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Scott Robert Lim Interview

I think Scott is ready right now. Do we have Scott there? Scott, how you doing? Hey, party people. How you doing? That's so good to see you, man. I'm good. That's fantastic. So I need to do a proper intra for Scot, the Scots. Internationally acclaimed master photographer. He's won a bunch of awards at WPP. I He's had his work published in books in magazines worldwide. And you're here and we're talking. This is fantastic. Yeah. Great to be here. Yeah, well, we got a bunch of stuff to cover, and I want you to do most of the talking. Um, Where you living right now? Where you calling from? I'm calling from Los Angeles. That's where I live. I love it, but do you see my kind of nice tan? I just came back from Mexico at a workshop there were in Mexico. Ah, Well, it was a cruise started in Miami and then went toe Qassam, ill. We just got value. Ruffle a Somebody's similar. He's gotta do it. Nobody's got That's awesome. S So let's just dive in. What? What are your What do you use Basically, to ...

get your signature Look. Oh, you know, What I There's basically three main things that I used. Okay. I have some visual props there. Good. Ah, a manual flash. Okay. Okay. Just a straight Daniel Flash. A video light. Wow. Okay. And a strong video light at that. And this just this basic shoot through umbrellas kill on. So, um, I think my signature style is I just use those three basic things, really. And I tried a good, good quality light on my subjects, which is try to get is a big light of my subjects. And I think my look is I tried to sandwich my subject with light. Either I'm, you know, doing a clamshell, or I'm doing front and behind or, you know, to back lights or something like that to give me that little bit war sophisticated. Look. Okay, so, you know, one main light is great, but may I got I gotta add a little extra, and I think that's kind of my signature style. Fantastic. So you just showed some of your gear. What's your go to lighting set up when you're traveling, you're shooting. What do you do you bring with you? Okay. Um you know what? I'm shooting at a low light situation. Let's say if I can turn my camera to, say 800 s own above my go to is the video light, okay? And then I'm throwing it through in an umbrella, okay? And that gives me great huge light. And what you see is what you can get. Yeah, and so I would prefer to do that if I could all the time. But when you're in a bright light situation, video lights is simply not strong enough. Video light is probably 100. The strength of a flash. Okay. And when you're outside when the sun is lighting up the earth, you've gotta be ableto have power that matches that son. And that's why you got to go to a flash. Okay? And when you're a bright light, what I love to do is group more than one flash together. OK, so I have this mount that allows me to put three flashes together. Um and I've got some awesome power that creates bigger light because the source becomes bigger. And then I don't have to put my flash on full power all the time. Which takes a long time. A recycle I can put my flash at 1/4 power 1/8 power. Um, and get some great. Let's so those are basically might go to lighting situations. So when you're using three flashes you're using, affect them effectively, just as one flash. You're not aiming them around, right? You know, just yeah. So I'm putting all three on here and just, um and it's enabling me to kind of create it's cut off, like taking a studio strobe out with you. Really? Essentially, That's what it iss with no bad battery packs or anything like that. And then I can I can pack small and things like that. Fantastic. So it sounds like those are some of the things you you absolutely can't live without. If there was, if there was one thing for young photographers that you took with you that you had to have, what would it be? One thing you love without, um Well, I think the flash and the umbrella is the most versatile because you can't even though because you could even use a flash indoors to ah, and you can use it outdoors. Okay, so if you had a flash in an umbrella, you can do a lot of damage with that. Yeah, of course you have to have some sort of off camera lighting system, right? Um, but yeah, that's probably, you know, if I had to take one thing, I'd probably do that because video light is only good in low light situations. Eso but it flashes more versatile. I like what you said about the video light, though the advantage of actually being able to move it because it's on all the time. It's not like a flash where you have to take test shots, right to make sure that's at the perfect angle. You can actually move it and see what it's doing. Yeah, and you know what I noticed With a lot of younger photographers, they might be able to get the exposure right, and that's that's pretty easy. But the subtlety of it, the shadows, the shading to make it look natural. That takes work that takes, like, a few years to kind of get a handle of that. Um so I think that's why video light is is very, very easy to use and kind of see where that light's falling because literally, you know, moving that light just a few inches. Could make the difference between a really great shot and a good shot. Yeah, absolutely. So what? You mentioned people just starting out. What? What's the biggest mistake you see young photographers repeatedly making? Um, I think, you know, I think there's a lot of things, but I think the main thing is is that you gotta be able to master one light first before you start adding a whole bunch on. Yeah, and I think you have to really understand, you know, about getting that lightest, closest possible, because that creates bigger light. Um, and you know, the inverse square law and all that kind of crazy stuff, but getting one flash and