compose her so that everything looks kind of nice and streamlined. But first, I simply wanted to get her in the dress to put her in our field. What field you may ask. Well, I made a field, so let's talk about that. What I have here is my makeshift field, and this is something that I want to talk about because I have gotten a lot of emails from people saying things like, Well, you know, I don't live in the countryside and I live in the city and I can't do things in nature. Well, this is my solution for you. So if you do not, in fact have a lot of access to nature if you don't like to shoot outside on location, if you want controlled light, this is a really good option. So what I've done here is I have this Styrofoam, you know, It's just I don't even know what it's called. A little Styrofoam, I guess. It's just Styrofoam, isn't it? I don't know. I gotta Jo Ann Fabric, You could get it. Any craft store, it was pretty inexpensive. It was $6 for a sheet of this. I got the smallest one like the thinnest because you don't really need a lot of room to stick things in. So it has some flowers in it and those air fake flowers that I got just for the sake of, you know, not having enough time to go find wildflowers and stuff like that. But if you want to keep this free, you could totally use wildflowers go into a florist. My favorite thing is to go into a grocery store and just ask the florist. They're if they're gonna be using all of the stuff in the trash. You know, the answer is no. So it's great if you just say, Are you gonna use that? And then, of course, they're going to say no. So I tend to approach it like that. You can take those flowers. This is just graphs. I just went to the beach yesterday, um, and pick some grass in the darkness of night. It was kind of a fun excursion, so I'm gonna actually be just sit down right where you are. It doesn't kind of matter. I mean, you're being up on your knees eventually, but you're good, however, and I'm gonna start to place this around now. One thing that I could have done had I thought long enough about what I was doing today is I could have painted the Styrofoam black so that it really blended in with everything. Instead, I'm just going to shoot at a low angle looking up that way. I don't have to worry about seeing the Styrofoam in all of that annoying stuff. So I'm gonna grab this one. This was my front piece. I decided. Let's see, Try to take that away and set this right inside here. Oh, isn't she already looking beautiful? Okay. And the last one. Okay. Now, I left out some of the flowers and things like that just because I wanted to show how I put them in. Although I think that it's quite clear how I already put them in. So I would take the stem of it and just cut. It s, oh, that. It was a nice blunt edge so that I could add it in, so I would just clip it and stick it. That's like that as simple as could be. And then I have more over here in case I need to really decorate the set. So think about the amount of things you could do with this. I mean, if you wanted sticks, you could get a thicker piece of foam, and you could add that in there. I'm trying not to take the price tags off of these so I can return them, cause these were a little bit more expensive, so we won't use that. But let's see. Well, we can add as many as we want. Now. I do want to see her face. And so I thought, Well, I could shoot through it, and that could be really pretty. So maybe I'll do that for one. And I can also have you just come up, raise up a little bit above the line of the grass. In that way, we can sort of photograph her from there. Okay, so let's see. First will get a nice close up through the grass. It'll be all nice and lovely. Hopefully, let's see if I can focus on Yeah. Okay. So we've got some grass happening a little too much. If you ask me if I'm gonna be shooting it like that and I'm not really seeing the sides, then I would probably just want to move this back behind her for some consistency. So it doesn't really look like she's just sitting with something in front of her, so that may be nice. Let's see how that works. They're pretty. Okay, so now it's in the background, too. So depending on how you were to move that around, depending on how you were to arrange it, you can do a lot of different things with this. I could even take this and tip it in at her. You know, just add some interest around her face, but for now Oh, my flower came through Dubai. Here we go. For now, though, I'm going to put this back how we had it and shoot. Ah, Portrait of her standing up a little bit more so she'll be up on her knees. There we go. Yes. Perfect. And I put her in the blue. So then she matched the flowers that I had in here, so I wanted to make certain that she wasn't just wearing in a span the Jena field. I want to make sure that my scenes match one another. So go ahead and just go straight up on your knees like this. Yes, that's great. Moving that away. Okay, so now I need to get a pretty low angle here. So I'm gonna go like this. And actually, could you turn your body annoyingly to face that way? We're just facing her towards the light. That looks great. That's a good spot. And go ahead and look right out. Good. And you can just drop both of your arms. Yeah, And then arch your back a little bit. Yep. Good. And then chin up a bit more. Yes. Okay, Now we'll see if I can focus. Lovely. Okay. So I don't think she's in focus, but you'll forgive me. I'm just assuming so Let's see. I'm gonna not flash anybody here. I'm gonna get a little bit lower. Oh, Battery back. Okay. Oh, dear. Sorry. Russ. No, no. If I were you, I was looking down at the right time. Yes, just wearing away from you at the right time. Let me clarify. Yeah, okay. And we'll do one more like this. Actually, I could stand to move back a little bit, I think I don't know how do you know somebody isn't focused? I think I hate glasses or something, but I like that last one. And there's a lot that I can