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Shoot: Innovative Portraiture

Lesson 32 from: Pose It, Light It, Love It

Clay Blackmore

Shoot: Innovative Portraiture

Lesson 32 from: Pose It, Light It, Love It

Clay Blackmore

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Lesson Info

32. Shoot: Innovative Portraiture

Lesson Info

Shoot: Innovative Portraiture

I want to just talk to what's about to happen. This next technique is called, you know, Here's how I got the idea and I showed it on Monday, shooting through the plexiglass on. I was looking online and there's Monica Blue Cheese website and there's this gorgeous picture of her shooting through glass. And this is a piece of plexi glass here. I'm on the roof of my car, shooting through a tree. The tree is in my homes. I just back the tree car right up to the tree. And that's kind of how this secure with made what we did to make this picture. I want to sit down. Okay is we took a piece of plexiglass and flowers and we stretched it over her face. That's a ring line, a daylight fluorescent ring light. I'm going to use a Westcott light today, and I'm just going to try to put a loop shadow on her face. The key to that is that the lighting could be flat. Very easy, Jerry, But the reason it's not gonna be flat and she's going to turn her nose up this way, giving me room to get that that light b...

ack there. You know, we almost need to elevate you so that if we get you up in the air, the light can come from behind, even stronger like that. I think it's the prettiest thing I've ever done. And I think what makes this picture work is that I'm a f 1.8. The only way you can shoot it 18 is to go all available. So the all available light gives me everything out of focus so we don't have a bride under the table. I mean, under the glass. It's just gonna be beautiful. I've got a great profile coming. Your first name again? Elizabeth came in. She had red hair. I said, I bet you love. Wearing green, she said, is my favorite color because green is opposite of red, and that's going to give her beautiful skin tone and beautiful color of her eye. So I put it a little bit of green underneath the set up over here because green is opposite of red. It's like Renoir, those two of his favorite pallets, when he would work with green and red like that. And this is outdoors with problem with outdoors as the sky reflects you get all these reflections. Do you know what I mean? And it's hard. You know what I had to do? I had to get up underneath a reflector. Bart was holding a black reflector to take the sky away. You know, the big reflections. This is pretty crazy. Here I was in Fort Lauderdale and it just started raining, you know, I don't know. Where have you been? To Florida. You know how that happens, and then is our sudden It's sunny, and then it rains and through two or three times a day, and I just laid crystal behind the water in the parking line, and then I did it in infrared right here. And then I did it in color, and I threw some pedals out there on the, um, water. That's an orchid or something. These were growing wild right there in Florida, and then I just mirrored this back up there, and I think I threw in on one filter on it. But it's pretty amazing to think, you know, we're laying in a parking lot, right to come up with this image right there. And I did the photo shop with a track pad, so I need to work on that picture a little bit more. Um, we have a steamer here. I know. It's in the dressing room. We might have Might bring the mirror out. We have a smoke machine, but here I just took two pieces of plex, two lights hands and clamped on a plexiglass onto to light sands. I'm really proud of our new studio, and you're looking at it right here. It's just, uh, just a joy to goto work. And people that come in are really gravitating. You can see I've got a wind machine here. I've got the beauty dish, the pro photos you can see with the boom arm. I'm used to working with their from Westcott. And the picture is like the shooting through the steam, and it's pretty cool. And then I put a filter on it, which made it kind of blew right here. I think I've got that falling here right there. So you could think she's in an article or something outdoors or she's in the snow and, you know, wherever outdoors. But this is just steam on a piece of plexiglass. So we got the plexiglass at Home Depot, and we have a piece of plexiglass right over here for us. Here's the burrito. So you guys saw it destroyed that piece of paper a minute ago? I didn't mind, cause I want to use it to roll up the model. And what we do is we can put a que flash right out behind their This is out there in Phoenix with MJ, and we had a fun time making this picture. That's just one light. And it's coming from behind. Pretty cool, isn't it? So we're gonna do that right now, aren't we? I'm gonna I'm getting tired