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Modern Glamour Lighting

Lesson 1 from: Modern Glamour Lighting

Lou Freeman

Modern Glamour Lighting

Lesson 1 from: Modern Glamour Lighting

Lou Freeman

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Lesson Info

1. Modern Glamour Lighting

Lesson Info

Modern Glamour Lighting

Thank you guys for coming to this and want to be in my class it means a lot to me that you want to learn from me. I have I had a wonderful career. I have to say that I feel like I did it when everything was not possible for women as it wass ahs it is now many times I go to my photo shoots or my interviews and I'd be the only woman there but I never noticed that I just wanted to take beautiful pictures and that love for taking beautiful pictures of every person I mean is why I am here today so in a nutshell, every single photograph I take is it's important as my life is a photographer khun b if I go at it in that way, then no one's ever let down, right? So every single picture you take could be the very best picture you could take. If you go at your work in that way, then you always take great photographs of very person. Every person will leave your space that you've just had them in and they'll be inspired by your work, your work ethic and your work will blossom and you'll make more mo...

ney so in a simple nutshell, if I were to leave you right now, I would feel like a least inspired to you to go out in a more self assumed inspiring way because you are making other people fill their dreams as well as paving a path that they can be everything they want to be that is joyful to me you know so I have been shooting so many different things for all this time fashion advertising glamour and lifestyle photography of shot hundreds of catalogs I've worked for name ends in may season in the middle of my career boom here comes this playboy opportunity and I was out there trying to shoot the most artful thing I could come up with and then suddenly I had to rethink my whole way of lightning I had this weird little like insecure thing going on about should I be doing this my mother said talk to the hand just show me the paycheck and it better be good so I took the lady like approach to every playboy shoot I did and it was the most challenging photoshoot assignment of my life to kind of cone in on the skills of that lining all the time I was doing I knew something better was going to happen from it enjoyed the full thing of it their most joyful thing from what's like kind of honed in that lighting in the skill set that it was required for that job it changed every other avenue in my life is a lighting expert I would say I like more like a cinema person now due to that experience so what I'm going to do today is very quickly talk to you guys about how you can bring some of those lining techniques and sterilizations into your own work and lifestyle kind of environment, releasing natural light with phil, choosing the right phil. Where to put it. And then we're going to get into a little bit more interesting lighting, set ups with speed lights and some cool modifiers. I'm going to literally walk through two shoots, kind of a higher end, high key, soft look and then a little bit more edgy, kind of feel. Um, I have a whole process that I go through for every single person that calls me and tells me they want to go through a photo shoot, and we're going to jump right in and go down that path. Um, so if I have any questions for the start no. All right, so I've created a bunch of dvds over the past year. My life is a fashion advertising glamour photographer I have put into three d vds called the look fabulous tour. I know some of you know who lindsay adler is. She and I just finished a thirty three city tour, and I produced these dvds to talk about what I would do if I were to go out right now, recreate portfolios and go to the ad agencies, go to the department stores, go to the magazines and show that work there's lots of inexpensive, creative things you can make as well as what to do to refine your gear kit. So you have just buy what you need and nothing else and those things you'll use all its all your life. I also have a speed light dvds that came out today that will focus on some of the things that we're going to talk about today in the class I took the creativity route with the speed lights is opposed to the technical round because everybody's talking about how to do that now, but I want you to feel like you can actually pull the speed lights out of your kit now and use him and not be afraid. I said everything manually and some people were used to tl and all these other automatic settings so that they can have events taking care of easily I like to control exactly where the flood, but the flash is going to go what power? I want it and leave it there because my shoot last, you know, about seventy five shots for each shoot that idea. Then the flashes go away. The only thing that might change is if somebody's coming in and out. So for the most part, manual setting works for me. So glamour and boudoir photography, glamour, photography and boudoir you're doing two things. You're making beautiful pictures of someone who needs to validate how beautiful they are, either at this point in their life, they want to say, I love my partner, I want tio give them a gift of how I feel right now, and that feeling has to come out of them. So for one moment, in both photo shoots, you have to put yourself in the driver's seat of the person she's giving the photos, too. I'm saying she got plenty of men but it's, mostly women that we shoot. So when you're taking on that photographic, you know, driver's seat, you want to direct them in a way that you want to get to know them and direct them to b a little bit more off what they are, I say that. Photo shoots are people times too because everything has to be exaggerated a little bit for the impact to read this what it should be I think most people are not used to having the photographs taken they don't know what to wear, what to style as themselves in and for the first time I saw the romance begins when the phone rings and you pick up the phone and they tell you they want to have a glamour obrador shoot, you have every chance then to change it and make it easy for yourself if you start good communication skills and my posing class following this I'm going to talk more about that but let's pretend you've already done all that prep work right now let's say you already talked to new client you've got a really good communication thing going on with them now you've got to deliver the message so for me it's all about directing the person from the styling point directing the hair and makeup, getting the whole team of communication together so that when you walk in on the set it's all fine so if you do your homework that day of the shoot is supposed to be like that then guess what? Your subject only sees you performing in a rock star way you know so never let anybody see you sweat so for me glamour photography has crossed over and outside of what I did with playboy once I had that magic twinkling life and the magic expression I was able to take that stylization and take someone who's an actress or somebody that inspiring model or someone who needs to look like they're truly believing in the product they're selling even if they had no experience in front of camera and leading them to look like they did so if I talked to the model as much as I'm talking to you suddenly they just kind of go with me you want to build trust and confidence that you can deliver what they want to see themselves looking like so in both all three of these shots all of this was shot with speed lights with different modifiers from westcott shot on the right is using the big eighty four inch umbrella that you see over here on the right with a silver lining it could take that lite is a hard source and spread it out to beautiful spread of light that can go from a beauty shot toe a full length with one modifier so very inexpensive products and you khun use it to light a room or light someone I liked the sparkling quality that it gives on the skin and in the eyes paired with the right makeup and it just makes magic the shot here on centre I did a clamshell set up with two of the strip banks shot right through the middle wonder one ratio there shot here on the left outside doing same thing in backlight, son, we're using this little scream umbrella over the head and speed like bounced right back in two face there to get that same impact. So when the clothes in the style of the hair and the makeup saying usually the quality of light has to match that mood, it's like putting the right pair of shoes on with the right dress. If you miss that, then you miss the mark, and I like also using both of those modifiers on darker skin or on lighter scan. I have a tendency now and stay away from gold reflectors altogether, especially on darker scan because of the highlights. So the shot here on the right I'm using my scream, jim, and just bouncing that light right through that scream. Jim phil from behind like a giant saw flocks at my back, and here I have the umbrella just a little bit to the side. So I shoot lots and lots and lots of actresses and celebrities and magazine covers and things like that. So I have to know exactly what I'm going to need to a wise when I get there. Another thing about the small soft boxes from westcott is they way very little. I can put them in a tripod bag and literally get on a plane with him, so if somebody calls me and says, can you come out to l a to do a portrait? I can put my speed lights in my camera bag now and take those things with me, and I can make a very effective shot with carrying very little stuff, and I'm not renting a lot of gear when I get there. My clients are liking that more than ever, so now we're going to step off into a little bit of a playboy influenced boudoir type. Look, lindsey adler gave me that mask is