do with that, too. So right now I'm using this as a pretty straightforward portrait. You know, she's sort of She's not doing anything crazy. She matches the scene. I like all of that. I could go a lot further with this. I could add in props here. I could, you know, if I wanted to, I could have like, let's see, I'll still be able to return this. If I pop one of these offering, probably so I could do something like decorate her with these flowers. I could pull her hair back. I could have these little flowers sort of falling into the frame if I wanted to, which I think would be kind of nice. So let's just all right, I'm sacrificing it. Would somebody come over here and grab these flowers? Here we go. We'll see how it looks if we just tossed them into the frame because you know what? We've already purchased them. So we're already doing something illegal if I take them back. And so why not just see what happens if we throw these into the frame? Okay. We don't wanna put her in the eye, I guess. Okay. So you can go ahead and just hit that pose again. Yep. And can you move your hair off of your shoulders? Yes, very good. And I'm gonna lay back down here, get real comfy. And then when I say you can sort of go right behind her, in fact, then just tossed them down on top of her head, throw them up, let them fall. Okay, let's make sure that I have a book. Well, that's a lost cause. Okay, Ready? Whenever you are. Okay. Good. So we've got a couple of images there of the little flowers which actually looked like little butterflies. Shockingly. I mean, it looks like lots of little butterflies. In my opinion, there's a lot that we can do with that without having to composite. And that's what I find so exciting about a set like this is that, you know, I don't need to go and recreate something in photo shop. I don't need to photograph her and move her on to a different background or anything like that. So I'm gonna go ahead and move this out of the way. And I am going to start to play with your dress a little bit more and see what we can do there, going to be removing the background. But it would be fairly easy to do so if somebody wanted to. This is a way that someone could get Absolutely, absolutely. I mean with a black backdrop especially, you know, with somebody with blond hair like she has that is, you know, much easier to work with. Then if say, we were on a really confusing background or something like that. The black is great, and I personally like to use black because I can add so much into it. So I will very often opt for, well, a self portrait, usually X. I have blond hair with a dark background, and I can add a bit of right one. I'm already envisioning that says like maybe I'll take that moon that I, my friend Drew, and I'll put it in the background with some stars in the back or something like that. And that would be really lovely. Weaken, Turn that white, maybe more of a blue hue. And we can make it look like nighttime on. And that could be a really fun thing to play with. So for now, let's have you stand up and I'm going to see what we can do about adding in this piece of fabric. So I'm going to cut another piece of twine here, there, and I'm going to last. So you again, we hold that there for me. And now I just want to figure out where do I want this piece of fabric to go now, the lights coming in from this side. So I'm going to opt to put it over here, and I'm just gonna take the corner of it and sort of put it right there and then allow this to be tied right over top of it. Thank you. Okay. Okay. So I'm tying this, and I do like how the twine look, so I'm not trying to hide that at all. You can let that drop. Okay, so now we have this extra piece of fabric. Now, if you wanted to make it match exactly. Of course, you could get the same exact sheet and just make it all one color. I kind of like the the two different colors happening here, so I'm going to leave it like that. There we go. Could I? Oh, I guess I'll get these out. Your hair. Um, can I get to volunteers, please? You guys are great. Just like jumping right here. Okay, So I have one person here and the other one over here, and I'm just gonna have each of you grab the fabric as I just rip it and just sort of flow it like that. Okay, Good. Look how much fabric Rehab. Oh, my gosh. Let's get 1/3 person. Okay, This is a lot of fabric, and you can hold these two together and just sort of ducked down right there. Pretty dress. All right, now I'm going to shoot this from pretty low to start, and I'm just going to try to get a nice sort of statuesque pose from her. So let's go ahead and dio shoulders back and head up and towards the light. Good. And I'm gonna move the hair. Yes, that would be wonderful, actually. And does anybody have, like, a hair tie on them? That Oh, you dio can you just put your hair up in a messy bun? So I figured that if we're doing opposed that so has so much going on with so much fabric and stuff, I just want to see really clean lines on her body. So I'm putting her hair up in a bun. That looks great. And I'm going to have each of you guys you can actually get low to the ground. And I just want you guys instead of throwing it at first. Just sort of do this with it. Yeah, that looks nice. Okay. And let's take your left shoulder back a little bit yet. Perfect. Okay. Spending a lot of time on the floor today, Okay? Checking for focus, maybe. Who knows? So, yeah, So I like how that's looking, but the fabric is separating a little bit here, so why don't we actually exactly put the other blue on top and let's see how this goes. Let's do it even more violently this time with the shaking. Oh, I like that. Okay, who pretty like how that works. Think it was just covering her hand a little bit, which I would not want. But for the most part, I like how it's looking in terms of the movement. So now let's try just having movement on one side of her. So let's drop this side for now. But don't go too far of all your