completely mastering that, you know, can you go out there with one flash and in one shot nail the exposure? Yeah. And then, you know, figure out the subtlety with that and just maximizing that one light source and then building on on from there, okay? And I think so. But I think a lot of photographers they see you know somebody. Oh, well, they're using this huge soft box or they're using to light set up, or they're using a three lights that up and they go out and they try toe stimulate that maybe three lights for with a huge saw, Fox. And they haven't even mastered just the one light source without the diffuser. Ah, then you kind of can't build on things correctly. Then you get yourself in trouble. Awesome. So you did a class for creative live here called think think like a $10,000 wedding photographer. Right? I did. Three classes, three classes. Yeah, I did. Crazy stupid light. Okay, like a 10-K wedding photographer. And my latest one was really a world lighting. Fantastic. So check those out if you're watching on and you haven't already, check those out those air in our course catalog, and you can just look up Scott's name there, I think, Or those course titles either way, and they can people check those out. Um, are there specific lighting techniques that all wedding photographers need to know before they go out and shoot their first wedding? Um, yeah. You know what else? Surprised people a lot. Um, when people were to see me shoot a wedding because, you know, I'm kind of known as the lighting guy, but in a wedding world I used all, actually a lot of natural light. Okay, but you have to be a master at finding where the good light issue. Yeah, And then you can add on to that. And so, uh, learning where to find great light. Well, how do you know you have great light. If you see good, catch lights in the eyes of your subject and the eyes aren't dead. Then that's great light. So learning how to find it, learning how to modify your situation, Maybe it's closing a curtain down or closing off all the lights and just using one light source through a window. Thinks like that is the number one thing for wedding photographers. And then, of course, you're gonna have to use to learn to flash for group photos and things like that. Um, but first is natural light and then probably flash and then video light when you're doing portrait at night and things like that, and that was probably be three steps. Okay, So how do you how How do you encourage young photographers? I guess to, um, learn to see light. Because if you can't see the lighting, you're going for and you don't have the eye for it. Uh, it just not gonna matter how much gear you have or how beautiful the natural light. How do? That's a great question. And I think a lot of times you have to kind of study under somebody who's really experienced. Um, and they can show you things because it's hard for you to really learn strictly from, let's say, creative light video videos. I think creative live videos are like your textbooks. Everybody should have them. You should have them with you and learn from them. But then you need to go beyond that and go to your lab. You know, that's really a world. Go with somebody experienced or workshop or a mentor, and they can show you things like, you know, I've made tons of mistakes 15 years of my career. I made mistake after mistake. Mistaken was great at the Mexico Workshop, was able to show these students like, Hey, here's what I do. It took me, you know, five years to figure this out. Bam! I show you in 15 minutes. You're now you're got exponential growth on top of what you've learned with the creative life videos, and then you bring it into the real world with experience. You're really progressing really fast. Yeah, I think it's super important. Once you just said about creative live as a textbook, right? But you can't expecto watch a course on creativelive and then go out and in master everything you just saw somebody else teaching, right? You right. You have to implement it into your own process and really perfect it. I think to you know, when you see beyond creativelive, I'm only talking about maybe 10 or 20 specific situations. But in the real world, there's, like, 1000 different situations you gonna run into. Yeah, a lot. Of course, will make it look easy, you know? Hey, do this. Do that. You get the real world. Go. Well, it's not quite the same is on when Scott did it on creative life. And so you kind of get thrown off a bit. Um, so the real world experiences is very, very helpful. Yeah. So what is the biggest lesson you've learned? You shot for a long time? What's the biggest lesson you've learned? I guess from field experience from being out shooting. Maybe it was a mistake. You made a big mistake. You made, um, one knowledge. You know what I used to? Kind of, uh, any new lighting gadget that used to come out? I used to go for it and get it and anything that I would see that was cool. I would immediately Oh, I gotta go by that. Yeah. And I think my mistake waas is ice Justin understand? Or realize the power of the most basic things and what I could do with it. And once I started realizing the mechanics and the physics of light and creating big light, I go, we'll shoot. You know what? It's kind of like you go out there. You're like MacGyver, you know, you got this little, you know, plate white plate is you're using as a reflector. Whatever you're finding your environment, you can use by just mastering the basics. And that's what I didn't realize this I I just needed to master the basics and how powerful that was. And so as I progress of my experience, I brought less stuff with me. Huh? You know, so in the beginning and all this stuff. And then pretty soon as I got more expense. I don't need all that. I don't need all that and then less stuff I brought and still be able to do the quality