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Contrast & In Field Examples Part 1

I've never done this sort of thing before where we're gonna pretend to be out on a shoot, but we're not. You guys get to stay seated and take notes. And, um, I spent like that. I was a day down. We had four different shoots that you're going to see here down in Los Angeles. And then we had a shoot up here in Seattle, which will primarily gonna be using for our infrared in Panorama classes coming up in the next couple of days. But what I wanted to do was to it was either should take all my quote unquote award winning shots from the last 100 years and just show what I shot and how I tweaked it. But really, the purpose here, especially this first day ISS, how I was in the field and what was I up to when I shot? That's kind of that permission thing, especially in relationship to all this different gear that we've been talking about these different toys that we have at our disposal, and that's where you're gonna I'll be able to talk through the reason why I chose the IPhone for this shot an...

d the point and shoot for this shot or my big boy camera for this one on my telephoto or my portrait lens is because of what I was encountering in the field. So that's really what we're gonna be working on here and kind of the unique aspect of that. And during that process, I'll also be talking a little bit about composition and how I structure a scene. We'll talk about that mawr half we take a break into our last segment, where we talking, talking about tweaking or enhancing the images. And that's really as I mentioned before. That's the performance aspect of it. If our grabbing the scene out in the field is our sheet music, the performance is when we actually get down to our final cropping and optimizing of image, especially if we're doing this creative photography where we may not be taking the time to get everything perfect in camera. Um, where were we're in the moment. The emphasis is on telling this story not on getting the perfect necessary in camera shot. Not that we're going to compromise that, but does. You're going to see one of the first shots here that we ended up with an image that waas less than optimal. Okay, so with that, if you're back on my thing here, what I've got is a Siris of clips, and what we're gonna dio is and they should be coming up in terms of our time frame. So this is where we will be finding a particular shot. And since I did bounce around with different cameras, that was the example where, uh, some of them are going to have different time references. So here, how was shooting with my center? Cinematographer friend Gina Andrews, renowned moviemaker in Los Angeles, also teaches photo shop in this ridiculous renaissance. Man that should be excessively should be arrested for excessive creativity. Justin, amazing person who makes his living. I'm doing videos and making movies who also happens to have to terminally good looking Children that were going to be used as victims for the shoot. So what we have here and we'll start off right here. We're gonna, um, start off with this clip of chicken up in a tree up in the conference grounds in Pacific Palisades, California, where I grew up. And, um, basically, we've got a set up where we have less than ideal light. It's It's almost midday at this point. So what we're looking for is finding some shade to not have any direct light on our model's face. In this case, we put in take up in the tree and we're getting a little bit of back lighting and see that it's behind him, giving us a little bit of rim lighting around his head to separate him from the background. The background you can see here, and I can do my little sweep through it so you can see that the background is dark around his head and yet he is in a little puddle of light here in this middle of the tree. I'm also shooting from down, looking up at him kind of a unique aspect, as opposed to having him at eye level. And even though the main shot that I ended up liking on this one was a close up, really, you couldn't tell that he was up in a tree. It was just the the expression and how ah, the light was shaping his head and face. I still wanted to put him up in the tree for that, and there were some shots where we've got more of that low down vantage point, and that ended up working. But for the most part, what we're getting here is this situation where I'm looking for light, trying to keep direct sunlight office face and also trying to get him to be as devastatingly good looking as he is. So what that did is gave us these shots. And this is where it's gonna be a little bouncing back and forth, Um, of Teagan up in the tree. So here is the shot. Now you can see I wasn't bracketing for this particular shot and I could have used spot metering. This is something we haven't talked about in terms of setting our exposure. The options that you have in the camera in addition to your f stop, um, shutter speed in I S O is how is the camera going to analyze the scene to come up with what's called the metered exposure? What? It considers it appropriate exposure. And there are three types of meat oring in most cameras, and that's going to be spot center weighted and metered or matrix meetings. What Nikon calls it, and that is whether it's looking at one tiny little component of the scene, a spot meter where it's gonna look at that and kind of ignore the rest of it awfully good in these sort of harsh lighting situations, where the face is the main important element on. And then you have the center weighted, which is looking at the center portion of your composition, usually where the focal point is set for the camera and it's gonna wait that with a little bit of ignoring around the entire outside of the scene, it's weighted toward the focal point. And there's the Matrix meeting. Be uttering words, taking in to account the entire scene, the entire frame edge to edge. Usually the Matrix metering is also taking into account a database where it's actually checking the image and the exposure it's looking at against a database of sometimes hundreds, if not thousands, of other images inside the camera database. Inside the camera for the three D and Nikon, it's called three D matrix Metering is looking