seats right there, so you can sit back down and you can also stop. And so I might bring you back up in a second thumb. We're just gonna do this side so you can actually just sort of either head to either side and with this side. We're gonna leave this all splayed out, just as it is in this one. I just want you to sort of drop it. Yep, And I'll tell you when. Now there is no way I can possibly shoot the scope of this dress on this black backdrop. However, I know what I can do to it later. So if I have at least my subject on the black and most of the dress. Then if for some reason some of the dress goes off, I can fix that a lot easier later in post. So I'm not gonna worry too much about that. I will shoot it like this, okay? And go ahead and just hold it up real high and then drop it whenever you're ready. Okay. Good. Just for the slightest little bit of motion which helped pull it away from her body. And that also helps give her more of a shape. I mean, she already has a beautiful shape, but in, you know, pulling that that fabric away from her waist, it gives the illusion that her waist is even smaller than it is. So that's something that I'm looking for here. I'm looking to create that tension in the body. I think that you're posing beautifully, but let's just take that left arm back a little bit more behind you? Yes, just like that. And chin up a little bit more. Yeah, that's that's great. You really just tensed up. And that was perfect. I'm like, the opposite of most people. Love it when my model tenses or body. Okay. And We'll throw that fabric one more time whenever you're ready. Good. So that was a really nice sort of Bill O There. Now, again, I put that dark fabric on that sides in the light, hit it. If it was on the other side, it would be probably completely black looking. So I want to pay a lot of attention to that. And I really like how this is sort of shaping up. So I'm going to leave the fabric flowing as it is for right now. But I want to add in now that sense of motion, that sense of fog, that sense of atmosphere who feels like getting dirty, very good. Who does not want to get dirty. Let's put that out there That is all wrapped up in scarves. OK, I'll give you that. One is totally full. Do you want a baby powder? Okay, so I will I will demonstrate, you know, as the baby powder pro that I am. You guys, all I'm going to want you to do is try to avoid that backdrop because I don't own that one. But if you're let's say standing right here, I want you to aim for sort of the back. Okay, so we're not gonna hit the front so much yet because it'll stick a little bit instead. You'll just be sort of doing that. Okay, so it will sort of hang in the air a little bit. Hopefully, the light will catch. It s o of one of you over there and one over here. Doesn't matter, which is which. You can see it. Sort of sitting in the back. That's what we don't want in the front. And I will get my framing before you guys start proofing as I like to call it. Okay, let's see. Okay, just a test to make sure that everything looks all right, and I don't think it does, but that's not your fault. That's my fault. That's good enough. Okay, so left arm back a little bit more. Yes. Perfect. That is lovely. And whenever you guys are ready, just keep squeezing and proofing. And yep, that kind of thing. Good. Okay. And I'm just waiting for it to kind of settle, So take one shot. Good. This looks beautiful. OK, you guys couldn't stop and keep posing, though. I'm just gonna take one more shot of it hanging there. Great. Okay, so we've got a few shots of that. I don't know which one was best, but hopefully you can see it hanging in the air a little bit. So can we sort of zoom back to some of the first shots? No, I should have. So you can kind of see how it's sort of clumpy there. And I don't want that. I don't want it to look lumpy in the shot, and that's just a result of it flying in first. And there's nothing else to sort of, you know, mix with it. So as the shots go on, you'll see it dissipate a little bit. But if you look at the shots before with nothing in the background, it was stark black back there. And now we have this sort of misty nous happening in the background. So it's to the same thing for the foreground. No. So let's have. Do you need more baby powder in there? Okay, you're good. I knew one of them was a little low. So we're going to have the baby powder right around here around fronts. You now can get her dirty. Don't worry about that. were not aiming for the head. We're just aiming for sort of, like waste and below. And let's see how that looks. Are you guys ready? I'm ready when you are. Okay? Yeah, it's coming. Oh, my. Okay. Okay, that's wow. Hold on. Now, I gotta shoot that too. Oh, you know. Oh, no, I don't. It dissipated too fast, OK? Smells like babies in here. I know. It's like Kelly. Baroness hear something? But goodness. So that was was. And you can see the baby powder shooting in. Not what we're looking for. But hopefully we got one where? Didn't quite look like that. I'm not sure though. So by having in the front were clearly messing up address. That is quite obvious. But the good thing is that now we can put our baby powder down, and I want each of you guys to take side of the dress and don't move it yet, But when I say you're just gonna start to proof it up and we'll see what we can do there, You know what? Let's get 1/3 person over here to get that piece. I'm just going to stay here to avoid my focusing issues. And whenever you guys are all coming down since there, three of you, I'm just going to say whenever you're ready. Okay? Okay, you guys conceptual. Don't breathe. Everybody okay? Who? That was a lot of 80 everywhere, but it looked really cool. So that All right. God, I way too much fun. OK, Um, yeah, I really, really like some of those. I'm I would be very pleased with them. So, uh, let's see. Let's do one more round of that because I thought that looked really good. We're