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Lesson Info

Shoot: Splash Photo

You an actor too? Sometimes I find you know, you give an actor something to think about, it works. Right? Yes! Ready when you guys are. One, two, three, go. Yep. Much better Yep. How you doin? I'm gonna just cruise through these pictures. Any questions online while we're .... As you talked about, Clay in the last segment, you potentially would do some compositing here too. Yeah With the background and the water. Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. Me, I never composite. I have people that love to do that sort of work for me. Yeah. You know what I mean? So I'm not a guy who wants to sit at a computer and do that sort of work. So you find somebody who can do it for you right? Or you learn to do it yourself. But yeah I think some of these could be tweaked together. Like even you know. But as best I could I would try to get it all in one shot. Yeah great. Like I would prefer one shot where it's good, than 20 shots where I'm taking a million things. Cause I fee...

l like it's not cheating. Some people embrace the technology. I just tend to come from more of a more respect for photo journalism than I do really high end advertising. That's just my taste, you know? Cool. It's really what works for people. I think he's doing a killer job modeling right? Let's give it up for him. (cheering) Jay you're fierce. A little bit oh, a little bit hey, a little bit more fire for me go brother. One, two, three. Let's hit it. Yes. Uh huh. Oh! (laughing) Oh! Look at that, water wings. Bananas. Right on. Yes. Yeah great expression. If we could keep the eyes open it would be killer my man. Rah cha cha couldn't keep his eyes open. It's lookin' good right? Yes. Get your focus on the face, not the ball. Focus on the face not the ball. Bingo. Alright just hold still let's check focus Chris. Oops. It's a test. One more. And you're in. I'm in, okay cool. How'd that timing and everything feel? I thought that felt good. Okay great. Alright, let's hit it again. One, two, three go go. [Model] Let's go! (laughing) Oh! Yes, killer right on. Whoa Whoa, whoa. Oh my God. Can we just zoom in and creep around in there and just look at that weird world of photography? You need a towel or anything? You feeling good? Right on. I just wanna peek it out a little bit. Holy cow look at that. What work crew. What work Profoto D2 light, you thing of beauty. I hope Profoto gives me about seven of these after this workshop. You hear me Cliff Hausner? Alright. Clay which lens are you using? And could you talk a little bit about the background as well? I'm using a 100 because I want a good working distance right? Like ideally, I think might even and we might even try shooting this with a wide lens really close. Just because it's gonna be a little more outrageous. And maybe I'll put a piece of plexy to guard me from the camera. But I'm using a 100 right now for a good working distance. Right? And I do think even when you're taking a portrait, a working distance is important. Like sometimes when I see a guy, like a fashion guy, with a 600 and he's so far away and he's shooting. I can't imagine that because I want to be, like I want to have a working distance with the person. I want a connection you know? So I like normal, a little wide or sometimes I'll use an when I'm tight, tight. But I don't want to be like a mile away. I want to be connected with, this even feels far for me and you Jay. I'd like to be right here working with you. Right in here. You know? You wanna give it a shot? Uh huh Yeah, sure. Let's just switch over to it. We got a piece of plexy in this room somewhere? I know there was one around. It's still connected from the stage. Really? Okay. We can cut it with a knife right quick so. What's up? One of you rednecks got a knife? (laughing) I don't know. They all have them up at OIT boy. You ask for a knife and every student's like pulling out a knife. You know? They all hunt up there and mm hmm. Sorry, I didn't mean to call you rednecks. Just joking. (laughing) Alright, so I think you might need to come out. Right? Yep. Or just come to this corner a little bit more. Right now. And let's come with the salad guard and let's get some strong back weak minds up here. Who's got the strong back and the weak mind? (laughing) Just kidding. Let's turn this a little bit sideways. Yeah this way. Get on this other side. A lot of people involved here. And we gotta try to not block the light. How we lookin' at not blocking the light? So far so good. Oren, come on this side. Hold it right here. Right? Come right up in there. Right? I'm just gonna check it once for reflections. Am I tethered? No. Check your power. There you go. I don't know. This thing stopped working. I don't know. Plug