looking at these life thinking. I got to do that. I gotta do that. How about this one line high key? That's one light and you've seen how we do that. That's just a piece of water. We might work with a mirror. This is a bear ball. We haven't talked bear ball. But I put her in an old pickup truck and brought the flash inside inside. And here's a real key that makes this picture work for me. Is the lights coming from behind? All day long? I've been saying bring the light from behind. And if you show me your portfolio at home and all of the light is coming from the front, all your pictures Air Frontal that I'm going to say it's nice, but it's very It's very amateurish stick. But when you show me a portfolio and the lights are coming from behind like this, I'm looking at the work of a professional. Now I'm going to speak to some of you out there. I know there's a lot of amateurs watching. There's probably a lot of soccer moms, and I hope I didn't on offend anybody. I was sponsored by clicking moms on my last tour, and those girls are awesome. I had some of the best students from clicking moms. They should have sponsored us, but they're cool people, and they're all just going out to have fun with their kids. And you know what? It is so neat because the women have such a sensitive I. I'm serious, and now they can lift up a little rebel and go after it. Whereas in the past it took a $40,000 investment, a Hasselblad two lenses, a flash. You know what I'm talking about? So you've all been part of this entire paradigm shift in the industry. Where is it going? I know wherever it's going, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be out in the front. I'm 50 years old and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do anything else. I don't want to do anything else. I want a bat. 1000 And I want to tell you the very end today had about 1000. But love the light right there on the cheek. That's what I'm looking at. That's the point of the story. There thes air, little spotlights and I want to talk to the size of the light. We never talked about that. If you have a concentrated light, a little mini spot, you know what we're going to get from that? We're gonna get a very concentrated light. And what you see here is defined Shadows very contrast. E right here you see under the nose. They're very hot light, Very contrast. E. That's how I did these reports with just so many spotlights. And you know, I love the spotlight. They're tungsten balance. They're made by photogenic. And what you see is what you get and what's the difference between this picture on the left and this picture in the middle. What's the difference? Somebody. The light was better differently. So Jerry says the lights feather differently. What's the difference between this picture and that picture? Can you throw that out to the audience at home? We're looking at the chat board. I'd like to ask some of the audience participants. What's the difference between picture one and picture to And what's the difference between picture to and picture? Three shadow on the left of her nose. That loop shadow? Yeah, that's called the Loop Shadow. Have you ever heard of that? Know what? Is that all right? I'm gonna answer it for all of you. There is no difference between picture one and picture to. There is no difference between picture to in picture three. These pictures are all the same. You're just looking at them from different angles. That's called camera position. We did that today. We did that yesterday. We did it on Monday because we're just looking at the same picture from a different viewpoint. Isn't that magnificent? And you know what? It is so simple. It's like it's just like crazy when you realize I got it. That little statue over there is what you're looking at, and it's like here, Watch me. There's the red light. I'm gonna lighten it myself. And I've got the loop Shadow and I go full face. 2/3 profile. She's on a lazy Susan and the whole thing turns in tandem. Does that help bring it home? And there's the portrait and we made a picture identical to that. Today I'm starting to feel, you know, cookie cutter. But, you know, you saw what I just did a minute ago and that we cooked the cookies were, you know, burning. And there the oven was hot. I have fun at the end, but this is this is working. Look how beautiful that is again. This is now using the spider light. I can tell because of the softness of it. The spotlight is very hard, and I can see what's going on here. That's back to the spotlight. Now. I put an eight foot soft box together. This is an eight foot light. Now what is that going to do for me that's gonna give me such a beauty? You can't miss it. Just you know it's one light. I don't even think I have a reflector. If I do, it's just a eight foot Phil card right over here. So I'm having fun with the light, and now you can see it's doing some video and