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Class Introduction & Styles of Photography

Amanda diaz has been shooting since about two thousand eight she lives in canada she's a portrait and editorial and fashion photographer up there she's been doing amazing work and the thing that she is actually really passionate about is the fact that she started from nothing much like you guys and much like me much like everyone around the world she didn't have any support when she got started she didn't have the gear she didn't have the know how but she did it herself and that's what she's here to teach that's what she's passionate about is about helping you guys tow learn how to do things when you don't have those resources so everybody please help me welcome a man it yes theo how are you feeling this morning you have this out of your way little nervous are you in a little nervous why are you nervous shouldn't be nervous because the cameras it's okay we're all here for you we're all really excited to hear what you have to say so amanda I'm just gonna let you take it away okay? So fo...

r everyone um amanda yes and I will get started right into this it's just my introduction and so I'm just gonna talk about oh where I'm from I'm from canada for us already explained all that born on toronto, ontario a living image in alberta right now um why and how I started so I uh worked with children all my life and I got really burnt out from it so I decided tio take some kind of schooling and I started studying graphic design and near the ending of that course I wasn't liking it either and I had to choose something else on top of it I had to choose like an art form so I chose photography and so I stepped into photography by accident it wasn't a plan once I got started people you know, friends and family they react to my work and it was really positive and I was like oh really like it ok and then I just kind of kept at it I got a business license I got more you know, better equipment and that kind of thing and so that's how I got started and I've just been going ever since um this course I'm going to talk about really quick when it's about again it's finding inspiration do it yourself fashion and also like gathering a team and working with other people um simple and impactful editing techniques I am not I know some people might think but I'm not a hard core ah photo shopper I'm not I have certain things that I do over and over and over again and they work for me and so I might do a little strange editing sze who like but I mean it works for me so we'll go over some of that motivation and believing in yourself and getting your work out there dealing with negativity and a few other things, so we'll go through after that what the course will not be about is crazy technical questions you guys do not ask me any of that because I won't answer it I'm not a tech, I don't I just stay away from any of that kind of stuff, any in depth opinions of information or opinions on gear, I have certain lenses that I use and you'll see them, but I don't, you know, I'm not going to refer like, oh, do this through that there's certain things I used over and over, same with the editing, and I just stick to that and business advice, so I'm not going to be talking about, you know, getting your clients and things like that. So that's, what the course is not about, so I'll go over my photography styles, the four main styles of photography I'm drawn to our fashion portraiture, beauty and conceptual, those of the four that I do over and over and over again, I I don't, you know, I'm not really into like, boudoir, I don't do babies, I don't do any of that kind of thing, it's just those of the four styles I like to do and so that's the ones I'm gonna explain right now. So fashion photography is the first one, these air, just brief explanations. I'm not going to get to in depth because it'll take all morning to do that. But fashion photography is the style of photography that folk, this is on the clothing, shoes or accessories. Either one of those things are all of them at the same time, it's purposes for use in ads like you were talking about commercial work, billboards and magazines to attract the consumer. So, you know, like just whatever it is. So if it's like a pair of sunglasses, it's a big add on the billboard it's to make your eye be drawn to that specific article of clothing, or whatever it is. So in fashion photography, they use a lot of emotion and body language. It's used on purpose to evoke something in the person who's watching who's looking at the photo of the ad or whatever to draw the viewer's eye to article kolding again. Like I said, it's, the focus point. So in these images I put these air all three different fashion shots I had done in the first photo. The blonde, the platinum blonde girl, it's. You know, the focus is up on the upper body, the hair, the hair headpiece that she's wearing that kind of thing the middle one is she's wearing those sunglasses she's got this crazy it's probably not as easy to see it on here but this crazy like feather shoulder pad thing um, so we were focusing all on upper body for most of these shots. The third one is more of a dramatic shot, it was more actually about yeah, the skin and the makeup and you know, the accessories she has on and this is why her hand is up there with the bracelet in this so your eye starts and works its way down, so there are certain ways when you're shooting, you want people to pay attention to that. So the fashion photographer here is very specific when you're doing