it in and lock it down. Yeah Okay cool. Am I getting reflection anywhere there? Oh that looks great. Okay That looks great. Cool. So just the ball, just like it was. Just like you had it a little bit towards my lens. You could bring it a little bit towards my lens. Let me just check my light here. Am I in focus Chris? About to check. You're in focus on the ball, not on him. Okay lemme just check that. Should be better now. You're getting a little bit of reflection on the top. Okay. From my top left? I think that'd be better here? Yep that's good. Okay cool. You're in focus. Give the ball a little bit more of a tilt or angle to it for me so it doesn't look so centered. Like put it at 2:00. Yep cool. I like that more. Now let's just look at that. Bring it a little closer to me. Can I just see that back and forth? Right That's much better. Much better right? This thing looks like a, we won't say what it looks like. (laughing) The other thing. This is perfect. So go loud and proud, go hard for me. You're killin it Jay. You're my hero right now. Let's go team one, two, three, hit it. Yeah! Alright let's get it once more. Fill it up, refills. We running out of water anywhere? We still good kids? We having fun? Are you having fun? (laughing) 1500 episodes. What's up? Squeegee somewhere. I'm gonna just see if we can get away with it. We can lower it. See if we can make it part of the shoot. We can get away from it. Yeah okay. Get away with it. Squeegee would be great if we could find it, but until then we're just gonna shoot. Let's just shoot. One two three hit it kids. I want you to go, I think you were a little sleepy with the water that time fam. Let's go up with your head this time a little bit. Can we lower this light slightly? And turn it a wee bit higher? I just wanna get a little more light in his face. Yep, great. Ready? Everyone reset? Lots of water. Go hard kids. One two three go. Heads too far back that time. Chin down just a little bit, I lost you. (laughing) Chin down a little bit. Yep right in here. You still good? You need a towel? You need anything? I'm good. No? Okay you're killin' it. Bring the ball towards me a little bit more. Thanks. Good. Let me see where, yeah, where its gonna be. Where your heads gonna go. Just actually chin down a little bit. Head to the side. Big neck right here. (growls) Give me that neck shit. (growls) Yeah and hard with the body. That's great. One two I know. (laughing) Cause I'm a weird guy look at me I want a weird picture. You know I gotta end something here epic. Make my mark in Seattle. Put my flag, the cleezy flag, put it hard up here. Chase Jarvis' world. One two three let's do it. Yes You were a little fast on that one. I felt great. I felt great. Good work team. And just let's just take a look at the wide lens. And the long lens. And just understand optics a little bit. Right on. Wow. And just see the difference there. The one that's up there, that's You wanna hit it just a few times? Make it weird. Go hard at it okay? We got that squeegee coming in? Refilling on the water. Yep. Right on. Oh this looks fierce. I'm feeling like my work's done. Right on. You killed it Jay. You killed it Jay. I would recommend just before you spray and pray. Just shoot a frame and make sure we're tight in focus. Yep. It even looks yeah Yeah just make sure you're Yep. You're great. You're tight. It even looks great when its kind of hitting the plexy and pouring across the plexy. It's doing some really crazy things. Like right here, but right here it's like, it looks like consciousness. Right? You guys see that? That's wild. It looks like yeah. Oh my God I'm so fired up. Yeah! We're killin' it. Right? Photography is exciting and fun. (laughing) Go team. Call it in. Come on Tbone. Time is money. All go at the same time. On me. One two three. Nice. It's better when it doesn't come so far in front of him, but hits him more on the sides. If that was the one directive I could give. Okay. Picking some selects. Right? Oh! Yes I love this one. Killin' it. Right. So a little bit of clair, that one looked great too. Let's just see that, yep. A little bit understated. Looks beautiful. Right? I even like that one where there's no ball in it. I love the one where he's laughing too. Wait, this one? Yes, I love that as a candid moment. And that's a lesson too, never stop shootin', like if there's something going on, like just don't put your camera down and laugh. Let's go to this one. Wow. Yes. I mean if that couldn't be like the most dynamic cover of ESPN Jay huh? You know what I mean? Just look like killin it, athlete. I don't know why you're getting wet and having a football, but that's surreal image making. Right? I don't know. And just optics really make a difference. You're doing something outrageous a little bit