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Principals of Light - Part 1

Lesson 1 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

Principals of Light - Part 1

Lesson 1 from: Speedlights

Roberto Valenzuela

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Lesson Info

1. Principals of Light - Part 1

Lesson Info

Principals of Light - Part 1

Hello everybody hello internet owes that was for me yes for you can I was for you I was I wasn't going to say anything I was waiting for it to say it this is the internet sorry dude I'm busted they also told me not to say honey badger okay so we've made it a full five minutes I waited minutes already going at it you know, first I wantto go through some quick things before I start I really want to thank everyone on the your computer screens on your iphones or you in your ipads hopefully you're not driving and watching which I've been known to do sometimes really bad idea but the audi comes out of my car speakers so just listen to it of course and then you know then I tell my wife to drive and I get to watch when I'm driving anyway I want to thank you guys from the internet I really want to think my studio audience lee sarah julie dog and britt and I do want to watch you criminal photos sounds really freaky yeah I watched dexter and that's enough for me you know in this like um I want to...

really thank you guys on I think you know, because I actually think highly of people who spend the time to learn I think highly of people who don't sit there at their houses and complain that they don't both jobs I think highly of people who say I'm going to spend some time on my education I'm just going to work a little bit harder than the next person so I have a little more knowledge than the person next to me on if we don't keep doing this I think we can again get the respect photography used tohave back before the digital age where everyone became a photographer right I think I think it's great that everyone became a photographer but why not elevate ourselves to even a higher level than the average person and I'm not talking about a great line I wrote I'm talking about clear black and white these guys are professionals this guy's our eye for na gra furs or whatever you call them right the next people I want to think is the incredible incredible crew creative life on I mean that with all my heart I feel like creative life really is like my second family you have the best team of people even last night my producer aaron anderson which by the way today's his birthday and he's working today have everything happy birthday aaron you're the man men from working I would have not done it for me but here you are he's here he did a whole class yesterday finishes at four right it's hard to produce a show like this is a lot of details that could be overlooked which they never do with and then my plane's in lentil seven fifty he waits for me to like almost nine o'clock at night to meet with me he hasn't even left the studio so we can go over the class today nine o'clock at night the meeting was an hour's ten o'clock can you imagine the exhaustion level and he's still here smiling chilling every everyone's he's just anyway I went back to my hotel and I just said to my wife these are dedicated people I tell you the creative life team is a true family here is a true team they make me feel so welcome I went to my hotel room there's a basket with a pastor book because we like making our own pastor kim and I, my wife came and I don't bypass that we just make it ourselves because we got that fancy little pastor maker from the kitchen eight attachment williams sonoma and we have never looked back. We have been making our own pastor ever since and ravioli too and we have this past the book and the note said we know you like to make your own pastor here's a book for you how awesome is that? They personalized the gift basket to anyway thank you guys thank you I think george or nikes and also thank you to where the nevins who is the one that invited me to come and teach to you about speed life, which is really fun because most people don't know me as a speed like I now people know me as like you think joe mcnally heat I'm trio I don't know if you guys don't hit on tree you know who he is he's he's out of dallas, texas really master ofthe flashes he's just a flash alcoholic alcohol flesh aholic knows he's gonna flash alcoholic flash aholic and I'm treating you you think of this but I actually became fascinated by the subject of flash when I was starting out part of the reason is because I'm a total safe self proclaimed geek and I have never thought badly about that geeks always get the hot girls afterwards they never get the girls in high school the football players, the college, the football players through with the jocks right? But look at my wife now you see, this is what geeks this is what being a geek get u s so thank you very much! I I am a nerd but that's because I'm adventurous, I like to learn my mind gets very uneasy. I need to keep learning. So when I bought my first flash which was the cannon five eighty that's it just a five eighty or whatever it wasn't forget this thing years ago you had all these buttons and stuff and I realized the flashes coming to different things you need to learn about flashes here somewhere is my flash here here's a flash there's the physical part of the flash the plastic with the buttons on and there's what comes out of the flash two different things that's the first thing we need to remember in this class that we will be splitting this into two parts the first part is what comes out off this and understanding it and the second part is the actual product itself that controls what comes out of it okay so it's funny how such a small device create so many headaches for so many people look at this thing let me show you how awesome this is ready you turn this on look you think you that's what it does yet it takes books encyclopedias billion hours of studying it why this is so complicated when arlene called me and said can you please teach this class? I had one goal in mind I'm going to simplify the heck out of this we thought sacrificing amazing artistic quality we're goingto minimize headaches by increasing knowledge of what comes out of this and I think even many of my slicer called making the flashlights carrie everything is so scary about the flash I travel the world teaching I'm a big user of flash and every time I do a workshop people nine out of ten questions is about the flash it blows me out of the water wise it's so complicated so since you're sitting here guys and you guys are sitting watching at home, why don't we just go ahead and make it a goal between you and I to simplify this and make ourselves be above and beyond the average person buying flashes at costco let's just kick some butt okay there this this do it all right? Yeah when disclaimer even though I love flashes on having starting forever I don't claim to know everything about them or anything about everything about life I know a lot I don't have, you know, hopefully half a lot of the answers but no one should claim they know everything and neither do I, but we're going to give it a shot to do a really good job with this. You just know it is my first light it says speed lights light on lighting why is that? Can anybody explain why that is that way? Yes, I'd say that light looking backwards lighting is how you apply the lighting to get the effect you went and light is what's coming out of the flash light and then