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Shoot: Leather and Spikes Beauty

So, yeah, we're going to start with, um uh, well, it's actually beauty, sorry, we kind of switch things so it's going to be beauty right now? Beauty portrait again? And then we'll be switching war into a fashion look after this is why we have the white background, usually with beauty, I will shoot with white and I'm just going out, we're going to probably just pull the yeah, we're just going to pull the background out because I'm going to try to get like you guys have seen the shooting already. I kind of pull in and out, even though we're just doing beauty, I'll probably want to get a couple full bodies in there, so we're just gonna pull that out and then, uh, get the lights set up and get going. So, uh, yeah, and in the middle of that, we're goingto your I'm going to actually take off pieces of what she's wearing and put something else on just right in front of you guys so you can see the clothing. Last night was very last minute we changed the look around and we went to metro metro h...

olding company, they are gracious enough to lend us a bunch of amazing pieces, so that information probably give them to you guys later on. They got some crazy stuff in there it's all it's mainly gothic store so I was kind of in heaven when I walked in so I've got some funky stuff in a going to get started right away I grabbed my camera and um yeah we'll call for you in a second here just a little bit is fine you don't have to pull it too far that's good yep. So have you guys ever have any of you shot like a lot of beauty? Any beauty I love shooting beauty but this is something I do less off you know, I like to do more of the conceptual thing more than anything the portrait conceptual so uh hopefully you guys will learn some tricks today. Um yeah, we'll just pull this up okay? I might need to just adjust this a little bit with her but so the lighting set up is going to be a white beauty dish it's a white right? Yeah. White with the grit and this is what they would call clamshell lighting showed you guys got in the diagram and, uh there's like I said there's a lot of ways of doing this but I prefer to do it this way so this is where the lighting or you know sometimes it's sort of mixed with like butterfly lighting this is where the light is put above the model just enough to create like a butterfly type shadow under her nose and then I add this reflector because I really like tio put the light back in her eyes it just adds a lot of a lot more bounce and um contrast on her soul we're gonna play around with her should we get you india in here and then we can start testing while the lights I'm going to get her to stand actually for now and see see how it looks so she could move around house those shoes I'm sorry I put these shoes they're like two sizes too big for this poor girl. So this is our lovely model india and um yeah could we raise this guy up a bit? Okay here, let me try come here guys. Sorry. I mean, this guy a little bit there is probably good b one inch higher carried there. Good. Good. So okay, so here's something when I'm doing this type of lighting just so you guys know if you want to try it at home a quick trick teo do is, uh she's a little bit far from the background could we pull her back just a little bit more like push her into the background? Okay? I'm just gonna push her back usually what I do is I look for the hot spot behind her so when you're doing beauty lady in the perfect place for this light the type that I'm doing is to find the hot spot on the wall instead of fiddling too much with the light because you could take forever trying to fix it I don't use a light meter anything so I always look for the hot spot so right now she's right in it and then I don't know do you think we could just tilted just a little bit more downward at her yeah right there good and if you don't put in just every website the other side sorry guys this is a lot of filling this is why I'm not fond of lights e thanks so much time okay all right I'm just trying to see where this guy was supposed to be it's like way over there for some reason should bones about great oh yeah that are able to flip this guy off or two changes we'll see if we can be extra light yeah that's good yeah so I'll take some test shots and just see where is that yeah so I'll play around for a second here um usually I s oh yeah is it on? Okay so when I'm shooting in studio my arse so is normally between one sixty, two hundred so one second here and I usually stay within six point three two seven point one that's just the preference for my aperture on dh take a couple of test shots see how this looks right I'm gonna put the I s o down okay okay see some second but the I s o down too it's a little bit better maybe one more stop one half stop that's a little bit better I'm going to get you to um maybe just step up step over one inch that way I think we need the light just a bit higher yeah, just a tiny but I just feel like it's the fall office too low on her you guys look behind on this usually on when I take the beauty shots this you see the light right here I want it up higher it kind of like it up there more so that's what I look for because that's like the perfect spot we'll try that again yeah that's way better it's good okay, so india says she's she likes this kind of stuff so I got the right model for this so we're going to get started and I'll just probably keep adjusting as I'm shooting if I'm not feeling like this is the right bells I don't know I'm sorry you know what the bounce like you see like under her mouth like the shadow I try to erase this with this thing so I don't know if we have to bring it any higher or or will it go fire okay yeah where's that large one do we have the large reflector um if we had that that might help bring the light back right? Yes, a little bit better but now it's