that. This is part of a fashion editorial that I had done in vancouver all of these images there to flow together consistency and lighting, the mood of style and so on usually the it's different clothing changes when you're doing a fashion editorial, which I'll go more in depth later on about submitting your work and creating editorials, they have to have kolding changes you cannot a lot of times I run a little magazine myself in a lot of times people submit photos and it's one outfit through the whole thing and that's not an editorial, it has to be a clothing changes, it has to be usually not always, but hair changes. There has to be a story. So I'll get more into that after but editorials this story. This shot these these pictures here. We're done with constant light. It was meant for filming. We had no light. It was a night in vancouver at a hotel in the like parking lot. We had nowhere to shoot. And so this is a lot what I'm going to be getting into. Two just being stuck with nothing. So you have to figure out something fast. So this was a constant light that the stylist had borrowed last minute and we had to work with it, and I had to learn to, like, you know, in the dark they really still because there was no strobe and whatnot, but it worked out really well. And so this is just a little example of that. This is another example from another editorial we created and again, this is about the body language. Here we had the model pose an unnatural way so that her hands almost betray a manic in her head. Everything is just really stiff and strange the way she's posing because of these elements that can help the viewer pay more attention to the clothing the first photo where she's in the dressing her hand is up. We wanted her doing that so again, you're here, I starts up there and works its way down, because when you, when you look at your photos, you should try to figure out where your eyes drawn to right away and either remove it if you don't want it there, like if there's something in the picture and whatnot, so same with the middle photo sure neck is pulled out, her hand is all stiff like and it's like amount of composing, and we deliberately wanted that in the next three photos are part of the same editorial and it's the same thing. Your eyes in the first photo with the red dress, you should be looking up here with that dash of blue because it was focused on the necklace, right? And then you look at the rest of clothes. The middle photo was about those pants, and this is why she's posing this way because she's that's unnatural no one stands around like that and that's. Why? A lot of times fashion photos look weird and you're you know, you're just like why I should do. But when? Now that you see, now that you know that you'll notice fashion ads and the weird things that they're doing, their body is in that way for a reason, it's, because they want you looking at something so the pants we wanted eyes on that that the wind was blowing it and your eyes are drawn right down to her legs the last photo is again about the lace detail in the back and this is why she's turned around you shouldn't be looking at her face it's just you looked away her eyes are closed so that's kind of just the brief on fashion photography there's there's a lot more detail to that but I'm just going to go on to portraiture so this is the next style that I love to do it's a picture that conveys a message mood or character so I do a lot of portraiture I think this is the most common photography that I'm drawn to just love portraiture I don't know I it's just something I life so the portraiture is another common style it's it's focus is usually on upper body these three images the first image here the girl with all white this I wanted to character of snow white she's snow white but she's like wicked so I wanted her to look you know not very friendly she looked a little scary we put baby powder in her hair I wanted to create this character and so that's that picture the middle photo it's not really telling a story but it's more of conveying a mood so she um I don't know it just sort of innocence and wonder I guess with the lighting that was like hard, fun light right above her and a little bit of post production to make it more vibrant. The last photo is part of an editorial we had done in earlier and this character that I wanted was I want to her very royal very regal very like just non shoes care she's just rich and whatever right? So this is the character I was trying to betray for each of these girls more examples if you guys have any questions of anything I'm talking about, you can shoot off now anybody? No. Okay um so editing clothing, styling, background and lighting play a big part in each of these images. This is all done outside all natural light. The first image I'm going just so you guys know what? I'm going through some of these photos I will talk a little bit about what I've done in each once you kind of get little ideas, I'm going so for this first image the clothing was borrowed from a designer it didn't cost me anything way pulled the whole team together, which we'll talk about later and worked on this it was done on the steps of the vancouver library or something like this, but so then that was that this middle image this was part of another editorial we had done a couple maybe a couple years ago I think or I don't know but it was called the farmer's daughter so I still worked a day job at the time and my supervisor's best friend or whatever owned a farm and she you know, I was like I really need a farm and