a birthday present, and I kept it and I was like, I'm going to use that in one of my next photo shoot, and I had bought the bra and I asked the model is because this awesome kind of a blue cast broad and may I ask, I want to do a photo shoot with and she went out brought just the right clothes. So remember when I said the romance begins when the phone rings soon as the girl tells me she wants to come shoot, I start giving her as much input and I sound excited about her. I don't care if I've recited this five thousand times the week I'm in. I still have to make her excited it's been her money because I want her spend even more money right so you want to keep people motivated so what I did in this whole photo shoot here is I'm using the orb and the eighty four inch umbrella the half here on my set the orb is controlling this is exposure by just a little tiny bit the first thing I do is walk in and say ambient light where is that how can I use it and then I blend my light in that so that the person looks amazing but you don't see the light so looking for the glow looking for the ambience in the room and we have beautiful ambience here I was actually excited to shoot in front of these windows because of that in the day in the time we're here will make for a great shot so I'm going to lead over into a little bit of my more fashion influence on my dvd siri's I lean into that on this speed light video um from may any photo shoot is going toe have these four most important significant things so somebody calls you on the phone and they want a book you for a department store shoot or they want to shoot have you come to somebody's house and she was celebrity portrait are you shooting I boudoir glamour type shoot the first thing you need is a concept for that person, so I start interviewing the people that I'm going to shoot try to find as much about him as possible. I usually don't answer the phone when people call me for a photo shoot. I call them back when I've got about twenty five minutes and I have kind of a list that I go down, get on while I'm gathering information like a reporter about everything I can about what they look like. What did they what does she and her husband or their boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever's in their life that they're doing these pictures for what you think? What do you do together? What's your favorite thing to dio what your favorite color? What do you like to wear? How long's you hear? Do you wear high heels? Do you work out? Do you play tennis to play golf? You know, women will tell you and ten minutes what their bodies like, and you'll know what their fear factor is before you even can you really tell them what you'd like to shoot them in? So I'm taking note it's on afghan should get to the point where I could do it now, not even phone down and write it down, and I'm looking for the quality of light that might go with that concept. No dough I see natural light phil do I say something dark and moody and sexy? Does she have a challenging figure than I might have to work around then? I'm thinking darker light you know I start visualizing as fast as I can taking notes stylization is a word that I'm going to say the general overall for hair make up or dress hair, makeup and wardrobe or just as important is the photograph to me if one part of that is flawed, your whole photo shoot goes away so to take in search of the magic picture is what we're going to talk about today how to bring the magic it's all that put yourself for a moment in that person's position if they're coming to your studio I would want a day of beauty I want them to leave and not want to wash their face I want them to call and tell me that so I try to put as much into it is I can stylization wide communication means what I'm talking to you about now is more I tell you the more you know I find the more I inspired these people to go shop, the more they bring sometimes I'll ask him if I can interview them at their house if they've got a quiet time when there's no kids or a partner there, I can see locations I can see cool clothes then I don't end up with the train wreck bag was a pair of great shoes and no dress to match or a great dress and no shoes or the one broad not the right panties or that fabulous shirt I loved the blouse you have to be so pretty to shoot, so you know those sometimes they'll just skip over that they're not used to having their picture taken, so communication from you is key for men. I say if you're real uncomfortable about this, write it down, I have a woman help you write it down because they'll tell you about a little things that might be missing, that you forgot dad on your little bring list, but in the beginning more than ever and I still do this just as a business tactic is I go to everyone's house and meet them ten days to a week in advance, so that can have enough time for them to go shopping if they want to go to victoria sacre. If they want to go to order something online, they have time to get it. Then you say in their house and if you need a few more prop pillows or blankets, you could go get it so you've got magic before you ever set off the ground, so what you're looking at here in these images is a creative siri's this is not totally about the topic of today but I wanted you to see these because I just created these and I finished the day before yesterday. Thank you. These air all done with speed lights, the backgrounds came from denny manufacturing I was looking for snow scene and about fake snow and evening dresses were about a nice princess so it's all cracked guys the makeup artist deny and hairdresser work together creatively to come up with the concept the only role wass you could buy nothing new, everything you had, you had to bring it from something you have. I do that a lot because it inspires people to come from within instead of going to buy something and bring it to try on for you. So the ultimate goal here is I had three background backgrounds and I set those up in like a square. This is also one of the lessons on my activity and I eliminated the backgrounds from back with speed lights with just to jail from rogue and the same tonal families picked kind of golden in a turquoise color to play off of each other because of the color of the background. The dresses were each then planned in advance with the hair, the makeup in the styling, each person this was split with the orb and only the orb and these were split light with the two polish trip thanks from westcott so you could have three speed lights and pull of something really spectacular if you want tio how great is that now I can go everywhere with the rolling bag behind me so I never thought I used to drive up with a van and three assistants and pop out negotiate my commercial jobs and it was like a three day labor intensive process and to think that I could do this on and you know just a couple of hours was pretty awesome to me now the retouching and post I did first I clean up everyone skin tidy up the background usually tried get is perfect as I can straight at the camera and then I go back in and put in layers over the edge is some of the layers were made and shot on set I shot through windows and texture things like that if you want to see more of how that is done and physical is on that dvd siri's but super excited about things but most of what I dio in glamour look something like this and I'm going to play a little short video now that's about two and a half minutes to give you an idea I'm going to take you to about three four different sets where I have actually put together full on glamour shoes and it goes something like this do you want no way that really fine? I found this amazing location I try to find a few amazing locations that I can work that have open space and I feel like I could make almost anything happened we bring the light and have enough communication with subject you could do anything you want so what I'm going to do now is basically kind of go through those shots and kind of tell you how it did everything show it to you from up close foreign back tell you what's going through my head on how it was thinking and then from there we can grow into it actually here on set something similar so for me light isn't it session first thing I do is walk into any spice I'm in if there's no light that I'm looking for something cool toe work off off just like when I came here what was the first thing I wanted? I had previous realization because I've watched enough imagery happening over the internet that I knew kind of what the studio would feel like so I knew I wanted to work here on this first set that's first thing to do is go for like where is the light what's available? Can I use it? What color is it? What quality is it so you want to be a lighting kind of addict natural light you have to understand it to totally manipulate it and make it your own artistic statement so that there's never no is an answer. There's no problems, only solutions. And once you get into that mode when you're only creating positive energy for yourself and you subjects, so latino has impact, what do you want to say is your statement about your shoot once you correct the ambient light or no ambient light first step? So for me, I'm doing a lot of different ways, so either go the soft and pretty you're out or the hardened, edgy crap route. My friends tell me I'm a cross between barbarella and a granola girl and it's usually not a lot of gray area in the middle it's either over the top or it's, like totally easy to take a really pretty and soft and, you know, those personalities when they walk in to call you if they're soft and subtle and they don't have the courage to wear that outfit and then there's the girl that does that, you know, that's part of the fun of it because you never it's like opening a president what's going to be inside when you get these personalities and I love people so and trying to make everybody feel great about themselves