too high uh you know what you want take your shoes off because right now we're just avoid yeah let's take the shoes off because you're too high for me now and that's to high so we're gonna have to just bring everything a little lower here we'll pull this guy out yeah, this is how it goes with me takes a few minutes especially with the natural I mean the studio lady I just wonder if the beauty dish needs toe can't even move it can use yeah let's just try this, okay? That's better all right, so you're just looking to get the right amount of filled yeah, that that yeah. So if you guys see in the in the shot here the light is way more higher above her and I do. I wanted that to be that way. Usually I needed to just be above her head even if it's closer like the fall off it's really high here right now because I she took her shoes off and she was in the right spot but I needed to bring it down but usually the light I should you know at least a few inches above her head because that's right the right spot for the beauty lighting but for a moment, let's just kind of talked like concept here. What is the general so beauty versus fashion kid? To find the difference a little bit. So on day one, people, people who didn't see that part, I went through the four different styles that I shoot and for beauty, beauty is about like, um, skin care. Okay for an advertising and advertising. This is just a fun thing, but normally the point of beauty work is that it's about their their advertising, a product for like skin care for makeup, sometimes for hair sometimes it's jewelry it's always focused on the face like shoulder is enough usually there's two types of beauty there's the creative beauty, which is what we're doing today, and then there's the commercial beauty, which is more towards the consumer so that they're, you know, like I don't know, like a dove commercial or I'm dove ad or I don't know some kind of makeup ad and some beauty, some commercial beauty it like save mack, for example, mac makeup. They would do something crazy like this because that's the audience, they're they're tailing, too. So it all depends on what that is. Fashion is about the clothing, the shoes and accessories. And usually this the focus is on that but right now I want the focus to be on her and what she's got on around your neck I know what's really really kind of edgy but anyway I like it so um yes so we're gonna play around with that after I've done some shots of this I've got some little top hats for her to put on we're going to soften the look right out and just keep the leather top one so we're going to try the bigger reflector on dh hoping that here is that to have each we put it back on the stand to think or know okay let me see what this looks like okay that's way better like that you see what it looks like on there my my back of my cameras a little bit um long qi that's that looks like a good exposure so we're going to leave it here now okay so you ready to get going all right so we'll start with more of ah sorry we've got to bring it just a little bit down there um I could bring the stand till rest that ascend yeah so it's not so good that's good that's good height. All right all right so I would like it if you could keep your arms down right now and then later on we'll play around and bring them up so we can see the the caller and stuff on your wrist so we'll just uh we'll start off kind of soft and work our way into more of like edgy and crazy looking good that's nice really nice I'm a little too far I have to get close up and I'm cutting off the shoulder pads and stuff but that's ok oh and these shoulder pads are actually from dream shoot rentals I should've mentioned that that's from lindsay had sent these to me so we've mixed it when I talked about inspiration and getting inspiration from even a article of clothing and whatnot um I base it off of these shoulder pads last night when we went to pull from the store I remembered those and I'm like this is what I have we need toe play with that and this is where the spikes and the caller and the leather all came in after just so you guys know all right good now beauty is normally shot in portrait but I'm switching this way because I'm trying to get some shots of the shoulder pads in there yeah that looks nice can you bring your chin up just a touch towards life good that's nice but a little closer that's really pretty I'm feeling like her arm is like so dark I don't know what's going on there but do you see should she come in it like maybe come in on this one inch try that and then we'll we'll put this guy a little, but I pulled back. They come a little closer india to the doctor. Let me see if that's too. Right? Sorry, guys. This is how I this's what I do with lighting. Yeah, a little bit. There just is this directly at you? Yeah, I need it. I need you to be right. Kind of like where? It's directly at you. So just kind of st yeah. Okay, let's, try a lot. Yeah, I don't know. Weird anyways, it's fine. Probably crop it out, but it's a way to lock this down, up, down. Okay, you can you there's a piece of hair strain off your air? I just wanted good, so we're just gonna she she obviously knows how to pose and she's doing really well, so if you look here india and the in the shop when it changes, you see, like the shadows it's causing, I need you like head to stay sort of more just tilted up when you're posing because of where the light is. So that's another thing you guys need to watch out for, because, like I said, with studio lighting it's so specific, like she moves any slight kind of way, it were able cast the wrong shadows that I don't want and this is why there's a lot of fiddling a lot of it's very time consuming when you're playing with lights you want to keep them in the exact spot you've set it up for especially specific lighting like this which was with a grid and it's such a she has to stay right in that spot