this is usually how I go about getting everything my way and she's like well, my friend has a farm improbable and so we went out there this outfit believe it or not is all from goodwill I went shopping and I found a bunch of like old style looking clothing and you just went out there and shot we shot with donkey we saw with like really pretty horses and little baby goats and I was really yeah, it was fun. So anyway that's what? That was the third image this jacket do you guys have joel here? Joe was american right that cold around joe that's a clothing brand anyways it's like a cheap kolding brand, I guess. But okay, so this jacket is from joel and it's like it was probably like maybe twenty bucks and I went tio I went to the fabric store and I bought shoulder pads and a string of tassels and I just hot glued them on there and chains and I like did up the jacket to make it look all fancy and the lighting is just hard sunlight, that's all it is, it looks like studio, but it's not now. Beauty photography I'll go over that it's normally shot in either a artistic or commercial style there's two ways of shooting beauty aside from creative work typically typically it's used to emphasize something on the subject or selling a product, it could be skincare, makeup or hair? Yeah, hair products sometimes it's jewelry on dh, sometimes again, it's accessories like, you know, reading glasses or whatever. So that's the basic rules with beauty photography. So this is commercial photography, so, like you mention right, this is what you wanted to get into commercial work advertising, so this is like advertise the commercial and commercial beauty it's geared more towards advertisements again, skincare and makeup cos it's also more simple and clean, less elements and less makeup models are allowed to smile sometimes, right? Yeah, because models usually I even didn't even know when I started shooting like fashion and stuff. The first modeling agency I work with, I did all these pictures I was making the guy like smile on all this, and I brought the pictures and she's like, yeah, we don't, we don't want our model smiling, I was like, what, why, I didn't get it so anyway anyway yes oh for this kind of stuff it's it's supposed to be friendly and light and it's to sell something but in a knot you know dramatic way not it's just it's to generalize usually with commercial beauty to the like general population it's not for specific, you know like a lot of fashion is geared towards certain areas certain age groups in this and that but this is more about like um yeah, just people in general so that's that and then there's the artistic beauty so this is a little bit different the same concept but it's typically you'd have more details like accessories dramatic makeup you can kind of go a little more crazy with that. The focus point isn't about the skin or the makeup it's more about the whole thing the whole picture so that you know the girl in the first shot that makeup is really dramatic or skin a super shiny the hair is like it's just like you know, we just had this idea of making her look like really out there really extra, you know and the middle shot to what this was a paper designer michelle minard she's really, really good I've been working with her lately she created some paper headpieces and me and the make up artist got together and we shot this in my basement and we're just chucking things honor and fooling around and came out with that so that was that the third photo is also part of an editorial it wasn't a beauty editorial was a fashion editorial but I did take a few beauty shots for the makeup artist because you know they need that sometimes for their book and so this is why that makeup is really dramatic you're allowed to go crazy with artistic beauty with commercial beauty you're not when it's advertisements and when it's a client you have to be very careful and don't go overboard because they don't like it and neither do their modeling agents so um beautiful ta gra fi is yours you close close up and cropped in it some it's important to have a good makeup artist and hairstylist for this type of photography also and use the model with the right features and good skin so a lot of times I see beauty photography being done and it's not I'm not discriminating anyone or anything like that but when you're doing beauty photography the model has to have certain eyes just have certain lips certain everything features need to be proper like you cannot really you can if you want it's not crucial but when you're trying to get into this professionally and you want you know people to see her work in that way you have to make sure and get like these two girls here their features were very thick lips and cut you know the perfect eyebrows this and that so you gotta just watch when you're doing this stuff because the focus is right here and it's purpose is to whatever sell whatever it is or draw the eye so just watch out for that like you guys could even google you know a typical buell beauty photography facial features and you'll see what I'm talking about this's another so this is a beauty editorial show you here the consistent is consistent and focused element in these image images with hair so we didn't change the makeup on this girl we shot this believe it or not against a white board I didn't have we were in marvel college it's a hair it's a hair college and the girl I was working with me how could anyone have backdrop at the time had borrow no I had a beauty dish do not use it just starting with the beauty dish thing but it