at a huge range of parameters. The problem with the beauty matrix metering, which I rarely use, is that it has no idea what your subject matter is, and no idea of what story you're trying to tell, so from that standpoint, it can give you a nice general exposure. But because I'm always going to be focused on making sure that my subject matter is appropriately exposed, I'm usually going to go to the center weighted The spot metering, which I did not use here, which would have given me a great exposure for his face, would have blown out his forearm and his hair, says, I'm going to put kind of this rim lighting. It's going to say Okay, you want the face. This face is obviously dark. It's in shadow, which I wanted. I'm gonna have to blow out the rest of the scene. So spot metering is very useful. When you don't mind blowing out a portion of the scene, you're going for what would be considered a high key effect. I keep meaning that a portion of your images going very, very bright, and that's a feature rather than a bug, as it were. So in this case, the center weighted was fine and knowing what I can dio in light room or Photoshopped or adobe camera raw, that allowed me to be able to basically throw in a reflector light afterward in light. And that's what we're going to get into into later on this case. I'm keeping it dramatic. I probably will go in and lighten up a little bit more portions of tea gins body here, but being able to go from this scene and this is my 24 megapixel coming from a Nikon and that is the lower risk preview here in bridge ago. Um is allowing me to go from here to here in post as it were. So in this case, I did not use My reflector Did not have my assistant. It's time wasn't using reflector was not going to use my fill flash Teoh pop in some light in my foreground. I just did it in post. So this is a situation where this was the final capture and we'll actually go through that processing in post after our break. So this is what I got from that. I'm using my portrait lens. It's a fixed lens. It's not a telephoto, but allowed me to use a nice open. And we'll just use this one, um f stop so I could blur that background through my background at a focus, Get the nice Okay, as it's called, the shape of my iris. The actual blades of the iris is what you're looking at here, and that's giving me this wonderful out of focus background. So portrait lens, large f stop, um, center weighted metering. And in this case, I'm looking for Ah, General, we're going to get into our composition. Might as well mention it now in terms of how I'm composing the scene in the negative space over to the right. You heard of the rule of thirds the general rule, and it's actually jumped back over here to photo shop for this because in addition to this seen here, where I've got our exposure, I also happen to have our rule off third set up. And later on, when we go into photo shop, Aiken, drag these, um, grid lines over our images. But basically, the concept here, which I'm sure that you've seen before, is that rather than centering your object within a scene, if you can throw it into one of these intersections of the scene being divided into these nine portions or these thirds, the eye is going to, um, be able to not only have its focus point here in terms of the subject matter, but it will have negative space by throwing your image offside. By definition, you're giving yourself some negative space to work with. And that's one of the things that, um, I love in thinking about composing a photograph is, I don't think as much in terms of light as the story of photography. Most people, actually most photographers think of what is photography. Photography is the story of light and you're chasing the light and everything is about light, which it is. But light, I would say, is actually only one component of, um, shaping a scene with a photograph. What I like to think of in terms of shaping a scene is mawr contrast. It's contrast of light and dark. That's what's causing the The dramatic aspect of going back to this shot here of Teagan is the contrast of him, the bright lit sunlight spot on his head and his forehead. Um, but this is the story of the contrast of the shadowed or dark background and the lit face and hair components. The reason why I say contrast because it's also going to be the contrast of colorful and muted, big and small in focus out of focus. Smooth, rough, complex, simple. Um, photography, I see is much like storytelling in both movies and in the written word, um, every single story you've ever read or movie you've ever seen. The basic plot line is based upon conflict right conflict resolution. Something happens challenging our our hero. There's a resolution, success or tragedy and then, ah, consummation at the end. It is good versus evil. It's self revelation itself, understanding what the hero went through in the journey. It's conflict. It's something going against something else. Um, same thing with the written word, every every sore you've ever written. Red is based upon this concept of conflict, or the visual aspect of that is contrast. Light versus dark, shiny don't in focus out of focus. So what I would recommend you do is, rather than thinking just about, how is the light shaping a particular image or particular scene? Think about what elements can you contrast one against another to create this dynamic tension within your image in this case, talking about the rule of thirds, I've got all this one dark background that is giving me this nice negative space. That's contrast ing with my subject matter, but to because it's also out of focus. I've got the detail of my subject matter versus the out of focus or the blurriness, or the nondescript background off my large aperture blurred out background. So these contrast both of these of both negative space of darker, um, and at a focus is giving me the contrast with my subject matter. Like just happens to be one element of it. It's it's just one element of it, and I could do the same thing where it could have muted the background. He's got a blue shirt, but one to I could have gone in there at the same time and kind of muted that blue in the background. So it wasn't fighting with his shirt, but in this case, the blue of the sky and