and write in a certain angle because otherwise it will change the whole thing and we have to change everything around again just like when she took her she was off. Yeah, it was a lot of fiddling after that. All right, so always yak you can keep doing whatever but just chin ups slightly towards light. Good, nice, good. Very nice. Pretty that's pretty stay just like that. Yeah, I love that one. Isn't anybody asking questions for me? One shooting? Yeah, going him? Yeah. Grid on the light is causing backdrop toe look grey in the judge's. Uh, is that why you used white and what would it look like if you did use crack? Yeah, well, if I if I put the power up more and she was closer to the background, it would be white. I just wanted it off that fall off. I wanted that darker look because of what she's wearing I thought pure white would just look kind of wrong with what she's got on I mean it might work but I like this better if we were to pull push her right back and bump this up it would be more more stronger soul but white oh why would I not it would probably adam probably be too dark I just when I do beauty I usually use a white background and I either have it created a pure white or just a light grey like that I don't know it's just yeah does that about answer you okay? Is there anybody else it yeah question from fashion tv that's sort of about lighting but mostly about kind of the beauty when you shoot for skin care would you let your subject for specific highlight if yes on what area of the face or body? Where do you want to make sure? Because I know you were trying to check on the phil earlier so where the most important places that you want the light in this it's for skin care from beauty oh, for beauty it depends like it depends on what's happening in the photos to say it's like a makeup beauty editorial I would the focus will be you know you'd want people to watch the toe look pay more attention to the makeup if it's about skin you know obviously the model she has great skin we'd have to make sure like the model is able to emulate those specific features that we're trying to focus on so you know, I don't know for this it was just more about the overall look it's you know, the makeup and stuff was added to be a little more dramatic but not too heavy I don't know it's just overall look, really but yeah, that's answers all right, that sounds great and whatmore actually from j dub do you ever add a hair or a shoulder light or anything like that on these sort of images? Or is it just from the front with the beauty dish? Um, I will add a hair light, usually with like, hair salons if I'm working with them, I don't, I don't know this is sort of like my favorite set up, I use it a lot and the thing with this is it's very versatile, like if I were to take this, we could probably take it out after you take the reflector out after we changing, you'll see there's a little difference in the look. If I took the grid out, it would be a lot more way we will take the grid out after we switch and we'll see the difference in the look great and, you know, I just I seem to like this because I can I can alter it really quickly and easily, and it changes a lot of what it looks like so it depends. Herr lights rarely yeah. Depends on if it's about the hair, right? Yeah. All right, so we're gonna do a few more shots. Yeah. Chin up. A tiny bit good chin open eyes on me. Yeah, and kind of tilt your head a little bit away. Good. Oh, it did go off. Okay, so I lost. Her arm is completely in there. It looks a little funny, so keep your arms kind of closer to your body just because of the framing I'm doing. Yeah. Jump, sir. Good. Yeah. That's. Nice. And do you in turn your body a little bit more off, decide? You know what it might be doing, it's. Probably the shoulder pad that's creating the darkness obvious onto onto her arms. So that's okay, it's, nothing but good that's. Nice. Do you want to bring the shoulder proud? Closer in and just sort of maybe pull it back a tiny bit yet let's. See how that looks good? Yeah. It's really dark, though. Shoot, we might take the shoulder pads off in a couple minutes and see the difference that makes, um, let's just face straight on will do a couple more like that, and then let's actually want to see how you're you're neil's good oh good ok I've always asking models walter nails let's let's start playing with the caller and doom or something a little more edgy like you pull it in like you're angry and you're you know this is a dog collar she's gone out of anyone's wondering nice that looks great chin up and just sort of yeah play around with that good so you guys see the posing I'm trying to get her to do it's different than it was yesterday it's way different because of what she's wearing in the look that we've gone for so you got to remember that with the kind of it's a character just like you how they cast actors it's the same thing as models they have to be able to play a role yeah good good that's nice I like that one a lot you can even kind of like I don't know what your hair around or yeah that looks good chin up a tiny bit good go back down let's see what that looks like when you were like your chin was just down I just want to see if it creates too much shadow like that to stay close to you so good so most of these shots like I'm backing up for some portrait's but most of them like the next frame coming that's that's about the beauty it's really close up on the face so your eyes should go right to her first before anything so yeah why don't we we can get rid of that and see what that looks like now good get a little closer you don't want to like me we bite your lip and just be like crazy yeah kind of like gnarly good see now we wantto go into that nice and moves well, there was a little bit kind of turn that way up towards away good nice yeah we're gonna have to can you come a little closer see what that looks like that's