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Lesson Info

Shoot: Long Exposure with Gels

Can we just turn the overheads on and just talk about this a little bit? (laughing) Good shit, man, I like this. I'm not getting the trails I really want because I'm not in a completely dark room, right? So the room is kinda contaminating it a little bit for me, but, let's just go through and see what's working. (audience laughing) So I think, yeah, these ones started to work just 'cause you were taking that full step in and we had the timing on lock. And these ones were .8 seconds. So then we pulled this in. (audience laughing) Love this. (audience laughing) Wait, this right here, that is like, that's ghastly. (audience laughing) That is unbelievable. Punched the soul out of his body. (audience laughing) Punched the soul out of my body. (audience laughing) Yeah, that's good. I think this light comes back a little bit. It's maxed up. All right, so what are you thinking we have to do to make it work, Chris, what's working best for you here? To make this work, we just reall...

y need to get the timing down with Godfrey of when he takes a step in, so it's like this, so it's left foot forward, and when he steps in, he wants his hand to lock up at the exact moment that the flash is firing. So we should just rattle off a few, and really go with that. Yeah, but the whole problem is, it's almost a second exposure, right, so we're just going, "It's gotta come kinda slow," right? And if you can kinda work that. Can we wet him down again, 'cause the wet was really working for me. Yeah, looks great. (audience chuckling) The color in this is really working. That background for sure. (audience laughing) Lovely. Lovely. All right, beautiful. Can we spray down Chris' shirt? (audience laughing) Yeah, spray down Chris I was getting really nervous so this could be good, yeah. I like where this is going. So it's a .8th of a second, right? Almost a full second, correct? All right, let me just think about this for a second, if you could just step out there for a second, pretend you're me. I think Chris' intention, what he told you to do, do you remember it? Yup! So let's get on your mark right there. So you're gonna have your left foot forward, right here, and you're going to step, one one thousand. Yeah, just like that, and exactly when you finish your punch, that's when we're hoping the flash is gonna fire, but we'll keep the same time, so we can practice a couple, just like that. That should be it, yup, let's kill it. You got it. This is the perfect one. And maybe the punch could come a little bit shorter, Godfrey, so we don't run out of paper back there, and just keep your face really intense on it, you got it. If you just step back just a touch, boom, right there. Okay. Got you, great. Even a little bit slower? Yup. Uh huh, working. Right on, great. Could we raise that light up a little bit higher, Chris? The strip or the red? The red. Yeah, working. Think the strip could come down a little bit, too. In power? A little bit slower, Godfrey Yup, great. You got that. Uh huh, you got it. A little bit slower, bro? Like, yeah, great. Could you walk that red a little bit more towards me, Chris? Like towards, so we get a little bit more on his back? Just slow it down a little bit, Godfrey, yup you got it, keep the face intense. Beautiful, the red's on him a little bit. Yup, walk that red into him a little bit, so we get a little bit more on him. Great. Great, wonderful. Looking good, I think he's still moving a little bit quick. Okay, just a little slower. Yup, that's great. Wonderful. I think this last one. It's starting to really fire up for me, right? So, always got good intention there, we got good trails. That's good. That's looking good. Am I sharp? Mmhmm. Yeah? Really, at four five? That's great, with that 200. Sweat's looking great. Gels are looking great. Just try to hold still there, for a second. Just like you are, don't even move. I just wanna look at that light on you. Turn your head a little bit this way. That red gel kinda coming in. All right, I mean, even that's just atomic, right? This is what I'd like you to do, I'm gonna shoot this one, and I'd like you just to take, if you follow me like a mirror, don't do it yet, but I'm gonna say one, two, three. Just gonna take a little move over, like that, okay? Real slow, boom, right? Cool? Okay. One, two, three, go. Yeah, even a little bit bigger of a step. One, two, three, go. Yeah, this is great, okay. So I like how the trails are working here. You know what's gonna help you too, is if we give you some shiny things for your hands. I'm gonna give you a couple of my rings. All right, you don't mind wearing them, do you? My pointer finger is the size of your pinky. (audience laughing) Make a fist there. Yup, cool, that's gonna be beautiful. That's gonna look really good. Some shiny, shiny. I don't know if this one's gonna work anywhere, but we'll try putting it there. Fists. Okay, so as you take that step over, I just want you to throw a little, like and look a little bit that way. Yup, just a wee step. Real slow-mo, one, two, three Godfrey, go. Yup, mighta been a little quick, but yeah, that's working, and give me like grit teeth buyer, right? You got that, right? One, two, three, go. Yes, right on. Yup, looking sweet, feeling it? Crowd? Anybody? Yes, all right, good. All right, Godfrey, you like it? Yes, I need so much affirmation. One, two, three, go. Every once in a while, Chris and Scott'll go "Cleezy!" "Cleezy!" Thank you, all right. Let's just look through, see what we