is probably the biggest reward out of this whole side of photography. So when we're looking at somebody's body person we're going to do after we've kind of concept and our light down we're going to start looking at how to assess that person's body the most favorite possible where can we do that? Bodybuilder spend hours making sure the shadows appear on the timing and in their arms and we look at that we all go wow it's sexy so shadowy like make sixty images it also makes everybody look thinner so I'm going to talk to you a lot about where to put the light you have shadows and we're not to put it so we don't have shadows where we don't want it like pace so pretty faces shadowy bodies if you can think like that so light and shadow helps you definitely develop most of my clients are in their thirties and sometimes they get up close to fifty most of the women they call me I've been in the gym two and half hours every day my kids were in school and I feel great about myself have you all heard that phone call before yes I'm from georgia I said you'll so in a bigger thing you want to think about ok she's telling me all about herself she wants a great body shot she wants to look better than she even does and I don't know about you but almost always when they call me they look great but they're not quite at the omg state so we have to do a little bit of magic to make him look better you either photo shopping at are adding some shadow and photoshopping that are synching and lifting and liquefying sometimes more than you want to admit to them but don't be afraid you got to bring home the baby without the labor so every now and then you're gonna want to shoot you're just going to say I don't want to do any light I look how pretty this natural light iss I don't do that very often but when in that series and that video I did it about twenty five percent of the time in every photo shoot I might tell somebody okay, we're going to do three shots today but the three shots kind of blend into each other I'll start out with one outfit and then I'll break that outfit down if you're nervous about seeing somebody in their underwear put him in something and then appeal off the shoulder than another shoulder and then suddenly they're in their underwear it's kind of like getting down somebody have to find a comfort zone on directing people when you consider ambient line where it is you wanna have the best effects from something that might exist naturally to help you feel in a little bit so I usually always end up putting the light around behind the subject even if it's in direct open shape so she's in the shade and the light is outside but it's pretty much behind her in this case because it's helping me create shadow shadow on her leg shadow on her tummy these both our lives this one is left with absolutely nothing in front her that tiki huts actually kind of putting that warm golden globe back on her as the lights mounting in there so I'm facing outside that tiki hut her back is toward it here. All I did was bring in a gold a silver reflector up above her head and tip it down to just kind of flatten out underneath her eyes. I prefer flat line on the face I know I want all my wrinkles going on my face so whatever I can do with that reflector or a mirror to get that little kick of light even in the shade is key, so if you were going to work in open shade and you want to get good beauty shot, you don't have your reflector. I turned them around as I would toward this window and I would run over there and shoot back just like I'm facing each one of you. You've got a gift they're flat light not to mention looking pretty catch like there's no phil or anything underneath her face now I've decided at a little speed like how many of you guys work by yourself all right, your speed like they're going to save your life because you don't have to have that other person. So how do you make the speed light look? It's different possible? Just like with your studio stripped, you want ads? Many modifiers as possible. One of my favorite modifiers is an extra large flash dinner it's like really big there's. Hard to use that on the camera by yourself so you won't get your trigger on foot speed light off on a stand. Well, once you do that, then you have built an assistant on this particular shot. I took the flash bender extra large that comes with a tiny little strip bank and you make it into a long, slender stripping. You're going to see me using strip banks a lot because I you strip banks to help me build definition in the body on the side lights and it's always low into the side. So this is just one I'm exposing for the ambient light, so you have all that beautiful color in the background and I'm using my my flash it's a fail I put these images together. This is done with one speed light was no modifier. These two are lit with my scrim jim and reflector and eight by eight wall of light that I stand up in this room the sunlight is coming and here you could stand it up here and totally like the whole side of this bed and have a beautiful shape. So I either usually work with the sunlight straight at the subject or at the back if I caught if I catch myself in a position where it's coming in from the side then that silver wall comes right up in a flatten it all out so the difference here is the sun was setting you little golden glow here from the sunset white light phil but it's really up to you if you have somebody to hold the scram more natural light looking feel or a more studio field to mato says more fashion this is more what glamour boudoir so you can make these decisions on your own without too much hassle, usually and beyond light with phil this I set up my giant scream. Jim, I'm going to show you the whole set up above her head like this on two stands on dh then we used another scream june with a silver phil to help eliminate her in the background. I have speed lights, all inside the tiki hut and the triggers on top of my camera I wasn't using any speed light on her face, all the speed lights were doing was helping me like the background so in this one, I'm using speed light on her face here with the silver umbrella we have here here I'm doing a complete natural light with the scrim reflector silver panel on the front so it's really up to thais now this looks a little more editorial this looks more clamor like this is much more like what I've done for playboy so my lens level lin's length really quickly and talk about this more in the posing class linds level for beauty to me is lynn's level straight into the eye strain to the mouth once I start shooting the body, I need to sit down lin's level it hip tummy fashion I'm sitting on the ground almost always it empowers your subject it sends them down makes even short people look tall though if you have somebody that's very stocking muscular the longer the lens, the more we find more smooth, more tall you're going to make them unless chunky. So I'll give you lots of little hints like that today. So out of all the things that I have in my gear kit for even shooting thirty four years and the scrim jim and the scream jim reflect her, I've had probably twenty nine years eight years I still have the first ones I bought that cost a little bit of money to invest in, but you're going to use it over and over and over when we were on the tour everybody was like can I go to target and get a shower curtain and some one by one's and its crew this together and I'm like yes but you're not going to go put it on the beach and still in the wind you're not going to be able to use it for this amount of time it really does pay for itself so that being said it's a great tool to have that particular one there's a seventy two by seventy two but I have the next step up its eight foot because I like to use this grim is a background and replaced my white paper I'm trying to be more efficient I don't like using same less because you throw it away so all light a scrim jim from the back and I have an amazing white silk background there so everything gets recycled up sorry you can buy it as a kid and choose what you want and I suggest for the very first time you buy one you got to stop in a quarter silk not one stop that stopping a quarter to stuff one stop you can see through it a little bit it's not nearly as versatile is to stop in a quarter on the silver there's a silver and a sunlight is a color in the sunlight it's like a gold silver squiggly line kind of pattern it's just attention warmer so yes, those are very versatile I'm showing you these two because this is something I used a lot I have this eighty four inch she threw umbrella but I use it is a scram actually I have three of them I have what I live in florida now have won in florida one atlanta and one in new york so I don't have to carry it with me it's very inexpensive puts out a beautiful light I've used it behind me with the sun setting as completely scrims off somebody for a three quarter shot I've used it about the head to help me balance out light super functional and my reflector there is my sixteen one reflector and I'm always holding it up and down to manipulate the light so it false naturally you have somewhat studio looking highlights and shadows even when you're in daylight so you're really thinking about now manipulating sunlight and shade the same way you do studio lighting so you could make the same look happen with volume of delight you just have to look a little closer so I'm showing you this because this is how I live this um she has beautiful hair makeup here she was against this wall my assistant here's holding the scrim and she's just on the other side in her whole face with lit with my scream jim we used the white side because on darker skin ethnics can I? Silver reflector will produce hot spots so if you catch yourself shooting someone and you're not in control of the makeup and you have no one to help you, you need to flip your reflector around and using all white and the larger the surface