just gonna change up the pope is a little bit to make it a little bit more regal, let's say and we can just take the baby about her and just sort of, you know, proof it on there. This is a good technique, right? Okay, so it's really powder in here. I'm okay. So let's do a pose. You can face the window again, and, uh, you know, I know. Yeah, that's good. OK, so turn total profile to me. Good. And let's take this arm back. And why don't you do something like this? Really? Yep. Like that. And then try to do toder on. Let me pin you. I continue. I've got one right here. We're going to make sure we don't have a wardrobe malfunction back here. Where's here? They're limping this right to your bra. Is that all of the material? Yep. Exactly. Just sticking it right on there. When you say pin, it's actually a binding. Yeah, since the Diner Club, it's just a reference for Bela home, the bulky ist of bulky ist things that we could ever use. So while doing this, dude, this So this arm is straight. Yep. Good. And then, arch as much as you can. Perfect. I like that a lot. Okay. Now you guys ready for the proofs again? Well, that's not good, is it? See, dress malfunctions. This is what happens when you don't hire a professional. Okay? City shell. While we're doing that, are you ever concerned that the baby powder will cause breathing issues for your model? Has that ever happened? I mean, it's like, Yeah, I am concerned. I usually do this outside. First of all, um, but typically, I'll just ask every other shot and there you OK, keep a window open. Um, but it's never been an issue issue. I mean, it's not like amusing spray paint. And somebody is about to pass out. It's safe for babies. Therefore, I assume we can handle it. But yet nobody's ever complained that much. Although I did throw baby powder on a model ones. And then we went to Starbucks after and every step she took her but was pooping, like from her sweat man's, you know, it was like And then somebody drove past and said, You're smoking so funny. So that has happened. Okay, so I'm going Teoh, shoot. This is one last time. And that pose, like lots of tension. Really? Arch your back. That looks beautiful. And no smile released. Kind of stern. Yes. And the weight are you in for? How do you know if you need glasses? Is this how you know? I think this is what it might feel like. Okay. And Okay, good. But it's that'll. Okay, man, I should just brought the smoke. Inventors. Good. Okay, that looks really nice. So I'm going to end there with the powder. We won't bring it back until just a little bit later, when I absolutely will bring it back so you guys can have a seat. Thank you. It's really about her in here. Thank you. Okay, so one last thing that I want to do was get one more person to help us out here. Whoever wants to jump up to kind of bring back the theme of this whole segment. A lot of people were suggesting, like, couldn't you just add smoking? Photoshopped? Couldn't you, like, use a smoke machine? You write, you use wide to achieve the same effect. And, yeah, there are a lot of ways to do it. That's a goal here is to do it for as little money as exactly. And you know, the thing is that there are a lot of people who don't want to spend all that time in photo shop. I've personally never been able to master smoke and voter shop. Never. And so I always do it on set, whether I'm outside in the middle of a field 100 miles away from anything, baby powder always works. In that instance, I don't to worry about lugging, you know, machinery, especially because I do a lot of self portrait. So it's not like I have a lot of people there to help me. I, like, truly don't really have a lot of friends. And so I can't just be like, Hey, guys, come help me with my photo shoot. You know, it's like, it's pretty much just me out there. So this works really well for something like that. And you'd be amazed at how liberating it is to just stand in a field and poor baby powder all of yourself and roll around on the grass. Can you let your hair down for me? Okay. So I'm going to have you over here, and we're gonna see Oh, my God. Almost banged your head really hard. So we're going to see what we can do with getting her hair to move a little bit. Nice. Why don't you face this direction? Good. Oh, yes. Do you see the rings of it hitting the fabric? Okay, so why don't you do that? It's fault, not mine. Oh, thank you. I don't think we'll see them, but I will try to keep out for that. Okay. So what do, um I'll go ahead and help you out by moving this hair off of your neck a little bit. and let's just drop Bacchus Faras you can like this. Yes. Okay. And let's try to get some hair moving. And this would also be good for the baby powder to what's me. Oh, there we go. Okay. I'm gonna come in for a little bit more of a close up with this fan going here. Who? That is some hair moving. So now what if you can stop now? What if we were to add some baby powder in aside from covering our camera man in baby powder as what was Russ? Although, you know, I care far less about that, So let's see. Oh, you're welcome. So if somebody were to stand here and just sort of spray it at the board and then let the board do its work I've never done this before. Were just testing as we go to see what works. See here. Okay, so let's go ahead and see how that goes. You can keep your eyes closed. Why do you get a little bit closer with that board? And just smaller a little that way. There's a hurricane being created. It okay? Yeah. Step a little bit closer, even I'm not going to get you in the shot. You could be like to right here. And that would be fine. There we go. Yes. Close your eyes. Close your mouth. Closer knows. Good. Okay, great. So we got at least a couple. I think, towards the beginning we got some with it moving. Thank you, guys. She's gonna kill, May I mean paints coming next. It's just all going downhill from here, but it was great. Thank you. Who's in here? Next? Is it is