there's John, my buddies, and here's everybody and there's Steve Gorman. We're pulling the dress out and I'm looking at Hollywood fashion right now. I'm looking at a book called, um, Appearances and it's Ah, Vogue, Hollywood 25 years and I'm looking at these dresses and I'm trying to pick up some beauty and look at this. How did that like that? That's a little quantum Que flash right behind the camera, and I'm shooting right into the light. You see that? Is that cool? We haven't. We did do that. Yesterday. We shot the couple right into the light. This is a flash. This is a photogenic flash 600 light and look at that. Come on, baby, go. I think that's pretty solid. Stop boxes background, and that's just that's beautiful. I love it, and I put that on my Facebook. My friend Marcella, she's my hairdresser, and she she's a stylist and I should have trimmed this up a little bit. I'm looking at it now, but I just love it. So let's keep going. I'm almost out of the power point. Spider light, spider light Just playing spider light. You can see the little ring light there. I'm shooting through a fluorescent ring light. Bring light. Now again, this is she used to work for me. She still does a little bit. Um, Alicia That sign. Alicia. Gosh, I'm so embarrassed. I know her name. Don't. She's probably watching. I love her to death. She's She's great. Look at this one line high key. We just did this and I shot right through there. So that's what we did a minute ago. I'm shooting through here. There's the bear boat. There's the picture. Kind of cool, like that one light high key. This picture went viral. This woman is one of the most fabulous people in the world. I did two weddings in her family. One was in Princeton. One was in the ski slopes of Park City, Utah, next to the home of Charlie Gibson of Good Morning America. There on Upper Bald Eagle and their family, she and her husband, Jim Schwartz just donated million to the Harvard Business School. So what picture did she use? This one? And it went viral. She's an artist, a renowned artist, and she's got shows in London. She just had a show all over the world. All I can tell you this is her portrait, her corporate headshot. She loves it. She she came to my studio. She had an event at the Women's Art Museum, a solo show. She paints Aspen trees, and she lives in Park City and San Francisco. Anyway, the best people in the world. She signs every painting G T G, glory to God, and that's our connection that we just we have this spiritually thing And you know what? I'm photographing her, and I'm just going, I'm just trying to get out. Let's go outside because I know she's an outdoorsy person. Chilly day. It's like fortyish 45. I couldn't really get into it. It was, you know, I just it was damp outside and rained and I go, we gotta go back in the studio and I'm just like Clay, you gotta hit this one, you know, to weddings and her family. She just did this big solar event. She bought 11 books from me to give to everybody. She knew of her work. I'm shooting away at the last minute. Go. You're going to get something from the from the garage. I ran out to get something and I saw the white panel with a hole in it. You know that we just shot with one line high key. I came after you have anything white? I do. She put on a white suit. The shells and I. I just feel like that is spiritual lighting. I really do. It is spiritually now. We used a beauty dish as a kicker light and I'm shooting. There's what mine looks like. You see, it's all beat up because I take it on location as well. And there's the picture right here. You can see the bear ball back here and there's the tummy shot. Remember, I spoke to you about how nice it could work for maternity. Now this is cool, because the way I grabbed the light from here, record shaded from here and brought it to their So that's just playing bumper pool like that Evolve, adapt or perish. That means, you know We just have to keep up. We just have to keep going and having a good time and enjoy in our work. And I think it's pure passion and you have to learn how to answer the phone first because that's the first thing that happens in your life. I did a workshop once and we were just talking and one of the students, Mike from Hawaii, I didn't even know he was from Hawaii. He said. Clay, I called to ask about your workshop. I talked to you for five minutes and I said, I don't know what's going on at this guy's studio, but I got to get over there and meet this guy because I'm on the phone thinking I got eight people in my class. I need 10 to be happy. I need 10. Here's here's a prospect and I said, You know, you come here, we're gonna have the best time. We'll have some meals together. I'll tell you everything and sure enough he showed up and he said it was simply that telephone call that got me from Hawaii to Maryland. You're talking cross, you know, the whole state country, and that means to me that the telephone is very important. So then when you meet people, you know, just look in my eye and tell him you know, I'm here to serve you weddings now getting flat. So people say, How much do you charge? How much you charge and I'm very expensive. I mean, I think I used to even be more expensive. I'm lowering my price to stay busy. You know what my answer is? Now what do you want to spend? You just tell me what your budget is and let's get busy because I think once you see my work, you know you'll reciprocate. I just want to get you in front of my camera. What is your budget? You know what do you have? 1500? 