got, see what we're feeling. Sure. So this is where we are. You can't see the rings. I think they gotta come into the light and move out. Right, so, bring 'em over, like just try bringing 'em this way. Let's start with them way over, like twist your body, yes. Start there. One, two, three, throw that punch. Wait. (audience laughing) One, two, three, go. Yeah, almost. Come on, Clay. Tighten up. All right, one, two, three, go. Think that might've been a little bit quick. Shiny things are gonna help this a lot, like in the styling, or if they were falling on the rings the right way, or if it were falling on the light the right way. But that's why we're wetting down the model, too, just to get that shine. Sort of shine, exactly. On the right it's sorta-- Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe if you change his punch, so that the other hand is coming out. Just look over this way? Just over your shoulder that way. Bring your hands over here. Yup, just kinda give 'em a little shake over there, I mean, we'll see the highlights off of them. Yup, perfect. We'll see the little trails off of them, I think, a little bit only. If you threw this with his other hand, with his right hand, you'd be able to see the rings better because You mean towards the gel? The left hand rings would be in your frame. If he throws with the right hand. Okay. If I can be a boxing nerd, if he threw a cross instead, Let's try that. Let's check it out. I think it's not gonna be facing my main light, though, my edge light, which is coming from the. If you could turn your whole body towards me, you're gonna go like this. From where Chris is. Yeah, I think it's gonna be, yeah, great. One, two, three, go. Real slow. Yeah, perfect. Probably gonna get the trails there, you're right. You can actually see the ring all by itself out there, or is that the mouse? Yeah, I think it's just kinda going into the light, and not away from the light right now, which is not working so well for me. Let's run back a little bit. Yeah, let's run back a little bit, Chris. What I'm saying is, instead of throwing that left hand out, he has the other hand punching instead, and that hand that he's throwing currently stays still. I need you to get up and show me. I have no idea what you're saying. So he's throwing with this hand, what I'm saying is he should be throwing the punch with this hand, this hand stays still, so he's punching No, no step out, step out Godfrey. Become Godfrey and tell me what you should be doing. So he's punching like this right? Yes. I'm just saying, he just punches with his other hand. This way, the rings are on this hand, therefore, they will remain static in the frame, and this hand will be moving. Yeah, maybe, but I do think the thing that's giving us the best trails is what Chris said, which is the trails of sweat off his body, right? Are we feeling that? But this one looks ridiculous. This one here? Is this where he just stepped to the left? Just stepped to the left a little bit. And let's go up one. Ridiculous, right? I mean, and here, a little bit flat, on this monitor, just show the television audience. Or our live audience, what we're looking at there, which is fierce, right? What's that? Turn it a little bit, for. All right, I wanna save some time, can we put the house lights on? You can throw a shirt on, Godfrey. I feel good about it, I feel like this is mission accomplished, this is like rear sync, motion, slow shutter, sync at the end of the shutter, In focus. Good trails on it, in focus, good sweat, good movement, and it could use I think another little red light coming, the same thing you did with the double magenta. Could use another little red light coming in there. But I wanna save some time for this critique that's gotta happen now. Yeah, so check me out on Instagram. Check out my website, yeah. Let's be friends, let's be friends. So some tips. Watch out for other continuous light sources that might be contaminating your subject. This is definitely I think what was happening a little bit here today, with even just a little bit of ambient in the rooms, a completely black studio would be the best. Try lighting your subject from behind and avoid spillage from the continuous light on his face, you know? Experiment with your model lights on and off. You know, sometimes even having the model lights on can give you that same effect, right? So those are some tips I have. And this is just some more tips. Start with your cameras regular strobe exposure, and then use prolonged shutter speeds. For example, if your base strobe exposure is F8 at 200, Keep your aperture at F8 and then slow down your shutter to 1/25, 1/60, 1/30, 1/15, keep going, keep going, keep going 'til you dig how it looks. Right, so we're just slowing down that shutter to allow for the ambient light. Right, you can add light trails in your photos, which we tried to do, and it got a little sticky, but the sweaty body did a beautiful job, so the light trails kinda come through shiny objects, accessories, silver jewelry. Careful using dark clothing. Careful when using gels on continuous lights, they can melt, they're called hot lights for a reason. These lights though, the LEDs, don't get hot, which is nice. Darker backgrounds are going to work better. And this was a little bit of our problem, we were getting a little bit of contamination in here, so we weren't really getting the trails as good as we would like. And experiment with shutter speeds from a half second to five seconds. So those are my tips, right? Critique. Right on, so I'm just gonna go right into this?