You're on cloudy white balance with burst. Okay, perfect, perfect. Okay, so I'm on, I'm on the Nikon D and I have the Profoto Air System on top if you're wondering what this is. This is so that we can communicate with the heads. But we're not doing that now. I'm just leaving it on the camera because it makes it a little bit easier. Now because I'm shooting natural light I'm gonna go ahead and put it in continuous high so that I can shoot a bunch of frames as the athletes slide down the rail. I am on cloudy white balance. I'm 100 ISO, f5 at 1600th of a second. Now I'm in auto-focus but I'm actually gonna pre-focus on the rail. I'm so wide on a 16 to 35 that it virtually makes no difference whether I'm at 5, 5.6, f8, f4.5 I have plenty of depth of field when their 15 to 30 feet away from me. So I'm not so concerned about auto-focus. This is less about tracking and it's much more about composing my shot and figuring out what I want in the frame, I'm pressing the shutter. And let's see w...

hat we can do actually with a 16 to 35 natural light. So of course before they get out there, and actually Bret I'm gonna go ahead and pop this off, maybe I'll let you do that. One of the things that I try to do, and the reason I just took that off is I wanna keep my ball cap on a little longer, it's keeping my head warm. And so I can get it underneath my hat if I don't have the remote on. As soon as I put on the remote of course I need to turn my hat around. Okay, so let me check my exposure. And I forgot we're tethered. Okay, by the way, one other important note anyone that just tuned in, this is not how I typically shoot outdoors. I do not bring a folding table and a laptop and a generator to shoot. But we're doing this so that you can see at home the pictures that I'm shooting. So this is called shooting tethered. I have a cable plugged into the camera, we're shooting into Capture One on a MacBook Pro. And I'm gonna need to walk over here occasionally. That looks like we're actually pretty decent. I could actually open up. Why not go to 1600? Why don't I, let me shoot a frame at 1600th of a second. Okay how's that lookin'? Seems a little better for available light. Alright. Okay, so one other thing I wanna point out is I have some strobes set up, we're not using them right now, this is really about just figuring out what this image is gonna look like, what the action is gonna be as the athletes move through the frame. Hey Cody! Let's do it. (camera shutter rapidly clicks) Okay, so did a burst of frames. I bet we got 10 frames as Cody moves through the air. And right away I can see a few issues occurring. I can see, and you know we touched on this this morning, but it's worth pointing out, the rail looks great, it's branded Northstar, you can see the snowflake, it's yellow, but that black flag sticking up in the background, pretty tough. It's just an object sticking out of Cody's back. So, I'm gonna ask, is there any chance that we could actually pop the, take the black flag down? Perfect, perfect. And myaybe even just hide it behind that far rail, would be great. So, you know, I'm organizing the frame. That's kind of the first step. I'm trying to figure out what's happening in this photograph. What's working, what's happening in this photograph that's not working. Now, as you see this at home, what you're seeing is this is not the most, you know this is not an incredible composition. But I'm pretending I'm shooting this for sort of what we call the endemic world, which is in the snow sports park world, people like to see the entire feature. So you know, where they're starting, where they're coming from, and where they're ending, exiting the rail. So, Cody looks good, of course that's no surprise. Cody always looks good as he's skiing. I can also see that, one of the issues is Cody's wearing a green sweatshirt. And while it's kinda bright when you're looking at it on snow, as soon as we see it against these dark trees, and I decided to shoot in this direction because there are actually, there's a dark background. And so I can see that there's a bit of a challenge and by adding light we might be able to make Cody pop a little bit if we can just create some fill. So, I wanna do the same thing, we've removed the flag. Now I wanna shoot that same picture with Dylan on the snowboard. Dylan's in a slightly brighter top. He has kind of a reddish-orange flannel, same flannel that he was wearing this morning. So, let's try that, let's see how that looks with available light and then we'll decide to progress into adding some strobes. Okay. And let's, okay Dylan let's do it! Okay our exposure just changed. (camera shutter rapidly clicks) Okay. So, one thing that happened there is just as Dylan started heading down the hill our exposure changed so that he's in the clouds, we're in the shade, so that's a fail, right? I'm still exposed for the highlights because I have to be we still have bright clouds above our heads. And so this is a great moment where adding strobes makes a difference. Somehow we need to make Dylan's exposure on the rail equal or greater than the exposure of that background. So, this is kind of the nature of shooting in outdoor environments. We have no control over what Mother Nature's gonna dish out. We started out with bluebird sky, now we have partly cloudy. And partly cloudy I'll take any day, over bluebird sky, because it's more dramatic, it gives us something to work with in terms of elements in the sky. However, it makes it tricky because the light just keeps on changing on us. So, Cody is gonna take another pass here. I'm sort of always paying attention to what he's doing. Alright, that looked cool.