the softer so this back of the scram and started think super shiny I flipped it to the white side with has a little bit of an opalescent feel so it gives you one even continuous look so make up for me makes retouching easier make up for me goes from here to here not from here to here because in your turn if your on how to balance this out s o it's easier to just ask the makeup artist would you mind going ahead and taking the make up all the way down to here for me, especially on somebody over thirty years old it's just texturally if you get it all one colors for me it's easier to smooth out the texture and then the color is easier to move from. So I did this whole siri's in that same loft where you saw the girl with the mask on guy used a mixture of natural light with no phil a shiny reflector on a white board on all of these images kind of nicely work together the ones where she's lying down here here, here it is here I shot with a levitate er poll with my five d mark three and my assistant holding it and I arranged the whole thing from my camera jer I said the f stops the shutter speed I esso everything and I could direct the model when she was lying on the bed by looking at the back of the screen so once you could used to the circumference of everything and how audit feels in the beginning is super easy to do but you have to have somebody hold the camera that allow you to tell them easily what to dio but I'm sure you when you saw the video and they raised up you saw the camera there we shot all of the aerial shots in the car with that for years I shot for playboy and all these other advertising campaigns I did I climbed up on the scaffolding set everything up and shot between the slats and floor but thiss levitated polls around two hundred fifty bucks I had the camera out the window last week I was doing all these cool things with it and I secure the strap around it so make sure you kind of double safety s o we have one of those to show you today that's really super fun um but my goal here was a total boudoir thin this is about making her look sexy and interesting and alluring she had no idea what my vision wass without good communication I had to tell her exactly what I was looking for and how to bring it in every single shot so here we're looking at a harder line shiny reflector up high to give me this nice little hard shadow here if you've got great makeup on great foundation you here with a hard like this what it does blows away all of the texture if you've got textured scan you would use to softer light more mature subject you can come in with a white board and stuff silver because it's not gonna have the same effect so a squint er there's a race kind of squint er I always bring speed light in when I have a squint er flash moves fast enough to capture it every time yeah I pulled this image just to show you where I wass in most of you kind of see here I was probably taken that very shot on that level so when you're shooting boudoir shot remember I said you got to get into the persona of the person well she's in the bed you either have to be in the bed or looking at when I shot for playboy we shot people at the bed sitting on the bed lying down on the bed or on it from above very very never do we ever shoot anyone you like along the leg odd angles odd crops lin's level is really important you won't make the person look really incredible so keeping that in the safe horizontal upright lying down here so and I pulled this here just to kind of give you an idea where the reflector actually wass so these are all of the lighting sources that I used when I have almost any job and I'm thinking constantly about what the quality of light iss the quality of light that comes out of each one of those um is key to look that I do for my fashion what's going to work for me more often for playboy strobes mixed with tungsten because I have that warm golden light sexy lights golden right everybody looks better with a little bit of a tan so if you think along those lines you can start to say ok what am I going to use today fluorescent lights have a tendency to have kind of an artful feel about them I'm going to talk to you today about led in speed light use for my artificial lights when I'm holding my reflector this is open shade in a reflector and the reflector is literally under anything it's really shiny and open shade if I'm outside in the sun it's up here sorry well too fast here the ice lights or something that I started using but just because they're so easy and you can see it it's quick pull now the bag five shots were done next picture I cannot hold him by myself and take the picture they do have tripod stands in the bottom of them so you can build a little beauty box if you want I'm going to show you something a few minutes with that or you could just have someone hold him for you I went into this house it was a giant plate glass window here and then I just pulled in the ice lights and had my assistant hold him like this in a shoot right through them I director to close down the clamshell opening up she can also do this way with them, but it becomes more fashion oriented I think we're used to seeing that clamshell thing coming in just like this is a beautiful catch lightning ii so these air just options for may paramount lying means the lights usually right above the head, so if you don't know where to go in the beginning and you don't have one light, you've got a multitude of options if you just get the modifiers to change that one light and then it becomes more interesting when you get it off the stand right? So beauty, if I'm going to make somebody look pretty, I'm always trying to flatten and smooth him out on the face light for the face first like the body second, then I shoot that way too, because if I shoot the head shot first, I'm breaking the ice it's much easier for me to talk about, just moving your head, facing that, smiling and not and then back into the three quarter and then back into the body. And by the time you get into moving all those body parts around and directing that, you're totally comfortable. So if you're nervous, you know she's, just this nervous, you are half the town, have you're elected your subject and they're holding their breath nine times out of ten I'm holding my breath, I still do it after all these years. I still hope my breath. I don't know why so there's lots of different of lots of modifiers available out there for your speed, lights you want it? Eventually change over and get a battery pack. I have all my speed, like set upon quantum packs, you can get the pack so that you can take anywhere from two hundred shots up to a thousand. Some of them have multiple plug ins that you could put a couple strobes in there, but soon as you plug in multiple strokes to power usage goes down quickly, so if you have a lot of shots, you want to have a couple battery packs, you can rotate those in and out. And the last important thing they need to share with you is make sure you don't shoot too fast with these battery packs because you will overheat this bid lights so that way it will tell you is a little window will go from green tolo to read and I have worn out one speed like over using it, so you know, these lights are not intended to be in your studio replacing your pro photo lighting or something like that if you're shooting a couple boudoir shoots a week and you want to pull him out using for a few shots run through two or three hundred pictures you just want to get don't want to be going, but albert albert alberta through your photo shoot and they'll last a long time so front and center with your reflector underneath the chin out out in the ambient light the first thing I do say what quality of lights in the background the quality of light that's available to me here was the hard son at her back. It was probably like this is in san diego was probably three four in the afternoon since setting it like eight thirty so it's pretty high still probably would have never been able to turn it around, so my only option uh was to use the senate my back not to mention I wanted all that color back there so I let the sun eliminate the background, and then I brought the light in the foreground. I was working alone. There was one speed light right on my camera right above her at a little fill underneath. And as I turned her direction, we just moved to fill like this. And in some of the shots, I had another speed. Like where I put a little more blew into the water. Same thing here on the beach. These were with the rogue extra large flash vendor. My assistant was walking around with the battery pack on his pocket and was holding it so we could move quickly because you can't put a tripod down. So he was just talking with the flash that would direct him, um, completely exposing for the indian light first filling in with the flash, making all the decisions there had to be flipping the dress. We worked all the way till the sense that this particular day same kind of concept. Here remember the shots of judging the beginning with a girl standing in that one corner. I will usually try two or three things. I'll shoot twenty five pictures, somebody with complete natural light, then I'll start heading one flash then too. Thin three and then if I decided when to back off and shoot the whole set, I'll go like that when I'm on this type of location, I don't anybody waiting on me or tinkering ninety one to tinker around with the lights on the set. So I tried my level best get everything set ups and when she walks out, I could do one test shot and we're ready to go. So speed light on the front, the extra large flash bender here turned into a strip bank. It's kind of set to side down. The light is not up here. It's not right here, it's down here it's on ly one light so I wanted to really can help me with her tummy. So what happens with her head is my direction is tip you head down, turn into the light so face could be look flatly so party of your direction