it? Jeff, What we're doing here is creating that fog effect, but it's a little bit more powerful. We're creating the wind against her body. I don't think that we ever got quite the right timing with the air coming as well as the baby powder. If you did have a fan, obviously it would just shoot right through her. But this way it's wafting, and I really like that. So I would continue to play with this. I probably wouldn't leave it there, but I would go ahead and just keep making true. The hair is blowing with the baby powder coming at the same time. So let's do something. Yes, definitely. Yes. It's a really good way of Sort of like what they called him post op. Like doing ingredient on the dress except not in photos that, like, I'm trying to turn this into the silver lining. So, yes, that was my intention of guy. So next thing that I want to do is talk a little bit about paint and I've got some paint over here. Now I will say that I didn't try this at home. It is very difficult to work with for you, not for us. For us, it's just fun. Does anybody feeling getting a little bit wet with paint? All right, so we're going to take the fabric off of you now, and we're going to just a spanned injure. So nobody tip that over. Just that some folks online were questioning about the paint and about safety issues. As far as what? Let's make sure and that we talk about that because that is a very important part when you're painting someone. Yes, we actually it says that it's non toxic. It says that you can use open water to clean it. We went into the fabric store that we were in, and we said, you know, OK, so I need to put this on somebody's body. What paint can I use? And funny enough, the woman there who is helping us, she said, Oh, I just did this last week and I was like, Why did you do this last week on? So she was explaining that she also does photo shoots and that they were doing some like body painting on the model. And she said, Use this because this will not harm the model. And I now I can't see what it is because we had to cover up the label. But I'll let you know when I find out what this is because I can't remember what kind of painted is. But, you know, just go into the same store that I went in to ask for the woman who body pains, and then she can tell you exactly what it is. But yeah, it won't harm. I put it all over my body to that was the next thing that I was going to say was that, um so the other week I decided that I needed to release some anger, you know, and just do something really hands on. So I went out and I bought all white wardrobe with my friend and we laid in the forest on a tarp and we just splatter painted each other with this paint. It was totally fine. So I was not harmed. Unless you think that I'm a little bit loopy than I don't know. I don't think I was harmed in the making of the the spotter painting project. Okay, so let's continue to wrap you very quickly as quickly as we can, so Oh, yeah, you're really tied up in there, huh? We will untie you. And we're going to continue to wrap just toe, have a base that's really neutral, and put the paint on top. So let's go ahead and fix this now. Usually these come with, like, little quippy things toe. Hold it all together, but, um, I have lost all of mine because these air about 60 Ope Sorry. Just poked in the boob. Yes, I do. Thank you. The's air, about six years old. Thank you. So I'm just going to pin her in. I see. With my binder clip. I do also have safety pins, but for some reason, I'm against them today. Okay, so Well, get this. We're gonna not paint your undergarments, and I know that I just lost that. Don't worry. And bringing it back. Yes, you are. It's a good thing. Okay, so we're kind of pinned there. We're gonna I just hope that that holds. And can we get the pants off now? We're getting real intimate thes days. We'll go over here and let you dio over there. And so what we're going to do is just wrap up her undergarments in in the ace bandages and then start to paint by pain. I mean, like, we're gonna take our hands and pretend like it's lotion and just slake, like, really to slather it on there, you know? And then we'll bring in to cobweb. Okay? So why don't you just hold that there and we will start to wrap you. Okay? All right. Can you hand me a safety pin, which I don't know if you know where they are. Never mind the right here. I've got it. So we're gonna safety pin this one, and the next one actually has little clips on it, so that's really good. I'm not gonna pin you promise. There we go. Thank you. Very hopeful. Is this a sticky one? Oh, no, it's not. I don't think it is good. All right. So will you hold that there for me? And we will continue to wrap, but I'm just trying to cover up the, you know, orange of these and stuff and make sure that we have something to protect her. Oh, it is sticky, you know? Yeah. I can't tell. No, that's sick. Okay. No, I don't want to get your button air, so that should be good, I think. Yeah. Okay, so she has wrapped in a bandage. Is, And now I'm gonna take my wedding ring off for a quick nobody. Let me forget, okay? It's my prize possession. Are you ready? Let's step over here. You can do this to yourself, too. So why don't we hear all poured in your hands and you can just use it like lotion just to cover yourself? You know, you get the parts where you don't want anybody else touching. You just do her arms. Nothing else. Yeah, and I'll just Oh, yeah. You just get right in there and see what we can do here. So I'm just having another normal day because you could tell. And the thing about paint is that if he wanted to dry really fast, then you have to do a really thin layer. So I'm just gonna I'm not gonna use a ton. I'm just going to sort of spread it out all over her body. And, um, as it dries, you'll start to see it sort of crackling and getting a really interesting texture to it. I think I just need a little bit more in there. Okay? I don't want handprints on her