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Creative Aspects of Photography

Lesson 3 from: Photography 101 for Moms

Jules and Joy Bianchi

Creative Aspects of Photography

Lesson 3 from: Photography 101 for Moms

Jules and Joy Bianchi

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Lesson Info

3. Creative Aspects of Photography

Lesson Info

Creative Aspects of Photography

I've broken up the class into two parts and I made I went like from the most fun to the most complicated cause I figured ease us into it that way. But the first thing we're gonna talk about, um, or creative parts and I want to say first and foremost I know I believe that everybody is a photographer, and I think that we all see the world in different ways. So especially this creative part is there's nothing no hard and fast rules about these things. I just want to show you things to think about our ways to look at things. And I think the whole idea is to learn to see the world in a new way. Since photography is like a language, it's sort of like learning something new. And I think there's new ways that you can learn to look at things and then be able to use it in your own way. So we're gonna talk about first and foremost are fun things like projects just waste alone in composition and then light as that is sort of the main ingredient for photography, and the second part of the class wil...

l be more technical. We will talk about equipment and what your equipment Dial's dio and how you make put it all together to create a photograph. So score one for my I got here. I love this. I think image comes from imagination, and I love this quote from Ken Rockwell, which is a camera catches your imagination. No imagination, no photo, just crack. Basically, what it's saying is people often I hate this expression. When people say all that picture is so great, you must have such a good because I think that if you if you know what you're doing, then the images that we see in our head I've heard people tell me that so many times and they say like I picture how I want the photograph to look, But when I take it, it just doesn't look like that. So if you know how to use the tools that are with you, then you will be able to translate them into the photographs that you want. Which is why I like to say that creativity comes from knowledge. If you know, how would I do what it is that you're trying to do an image? Then you'll be able to more successfully do that. So first we're gonna start with the project ideas just raised to practice. And I love this project. This is my color project. I did this with my nieces, Joyce, Children at the farmer's Market. We had gone to the farmers market to get food, but we decided instead to start looking for color. So it became this really fun day where instead of just going to put its vegetables and things were, we spent the day looking for color. So you start to really see the world in a completely different way. When you're looking for something that specific, I work up. We did it Rainbow Way. And we said, like, Okay, let's look for bread. Things were looking for red things and they just started popping out at us. And then we look for blue things. Blue is actually tough. Where to go. We had to resort to shooting a tent in junior scooper, but still like it was. It was really fun. And all of you have Children. And it's one of those things where it could be something you do with your Children. It's really a fun project in a way to get you to experiment with your camera on. I often think in the class, working down in a little sections. You'll see soon that the best way to learn is to break things down into chunks. For for this one, we were just looking at color only and not letting not being too concerned about other things for this project. The out of the project we had gone to Disneyland and this one we had so much fun. That's why I always encourage people to dio. The rule is you can't take any photographs of letters like real letters and a sign, but you're looking for things that will represent letters. So the girls totally got into with me to see the E is actually a pretzel. Penelope was loving E, so of course they had to go in it. And sometimes it's It's pulling back really far. The M is the arches and Cinderella's Castle or going up really tight. The P is just a little hook from one of the lines where they, you know, most post people post the are was my favorite are is actually very difficult to find, and that is just the angle of that light light. So if you have looked at the light post from a different way, it didn't look like an R. But the way that we were standing, we were able to make it look like an R and that I'll tell you by the end of the day, the way we were seeing things was just so different. And so I think it's a good thing, especially with kids to do together and for you toe hone your photography skills and for the Children to play along to be a project to do together. It was really fun this and wait did with my five D But the next one I did the next year on Instagram with my IPhone. So I think it's important to note that although all of you have SLR here today, that and I think joy was homely. Chase Jarvis says this to the best camera is the one that you have with you. I think IPhones they're great. I use my IPhone all the time. I love instagram. I think communities like this, like flicker and instagram and whichever one I'm no forgetting, but are ways to also like This was a challenge that I did with a bunch of friends online. So every day we would put up new alphabets and our new letters rather and then have so we really Oh, cool. Look at joins any That's awesome. Who would have thought that would make it A like the B is a eggs, and I turned it on its side, and my favorite is probably the motorcycle for the Q. Like they're certain letters that are more little known. The little gnomes for the W. Yeah, I know we had find the Jays my steering wheel like I was driving over together that day, you know? So it's really it's fun. And it's one of those things that or the are two. Like I said, our is difficult. I was literally walking with my down San Francisco and walking like this. There are so and this is fine because you're doing online tour evidenced energy with friends and other people so paternal from make sure don't have