is not just telling making a killer pose it's to help you make a better photograph with the light that you have available. So on the background there's another strobe saying directly behind her with no modifier on it putting like I have it zoomed out to two hundred millimeters so the spread of the light is like this. Zoom was intended for somebody using a long lens to throw the light straight out, and much of the light could be used directly at the back of that subject or in their face. If you're going to do a long shot with zoom, I'm using it to help me build a blast of light in the background. You wouldn't in a million years know that I was still in georgia when I took the picture because I moved all these silk trees and turmoil in the background in the woods were back there, but I'm I'm adding and amending the son basically something here basically it's the same setup, but with multiple flashes behind a black pen port. This is an image I shot during my tour the front of her is actually lit with all on ly one speed like with your strip bank painted the park, the pegboard black and blasted like from the bat, the strip night keeps the conference in the spread of the light from spreading all over the background. So guess what happens? I'm allowed to have a silhouette now, and so that makes it easier for you to tinker around with your photoshopped. Very quick and easy split light is something I talked about why using one modifier here just now you've seen it on one side will too if you think about lighting a piece of corduroy and asking yourself, how do I get the lines to show sidelight will do it casting shadows, but you don't want that light to do what come by the face if it all possible. So in this case, I want to show you how it could be your friend if somebody comes to you and they've got a challenging subject, our body, our figure, they're in good shape but not great. One of the things that you can do to help increase the way they look by adding shadow is to do the split like it's, your easiest thing if you've got somebody that's really kirby, you can put all the line on one side and use of phil um, on the other side, this one has done that way, and then as I'm going here, you can see I added a light on front only thing you have to do is work with the same king that right back into that light so warm, sexy light being golden, you can choose how golden you want that, and I base that on the subject's atonality of their scan use ceos, half ceos and a tweet color for african american skin you don't want to turn the dark skin are and you want to keep it warm and interesting. So stay maurine the neutral wheat with kind of a green cast to it, my modifiers that I'm using on the speed lights or the orb. This is actually my kids here to apollo strips when two with the grants that go on the strips, the grids if you put them in front of the soft box, just completely focused is the spread of the light that comes out so a grid on a throw bh narrow psa scope of the hard light, a grid on the self box does the same thing on itself like okay, so when I refer back and forth to these different things, you don't know what I'm talking about there and the prayer bolic umbrella here in black, we have an expo imaging thiss with this whole company totally surprised me. I started using one of the grids ah photographer that shoots glamour gave me one said, you've got to play with this thing and the next thing I know, I had seven or eight of the grids, then I had a couple of the soft boxes, and then I started doing beauty shoots with, um, and they can clam shells out of them, and they're just super versatile. Go in the top of my camera bag and tape take up absolutely no space so to me that's key I'm so tired of carrying things so in the gel kit you know the joke it comes apart every time I do a photo shoot and I use all of those colors I just mentioned for color warmth and I add dynamic color to the background to when I'm shooting quite a bit so in this particular ship this is more of like what we have in this rain we have beautiful daylight that was streaming through all indirectly from different angles or windows all around I wanted to take that on is part of my exposure so the first thing I do is taken ambient reading get an idea of what the light looks like coming in from the window I'm not interested in hdr for what I'm doing I'm interested in ambience so I'm more likely going to try to balance the light with my phil light from my speed lights and then left that light go outside I don't want too much attention to go out that window I want all of the attentions down my subject so in my beauty shot you could tell my camera angles high right into her eyes now over here have dropped down to a seating position I'm sitting right in front of the cameras probably belly button level um my lenses I use is an eighty five I used to seventy two three hundred I like the twenty four to one o five but you have to stay between fifteen one o five because you can distort someone's body and to be very careful about your linds links second so this is an aerial shot of what that set was like I had to speed lights here the model was going to be here a tested the whole set up and advance before she walked out with my assistant I usually put a grid on a beauty dish in my studio light and I'm loom in ating head face and shoulders for playboy's type shots we put illumination and glowing points all causes the body to make that part of the body come forward the exposure was controlled in thirds of a stop in current increases so the face would come forward the chest the hips all the way down the body to the shoes when I'm shooting in the spit light environment I haven't had to find a big enough grid and beauty dish that can use with speed like so what I've done is I've crafted a way to give me a soft indirect light by half closing it out on umbrella and leaving it in the almost open state so I can direct a little kick of light right in this area of the body and it helps the face just really kind of come forward so strip banks for the body half closed umbrella for the face and here's my background cribs I exposure they're set this is about a stop up from what the controlling especial will be the face will come up about a third so your face is glowing the body looks killer and you don't even really notice it because you've matched it to the ambient light here is the same set from far away I I have a tendency as I've gotten older toe try to find a space I can make the most out of I want to go somewhere and they will not cut four five different things in that one room if I'm gonna haul all this crap out set my computer up I want to just completely do everything they're so this place had all this amazing light windows. There was a bed there about my scram I moved it around I used to scream light as a giant soft box, so once I pull all the toys out it's just like driving and parking cars where I wanted to work, I can it's easier for me than to bring more pillows and change out the set than it is to change location. So not to mention the time you lose breaking down, setting up, going downstairs, putting everything in your car driving so my tool kiss the only thing that you're seeing here that I haven't mentioned is down here on the floor I've got this little inter fit beauty dish for twenty bucks that you can put a little soft cloth over and I use it isn't up like when I'm working about myself, so the model you're going to see was sitting here here's the face light here's the kick line here's my umbrella light in the background and there's one more little strip like like they're pointing like toward the background and my goal is that that could work that whole set in the round so whatever type of light I want it's already set so we have a little cross like going here for some texture the orb is lighting her face and I was able to pretty much turn her any which way I wanted and a little space and get a lot of great things out of it so they have the same you know concept we've pretty light a beautiful hair makeup stylization so you really kind of golden and you only have to worry about two things communicating and taking a great picture on dh that's what I want to be doing um yes so during your video I saw I think I saw speed like with friends yes, yes all right, I have to go and get that bring that out for you in just a moment it's called a light blaster and basically what it isthe is it's a device that fits on top of my speed light and I put my zoom lens on the front of it and it has the capability of allowing slides to be dropped in either ones I create are ones that they send you in a package and basically it's a tri lite or allows cookies you know what a cookie is and you can and if you work in a studio environment and you want to shoot unless they were shooting living room furniture here and we had fake windows and you want to see something that looked like light going through trees it's a projection device basically what's happening there so the speed like sits on the back I put the lens on the light stand and then that projects that image on and we had butterflies projecting on the wall my next project and put those all over the body and shoot nudes so it's called a light blaster cost about two hundred bucks one guess what? So the last slides that you showed showed us set up for multiple images that you were going to do yes, you talk about that you are no just the ones that you just went through so here and then that one company speed lights do you say you would need for each image you're looking to three year more I would say if you if you have one you can do something interesting, but usually your subject's going it's going to be a one dimensional image. The only way you can work to make more like happened is working with your ambient light. Two is going to give you the chance to do, you know, some clam shell lighting, you have the chance to do a sidelight, do something from the back, but to