2000? Your budget. Maybe we can put something together. Maybe I can just do your for. Most of my associates can do the party. You know, that would be a dream for me, that I want to stay upto two in the morning, every night with the DJs and things like that bar can take the the candidate and you can stay up late. Let me tell you what we're gonna do? We're gonna shoot through the glass with an 85 1.2. Let's get all hands on deck. Caitlin. Here we go. And let's go busy. All right. Good, good, good. So, you guys have a nice view of that. She's gonna turn her nose to the left a little bit. And, don, I think you're gonna be my light man. Okay? Come on over here. You're right. There's a handle on this light. Let me just show the guys at home what we've done. We've got a TD. Three, This is three little fluorescent lights. So the light has to come from below. Remember in the profile. Look, the profile, the lights from behind. So, Elizabeth, turn your nose this way. Right there. That's where Elizabeth is going to be. And you're gonna put the loop shadow on. So now let's bring over some flowers. All right? There's fresh flowers. There's dried flowers. There's everything. Okay. Before we start, can you tell us what we are going to be learning here in this one? Well, I showed the picture, The shape shooting through the yet said Brian, my favorite picture of ever made. I'm going to show you in real life. I wasn't sure if it was the burrito or the shake and bake. This is kind of a shoot through. I would call. All right. Fantastic. So once we get going, I'm wondering if we should black out the lights. Guys, you want to do that for me? Because maybe even halfway, Because that's adding reflection. Just come down a little bit. Where those flowers, that air, there's the what do you call those little flowers? Here they go. These right here. So, look, just help me with this Cayman. You just take these little white flowers and just take the pedals off and just drop him through when you say, What are you going to be learning? You know, I I'm kind of exhausted my techniques, and now I'm just playing. It's just were in the sandbox, having a good time. Now we need some things underneath here, but, you know, here we go. This right here would be good. Why don't you get They won 85 12 51 to take it off the tripod. 50 50. All right. Here we go. Yes, we all right. You would help me. How about see what these little guys are. Can we take some of these apart? Just take one. They probably just grow wound. Here we go Right there. Let me just see what happens with this way down underneath there. Probably throw him underneath there. Kind of. Yeah, around. That's good. All right, let's see the camera. You know, I'm gonna do guys, I'm gonna push this this way a little bit so I could get up under there. You doing OK down there? You got comfortable down there, honest, didn't you? That's good. Right there. See this fake hydrangea? It's in their bart right there in that little thing. Let's get the other one of those and just kind of put it on top of this one. So my exposure is going to go to 100. I s O. Why? At 100 now I can open my lens wide up. Let me do a test shot. I'm afraid to look at it here in black and white. I'm always the first ones like, Alright, let's stop right there for a second. When we get this back in, you guys are doing great. I'm just gonna get my first picture down. Portrait right there. You doing OK? Now you're gonna look right here. Where's that other hydrate? Jesse? It Can you go in any here and just push him right up by her face right there. And then that's this one to hide the greens right there. Turn your nose to the left of dash. Chin down. She's got a lot of red hair. How could we like that hair with another spider light? There's one right here. Bart. Look. See the spider light? Just whip it off, Jerry, get with us and plug it in. You know, right there. You don't even have to put a soft books on it. There you go. You guys all right? Good. Just put it right up here and tell him the plug. You can unplug the steam. You know the steamer. I just see that. Let's do it. Why don't you pull that off the handle and let's put a little steam underneath here, get a fire extinguisher handy. And, um I think