the blue of the shirt, or again creating another element here, which is a framing of the face cool versus warm. So the face is warm with some nice cool elements, cause he's got these beautiful blue eyes with the framing of the cool in the rest of the scene. So we've got the contrast of cool versus warm detail versus out of focus, lit versus dark, all these elements. So that would just be one thing that I think we're gonna be seeing throughout, certainly in my photography. This idea of what can I contrast of one thing against another in the case of the rule of thirds were basically we've got one of his eyes divided up into the segment. It's giving us his negative space throughout the rest of the scene. Okay, the eyes able to focus in on the eyes. But it has this wonderful rest where I'm framing it with nondescript elements, um, using the light to shape a scene and create dimension in it where we've got either directional light source like we have here on this side lit portrait where we're using light to again. We've got this kind of rule of thirds. In this case, the model's nose is probably in that position of thirds a lot of negative space, the contrast of the profile or the side of the face of the model, um, with the black of the hair. So again, using, like to shape that light in this case bounce light in a little pet portrait again, contrast ing it with the darkened background. Again, a very shallow depth of field in terms of this image, where the body of the cat is out of focus in the face of the cat is in focus. Same thing here were contrast ing, in this case, the warmth of the tool up where the very shallow depth of field again because we're going up close with this kind of macro image, were able to get this very shallow depth of field where even the back petals of the flower out of focus, with an emphasis on the detail and texture of the front pedals of it. So again, we're contrast in this case, not only light of the backlit, the pedals who were seeing that the translucency of the pedals are excellent, being shown up by the light with our kind of dark and beauty beauty background backlit in terms of shaping a scene with light, kind of like what we're doing with the portrait with Teegan were shooting directly into the light, and that's giving us our silhouettes. Another one of the main things that I love doing in terms of shooting. In this case, we've lit up T gins face in this case, I did it in post, but this idea of allowing your subject to go completely black and using it as a silhouette So we'll be getting that especially mawr, into landscape rather than portrait, where the silhouettes in this case in Rome are wonderful. Cobblestone roads as well as the ruins around it are what we're showcasing and speaking also Rome. We've got our shot of ST Peter's Cathedral where we're again. We're backlit, were looking directly into the light coming from the window as well as taking advantage of a little spotlight up in here. This also, if you've seen me, I've demonstrated this image for age is just because I love it basically handheld inside of a dark and cathedral where you're not able to, you know, bring in any significant light. The vast majority of this lighting is all being done in post and where you can pull out, get away with murder, basically because we have access to things like the shadow slider inside of light room in a CR. Which brings us to when we do get into post processing of our image will be using both a CR or light room. They have the exact same engine. If you're wondering where you should be doing the tweaking of your images, I would say that those are the two main aside from some sort of app where you're working Mobile E both light room and adobes came a raw utility that ships with photo shop used the exact same engine, the exact same technology. And both of them are mind bendingly awesome. Fantastic. 95% of your post work should be done in either adobe camera, raw or a light room, not Photoshopped. You should not be using photo shop for your photo enhancement and manipulation if you are you still using layers adjustment layers, layer masks, those sorts of things levels, curves, hue, saturation. Don't raise your hand, don't not. Yes, because I'll only embarrass you because you shouldn't You should stop immediately. That's why God made light room in adobe camera raw. All good gifts come from heaven, obviously divinely inspired through the folks that adobe. You should be doing that because you can do especially now, with all their targeted adjustments, that are capable within their as well as the global adjustments you can do 10 times. Mawr in a CR became a roar like room. Then you can in photo shop in 1/10 of steps so you can do things that you can't even do. Insider Photoshopped proper as an example. Clarity. There is no clarity. Filter inside a Photoshopped built into a CR light room, and, uh, you should be able to do that. There's no shadow slider. As an example, they built to pull out ridiculous amounts of shadow without compromising the transition between shadow and mid tones, again built in camera and light room, not in Photoshopped. The caveat, of course, which is really cool, which will jump to is, of course. Adobe is now built in adobe camera, raw into Photoshopped as a filter, which is ridiculously cool for a lot of different reasons, because you may find yourself inside of Photoshopped because you may do need to do extensive retouching or collage work or something else. So you're already in Photoshop, so it would be great if you had adobe camera, which you do have, so you have all the power of light room inside a photo shop. But where that's gonna become really cool and groovy for you all is the fact that video can take advantage of adobe camera raw inside a Photoshopped proper. You have a complete video editor inside a photo shop, and you can apply adobe camera raw as a smart filter to video. Which means everything that we're gonna be doing in this class. All of our tweaking, all of our enhancing all of our pushing of our final story telling polishing can be done to video as well as two still images. And that's a game changer, Really? Probably. While out of you aren't shooting, how many of you are shooting video on a regular basis? OK, yeah, Why? Because