me, if you're going by any strobes, three's the minimum six is awesome. So there's three, four, five, six almost everything I used I'm one of those people that if I've got six al you six every time, but that doesn't mean that I pull it out every day when I'm not myself. If I'm in a hurry, there's one or two usually so, and you can buy them in segments. So just to give you an idea of how I think I buy new while I'm selling the old ani they so we just put my five eighties up for sale, so I want to keep moving in this forward direction, not to mention it keeps the value of what you already have invested in your money and up as high as it can. Soon as you hear something's coming out it's good idea to go ahead and start thinking about selling. Something the long you sit on it, unless it's worth some people want to keep everything is back up. But it's really better for you to save a little few pennies and just keep moving forward moving up for working. You know the question when you meet her, the ambient light and then you say you want to blend them together. What are some of the techniques used? Use air using shells? Shells might be what I add when when you know how this a sense comes up in the morning, till it sets, it goes from very cool to warm that it goes to white and then it's not really pretty again again till the end of the day. So if I'm working in those the morning or evening, I might gelson the light more that I'm trying to match all of that up, like today, we have this beautiful white light up there. Well, the stroke and the speed lights have pretty white like that fifty, two hundred degrees. So it's already clean and white, but so we don't have to worry about the gels now, but what I will usually do when I'm back, like like this, if I'm using the camera meter and my camera, I'll zoom right in and take a meter. Reading on her face like she's gonna have like to the back of her, I will take one look at that exposure, and then I'll start making judgments about what kind of feeling where I want it. So this is going to be a lighter, real pastel. I kind of feel we want that light to be pouring in from the background so way thought it had there's already frosting on the windows, but we thought ahead, hang those shares in front. So yesterday, justice, I would think in every photo shoot come into the room and say, where is the light? And how can I use it? Question one question number two is, where can I get two great angles where I'm not shooting with the wrong lands to close? So we've got this rail to contend with, so we're going to work from put two spots here, the box for me to stand on to shoot through here. I feel that I can shoot her standing, standing, maybe even in the chair and shooting up at her. If you think about it, I'm already at a great camera angle to make her look even longer and stronger. There's another option underneath this umbrella, shooting directly in to the sofa for horizontal, I would not try to shoot her whole body would crop into head, so meanderings without a meter zooming in shooting is close to candidate face then amending your light to fill so I usually sleep most of my head shots at about five six there's enough stop the reason why I do this I know that I'm going to be sharp focusing on the couch like that guy and the focus will carry me to about here if I ever used the eighty five wide open it's for a shot or two because why it's really hard to hold that focus all she has to do is this and she's blurry so don't don't risk everything trying to be the coolest photographer in the world you need to take the best photographs in the world here to be smarter than that so I kind of use my camera in the life as an extension of the way I see and feel I don't said everything on automatic and program it just roll with it and what I'm going to a cocktail party and I'm like low I mean I'm just like you guys a lot of minute call the way I want to enjoy myself while I'm there but in these environments I try my very best to control the light that's possible thank you okay um are we good all right so what should I give this to you were just cannot all right awesome okay all right there is a loop on my camera bag so I'm going to start here just because it's convenient for me I had to be like that but in my wife has done a lot of things because it's convenient for me on I've given her is much of a I'd say imaginative visualization as I can to give her an idea of what we're going to be doing I picked out clothes that would go into the set and I had her try things on for me after all these years of shooting I still try everything on because that gives me the first way to see what her best features are and if there's something in some cases you might need to be camouflaging you have a second to go and get a few things to make the shot better in this case we set this up last night if I were doing this in my own studio would have done the same thing I would try my very best to test the light so that when she comes I can go play with him in the makeup room, play with her with the close a little bit more and then come right on the set and then take the shots the way that I wanted I almost always use my native by a soda start for some reason I always have a tendency to shoot at about three twenty but I'm going to start it one sixteen see what I get you guys will be able to see I believe right as I'm shooting it's in the camera bag and it's little zipper thing about like this, says goodman on the top so I had this little loop that I bought to use when I was at weddings because I cannot see the back of my camera and I don't trust myself and I've started using it all the time and I'm not suggesting that you guys get one but there's nothing like blocking out everything that's around you so you can see visually on the back of your camera what you're looking at always remember that when you're looking at your camera, you're looking at a j peg and not necessarily the raw file you want to look at your history, graham, and make sure in a white, high key thing like this that you're not totally over exposed it's going to tell you that there's a little over exposure in the background, but we know that's going to happen because we kind of were looking for that mood and the shot, so don't be afraid, but check your history, graham look at the back of the camera and if you're really worried about it closed down a little bit it's easier to bring it up after, right? So and this particular set up here's my little loop, you've probably seen these guys a lot with a video people I have a reading issues so I said it at my own setting and look at it check what I'm doing and it will let me know if the lighting's right and let me see the makeup really close up on I zoom and check everything and then once if anything changed, I asked for it right then boom start shooting were out so once I shoot fifteen, twenty shots standing I'll zoom in and shoot three quarter full length then I'll change an angle then I'll change the pose and what I think I'll do with this is just carry on with the shot and let you see it and then we'll talk about what I see when I'm looking at the screen with you and then I'll just shoot right through it for a little bit all right? So all right I'm gonna have you stand um and why don't you perhaps want to pull your top down a little bit, scoot back in there a little bit and maybe crawl up in there on your knees let's turn your hips and everything this way a little bit stretch out one leg down on the floor like that? Great. All right, you want to keep this part of your body up until because couldn't push your hair out just a little bit I'm gonna just connect this from it thank you that's not till the next one all right great brought drop your chin down for me just a little bit. Hang on one moment beautiful. Awesome right let's close down just a little bit and drop your chin down and bring toward may bring your left hand off the back of the sofa and I get along your leg that's great beautiful fingers together and your front hand drop your chin down a little bit beautiful can use good down is back that way a little bit maybe put both knees on the sofa for me great now kind of being sit back a little bit but not totally hold yourself up just a touch and bring your hands to your waist pull up nice and tall brush your hair away from your face for me and pull it the very front of your outfit beautiful, good, beautiful, awesome! So I'm going I made a decision here to go upto is so three twenty from one sixty so I could have mohr ambient light in the background I'm not going to change the flash and the flash setting stay the same unless she moves further away from me or I moved a light everything set manually preset um we're about a half a stop hotter on this light so it can carry the front of her this light is just wrapping around and helping out the rest of that glow I want to see a little bit of the light, but not have it over. Take the picture. So it's not one to one it's a half a stop down that way. You sense it. Feel it. And if you look where the position is, it is a considerable amount closer to her. So even though it's down a little bit, you want to see her body round out. But you don't want to see the light that's, how you would visually, um, take a peek there. All right? Are we all good? Beautiful. So when I'm shooting, so our exposure is a little bit all over the only moment. Beautiful. Keep your fingertips together. I got it. You just have to slow down. Just a touch. Beautiful. Once again, I put one foot down on the ground. So can you bring that seventy two, three hundred that's in that little hard case toward me? This is a little bit light upon your screen there, but I haven't tennessee like things high key. So I'm going to say that we're a little too hot on her leg. There s so let's. You know, the fact that went off just a little bit, I think I could have more versatility with that lands. So when I use a long lens I was make sure the stabilizer