of a wider lens. I don't love it for portraits, but in this situation, alright sometimes I do like it but I don't yeah. I never have a hard and fast answer for it. I think there's many great solutions in a short amount of time here we got. Which is killer. Right? Yeah. I just love how that water photographs. It's so magical. Right? Yep. And can we see these selects, can you do like a gang print? Yeah. I don't know. What other questions you got for me? Let's go to questions. I got a couple. Talk about when you do your setup. We saw some images of you. What other safety stuff do you find works best for you? Do you try and keep things as enclosed like this? Yeah whenever I do this lesson, this is not a way I. Yeah this is the way I teach. I teach this thing. I teach splash photography, splash and liquids. There's like people out there making a living, just pouring scotch in a glass. That is the thing they photograph. And they make a tremendous amount of money. So I teach it because I think it's a huge niche market, sort of thing. And it has baked into it something really special about photography. So I just teach the safety angle because I work at a very, a big school and I don't want any of my kids getting hurt. I care a great deal about them and I care about the place. So whenever they're gonna do it I make them really wrap the whole thing. We're working on the floor here which is a dangerous area. We have some water over there which is kind of going near some cords and I don't love that. So I would really kind of make it a whole well or build like a giant pool for him in there and really keep it in the pool. I would do it outside if that were possible. Really wrapping the lights and just safety, safety, safety. And think it through. Nobody wants to get hurt taking pictures. Alright so, now we're gonna cut to you, final thoughts on today's. It's really your call. Your go forth and conquer for the students for the entire three days or just for today but I think a nice wrap on the three days would be brilliant. Well, gee, final thoughts on the three days. It's been so cool and surreal to be here in this platform and to think like I've taught more people in three days than I have in thirteen years of teaching or however long I've been teaching. That's how many people have tuned in and watched. And watched for free. If that's not radical that it's streaming, that it's free, that you get a free education. That's just unbelievable. So to be a part of this process and to be a part of this time that we live in where we're all able to learn in a very different way. It's cool. When I studied photography and people weren't sharing information like this. The internet has opened up a lot of doors and breaking down a lot of walls between people in a really cool way. That's a really cool thing to be a part of. My advice to you would be to realize I think being an artist is a long slow road. And it's about practice. There's a time for taking a picture. And there's a time for thinking about pictures. And I don't think they're the same time. And I can't think about a picture and make a picture at the same time. There's plenty of people kind of over thinking and not doing enough. I think it's just about the doing. Letting go of the results a little bit. I think that's key. Just realizing that quantity is going to take care of quality sometimes. And to treat your work in the studio and with equipment, with lights as a practice. My yoga practice is not so good. My forward fold is not so good. I can't touch my toes so well, cause I don't have much of a practice there. But my photo practice is diesel because I care and I do it all the time. I don't know it went from very easy to very complicated very quickly in these three days. So what I think is rad is that people are gonna have the chance to start small and to work it bigger, bigger, bigger. One thing is for sure. Jay you made this, you brought this home for me. You know what I mean? And good connection with good people is what I find photography is all about. Whether that's Chris or you guys here in my audience or a good model. That's where I get off. It's human beings connecting through this mysterious black box and electricity. I don't know. It's a strange nucleus that brings all these strange things together, the camera. I hope its a magnificent and weird journey like I've had. It's been terrific sharing it with you. Consider this thing a compass, consider this thing a passport to a lot of weird situations and people and events. Even the past three days. I always say when you bring it up to your eye, maybe kiss the back of the camera. You know what I mean? This baby is like it's a relationship that you have and it's a way of seeing. The cold steel when it comes to your eye, kiss it, love it, live it.