when you shoot video, you taken image, you tweak it, you go. Ah, but you can't, uh, you get your butt. If you knew that every single thing that you could do to your still images you could do to a video clip, that's that's a huge game changer. And that is what you can do with the new photo shop. Sisi, is that you have the ability to run a CR as a filter onto video. Okay, so a few things backing up since we took a look. That picture of Teagan um let me do a few other things related to tone and lighting. We got our side lighting going on. I love side lit. As I mentioned before, I'm a natural light photographer. I'm not using strobes, so taking advantage of side lighting and backlighting here we have that same sort of thing. We've got a rim light going on here based upon the harsh side lighting. I'm behind the light. So again, this is would be considered backlit. Um, love it. I think it's a wonderful way how to tell the story because it's shaping the most important thing, which in this case, happens to be the profile of whatever my model is. So you're immediately drawn because of light to whatever your subject is so side lighting. In this case, this is front lighting, the exact opposite of what I just had a second ago. Sure, it's coming over my shoulder, but because of my dark background, I'm able to get a similar effect in the sense that I'm getting this dramatic profile of both the shoulder and the model's face. Okay, here we have something similar in the sense of another dramatic model shot. I'm here much softer light coming over my shoulder again and doing a single soft, natural light on the portrait. Another sidelight similar to the one I showed minute ago. Sidelight, actually, probably the same time saying Model. Just doing that kind of a 3/4 turn of the models head and able to not only get the profile of the model, but also have the nose and the play of light over the lips as it splits the face in two as the main design component on there. So in this case, using split light, Sure light. Sure Dark, Making sure that I'm not clipping those highlights. This again gets back to that center weighted. I'm not spot metering. I certainly don't want it to meet her for this dark ICS background here. I want to make sure that I'm maintaining all detail. Nothing's being blown out. It's a very unique exposure in the sense that I have very harsh light and very dark background. If I was in something like that three D matrix metering, it would have been trying to pull out all the background it would be fighting. It probably would have compromised and blown out some of the highlights and the image just because it says, Dude, you're kidding me. 3/4 of the shot is dark. I need to lighten it up here. I have to compromise somewhere. So this case, I'm making the call by not using spot. Um, and not using the three d matrix meeting. Hey, and some other lights again. I love backlit. This is with the lens, baby. We'll see some shots with the lens, baby. I love using. It'll tilt shift out of focus thing going on with the lens baby. And again we'll Seymour dealing with shadows and light again, this almost fits into that hdr photography where you're looking harsh, bright daylight travel photography, right? You don't have any control over it. There's no subtlety to this light at all. But what we're getting is detail in the shadows as well as highlights, because we're shooting multiple exposures and combining them. Okay, well, combining this into an hdr um, Dubai, um, after sunset. Well, I'll just will be, you see, a lot of sense that just because they're there disgustingly beautiful tropical things that we all love. But one thing that I will mention in relationship delight is usually or often times the most beautiful light is after sunset. You guys probably all know that one. You don't have any direct light source. You have this beautiful ambient light. It's probably the most beautiful time for it. Shoot Portrait's directly after it, where you have no direct light. The light is being filtered. Basically, you have one giant soft box, which is the entire atmosphere of the planet filtering the light and it's bouncing around within the atmosphere, coming at this real steep angle coming from wherever the sun waas. So taking advantage of that again, another light situation here the sun has set. This is probably an hour after sunset down in Brazil and this beautiful, muted colors in the rainbow so it can happen with them. Okay, morning light sidelights, side lit. Gotta love it down in New Zealand, basically, this is a travel log. Now that you're getting here from a plane again, this atmospheric perspective that you're getting from backlit the elements within a mountain scape from a jet plane here, exaggerating that atmospheric perspective by using that clarity well, as we're gonna be talking about in post how you're going to exaggerate in this case, the light coming from it and again backlit anytime you have the ability to shoot water or anything translucent backlit fabric on a figure shot or anything obviously take advantage of it because the glowing of translucent material, whether that happens to be a wave or appease cloth, okay, and we're talking about again, we've been doing side and bounce landscape again back in Dubai, that harsh exaggeration by having a strong sidelight, all the texture you're going to see in a minute we're gonna show some sand shots from Santa Monica of looking for this sort of pattern within shadow love, strong sidelight, especially for looking for pattern for things like that. Um, I like this a sculpture. So again, strong natural sidelight from a mirror backlit in ST Petersburg, Russia. And again there's the translucency and this time in a flower. So this is the backlit nature of a translucent nature of a flower petal and again backlit sunrise silhouette of a surfer midday even mid day, which is the worst light in the world. Now we're actually using the shadow as a component in the storytelling backlit, backlit, backlit translucency. As I mentioned, this is a prayer well, scarf and again backlit. All these different things of shooting, drinking in the light, in this case, a creative use of the white balance as well. They're exaggerate that Sunset Nature on the north shore of Oahu.