who knows how to work the smoke machine? That's you. Hey, are you all right? There we go. Looking chin down. Elizabeth, I'm thinking about putting a little steam on the glass as well. All right, There's a plug it wherever you can. Get right there. See that? Multi. I see it. I see. One open. Yeah, that's awesome. Beautiful. Right there. Chin down. Turn your nose to the left A little. She's at this beautiful red hair. Now, your eyes, wherever you're looking to the left a little bit. Yeah. Come on in there. Oh, wow. I love it. Can you get a picture for me? Kenna on an email list of Russia? My wife's in the Ukraine. Good to give a shit. Shout out to the Russians today. There we go right there. Chin down. Eyes your eyes to the down a little bit. And wherever you're looking Look to the right. A dash too much, Too much right there. Beautiful. Where am I focusing? I'm at 14 Focused on the eye. This? Yeah. Let's put some steam on. Just try. Yeah, all around. It'll clear You're Yeah. Are you gonna hand it over? I can probably get it if you want to hand it to me. Yeah, this side to just blow it in there. There we go, huh? You can do this all by yourself at home. It doesn't take 1234 helpers. But it looks a lot better with all the helpers. That's great. Right there. That's good right there. Eyes down a dash. Who needs a pick troll? That's good. I thought the roof was on fire. Not our studio. You okay? No more smoke. Those steam is fine. This is it. Your eyes? A little further out. Eyes to the right a day. Can we cover her ear? I can probably do it easily. Cover your ear with the hair. Just a little. Yeah, right there. You know, just just the lower part. That's it. That's good. Your nose to the right A little. Give me a loop. Shadow there, Don. This is your moment to shine right there. Your nose to the left. Just a dash. Eyes up a little bit. Eyes to the right. A little bit. I think I got it. Let's give her a big hand. We did it. Help her out. Well, let me Let me move the Plexi. Let's see the picture. I think you guys get the idea. It's Ah, you get on this side. I got 123 The chat room loves what you were doing just then, by the way. Better. All right, Let's keep her down on the paper and do a little burrito. Actually, Elizabeth, you slip out of their walk over here. I'm gonna do something else with you. But let's do a burrito. Here we go, Deb said. Fun. This is my kind of shooting Teddy bear, Teddy Bear said. Now I see how play roles. He's a true free. That's all right. Let's move the two milk crates. Gary, get in here. Those chairs are going to be on the wall for the next hour. Come on, guys. This is time to roll. We're fourth and goal. Two yards to go. Let's punch it in. Thanks for Let's put back on. Maybe in 85. All right. Come on in with me. Coming. I forgot your name already. That's good. Lay it down. Yeah, Come around this way. So we don't look up your dress Lay on your tummy right here. Now you guys have seen me do this on video with a little child. And you've seen other slides of this? The reason I like this technique is when I'm outside Elizabeth, You were great. Did you see the image? Don't you love it? It just needs a little touch of post production to pull it all together. Um and all I would do is then yet it kind of dark in your neck a little bit, you know, retouch around here a little bit. You just look great in The eyes are sharp. And that was all done on auto focus. Okay, so let's say I'm outside. Here we go. 85 and I'm gonna come over here and I'm gonna take a picture here. And, you know, we're in my window light, so it's really not fair. But if you're outside the lights barreling down, OK, so reach down here, Djair and take the corner. I just roll it over. I forgot you for saying Katie. All right, now wait. Not too much. Let's get two helpers right here. Yeah, you got it. Passage of art right there. Push that out. Katie, push that on this side. Yep. Katie screwed up to me a little bit. Now, can I get a ascending unit in a flash? Maybe we go que flash or we gonna go whatever you can lay it in there behind her. Bear, you got a reflector. Just lay it in there on half power right there behind her. You know what? On the video, uh, you know what you could do? Put it on a light stand. Hit the paper. That's what I did on my slide. Don, you need your help. It's good in there a little deeper. It's getting a little more that way. Deeper that way. All right, Right here, Don. On this side. Come around. All right. Cool. You're good. Stay right there. I think you got my shot. Can we switch? You're gonna roll a little bit. Sorry. I could rotator around. I'm sorry. All right. Good. The airport pushing down on that side a little bit. All right. The first picture. I'm gonna tell you what I don't like about it. The first pictures is two under exposed, and it's 22 square to the camera. Meaning, Ah, get my s O back to about 800 and I'll