low, so I gotta make sure to rub my little handprints in. I have, like, baby hands. Okay, I'm just gonna, um if you don't mind me touching these areas, I'm gonna dio on and really not good doing this, but OK, but what's a lot worse is that I now after this to your face. So let's just see how this goes. We dio Well, you don't need Teoh because I'm gonna Yep. Okay. I just would like to say right now that she was a willing participant in this way. Had a lot of conversations. Well, we had one conversation this morning about it. Okay? Here we go? Yeah. I told the makeup artist, you know, don't really worry about doing much today, okay? Yes. Don't like your lips, please. It is nontoxic, but we don't want to test it. So do a little bit on your eyes, just like that. And I'm just trying to make it with natural. Now, I just want to get it in the hair. Now. I'm not gonna do it everywhere in the hair, but I want to do it just enough. So then it sort of slicks her hair back a little bit. I'm breathing in your face. I'm, like, really aware that I had veggie bacon this morning and Okay, I'm just going to a little bit more. I'm trying not to, like, torture you with this at all, but do you feel like you're getting a massage? I feel like I'm giving you okay. We're looking pretty good. I would say I failed a little bit on that leg, but oh, how I couldn't think of my kids. Thing is, we don't think through thoroughly, you know, it's just okay, so good enough. I was needing a new sheet anyways, so we're going to know hopefully as a team here. Try to what? See, I'm gonna wrap this around you this way, and we'll probably just binder clip this again, so we'll sort of pin it in some way together. Oh, I just tie it, actually. And now I'm going to create cobwebs. So let's see who wants to jump up here and help because we need to do this fast. So what I want is for you to start just pulling it apart, and then we're gonna trying to make a dress out of it, and we're gonna need lots of people on deck to be able to hold this dress down good and weaken, weaken start to spread it out. Doesn't matter if it's still stuck to her so much. We're just spreading it out and trying to use this sort of, You know, this this really inexpensive material in a really interesting way by creating a dress out of it and so eventually will sort of have people down here on the sides making it look like the dress is sort of all around her. And we can shoot this from a lot of different angles to So if I wanted Teoh, I could shoot this from a low angle. Looking up from the perspective of the cobweb. I could do it looking downs than it looked like. The netting was all around her. You guys are doing a good job. Thank you. Yes, I know you're gonna fall over soon, I think. But it's working. It's working. You know, it's probably not the kind of thing that you're supposed to do live, but that's okay. We're just We're going for it. Come here. You take that. I think we're all like you. Take it. It's OK. You can have it. Um, yes, we'll get that all pulled apart, and then we're gonna just tuck it into her bodice here. So I'm going to use the ace bandage. Yep, at it. And we're going to start tucking it so that it looks like she has the right texture on her bodice. So I'll do that will pull this apart added in here. And I'm not worried about the back, so I'm not going to, like, you know, try to wrap her. Oh, I see. Your legs have got it everywhere. That's good. All right. So let's see now what this looks like if we spread it out all over the ground. Let's see how far we've come. So that's good. You hold that side, you hold that side. And now we're just gonna have to make sure that it's stuck to her body enough. Good. Good. Yeah. I think it's worth noting that, like, this is, obviously we have, you know, how many? Five people helping because of time. Yeah. This is something that you totally dio. Yeah. I wasn't trying to do this in five minutes. I would absolutely just do this by myself. Probably not to myself, but that's also a debate, so I don't know, but yeah. I mean, all of this stuff can be done completely on your own. It's all stuff that I have done completely on my own. And I'm no genius. It's, You know, it's just stuff that is pretty easy to handle. So let's take this over here more just behind her. Cool. I like it, but I feel like your face is kind of missing it. So let's go like that. Yes, I like that. All for that. Okay. Looking kind of awesome. All right. So I'm going to just pull this down a little bit, and then I'm going to take a test shot. So can you turn your head that way? Yes. Okay, good, good. All right. Now you can keep your body just as it is. I'm going to move the black. I mean, the blue out of underneath and try to get that be Oh, I just repainted my hand. Uh uh. I'm not going to get paint on the creative life for no. All right, so we're moving this. Yeah, well, okay, grab it. It's really wet. March our Okay, So I'm going to now. Oh, that's nice. Thank you. Did you do that, John? Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. So let's have you slightly turned your body towards the window. Good. Oh, that binder clip. I knew it was going to come back to haunt me. I'll just hide it a little. Who don't. Don't pay attention of that. Everybody okay, There we go. That should hold. So let's go ahead. And I think we need one more person. Oh, never mind. We've got it under control. Good. So now why don't you put this hand up here and actually, just as you have it, just arrested just like that. Perfect. And then this one. Why don't you grab this at your neck? The one that's on your neck? Yep. Okay, good. If you're by yourself, you could use rocks. You could exactly like that toe hold. Exactly. Stuff you can use rocks you can use. Well, gosh, you could use their Styrofoam and then, like, Zinos put a stake in it, but yeah, absolutely. Definitely. Lots of ways to do this. So I'm gonna go ahead and take a shot and actually, as a