worked out and so she's against a white backdrop and I had to I mean I'm sorry a white whiteboard where you write in a race off and so there was a little bit of reflection so I had to keep in cropped in pretty close with thes shots and so yeah so the focus was the hair so it's the same thing again just changing of hair and this has created a storyline so um that's like just like I said with the fashion editorials if you're doing a beauty editorial, something needs to change you can't do ten shots of the same exact thing you have to change the makeup hair are the accessories or something has to change you cannot keep that and then expect a magazine to pick it up maybe some will but I'm not really so um and is there any questions? Does anyone want to ask anything? You guys have to ask me something someone we do have a couple questions from waken start way consort with ronald let's go ahead and start their ok these are great photos on duh you shot them against whiteboard yeah as faras the processing I know this is back in the early days you mentioned how much processing that you do on those images? Um well she had some blemishes so I cleaned up the skin and I white in the skin and then just cleaned up the hair well like, you know what? Little strays of these air all weeks so it wasn't a lot of work because they're already smooth as it is, but yeah, just the basic touch ups I'm on day three I'm hoping I should be able to get to a beauty at it because I want to kind of go through that with you guys and yeah so that was a vote it I usually start with skin oh and dodging and burning I didn't know frequency separation then so little villa like healing, brush and stuff and yeah, that's about it. And then I whitened her. I made a really pale. Yeah. So creative hitman, I like that name. Interesting. Creative hit man wants to know where your style developed from now. Did you have a conscious choice of where you wanted to go? Did you already know what you wanted to do or something where you just explored talking about developing your stuff? Okay. Yeah. When I started, I was all over the place. I was. I wrote a little article on us all along a solar lounge awhile ago about that, when I was just learning I was taking pictures of, like, bird houses and the trees, I was like trying to figure out how. Like, you know what? Nighttime when the cars go by and you get a streak of light, so I was just playing around. I was shooting. Oh, god, I was shooting like everything. Pets, babies, it's trying to do everyone's weddings like it was just a mess. I started to develop my style. Maybe a year later, when I started realizing I worked with model and a designer and it was the first time I did that that's when, like, kind of a bell went off. Off in my head I was like, oh, I like this because I was just starting to get a little bit bored and everything I was getting a little bit like oh, I don't know if I even like this anymore was I don't know I didn't enjoy it so my style started developed about I'd say two thousand two thousand nine about a year later and then um and I just kept going with it I kept looking for more models and I started studying well, I'll get into the inspiration thing but start starting like more fashion photography and just looking up articles and I realized that's where I wanted to go yep it's not a good answer love it okay, you yourself fashionable because I enjoy stuff like this but yeah okay and I'm so glad you asked that okay, I we talked about this love yesterday so this is where I feel almost not hypocritical but I'm on the fence because I don't have that personality like I am not interested in that whole superficial I'm sorry if anyone out there is like but I mean I just I'm not into that I don't care for it, I don't care for that, you know, like look at my designer bag like I don't care you know, so the thing is is I love to shoot this I love to create art but I could care less about gucci and prada I don't care so I don't know I'm getting by pretty good without caring about it and I think that the mic what I wanted to do a long time ago was I wanted it to be about my work I didn't want it to be about amanda I didn't want anything of that I just wanted people to know me because of this and that was it so yeah I don't know I don't find it are you like that? No, not at all e don't care yeah very simple I still shop goodwill's goodwill shop our friend over there but you know I don't know I don't yeah so I'm glad you asked that well and that actually brings a question that haley t was asking in the chat room which is about using off brand clothes to attract fashion designers like how do you how do you get jobs in the fashion industry if you're not shooting big name grant I okay, so I do when I okay, so there's this thing okay? So when you're shooting fashion editorials, you do have to pull close you do have to get a stylus normally not always it just depends on the magazine which I'll get into magazine stuff later um I will work with local designers I will get stiles to pull clothes that we need for certain looks there is that side of it and I do we do have to actually pull clothes from boutiques and stuff so when that happens that's good like we get that done and sorry, what was the rest of the question? Can you just repeat that last part just kind of where like when you're trying to get a fashion job already closed or not right on grand right? So okay, so I'm gonna actually this on my facebook page my found paige I will post a lot of ethereal and a lot of like princesses stuff and things like that, but