is on an out of focus is on before I start shooting so when you come up I want to bring your body up over your leg a little bit so you're nice and tall curve your knee and a little bit because it's coming out toward me of that that's great awesome that's really beautiful great tip your head back and kind of just look up to the ceiling like when you have a little bit more here beautiful that's absolutely gorgeous awesome will probably move it back just a tiny bit more beautiful awesome you can take your left hand here pull up the front of your outfit a little bit beautiful so I'm constantly moving my focus point around as I shoot and re assessing everything I'm doing each time let's take a shot you default go ahead and pull your fit down a little bit so come to this end of the sofa a little bit beautiful and bring come up tall tall tall can you position yourself that's why I say around there a little bit turn you tell me this way for me that's beautiful trying out let your leg mash against the bank beautiful keep your elbows thought pull up the top a little bit so I've had her move a little bit closer to me so I'm probably going to have to close down about half a stop yes, if I could shoot through here a beautiful self pretty hands take your left hand and just kind of pull across like that skin showing up a little bit beautiful awesome drop your chin down into your shoulder beautiful let your eyes look across the room that way again in one moment beautiful binger right arm just a little bits of yourself in the line gorgeous zoom in there once again football your fingers together rotate your pinky toward me a little bit roll your hand around like this beautiful, awesome hold it and then zooming in yet again well beautiful so you hand this off to you so I'm shooting up kind of high here the only variation I would have probably taken if I we could pull in a little phil from underneath here to bounce it more into like the beauty shots I showed you earlier I see my any questions about anything I just did there it was pretty simple and clean but that's hi key. I looked at her hair and makeup first and said let's do something wider and cleaner I find younger girls have a tendency to like themselves less made up and the more mature you get, the more structure and the bet more makeup you want to apply it just kind of polish is everything off so I heard you say removing focus around what kind of meeting using these in center wait spot monitoring are you meet a ring for specific spot and then china always zoom right into her face and take the first reading than I pulled back and then I asked myself the syriza question is there too much flare from the background? Is there do I need to have more shadow or can she handle being linton oh hi key white environment and then I will make decisions about the light tweak it and then I just start rolling through the shoot through simple that way but I focus on the catch line of the eye every single time to take a picture I don't just randomly have the focus point here I'm my use my come on that tuggle on the back with its constant motion for me the one thing I love about the five d mark three's there sixty one points of focus I still don't understand what does it go all the way today? Does anybody else have that happened with you it's like I don't know what it is I always want to be in that one little corner where there isn't a spot is the media ring moving around as well? Are you meeting for metering for a specific point like on the face like a lawyer for the face and then I pulled back and take a shot and then I checked my lighting, and then I just my lining from there, even you have a question for we're going, all right, let's, do another version of this. I'll just move along here. I'll show you really quickly just think, it's khun see what I would do in the version of this, um, so I know that we love actually beautiful where you're sitting there for a full length, so things like that happen magically for me. If you can walk all the way around, you never want to hold the modeling when pose and shoot fifty shots of them in one post, you always want to think about how to make the muscles kind of tightened or engaged, like, you know when to me, a muscles more prettier when it's lifting. Then it was just hanging there so as I had her in her post she's a dancer. So she already moves really gracefully like that naturally and she's used to being in front of the people performing, but most of the people we shoot aren't like that they don't know that when they sit all the way down that they're like spread or that their tummy might roll a little bit so you have to find a way to ask for what you want when you get to the posing segments of it so that you see beautiful things and don't go ahead and shoot something that's wrong so the more you communicate you go the better every single photograph will get so if I could tell you that the goal was be if I'm going to shoot twenty shots in twenty of them have to be printable you would start talking more so the your photography will change significantly when you start speaking engaging with your subject like I was just doing way have a light shift it looks like here I think what I'm going to do here too is moved this main light over just a little bit off camera also have a rule if you put your camera on the ground it never falls from to the ground so try to run this right over the top beautiful right so let me take a peek so clear leg close to you not uncross kind of elevate yourself up great on guns that can shoot underneath here and can you lean a bit toward me like that beautiful take a nice little reading here on your face let's close it down one month's time beautiful and now once again let's take a peek so a closed down just from those two shots a half stop so we still have the beautiful wrap come in from the outside but she's nice and beautifully lit so now that I can do that I'm going to zoom out to seventy and see if I can't get her whole body beautiful can you take your left hand right hand go all the way down your ankles during a head up this way you know false squint your eyes toward me a bit beautiful waiting on my little flash and no one beautiful right bring this hand to hear that's great beautiful awesome one more great hurry relax so the light that works kind of in three sixty here so for me that's a good thing then it from pops up you can see how pretty it is there and we have let's try one where you're lying across the sofa maybe bring your head to here and let's head roll off two here in the other room and that suitcase just the gray metal suitcase there's a reflector so roll on over toward me this way toward me taken under around the bottom and then your support your upper body so I have a couple rules like when people were from the camera posing for me the collarbones should never do this s o you want the rule is to get people posed with her chest lifted like really lifted but then this happens because then they owned the pose so if you you know can get them in a pose you want all everything's being intended to hand your beautiful face is gorgeous let him sink into it a little bit and if you do that four or five times and all of a sudden everything's gone the stress and then you just moving along at a great pace so that's even very pretty late right underneath our flat this will happen here is this will fill in underneath your face great beautiful so now I'm moving my focus point all the way over there where she is stunning bring your shoe and just a little closer to your bomb beautiful it's just a little bit hot let's go again beautiful jindal low awesome beautiful pull your elbow up toward me so it's about this arm sets a goal space beautiful awesome let's take a peek and he's come back up to the face here beautiful you have beautiful eyes one more beautiful awesome so it's high key but my history ram still says it's not banking up the white so I'm good to go on that all right also all right so now I'm gonna give you another outfit to wear it's hanging over here on the rack all right thank you so I love hockey so I do a lot of what and that that same direction she had on her outfit was craving it was t shirt fabric it wasn't of course that it wasn't stockings it wasn't the whole deal so you know, when I have somebody in her age range I might stick more in that might be using a wife beater and you know, little boy shorts you see that's to me just too sexy on dh she could be smiling, you know, a lot of people forget to ask for smiles, it's all in this graphic, edgy sort of over sexy thing I think women are just as pretty smiling and happy as they are the other way, so you know, now we're going to change and go out for a little different direction with photography lining, but I wanted you just kind of see how I feel I went about that shot in the same way I do about these it seems kind of simple, but what you want to do is make the edgy, most graphic things remember she wide horizontal three quarter full length when I shot for playboy was started with the hole I shot twenty rolls of thirty six exposure every time I did shoot it's like for me is that thirty six times twenty that that was a lot of pictures wear everyone thinks that everybody was nude and all the pictures but they weren't it was usually the last roll or two on the rule wass standing the recorder sitting lying down the hardest thing in my life was to get on point with that lining, but once I saw the light, so to speak it became easier for me to see other kinds of life, so you really want to learn how to use different modifiers and appreciate all the different qualities that you could get from grids and things like that. So this is my studio version of how I let things for playboy in a modern day sense, I might use fifteen lights and in previous experiences maybe even twenty, but once you start to see how the light is affecting each part of the photograph and how you want elevate the look of her, you could