need a sin. Berries have to doing bar. Yeah. So if you're outside and you're working outside, this is an easy way to take the light off the overhead and bring it in from the back so pointed down on their everybody look on the ground for the reflector For that, it's just Yeah, I thought I saw just lay it right on top of the paper. That bare bone I've seen that little reflector. It's just a little metal reflector. We took it off. Here it is. I couldn't do it to get laid down on your shoulder. Any questions from the chat room? Anything going on? And I can help with one setting this up. I think everyone is very engaged in the burrito right now. All right, the burrito roll over in your back. Can you come out yet? Right there. Just beautiful. Put your right hand to your face a little bit. Your right hand? Yeah, that's beautiful right there. And I would get in there a little closer. Now I'm exposing for the light coming right there. Beautiful. I'm gonna take 10 pictures. Okay? I want him all to be different. Let me just say Alright, Alright. Go back way down like eighth power, maybe maybe 16th power. And when I pulled that up off, I got a lot more light breath and it's good in deeper now. Beautiful. Bart, your lights. Great. So Bart's light is giving me that light from behind that we keep talking about. All right. Good. There's one. Can you change your Bring your chin up a little. What's beautiful? Beautiful. I love it. I think this would be awesome with a maternity picture if the mother recovered in her breast area to show her tummy in there. I think it's a great look. You know, she could just use your hand to cover her breast. And it's just so I mean, it's romantic. It is. It's beautiful. Like this roll over the other way. I don't know. We're just playing. Yeah, just like that. No. Keep going this way yet. Yeah, right there. Yeah, right there. Chin up. Good. Chin down. Lips together. Bend the wrist and hand. Long fingers. Long hand back over. Right there. Beautiful. Get in. Smiling teeth. Chin up. Let me see what I'm getting. Now flip over to your tummy and just give me a simple put right there. Right there. Beautiful. Right there. Pull your hand off your face a little bit back a little back. A little under a yeah. Underneath more. Yeah, soft my mike. I know you hear me out there. Can we get a little music? I think this would go a long way. Katie? Katie? Katie. How about both hands? Hold your Yep. Shake your head this way. Okay. Um, I've got this light right underneath me here. I'm just wondering, you got it unplanned. Everything's kind of unplanned at this point. It just kind of start with something I've done before, and I'm gonna stretch it. I think it's nice when you're in your left shoulder. Just kind of lay on your shoulder, lay on your back right there, and I tip your head that money right there. Try to give her a little light on her nose. I know you can't see it right here. Right there. You got it right there. Chin down a little bit. Then we turn this off and we'll just do it all of a little white, just like I would normally do it outside. You all right? I want your shot right there. That was a shot for you. All right. Give me one more shot, and I think we got it just good in deeper, I think. Just get in deeper right there. Lay back on your back a little bit more. Yeah, right there. That's good. Smiling. Laughing. Tippie had more. Yes. Now the other way. Now the other way. I think we got the burrito taking care of. That's it. You can see it right on the screen there. Its a nice, easy way to kind of direct the light. And I think Bart's light was wonderful there on the back. Okay. Awesome play. We're you Just using just one light in that. Yeah, that was a window and one light. A window light and one light as well. What time is happy? What? One more question as we are. First let us know what you want to change up. Tonto. What? We're answering questions. Yeah. Can you guys get this David Mayhew background on? Just toss it over the white. You can put clip, clip someone in, hold it for the shake and bake. I wanna I wanna painted background And there you go. You guys got it? We needed a time lapse going today Too loud. All right to that. Okay, so just walk it right over here, walking over here right up here, so question All right, Let's what? Let's wait for this to go by. Sorry, guys. Don't be a studio. That is right. This is live TV stepladders. Mark, stand on the opposing. Hang on. Wait, wait. There's opposing block. We could give Demonic. Let me Jerry. Worst year. Drop that. Jared, help! Monica, you're much taller than she is. I would put clips on it. First part. I clip it because you need some counterweight. There's a clip up there. Okay, I'm ready. I'm sorry. All right. Cristina, you could just wait. Okay? So a question from Hey, Jude is could we use a white sheet instead of the paper? The white sheet wouldn't have