any of special notes, I want to say I don't think so. Um, moving on another project is the daily project. I actually started a block that was super personal Blawg. It's an olive a day dot com, and I photographed my dog every day. I photographed her every day this past April because it was her birthday, but lately it's been a little more like in all of whenever I feel like it just got that's been going on for, like, three years. But thank you. But it's one of those things where I love her, and it just keeps me shooting each day. So you all have Children you could do. A project like that was something where you shoot, make it make it a point, even if it's one frame, it's like my guitar teacher tells me you don't practice for hours just 15 minutes a day. And again I feel like guitar is much like learning a language. Just like photography is like learning a language. Even if you just commit a little bit of day, you start to become more familiar with that language. Could also do things like this meal. It humiliate your pet. This is such a cute product. Might Cousin Nadia, who lives in Australia, might be by watching so Australia on there. She said she would watch. I'm giving my cousin a shadow. She told me that this awesome project that she did with her kids, where they had just a ton of toys that they wanted to get rid of. But instead of just talking them, they made a little photography project out of them. So they photographed the toys and then they gave them away. And then they also had art that they hung up in the kid's rooms. So again, it was a fun project that they involved the Children. And then we're able to have these cute or pieces to do. No, I'm curious of anyone I know. A lot of you have been shooting. You had that camera. Long time. If there's projects that anybody has done or something that they found like was a fun way to just to progress. We've done the number sequence O'Steen going through and finding numbers instead of letters. Yes, but of course, they've been actual numbers. Oh, no. Let's do what I like your idea of even taking it a step further. Yeah, I think you're right. You're forced to look at shapes and, like, notice things like that. Yeah, that's fine. I want to talk about competition like I said earlier, I think everybody has their own unique I. But it's important to note something's compositionally that at least if you know what you're looking for, you can either. Break rules are kind of know what this is. Abigail. My cat. This is the rule of thirds. Little thirds. Click. There we go. Uh, this brings you back to high school. I was learning photography back then. Chemical is a film and stuff, but basically the rule of thirds means that you break your image down into three bars vertically and horizontally like this, and place your subject in one of the places where the lines intersect. So it's a little I've heard. Oh, this is so much more pleasing. I think it's more about just drawing your viewer to look at the part that you want them to look at. Here's a couple of examples. This is a vertical example. Rule of thirds, and I like to point out here to the negative space is okay. Like it's good to have sometimes nothing in the frame again, having people move their eye towards what you want them to look at. Another thing I'd like to point out here is start to look at things like movies when and magazines and things, and notice how the things are being framed and what you're drawn to you and what resonates with you that's helpful to you. I think this one's another example. Examples, examples, and then, in turn of that, this is great for portrait shooting when you're using the rule of thirds. And one thing I wanted to tell just with this slide is a lot of people ask me, say how the background is blurred out in his eyes, a really sharp when we're gonna talk about technical parts of that. But just a separate your subject in background sometimes helps to create something that's a little more portrait esque and getting in close and filling the frame so that the information that's in the image is what you want your viewers to look at. Frame within a frame, another compositional tricks. I love looking around in real life for things action frame, like windows doors. Mirrors are awesome for this kind of thing. They create their own frames, toys, structures, the one on the left. There. I use trees to frame them so it's not a real frame, just using something that's in their environment to frame them more windows and doors, just keeping an eye out and sort of being mindful of what can serve as a way to keep people's eyes and interested into what you're looking at. Leading lines. Another thing to look for. You'll notice the stairs lead right up to my couple there or in this case, the wood beams on the ceiling lead right down to them. Yes, I think I wanted to note it's a lot of times when you see a good photograph of you think this is a really beautiful aesthetic photograph, but you don't know why. It's this sort of thing that I think Jules just sort of does inherently. But how she leads with the line. So you're I go to the couple, and so it's need to have those tricks so that you do not tricks well. But I think if you're aware of those things, then you can what the point is you're just looking for them. If you see a staircase like happen, you use it to maybe make your photograph more interesting, or if you see a doorway like happened, you use that things like that. Just That's why I love the color project and the alphabet project. You start getting used to seeing things like that. You maybe wouldn't have seen that way before, so that's sort of the idea. I like this one. How that leads right down to the couple and this one I wanted to add, because my stir like this and the line is not as obvious. But when I placed them there, the line of the sidewalk in the line of the archway both sort of open up to the couple. And then essentially, you create your own lines that way. And this is another example where the the palm trees lead right down toe olive Or, in this case, the curb and the Hollywood sign. Both are leading up to her sort of pointing, like or this one where Graces was leaning against a wall, and the way that I position my own body created the line for her. So it wasn't. Yes, there is a line at the top of a wall, but where I put