nice. I think we're gonna take these shoulder pads off because it's it's um blocking a lot of my late on her body let's take it off and I want to actually turn this light I like bring it over and maybe bring it down just in interest sel I think can I, um can you come out here? I'm going to take those shoulder pads off. Wait. How do we get these guys off anyway? Okay. We'll even take that off too. You want this let's take it off has any questions? Anybody has anything while I'm doing this? Definitely we always d'oh now you mentioned that you got this from a store and you were able to get it for free I believe you said so what's your approach then two when you're talking to stores to borrow clothes on what do you say what do you offer them any tips for folks who might want to find clothes from their local boutiques okay, so when you're trying to pull from a store I've done it on occasion last night it was actually richard who rescued me he contacted the store owner and just explain what these items were being used for the benefit to them that is where you have to go you know it's always about that and like I've done it before in the past a few times and explain like I have a large following and there's a lot of people locally that would see her where you're your items and global bly told the credit you and kind of explain it that way when you're approaching this this store is like you have to kind of put that, um interest it's in a way where it's going to benefit the store owner or the designer not you know not more about you and what you what you're you know how amazing you are it's more about them and what they're doing for you and how it will help them. So yeah when you're when you're doing stuff like that and the other thing is to is that you should have some a good body of work you should have something to prove to them and let them see that you've already done this a few times and you've had relationships relationships with other designers and whatnot so yeah and the way you do it to sari is like you can either it's probably the best thing to do you could call email I wouldn't really recommend because people use you don't even have the time nowadays to respond to half of that um it's probably to call them or even just go into the store with a cart in a little portfolio to help just show your work right away like on an ipad or something and like I said when you're when you're approaching models like in strangers people are uh you would do it the same way probably just kind of explain yourself to them and then maybe move on and do a follow up later we don't have any water or anything I could double on her dui her hair is getting really fuzzy here no yes yeah yeah can I put my fingers in there okay um yeah just slick your hair back sorry I'm gonna sorry guys I have to fix us. Yeah, that little bump is driving me a little bonkers I think you got pulls when we took the stuff off a little bit tired it's a good point to notice you know that when you do change things up you gotta reset and recheck everything that you had already set up because something you get changed yeah with this kind of thing it's such a specific look that you have tto be attention every little detail, right? So we've now talking taken all of the um pieces off we've taken the reflector out and we're just going to see what this creates and then um and then I have some top hats were going to throw on her in a few minutes so you can you know you could just go ahead and keep playing around like you were there see how this looks that's really pretty it's just so dark I think I don't know it's so dark I don't know why it's like just so yeah I wonder if you get it up good um if weaken yeah I guess so we can probably just take it off but I'm no it's just the positioning or something but okay that's really bright good that z it's okay? Yep okay let's see how this looks it's really right? See here I'll put the aperture up to seven point one and to see how it does it's a little better two six point three more cats better that's good happy with this one, I think. Yeah, okay, okay, step back. Just one inch chain up a tiny bit. Yeah, the other is not all right we'll give it a second, we'll get that reset and figured out okay in the meantime, maybe we could ask a question or two yeah, we have a lot of questions here from folks wondering if it's possible to get the beauty look if you don't use studio lights can you do it with natural light with a soft box with a number perella with an octa box lots of different options s o do you need this particular set up to do you know you don't I just love the beauty dish and it's called a beauty dish and it's used most frequently for the reason of it accentuates all that it just makes everything look extra pretty right the lighting the way it's the curve of the dish and how it hits on the model you can create beauty beauty work you can have the model if if you have a high window like how say that about this high it doesn't have to be a huge window but the smaller the window the closer the model needs to get to it that can create a light same thing you can add the reflector and it will still emulate that kind of lighting and you can also use believe it or not like hard sunlight but just like if you just imagine this is the sun the sun should be positioned at this time of day wherever that would be two o'clock or whatever you can go out and do it that way and you still stay close up but you'd have to shoot like eight thousand shutter and uh you know, just vary your camera settings this time that wasn't my fault like I turn the camera off yeah and you can use on you can use an umbrella you can use whatever it's just this is my kind of set up and there's others many ways to play with light so well like what you said about being aware of where the sun is like if you want to do with natural light thinking about it as the sun is a hard light source that is