that I needed to do. Yep, because ultimately it's not the equipment that you have it. It's your eye in your skill, right that comes, it comes through and my whole thing, that my whole mantra now that I've been kind of going on is like, uh, knowledge is nothing without skill. Yeah, we are in a We are in a knowledge savvy world. I mean, you can, I could I could look up on YouTube and I can learn how to make a creme Brule a right now if I wanted Teoh and so knowledge is just write their fingertips. But the skill part still takes a lot of work. Two years and we can't substitute knowledge for skill, and that's what we're trying to do. And so now I, finding the photographers need to get out there and practice, practice, practice, practice with that knowledge. Yeah, there's no there's no short cuts to that, either. It just takes it just takes a whole lot of doing it. Sounds like Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, well, cool. So knowledge is nothing without skill. You said that. So get out there and do it. What's your general advice for new photographers struggling with lighting techniques? Oh, well, I think you generally got to. I mean, if you don't have any meant or anything like that, for sure you should probably get some sort of creative live video because you're going to get three days for, like, a ridiculous price. I think you have some specials up for 30% less or whatever. That's kind of like Watch that watch it inside and out. And I take the time to kind of watch somebody and their entire philosophy not maybe just tryingto bits and pieces, but find somebody that you kind of relate to and watch their entire process and kind of understand that method and then kind of absorb that and then look to practice it, get out there in the real world and actually, ah, set up a weekly schedule where you're going out and shooting be proactive about it. And I think you know, from that from there on, you can really learn a lot. But I think we get, you know, creative life is like eye candy is like, Well, what I was this a What's that? What's this? But, you know, if you kind of continue with somebody throughout their entire philosophy and then manage that first and then add on, then everything makes more sense that way. But you've gotta understand one system kind of first on the build from that. That's fantastic. So are there. Are there still photographers that you're learning from? Um, you know what? I'll even learn from my students. Yeah, yeah, because we'll go out in a situation. And, you know, I'm always learning all the time. It doesn't have to be. Ah, you know, master photographers. It could be anybody, you know. And I think if you're and I think everybody's like that, if you're everybody has a different technique or a different skill. And if you just get out there with other people and you're shooting and you're observant, you're gonna pick up different things on on what lens they use on the composition. They're gonna use. What? Post processing. Everybody has something toe ad, and I think you can learn all the time, but I think the key is just kind of interacting with other photographers and getting out there and and shooting with them and creating your own community. And I think that's a great thing. What's Ah, what's one story of something that's happened on a shoot for you that was interesting or memorable? With a career like yours, you shot all over the world. What's one thing that you just couldn't believe happened? I will. I think something small is one time I was shooting a wedding and I have been shooting maybe for about three years. And I was kind of your basic, you know, on camera Flash guy. Maybe, you know, point the flash off to the wall or on the ceiling or something like this. And so I was doing this wedding and I was shooting this couple behind the wedding cake. Uh, but they could the cake in back of the mirror. Okay, so I was okay. I didn't know I was Hey, whatever. I got my on camera flash on and boom, I'm firing it. And so what happens is the flash is hitting the mirror, and it's looking like there's another flash going on behind. Of course, I have my flash in T t l And so that light was firing back into my lands and my cameras thinking, Oh, my gosh, you've got so much light coming in Let me clamp down your exposure on and limit that light And it made my all my exposures of my bride and groom all dark because my cameras getting fooled right and sell like all my explosions were coming ago What is wrong? Is this flash not working or whatever. And I was at the crunch of the moment. And so you know, all my exposures came back dad on that particular. And then that's I told the more experienced friend about its Azadeh just mature flash the manual of ah, what's manual? And then he told me about manual and that completely opened my eyes. And I've been a manual fanatic ever since of being able to manually control the flash instead of using t all the time. Wow. And so I think that's that's what you know. You always learn from your mistakes. And that was one where I, you know, I just couldn't figure it out. And, uh, I learned a big lesson from that. Fantastic. Well, thanks. Do you have any closing thoughts before we before we wrap up. Um, like I said, you know, knowledge is nothing without skill, so gain as much knowledge. You can't. But you gotta really go out and practice. Practice, practice. I know you kind of have online forums and stuff like that. I mean, if people can get together and create their own chutes and you got to go out every single week if you're if you're just starting out, you have to shoot every single week. I don't care what you have to arrange and your schedule. You have to make a commitment to going out and shooting every single week. Um, and you'll get better. That's fantastic. Scott, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.