myself kind of created this line to lead right into her cheating at eye level so it says this and, you know, see what I'm 55 and I see the world in a really specific way and that I'm wearing today and I mean tall wages. And so I think it's important to constantly be moving your own body as well, down and up. So shooting at eye level and having especially with kids who are small lot wasn't cheating dad than getting down and being able to shoot right where they are looking. Look right into your frame and letting your pictures tell a story so kind of having a camera on hand with you. Always remember this day. She was carrying that curious George with her all day, and they're just like her parents trying to pull it away over there. No, it's great, like that's what she loves right then. So next year, when you look in pictures and it's been destroyed with, remember that's your favorite little or how she you? I was trying to get up on the edge herself, and she wanted to do everything herself, and she was very independent, and I love that about her. We're here where we have he was carrying his toy around with him all day long, and I noticed the leading line two of the kids heads lead right up to our main little rascal there and how Lily was playing with her dad's beard. And she'd rather than, you know, asking him to move out of the frame or or to sit up, letting that happen and capturing that stories about like the relationship. Not always saying Stop, stop letting them be who they really are and then being sure to focus in on the details. You don't always have to have a smiling face in the frame to remember. You'll want to remember the little tiny feet. This is what I have. This image actually up in my house is there's 1,000,000 Penelope, these in their backyard, and that play structure isn't even there anymore. So now it's even more special. It's something they used to play on when they were little, and I love how she was wearing boots and middle of the sorer. And, you know, I just I like things like this, like hands on the tummy, pregnant belly or the twins, or again, like all the feet. So you have Mom, Dad and little baby toes together or like just little pieces of the bedroom when there, bigger than the mobile will go mobile Mobile. How do you say that hanging thing over the bed? Whatever that is I'm not obsessed with or anything. E just photographed her a lot, so this is one of my favorite things to do. I do with a lot in weddings, but is to put objects in the foreground to add some dimension and act to have an extra element of story like this picture is about my dog. But what is she doing? She's waiting to have me through all her and rather than saying like, move the trees out of the way and move things out of the way. So here's a couple examples. I love this, like using the trees in the foreground. Or this was one of my favorites where Nicholas was playing guitar and rather than just constantly shooting him head on, I used the neck of the guitar as some foreground information. Or this one. They're playing cars and getting down to have you don't need the car than focus you. That's just part of the story. Putting the cake there or shooting through the bushes this kind of thing, where you kind of add some dimension the toys in the foreground, the dog in the foreground. She's playing with little and then the opposite toe have something in the background, so also help make the story. So here's that same photograph, but now we're focusing on someone who is exhausted by the baby. Here. She's still playing with the tailback there. I love this story, too, or here, you know, the picture is about her, but her parents were back there. Or that the little name behind, or rather than focus on the kids are focusing on parents in this picture There, the little am sell back there in the green shirts, so cute and then showing relative size. So if you remember earlier I spoke about really getting in close and filling up the frame. But I think there's a lot to be said to for pulling back and remembering your Children when they're so, so tiny. And here she is next toe the giraffe or lily in the middle of bed like face of the bed, swallowing her up here. Next on the guitars kind of get a sense of how big he is or in the chairs. You know, she built, like, probably about topple over and then kind of like what I was talking about us faras changing or getting down to their eye level, changing it up a little bit, too. Like shooting from a really low angle. This one actually didn't even looks in the frame. I have just shot like this, getting down low, low or really hot coming from something other than what you might normally see. Another low with having a belly, Philip the frame giant foot taking these adventurous steps I want to talk about looking for light now because really, that is what makes a photograph is light hitting your sea moss chip and so that that is really important to note and, um, going to talk about it now. One thing I like to talk about it is it's funny. When I first started shooting professionally, I would dream about shadows and have, like, these really elaborate dreams all about shadows. Because we're shadows are like this, you know, is creating them. So I always encourage people when they're gonna start studying light or like how it affects their photograph too. If your cameras, and I think all of yours do have a black and white mode to put him in the black and white mode so that really you're looking at nothing but the light and black, like just having as many other distractions taking out as possible. So, like, for instance, if you have shadows underneath the nose, it's a good indicator of world light Source is coming from. So I want to say to that it gets more complicated when there's multiple light sources. But But when you go to the movies or when you're looking at magazine that we look in the newspaper, just start studying where the shadows and where did that mean where the lights are coming from and it will help you later. We're to position your own body or if you start to use light. So where to put your lights and things that also note are the eyeballs. It's good to see eyeballs are good indicators and where a light source is coming from show used a couple other examples like this one. There's there's almost no shadow under her nose, and