whole, could you all take a collective step this direction to my left? And you're all in a circle, so I can't say a direction to you. Yes, that's much better. OK, so I'm going to go ahead and just take a test shot to see how this looks. Okay. All right. Despite it not being in focus, it looks pretty neat. And I think that what we need is more of this coming this way. So why don't you guys come on over? Yes. Perfect. And we could even use the twine here in this instance to sort of thank you to sort of tie her up at the waist if we needed to with all of this stuff. So if we want to cinch it in, we could sort of create a waste here for her where it's all coming from. Um, except that I lost my twine, but I'll find it. No, no, it's really in there. So, uh, we're getting very intimate here. You're stuck to me to my mike, so that might be a problem. Hold on. Okay, so let's dio one little tie here, okay? Looking beautiful. Hey, she does Okay. Good. Yet hold that right to the ground. That looks good. And, you know, why don't we give this one over here? Like to that hand over there? Great. Yes, You got it. Okay. Now arch that back good. And I'm sorry, could you guys, I'll take a step this way again, Okay. And could you also take a step forward just a little bit? Drink to the center. Keep going. Keep going. Good. Good. Ok, now, I'm going to see if I can get a slightly different angle on this, so I'm going to come up here. Okay. Good. All right. So this is starting to look neat from that angle. I like how it's all coming from sort of her her midsection right now. Um, why don't we hold that side down a little bit? Yep. Good. And why don't we take this hand and pull up and just sort of rested on top like that? Yes. I want to see that hand. It's really great, creepy looking good. And now keep your feet together and then do this. Yep. Good tiptoes is always good in my book. Okay. Beautiful. Yes, that was lovely. So that would be what I would want to play with for now. No. Let's have you sit down on the ground. You guys don't go anywhere. If you can have a seat, you can just yet. Kneeling is fine. And let's have you guys spread out all around her. And I'm going to see if I can't stand on a chair and see if we can get a quick shot from above. And then I will leave this at that. I'm gonna steal this chair. Oh, apple boxes better. Thank you. Amount of crops sensor. So I don't know how, um how I'm going to be able to get all of it in, but I'm going to get us close as I can. Actually going to make this as difficult as possible and shoot from behind you guys. So I'm gonna come through. Oh, I can't make it. Can you grab that? Sorry. Thanks. And I'll crawl underneath. Thank you. Okay. It's gonna reach. I know it is. Okay. Great. Now I can get right up on you do it like this. Oh, thank you. Okay. So I'm not gonna be able to see this to manually focus. That's my only real issue here. Also, that is an issue. But I figure if I just keep changing the focus of one of them has to be in focus on my right. Oh, well ish. I don't think that my lens is going to be at all wide enough to be able to get this, so I would have to switch to a much wider lens, which we don't really have time to do right now. But that would be my final sort of shot here would be to pull this over all around her. You can grab that. Let's see. And I would sort of do something like that. Now I'm I'm getting there. I mean, I could piece this together. If I had enough tries, why don't you put your head back for me? Yeah, just like that. Oh, I'm trying trying. Yeah, something like that. Now, there is just absolutely no way that I am ever going to be in focus here. But don't you head back a little bit more. I was like, but can we just pretend that it's meant to be auto focus? I think that would be Oh, that was almost in focus. Let's just pretend that's the shop that I wanted, and we'll go with that. So now if I had a wider lens, I would really want to see all of this happening all around, but obviously, I'm not going to be able to achieve that right now, but that would be sort of my end goal for this. So you can relax. Thank you for arching your back so much and thank you guys for holding all of this ridiculousness up with me anymore. No, you can drop it. Thank you. So I'm gonna step back over here and let's just take a little recap here now. Yes. Any of this. Oh, my gosh. I'm so sorry, but you know It's just like that that you kind of like take a second look after a while and it's really crazy, so any of this can be done. You know, in photo shop, let's say yes, you can do Foggin photo shop. You know you can add a field and in photo shop, but there's some sort of joy that I get from not doing it that way. As much as I love Photoshopped, as much as I love just sitting for hours in front of my computer, there's also something to be said for having paint covering your body for the rest of the day, as you do critiques, right? So, yes, any of this can be done in photo shop. But it's kind of fun to do this right. I mean, it's pretty fun to stand in here and play with baby powder, and I think that there's a certain effect that you're going to get in doing that, especially if you're not just doing fine arts. So let's say you're shooting Ah, family. Let's say you're shooting a child. Let's say you're shooting a senior. Whatever it might be, they're gonna have so much more fun if you could just do it there instead of having to do it in photo shop. So bringing the model, whoever it is into that space into that mindset is extremely helpful for me in terms of getting the story that I want. So I'm not often looking for, you know, a seniors like natural expression and stuff, because that's just not what I shoot. But at the same time, I do need to bring something out of my subject that tells a story, whether it's their personal story or not. So if I were to, you know, tell our model, okay, you're going to sit there and just pretend like you have, you know, cobweb