anybody that would just be limp. That's all I could say. And you know what The reason you you can cut off a dirty piece of paper and roll it inside out, and then you've got it. You know, it's just it's recycling, right? Getting creative recycling. All right. Another question from tough toodle. She asked, What is the benefit you get from the burrito? As opposed to just white? The flats are seamless. A white B flat or a seamless. What's the benefit of way used white seamless, and it's just I don't know if they saw my video yesterday. I did a little boy in the great paper. And here's the concept. Here's the educational value. And as I'm giving it to you, I need a pro photo here and a tungsten light there. The flashlight because we're going to shoot that they're going to shoot the shake and bake. But we need a flash. We're gonna dark in the room down. So I'm sorry. I'm just doing two things at once. Theo, educational values were taking cover. So we're outside the lights coming from everywhere, and I want to do a nice with a portrait, a little boy and the light just it just sucks. You know what I'm saying? What am I gonna do? Well, the paper, the kids love it, they scoot through it and they just go over and over and over. And what am I doing is I'm I'm bringing the light in from a direction. So the portrait here, you can see there's no light coming from above its all directional coming off the window. That's exactly what we were doing. That's awesome. And I love the concept of doing that with kids outdoors? Yes, because you're actually you're also getting them in a spot where they can't run away way have other other devices. T do the same thing of creating shade. But that's just beautiful. Marino, you know, little Everest the other day he wouldn't sit still. He kept crawling through it. That was his goal. To get from one into the other, right? And he wouldn't smile or anything. So again, it was a bell and a bubble and a feather that made him stop for a second. And look. And then the Bellandi smiled and we got it. He kept trying to get out of there. His name is Everest. Any wanted to climb out, and he kept going. So it works, you know? I don't know. I think I showed this line earlier, and that's a beautiful image. And I don't think you would ever think it was made outside in a parking lot. That's all fantastic. So we're gonna do another one. I think some were ready. Here's what we're gonna do. Why don't we bring back Elizabeth and I mean, come on and give her some room. You might go either way. Now, the tungsten light that were gonna use will be the flashlight. All right. I need my class to lower the overheads. Lower that windows I got, I got it. And you just have a seat right here, okay? The picture I'm looking at on the screen is very flat. Um, of Katie and I, you know, I felt like I got something better than that. And I think that we you know, you're not gonna love this one, because the 2/3 view of your face, if you were here for two days, you know that I'm real stickler about slimming people down on. That's what that's what life's about is flattery. You know, there were two artists in history, one who painted people as they wanted to look, and one who painted people as they really were. One died broke one night, rich. You know what I'm telling you? I wanna be the guy who paints the people in their best light

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Clay Blackmore Top 10.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Clay Blackmore is the real deal in portrait photography. The guy is a bundle of creative energy and technical mastery. I took portraiture with Monte Zucker, and am glad to have Clay now as his successor. This concepts in this course are the rudiments. They'll never change, regardless of trends and fads. Clay is also very likable and fun to watch work. Keep your ears peeled for every word. When Clay points out those many little details, they all count. Love the course, and have a ton of respect for Clay. He's a portrait master, and a great guy. What else could any portrait student hope for?

Rosina
 

This a wonderful class. Clay has worked w/Montey and brings a supreme knowledge to photographers who want to learn more. His skills are creative and insightful with a modest personality. This is an amazing class that comes with a great price.

Tom Lokos
 

Of all the courses I have purchased without exception this is the best. Clay is an excellent teacher. When he speaks he is saying something and not just talking. He explains his lighting techniques in great detail while demonstrating them . He is clear, concise and fun to listen to. You will learn how to pose individuals all the way to large groups, while learning the correct way to light them. All this while being entertained by one of America's great portrait photographers.

Student Work

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