I should say to that the very flattering kind of light If you look here when it's coming straight on like this, filling up faces and actually causing no shadows at all can be really flattering. If you're shooting, you know, elderly people with a lot of wrinkles or dark circles under the eyes helps fill up that kind of thing. So looking in magazines and seeing where the lights are set up really will help you understand what light will do and what kind of emotions that will bring out. So then the strong side lighting that will cause more of a roundness in the face really give definition. You can see here that the light is coming strongly from the side. So again, most often times in life, we have multiple light sources. But it's a good thing to just start looking at when you're looking at people's faces. Are you looking in? Like I said, out advertisements are helpful movies and things to kind of get an idea. This is what I mean. There's two light sources here, but you can see a giant window. I'm inside window to the so here is on. Window light can be very flattering and cause a lot of definition. They have a hard lighting from one side, causing a lot of shadow on the other side gives a lot of roundness toe face, and here is just a couple of examples. Do you see what I'm saying? You could see the light on the side of the eyes and how round their faces or gives a lot of the definition direct Sun is, um, a lot of people, I think, seemed really nervous about having bright, sunny days, and I always hear like, Oh, it's cloudy. That's better for photography. I don't necessarily think that's true. I think that, um, well, maybe not hearing channel. There are places in the world where we deal with a lot of bright sun, and I have these two examples because I want you to note I actually shot these within just a couple of minutes of each other and the image on the left. You can see there squinting and very hard shadows. If you look at the side of bronze, knows there. What I did to combat this was turned them around, and that way they create their own shade. So if you look at their faces here on the right, there's very soft, almost no shadows at all. And the light coming from behind them also separates them out from the background. You see, his head is now lit up by the sun that way. So just knowing that that would happen, it was very simple. We just turned her. So I'm gonna give it a flash bill. I didn't use a flash for that. You could. I think sometimes flash actually flattens when we were talking about. Unless you're shooting, you have off camera flash or perhaps a reflector or something. I'm assuming most times we are moms with cameras and they were shooting Children that reflectors and flashes and things that probably like very cumbersome and is another course altogether. Actually, you can. And I am this one. I do not. I'm just curious how you got it to expose the technical part when you talk about because most times you'll have very dark faces. Yeah, we're gonna talk about that exact thing. In fact, in just a few slides, here's some examples. This is obviously had a wedding, and I you can't always You can't always position yourself where you want to be so or your subjects. He was there next bride, that was where he was. And you can see again really heard shadows on the side of his nose. And I want to say I'm not saying that is a bad thing. It's just something to know. And it just, you know, evokes a certain kind of motion. This one was awesome. He was barreling towards camera, and that's where he was. And I wanted to get that motion. And his shadow doesn't bother me. I just want Teoh make you aware of like so you can see how hard it is on the side of his face. So this is some examples of things, maybe not to do. A lot of times, people ask me, Where should we go? We want to practice on any porches with my kids and I'll tell them just like I was saying earlier, with the color example where sometimes it's good just to focus on one thing. If you're just gonna focus on one piece of your photography and you don't wanna have lighting, be another. You know, monkey wrench wrench in the two paradox, maybe placing them in open shade to start a new all time I open shade too. But but what you want to avoid or things like this? See where the light cuts across her head here are cross across her face there. When you have disparate light like that, it makes getting a proper exposure difficult. It is distracting what is distracting, and you can see where the side of her face sort of looks blown out, and maybe so that is tougher to deal with. So maybe sort of preemptively looking for those kinds of things before you start is helpful. And then we have open shade so over shade is looking for places like a giant tree the side of a house, or like were talking earlier. The cloudy days is a perfect example of open shade. You see that very soft shadows toe almost no shadows. It's basically where you have just a huge I'm soft box kind of effect and back lighting. So going back to that backlight and we're talking about if you're gonna if you want that effect where the sun is hitting them, they're creating their own shade. I love love, love the whole look of backlighting and gives such separation from the background. There are a couple of things to note if you're gonna shoot this way. It's beautiful lighting, but just make sure that your background isn't white, especially if you have white hair like this. If you notice how very white it gets at the top, if they were standing against the sky or against something very light, there had just sort of bleed out into nothing. So you want to make sure that what's behind them is essentially going to be the same exposure is what their faces would be, and then and this will discuss soon. But how to avoid having their faces just black shooting in manual mode or rolling your compensation dialled up. And if you don't know what the compensation doll is, we're gonna talk about that. You will. We will be talking about what I have. Another mom, who we taught the class and it was one thing she was like. Every picture I take his under exposed I don't know what's happening. Can figure that we finally made out with her exposure compensation dollars. She's like you never mentioned that New York

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