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How to Work With Reflections

Lesson 8 from: Natural Light Basics

Scott Robert Lim

How to Work With Reflections

Lesson 8 from: Natural Light Basics

Scott Robert Lim

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Lesson Info

8. How to Work With Reflections

Lesson Info

How to Work With Reflections

This kind of stretches your creativity, finding reflections and what you got to do to create a great reflection is put your subject in some good light, some strong light because you've got to see that subject and if your subject is not lit up you're not going to see the reflection. So make sure your subject's in good light. Look for a reflective surface, it could be anything, you could even make it yourself by pouring water on something. The darker whatever you pour the water on or whatever you use the darker the reflective surface, the better the reflection's going to come out. So use something dark okay if possible. Look for things that are really dark and that's going to give you a great reflective surface. So you can see here I'm exposing for the sky but I've got a nice reflection in the little pool that's right in front of them. Here this is a different reflection, okay how did I do this, you know makeup artists all the time when they're doing the bride they always find the best l...

ight, so thereby using this window here, and the subject's here and the makeup is being put on here. A lot of time some people will stand right in front here, but what I did was went outside and I shot this so what I did was where she was I tilted my camera so there's no reflection and then to the right I created a reflection so I could show what she's seeing. So using reflections you can see show what the subject is seeing, which is interesting. So that's a different way of using reflections. Shoot thru reflections to reveal what the subject sees. And so I'll do this a lot where I'll be shooting through a window but I'm also exposing it or I'm picking the angle that the reflection... So there's some trees that she's looking out at and so that's what you're seeing there, you're seeing a pattern of trees and in order for me to get that reflection just right on her face, I had to move down or up to get it right where I want it, so you're going to have to move. Nature's just not going to give it to you, you got to work a little bit and so I had to get down really low to make sure that reflection was just at the right spot. And so here I'm shooting through a car window, they're in a convertible and I told the girl to put her legs in the background and I just love how it's not so obvious. So when you can do shots you can shoot through things to give a little spice on your shot and to create something different. There I'm shooting through a prism so what I did here is I'm shooting through a kaleidoscope lens. You might be asking how I get this, well if you go on Amazon and if you look up those steam pump glasses that have kaleidoscope goggles on them, you could just unscrew it and take the lens out now you go two of them at the same time, got an extra one if you lose one, I already lost one already (laughs). And you can use this to cover part of your lens if you want to create some interesting effects on that. And so this is a good way just to change things up. Alright now also to create reflections you could use these mini lights that you can buy and we're getting close to Christmas time they're all over the place. But what I do is I take these and especially on the first dance or when they're on the reception, I put this in front of my lens and it gives me some nice reflective interesting kind of foregrounds that you can use.

Ratings and Reviews

Margaret Lovell
 

Scott is a passionate and engaging instructor. He's hilarious. I like a side of humor when I'm in a class. I have a preference for shooting in natural light, so I'm glad that I took this course. I learned more effective tips than what I had been doing. I know I'll be re-watching this course in the near future.

Phillip Tour
 

Great course!!! I learn a lot about natural light, im very good with natural light but I can't wait to get out of my studio and start shot again with natural light! Thank You Scott!!!

a Creativelive Student
 

Excellent Lesson from Scott. Easy to understand. One of the best CL Lessons I have ever watched. Good job

Student Work

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