on my website for actual clients and people who I'm trying to get jobs from, I send the moreover they're on my website there's more clean work there's more published work it's just weird I can't explain it, so I have like a separate like I have the photographers who like, you know, and people follow my work, they like to see all that craziness, right? But then there's the clients in the modeling agents that I don't want to see that, so I have to keep it very distinct and separate. Yeah, so so you don't need to necessarily you just need to be able to show them that you can do that type of work and I can't theatrical model is wearing right and I do like doing it but the kind of stuff I love is just to do whatever I want right? I wanted to her hair crazy I want to do this and that but yes occasionally we do have to do like back excuse slides the girl with the pants and you know that kind of very clean solid, specific type of shoot so yeah fantastic and say let's move on okay um the last type of style and I love is conceptual photography it's meant to convey a message mood or purpose so there is more of an artistic approach and again I should hold some type of story in the photo you know, every every photo should have a little story to it anyways, right it's just kind of a general rule um most of the time artists leave it up to the viewer to interpret the image so here's some of my conceptual work you guys might have seen before the first image was another version of snow white I'm obsessed with snow white obviously because it was snow white action snow like this and that anyway so this is my other version of snow way this story of snowy here was after she became queen so this is why she's got the crown and the broad and all this and we added the ready because I love red it's just very grabs your eye and so there is that and I added the snow it wasn't stolen. This poor girl was freezing for this look that we pulled together. That was a piece of red lace. That thing she's holding is a curtain rod got some gold spray paint and sprayed it. Yeah, the crown is from the dollar store. We spray that the same it was just a little girls pretend crown and I I bent it so it wasn't so little and so it was just wider on her head. Um the dress that boost anything the model actually had from her past halloween costume so we just kind of like her and I talked I do a lot of direct planning with my models if we're just doing a creative and she's like I have this and she's saying the iphone shot some I can't bring that bring that we just played around and so that was that the middle photo is really weird and it's not really like my thing too much, but I was just fooling around. It was a lot of photo shop with this and, um it was like the bird lady or whatever and she had I had bought these two birds from you guys have michael's here yeah, so these two birds they were like a fluorescent pink with glitter, so I made it black because it just looked wrong and I I trace around the bird's tail and cut it out and that's where she got all the feathers from that because I just photoshopped them and made some kind of, you know, look to it. But you can't tell not really, I guess. But anyway, and third image was a another conceptual shot. The birds are added in through photoshopped the feathers or photo shop. I had an assistant. He was throwing the material numerous times. So this was a compass. It and her hair, you know, it was all pieced together. This was done in a parking garage. We call it a park. Aidan counted over, have two members, a parking garage to you guys. So and that's that and here's a few more conceptual shots. I was hoping for this, uh, if anybody would give me an interpretation of any of these images like too you guys look att thes, could you tell me anything about any one of these photos? I just want to get somebody else's thought on, you know, maybe the middle one. Anybody? Yeah, crystal oh, I kind of see. It is like her hair is like a live and she's just sort of like a secondary part to her hair, right, and it's the character and she's just sort of there she was kind of creepy, yeah, good I wanted a little creepy and part of that two was the editing editing plays a big part everything has to tie together the editing I made into this vintage black and white at a texture and I just wanted it looking eerie and just strange because of the hair thing and this photo wasn't planned I was just playing around with that and the hair is photoshopped in um the other two images as well is just that the third one the girl in that and she had way were it was just sitting in like a bunch of little trees this area by my house and that's just a pair of I got those wings their wings upside down gothic wings on her head at like park it like four dollars on dh it was from after halloween and that's another tip also you guys is anytime halloween ends if you wanted to things like this you go crazy and go buy stuff because it's like ten percent it's always like ninety percent off of whatever it is so we I went crazy went shopping with that so all this stuff that these girls have on that first photo the blond girl this year this on her head and that are both shoulder pads and I took feathers from something I bought it like goodwill or something I ripped the feathers off and I hot glued them onto the shoulder pads and you made a hat on. Like a shoulder pad thing and, you know, stitch some chains on it. Um, yeah, she just I don't know. I threw some hair on her head, and we're good to go. This was one of my favorite editorials ever done.