start to see why we do that. But a lot of lights I used during my run at playboy aren't made anymore, so that white western you ask about is going to start doing some of that replacement for may. But you've gotta have it influences to put on it to make that thing work in this way, but I used focus a ble spots a lot, folks in the spotlight in the face and hips down to fate and I have my assistants rolling with that now I use grids because grids just take the spread of the light and control where it goes coming if you put a grid on a beauty this you have a redirected soft hard line if you use it on two straight out of the two stroh is hard like funnel then directions we have a lot more exposure you can unlike that you can use so I like the sides in a very curvy girl. I might have one sidelight if the girls fit like she is I might have to so you have texture coming you could make someone have even more of a six pack eliminate the face and sometimes I'll have enough white bread and the bottom of the face for playboy would like each side of her chest and her hip area bar all the way down to the shoes of the shoes were a significant part of the story I used allow all on the lights and dp lights to help me create ambience or set you can also use stroke, so if you have them barn doors make great way to redirect angle the light off and then I even used the grid spots in the background usually twenty degree grid to redirect heart light to the back of the subject just like we did outside. We're going do that in the shade minimum five to six lights you'd ask me about how many lights six is a key number for me I'm usually using five or six in the complicated set so light your face first then the body then sat in the back of model it's always a good idea to have the girl working on something just for a moment imagine yourself in your underwear and so they were taking your picture would you want to be standing in the middle of a room with nothing to lane on our work on in your underwear? Ok, sleep comfortable, you got to make him feel comfortable so then the world is yours. So as you cast your eye down the body, you want to play up the things you want to see if you have somebody that's very curvy, you don't have to stand him out there and all of their underwear a nude they could be wearing a robe or something over that I would rather see only fabulous it's kind of like looking at your portfolio if you show me one hundred pictures and they're all over the place and all water down, I'm not going to remember anything significant about you, but if you showed me five to tim killer pictures, I would think you were killer photographer. So keep in mind you only know what I tell you key up just a great part parts of your body and don't show the rest most of the portfolios I review or over lit too much white life there is that husband shirt that's fast houses to big all wrong just we think what you're doing you know make it beautiful great modern so in these particular images you're looking at she's going to actually be wearing this outfit today and this was all done with pro photo lite beating us with a grin on her face there was a second grid how right in this area there was a strip like coming down the side you can kind of see it here our legs rims from the back I moved away from the warm line because I didn't want it do that with this hair and makeup choice I chose colors that would work well on her as the makeup artist to match it bring it to me so make ups all the way down I'm showing you a faraway version just so you can kind of get an idea of what I asked for the longer line um what do you call this? What really know what you call this outfit got about a longer line is better on women have curves because it straightens out their hips. So I'm going to talk to you a lot about better close choices for curbing figures and when we start talking about the poet posing class but you want to look at everybody's body and see how you can to distract from the flaws and bring that eye to things that are great and even curvy girls are the most beautiful from here to here. So play up to here and make up cleavage that's what you want to focus on their here? I went to this house and said where's the light look at that fabric look at her outfit we just happen to bring all those things together and then focused on their shot from that angle so everything was planned in advance brighter color lip to go into brighter color outfit this was all but of the this was the studio version this was lit with speed lights same lighting setup here is what that look like. I have a flash bender here with small just helping me illuminate the background. I got two splits here one high one line one to take down the side of the leg one to get this side of her body back of her head hit the base is in the back of her hips one more sitting right there by the camera just putting a little halo of light in our face so then your shutter speed that's what controls the ambience in the room if you want less ambience and when a dark and moody right your shutter speed so the live a dater poll is something I'm going to just kind of roll into really quickly here the levitate er poll is in the old days I would shot this home on top of the scaffolding hall, my computer up there make a split boards to sand bags lying up there I would use my camera and you're down on the ground so my assistants could look at the the computer makeup people could look into computers up her hand. I know we direct everything you see from there. This is the same lighting setup with her lying on the floor coming from around the sides. Oh, if there's no daylight here, but if they're wass, you can always use daylight to help you fill out the whole photo shoot and I have opposing guy to go with some of the poses for later. So do you remember when we were talking about shooting from above? This is the coolest thing I've come across all of those boudoir shots I showed you the girl rolling around on the bed and the shots in the car. I had my five d mark three here and this thing works like this on what I have is camera command come out like this right above your head or in this case, right about the bed and it's operational from my camera and you're here when it's all hooked up, take pictures and I can literally say, put your right hand on your head, just like you would from looking through your camera on the back of your camera and I have the aerial option and that has to leave the ground yes ma'am I had heard of that before so does it you focus with it and everything yes it's you just move your finger across the grain of where you want it to focus and then you take the picture when they had clicked goes click goes if you want to make ambient light mohr less you trusted all right from the back up there um from your ipad this is really like made things tio awesome for may help me trade off with you here the polls about to fifty this is around two hundred fifty dollars I'm not really sure about one about this about this about a year and this is a mock wifi this plugs into the side where you would tell her your camera you put this on to the pole election on camera strap that stays in the year and so all I have to deal with is the ipad itself and you could shut you consent it tio video for you as well you can also have it hold images there or not I choose to have a hold in my camera so so we don't have time to actually shoot this but you wanna at least let me walk you through what I was going to do what the setup so what I would have done initially is I had planned the first shot of her here with me shooting from that vantage point so what I was doing here with my life you're going to want to invest in some short stands if you don't have them itself to someone and I bring these in to work is my sidelight I've got them powered up to the little battery packs there's enough power coming out of them to just barely see the highlights and shatter coming across her tummy you don't want it too high because you will have the same experience on the face which is not what you want here we have one speed light with a grid this is brand new I'm not going to shoot and just going to actually distanced right this comes with a black grid and the grids air stocked up they just introduced this white one and it's going to have a little bit different look to it but it's still spreading out the light softly across the face so I usually keep one of these right over my camera so from there to here I can eliminate here with the widest degree grid which is forty five and these will fill in the side and you're thinking well why does that? They're more like down on the bottom the reason why you don't is the shadow that falls on the legs is what's going to make the legs look muscular even more than they are so she's posing and flexing you have more tonality your background lights. Here, you can have one size toward her. What I usually try to do is have been put a little color on the bed. If I decided I wanted light on the background, like, simply turn it around toward the background and it's, all adjustable from the trigger from the t three candid trader. And these all have color gels, their pre cut. It comes with the package, so this is just completely allowed me to do the coolest things on a very small scale thing. So

Ratings and Reviews

user-de439b
 

I provide this review in contrast to the negative review that implied that the content was unsatisfactory. Ms Freeman explains the concepts and lighting methods as promised. If the reviewer could not grasp the information in the video, I doubt if it can be obtained by reading a book. It is clearly explained how lights are placed and why. You are purchasing a part of a class so there is something to be desired regarding the content that is plucked out of a day's teaching. I am pleased with my purchase as I bought it on sale. It is not worth the sticker price.

Student Work

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