speed like his actual hardware beautiful don't talk I love you speed lights are the physical product it's the machine is the computer inside of this speed lights is what gives us a lot of headaches but that's because we don't understand what comes out the light when we understand that that will become a lot clear light is the light that's what comes out of it right it's just light what's pointing are you right now? It's light while we see through the window is slight on I'm goingto break down light in scientific way so we'd never have a problem with letting again on lighting it's a relationship lighting it's not just light it's pretty much has very little to do with it lighting has to do with the viewer the image on the reflection of what that light bounced off. So if you look at this room, this hardwood floor hardwood floor has a little bit of a sheen to it that has a little bit off a reflective surface that reflective surfaces different then the light that's hearing my napkin and the light is hitting your faces that is lighting the way I look at you, sarah it's lighting light is just what's hitting your face it's exerting a force in your face I'm the recipient of that force I can see you and therefore that is called lighting let's not forget that when you're setting up lights, you're setting up lighting for the viewer you're setting up that relationship okay, what do you want your viewer to see this image ass that's like um so it's good to kind of have those three things broken down does that help a little okay, yes, that is a little strange I do have a very sexy american on the top of my roof on especially really funny I have that in my house right? Because I practice with that manic in all the time in fact, if you ask my wife what does roberto do all the time he sits there and photographs that manic in for at least an hour a day on dh yeah, now we're there and I would say I don't miss many days I maybe go five days a week photographing dominican the mannequin is great because you don't have to feed them you know you don't have to call them and you don't have to thank them every five seconds you know you're like just do it you know, just do it they don't complain they're always there for you they're like loyal, dedicated whenever I have a question about my flash they're there to help me answer it and it cost me like I don't know how much I paid for I went to downtown l a I think a body for like one hundred and eighty dollars so I got a discount because I asked for it I asked for this county was two hundred for one eighty yeah it's right this minute on top of my roof I wanted to show it to you first to set the stage for what it takes to learn lighting if you depend on models on your sister on your friend on your neighbor on you have to keep thinking them on my gods carried to bother you can you please come to my house I have a question that you need to light up your face into different racial zeta one and went before they're gonna be like dude I have kids I don't have time like can you just not but if you get yourself a manic in like this you can just keep on going now I've been doing this for years and years yet I still wake up in the morning and I always tell myself to spend at least thirty minutes practicing something I'm not to sure about yeah thirty minutes at least thirty minutes I read maybe for fifteen minutes about something I look at my wedding photos or my fashion shoots or whatever I'm shooting and I see where was my weakness and this one where was my issue here why why did I feel like I was nervous during this picture was not in control and why not I got I grab my manic in and I just set up a small little experiment okay I want everyone on the internet to know that becoming good at something is this is this is me buying a mannequin carrying it to my room can you imagine what that looks like? My neighbors here I am with a sexy mannequin and I'm like holding her like in the back there like you need a you need a room you need a minute I was like a minute what do you think I am that's the worst like you need to you need rooms like no it's for my practicing they're like well for what it's never mind roberto rose rose dogs in the lounge said yesterday I was practising flash lighting with a teddy bear your lord and they're tired of me photographing there that who's tired of their offer for a lead in their own territory is already completely get american they complain less in the universe here's a little flower device thing imaging I got from a florist in beverly hills and I used that toe study lighting ratios because it's wood on wood has similar texture to the skin off a person sort of banana in all those things that's why I've known just to work with bananas as well can you imagine what this looks like to people? I got my bananas and my left I'm american on the right and I'm going upstairs to a private room it's like I don't know why they haven't called the police on me yet you know this is what I do guys this is what I do I sure as hell hope you guys sitting here today and the people watching online, don't just listen on, move on. I hope they listen and implement on actually changed their change there, not our lifestyle, but their work ethic towards this, you know, here's, my mannequin head, this is without the without the wig. The reason it she doesn't have the wig anymore is because I lost the wig, so he was twenty dollar wig cannot looking to re by that so it's done it's gonna look like this for a long time. So that's that this is me photographing the wall of my house, this is me photographing the warm. Why do you do that? Because the wall is a clean space, and I can see her where, how the light is behaving when I flash my my speed, like

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

I liked this course. Except I think on segment 3 of the lighting, as stated by one of the studio audience he got the color balance of warm wrong and blue when he was talking about balancing the light (at 30 minutes in). Having said this I got the theory of balancing, and the rest of the video was excellent. It really does help to see flash as photons and understand what science behind it, to understand how light works and how to use it to your advantage. This a a great course in order to revisit now and again in order to become competent on lighting when put on the spot of having a difficult situation.

user a391f8
 

This class is like shopping at Marshalls: there are some valuable things to buy but you have to go through a lot of crap to get to them. The production value of this class is awful. The folks at Creative Live must not have a class on video editing to follow because not enough material was left on the editing room floor.. Roberto is fabulous but it must have been one of his earlier forays into teaching because he was scatological in many areas. Creative Live could have minimized this by doing some editing. He's a fabulous photographer and an even better teacher and this class would be much better if it followed the format of his 3 books: orderly and succinct. Learned a lot from this class. I just wish I didn't have to work so hard for it.

CJ McBrown
 

I have to say upfront that I have not purchased this course but the brief information he gave is spot on! I'm a sr. photographer for a large beauty company and I have to give him kudos for how detailed and accurate his explanations are. If the entire video is anything like the preview I highly recommend it.

Student Work

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