covering your body. Just pretend because it will be, then they're not going to know what's interact with. They're not gonna really know how to deal with that situation. If I say all right now, imagine that there's fog all around you. Yeah, they could probably do it, but if they see it, then they're in the moment and they understand that creation process, and they're much more likely to react to it. And a great example of this is when we started blowing the fan at her and the baby powder sort of going instantly. She went like this like she started doing this with it. Like as though the wind were hitting her face. I saw her whole body tense up and sort of become filled with tension. And that's what I want out of my model. It's really hard for me sometimes to say, OK, stand like this and pretend that there's wind blowing through your hair. They don't believe it, you know. And of course, Knox is not happening. And so 90% of the time when I'm shooting, I'll say, Okay, stand like this, pretend that there's wind and then, you know, and then I'll go over and say, Now we're gonna take a quick shot of your hair, sort of just blowing like that And that's how I blow people's hair in the wind. But if there's somebody there to help, if I have my camera on a tripod, let's say and I'm shooting with my remote, I can be over there blowing the wind. I could be over there with the baby powder Aiken, do it all with just me and a model. I can't so much blow wind at my own hair from doing a self portrait, but I realized that doesn't often apply to many of us in this room. So especially all of you guys with short hair. But in any case, that sort of my point here is that it doesn't matter what your budget is. It doesn't matter what you have at your disposal, because the fact is that amazing things can be found everywhere and they might be a little bit strange. Obviously not everybody's gonna end up at this point, but everybody can use baby powder to create fog. Everybody can use, like, you know, simple Styrofoam and some grass that you find to create a little tiny field inside your studio. And those are all things that people like to interact with. So if I can make any point today, it's that one. And there are lots of inexpensive ways to go out and just do it right now is amazing. Broke. We had a bunch of questions. We don't really have time to take them, but a couple of things that I do want to mention to people. So first of all, one was asking about, like the brand of this the brand of that. I think the point is, doesn't matter. Go out and find something that works. I think that's $1.1 $10. Things like you could go out and you can try stuff. So go ahead and do that. The other one was actually a lot of Oh, my gosh. The poor model. Oh, the poor model of this. I was talking to many in hair and makeup this morning, and she was saying, This is the stuff she looks forward to as a professional model. You're with TCM, Correct? Yeah. And so I mean, we don't have a mike t talk, but that was one of the things that she was saying. Was that, like, this is the stuff that is fun. Yeah. Stuff that you're like. Hope Can I possibly find someone to do this? It's more like let's stop turning away the people because too many people want Teoh. Yeah. I mean, I use my friends for stuff like this, like, 99% of the time. I don't just go find a model. And I do that because I'm doing strange things. Usually that I want to make sure they're okay. with it, But I find, actually that usually it's better if I just find a model because they're actually looking forward to doing something a little bit strange. Whereas my friends are like, Brooke, you wanted a baby powder on me again. No, stop it. But yeah, honestly, it's the kind of thing that as long as you just sort of free your mind from being inside the box that we usually live in and you think you know what, so I'm going to be covered in paint. I'll go shower right after, you know, it's just gonna be an interesting memory than as long as I'm not, you know, giving her some sort of toxic like disease in her body, which I'm sure I'm not. You know, then a lot of people do look forward to stuff like that, and I do, too. And I really appreciate people that will play with me like that. And speaking of playing, you have a blogged that you do promoting passion that is, You do a weekly weekly video audio and you want to just briefly where people can find that Yeah, you can either go to my website, which is just broke shade in dot com, and there's a blogger link or promoting passion dot com. And I'm extremely passionate and committed now, Teoh creating a sense of community, creating a safe place where people can be themselves and, you know, be passionate about whatever they're passionate about and find like minded people to really just, you know, interact with and make new friends. So that's my goal over there. I love it.

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I thought this was well worth the money for the ideas -- she's a very creative and imaginative photographer, and she basically gives you inspiration and permission to experiment. Can't wait to try these ideas on some of my senior models. And yes, she was charming and adorable and was using a manual focus lens and she was joking she might need glasses because she had trouble finding focus. But the point of this class was not technical expertise (although I know she has it, even if her vision was failing her here) -- it was creative inspiration. Recommended, esp. if you are in a rut.

Rebecca Potter
 

Brooke is an awesome teacher, I love that she makes it feel achievable without having to have a professional budget. Love her classes!

Joanna Whitehead
 

I have purchased all but one video, which I will in the next week ..... With that said, I love her work, inspiration, ideas, and of coarse, now, her knowledge. She is an awesome artist with such talent!

Student Work

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