at a specific angle at different times during the day so if you want to achieve that look just pay attention to that angle and shoot at that time it's really cool because a lot of people just say you know don't shoot except at dusk and dawn because those air the beautiful times well, it depends on the look you're trying to win right and when I explained and had that was lighting group diagrams before with the hard sunlight it does emulate eh a fashion style lighting if you shoot it you know the right way with the high shutter and keep the contrast in there you can use my fingers you can use came through um yeah, you can use any kind of lighting setup you just gotta set it up the right way and you've got to make sure there's no shadows casting so if the sun is up high noon would probably not work but as it drops you know two three clock if it is still a bright day you can easily use the sun that way but just always make sure that her the angle of her face is always up towards the light and not doing this because the lower she gets more shadows shadows aren't bad but it depends on what you're using them for so okay so what kind of if you want I just want to show you like where we were before here doing some of those ok so you come to see how your shoulder up good that's really pretty and she obviously knows what to dio this's a really nice shot I'll do that again and get a close up instead good good the next shot after this it'll just be skin and this is a lot of the kind of style they will use in skincare adds makeup ads where there's just nothing nothing to distract your eye good yeah good nice a couple more of these so come just a ninja cool so here see what happens you want to do somewhere you kind of have your hands like near your eye and just play around that way it's good that I probably do it with your chin up just cause I keep losing my life yeah good even that's nice it's dramatic it's more of a drum dramatic type portrait than a beauty but hopes that's nice even we could do like a symmetrical shot where your hands are like your arms aaron but your hunter both sort of like evenly on your face somewhere cannot be even eyes up towards the light let's try that yeah good that's a pretty one oh, my goodness. So these are some cool hats at the owner of that store actually made by hand he spent a lot of hours on these sore gonna throw this on there just to change the look a little bit um you know what india do you want to come and actually sit down on hero quick just see how this looks I really love it. I just hope I can get it honor and it's a stay on her oh, really tied in the back and, um I was supposed to go under your chin actually do we have them? Yeah, I hear that I think right here let's do it this way because of the light uh, no, we'll just keep it here but they're supposed to sit right? I'm not sure. Yeah, we might have to follow the pin. That part how do you guys like this hot it's really cure? And we've got the delightful aaron hunt makeup here helping us out today she did the hair and makeup for the model and she is awesome aaron hunts makeup dot com that's e r I t I love it I really love that yeah she can sit you know just so she's not too how you feeling isn't feeling weird okay so I'm just going to take a few frames of her and then we're going to get her change she's about something really crazy to put on after this that's pretty like that way we might have to uh well let me take a test shot see if we got to move the light down maybe just like an inch or two yeah that's really cute so with this the hat like if you could look towards these guys um do you guys see this gap right here so I want to try to moor shoot this way because I don't really want to see that too much so like I said when you're shooting things like this with detailed pay attention to all those little things like probably a year ago I wouldn't even have noticed or paid attention to that but now I see this big hole and I'm like I don't really you know and because the hats here this is going to be more of the focus and you want the article like this and not shoot over to the hole it's above her right so we're going to do some shots like this um not yet sorry okay like this see how that looks some hair coming over that's pretty stay just like that indian look right at me it's pretty let's turn a little bit because I can still kind of see the yeah, we'll be looking back that way you can see here. So even if that gets cut off a little bit it's fine, like I am just trying to frame it right around tightly around her face. I like this one a lot. You guys have anything you want? Ask? Yeah, so I'm assuming that a lot you've learned when you're working in post that you find those little details that you're catches and say, yeah, and you start building a bit of experience and I yeah, you do you take start taking mental notes because after so many times, you have no choice, you have to start remembering that stuff, the more you do it, the more you're gonna pick up on it as you're shooting unless to running running toa less problems for editing, right? Like I mean, we can do some shots to where you khun turn like let's turn that way let me see how that looks until you had just maybe you see how that looks a little bit down. Do you want to bring your eyes in your face a little tiny this way, yeah, good that's really pretty like that, maybe we can bring your hands up to you, kind of like have one. Not that one. The other one just cause and watched that, too, when they're playing with hands, and when we're doing things like the lighting, it could block a lot of the light, and just like the shoulder pads, I had to take him off because of what I was doing. I didn't think about that until I started shooting. I realized so, and you want the model to do play with hands and things. Just make sure it's the hand opposite of the light it's, not near the light, because it will block.