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Corey Rich

Corey Rich has built a life and career around his passions for travel, adventure, and telling stories with his camera. With a background in rock climbing and photojournalism, Corey’s work spans a range of genres, from iconic still imagery for leading editorial publications, to television spots and films, to directing high-production-value commercial projects for Fortune 100 companies. 

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topics covered in this class

Commercial Adventure & Sports Digital Photography Digital Photography Digital Photography

Ratings and Reviews

Zoe Heimdal

I really enjoyed this class! I am not an "action sports photographer" -- just an avid photo enthusiast, and I found this class highly informative/interesting. Corey has a very down-to-earth quality in the way he presents information... a regular guy, who knows a ton, and is sharing his wisdom. Clearly many topics/tips were off-the-cuff as he ran into situations during his shoots -- it just felt very "real" -- like I was there with him, getting a private lesson. There was quite a bit of info dealing with camera cards/photos/apps that was ubiquitous to any photographer. And then it was interesting to hear about his travel bags and what he brings to shoots (a ridiculous amount of gear, but everything with a purpose). There are hours of on-site filming for an outdoor ski and an indoor bmx shot... with Cory trying/failing/succeeding in many attempts at things -- just like a real photo shoot would happen. His advice for capturing a good/workable shot from the get-go and then spending the time on the riskier/more-creative shots, was solid -- as far as keeping your clients happy no matter what. I was genuinely surprised at how interesting/useful I found this class (being that I rarely take action shots) -- and I'd encourage any photo enthusiast, or person in the earlier stages of any professional photography career, to check out this class. My one piece of constructive criticism for Cory/CreativeLive -- try to represent women? This class only had the briefest of inclusion of females, and left me with the impression (I'm hoping incorrectly), that the world of action sports photography, is a man's world.

a Creativelive Student

If you're looking to learn from one of the greats of action photography who also happens to be an incredible instructor, look no further! Corey Rich and his fantastic team will show you every facet of being a great action photographer and they share all of their insights from A to Z. Their instruction is heartfelt and they laid it all out there for everyone's benefit. A huge thank you to Creative Live and Red Bull Photography for bringing this to the world. This is a must have class in your library!

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Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

Lesson Info

23. Shoot: Action Shot with Strobes

Lessons

Class Introduction

What Makes A Great Action Photo

Conceptualize the Shoot

Research Location / Wardrobe / Props for Action Shoot

Safety Tips for Action Photographers

What Gear Do I Need? Packing and Prep

Workflow and Asset Management

Ingesting and Organizing Files

Editing Down Your Selects

Post Processing Overview

Working with Clients to Select Finals

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 1

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 2

Retouching & Post Processing: Image 3

Final Client Delivery

Introduction to Snow Athletes

Setting up the Shot: Using Natural Light

Getting that First Action Shot: Snow Park

Scouting Location for Action Shot: Snow Park

Capturing Variation of Snow Park Action Shot

Refining the Snow Park Action Shot

Action Shot with Strobes Overview