Lessons

Lesson Info

Shoot: Steampunk (Mecca)

all right well we have a really cool little set here we have this great metal wall which is just fabulous for the steampunk inspired shoot that we have and I have uh mecca here today I don't know if we could see mick on the background here and someone I worked with before she's awesome and dressed her all up in our best we could rally up steam punky stuff and we've got some really cool jury from a jeweler in my local town that it kind of does the steampunk looking jewelry which is kind of what we got inspiration and one of things I also want to encourage you guys again to is to um find a way to do projects like this so if you have steampunk jury make a steampunk shoot if you're in a jewelry store you see something you know some elegant something that inspires you and you're thinking wow that make a cool shoot why not ask and that's all that we did is we just ask this jeweler when we saw his stuff we said we would love to just do a shoot with this jury it is inspiring me ideas and he's ...

like sure and basically let us walk out of the store with several thousand dollars worth of jewelry without really any question because he he did know me from other shoots we had done but we've never actually had to pay for for borrowing things like this and I think it photographers you could do that too of course make it a win win make sure that you're going to give back to the people that you're borrowing from or help them get the word out about their business or give them prints which they usually love if they have some great images of their stuff they can use so it's ah it's a win win it's a great way for you to create personal projects and make them happen okay we're just asking just ask and you can usually get what you need so what we want to do here in this space is to really highlight the costume the jewelry but we also want to have kind of a dramatic background this wall is actually perfect because it fits this rugged steam punky feel that we're going for and I also brought in a little trampoline and this is an exercise trampoline that we purchased at the local sporting goods exercise stores you get them most department stores I think that sell sporting goods and it's a great little tool when you want to have actually had one of these for years and I would take it sometimes take it to a wedding and a grandpa is being grumpy so you say jump on the trampoline grandpa come on it's okay and I'm feeling good today and he's all happy you know and then you might have a heart attack but so take the back don't do that you're gonna blame me fifth grandpa's hardtack but young ladies like this can jump in the general have hard tack but the purpose of the trampoline is just to get people airborne sometimes not only is it fun but it creates a different feeling of motion and what I'm hoping to do is to get some shots will give do still without jumping but then to get some where she's completely in the air even if it's just a foot off the ground if you get low enough it looks like she's floating you can't tell how high it is and it adds another justo a suspended moment something awkward something quirky to the shot and we've used this uh in that cave we talked about the other day we did the boudoir my friend wanted to bride and we shot a bride jumping on a trampoline in the cave and as surveilled those up like this it looks like angel wings kind of fluttering as he went up and as it came down if you catch it at the peak you know things they're up they look different when they're floating in the air so think everything on the body looks different when it's floating in the air it's like interesting how that works so so what we're gonna do is we're going to set this shot up and we're gonna have mecca here but for starters I think we want to get her let's get on this bench here so I've got some some jewelry some props and we're going to figure out what we're gonna put on her uh she's got this great little jacket and what this would look like I'm not gonna put on us when we would see we'll do that for one of them so we've got this cool little uh you can see that they're mascara's all brass and feathers and kind of brass mesh over the eyes great little mask thing that's pretty cool use that for something if this don't work on her no not yet you do it well so this really cool belt that looks like moon rocks uh planets stamped which is really awesome so I think we can throw that around her we've got some groovy goggles you guys have to see these things like here the I could be the steam punky e I don't normally make that noise I don't know where that came from so we may do some of this with the goggles we don't want to hide her eyes completely so again if your work looks pretty cool actually right there wait for click some keys on somewhere you clip it to your liking well they don't separate she's gonna hold them here we go she's holding the key to our hearts okay maybe afterwards because we really should get hold top hat kiss you like better what's very important what which keys you uh cheese to go doesn't fit her face better he's like humongous looks like a bug yeah we could set him on top of her head here that looks like that's awesome I don't wanna miss it she's beautiful just my on there all right so for lighting what we want to do is to minimize the existing light so I'm gonna drop my exposure down so that I have as little of the existing lightest possible and I'm kind of picturing some sort of a spotlight kind of beam something kind of raking across here to just bring that out bring the medal in the texture out maybe even with the blue gel so I have a light set up with the grid spot in a blue jail it'll skim across it and then mecca is going to be here and I'm gonna be shooting here the wall kind of fading out behind you know one thing when you're shooting against reflective surfaces like this if I was to shoot this straight on with her right from the wall that's a really cool angle it's a really cool composition but any any light source that I use is going to reflect so have a big hot spot in the metal almost no matter where I go over here wherever that light is I'm going to see a big hot spot if that's what you want awesome but if it's not what you want which is kind of what I'm going for shooting it at an angle and I'm only going to see the reflection of what's over there rather than what's over here which is where my light will be because the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection you remember that from photo school if those of you went to photo school there if you went to photo school and basically means that if you're looking into a shiny surface the light he's gonna hit it at the same angle that it will reflect off so if I'm looking at it this way it's gonna reflect anything over there that's why it's reflecting the window right now slightly into that but I'm gonna reduce my exposure such that that window reflection is just gonna be very very subtle and it gives me just enough it actually has a nice hint of the texture right now with their window reflection creating those hot spots in the metal so from shooting from this angle I'll have my model right about here somewhere and that way we can just get that and not worry about the reflections so let's move the trampling clearing and help me move this and we put the table in yeah maybe on the table for starts yeah so you're um be careful your heels too because I was standing your stand on it all right can you tippy toe or else I'm gonna work with her heels where did you put something underneath it so what I'm doing is setting up something for her to stand on just to get her look a little higher off the ground so I just want to see the middle and that's it behind her so we found this cool table that we used in our previous shoot and we just need to find something so that sure heels don't get stuck in the table what you're standing on it she's I'm gonna be stuck there for a while all right so let me compose what we're what we're going for it so we can start with his medical you can have to just sit like this right on the edge okay we're going funky when stacy and I'm gonna chant cut out with the fifty millimeter and first thing you want to do before I put any flash on this thing is member we're going to take a reading for ambient see how much of this ambiance going to show if any and what we're going to use with it so that's what I'm gonna do for starters and just go with the well you're for the ambien I don't even know what it was that I said it to fifty that might trigger on so that did flash didn't really get anything all right so here we can see we're starting with we actually have ah a little bit of that medal doesn't look bad actually just this reflection on the window light into the metal panels uh and I think it really just needs a little bit of interest a little color which will probably add with that so now we're going to bring in our main light and that's gonna come up right over here and we'll use our octa box for that let's start building that main lighting here and see we get way I'm actually gonna dial this down one stop okay I'm using to speed lights in here and we're gonna reduce them to the minimum power all the way down because I'm shooting at two point eight and have to speed light so all the way down would actually be not one twenty eighth power one one sixty four power on these particular lights because we're using too amusing too so that when we start moving and jumping on the trampoline that I can actually shoot faster and there were cycle almost instantly it was just one speed light and we have to wait in between and if somebody's moving and jumping and all that he doesn't give you a whole lot of slack I suppose a little further back so get some on her feet to go back to sleep all right so we'll do a test shot not too far too far right they're testing with a flash who's gonna give me a number shout out a number regina wait for the flash sixteen one sixteenth okay sixteen way already said it that so we're good now we're going to see where flashes after that fire no didn't far sorry everything looking so just right those fire now right yeah those fired what that did to we'll turn this one off shouldn't be on yet okay yeah we got light there all right so we need about a stop mohr so stop mohr with two flashes means each flash goes up shouted out girls and boy yea a one stop so both flashes got one stop to give me a total one stop increase in my exposure all right and I want you to kind of lean forward a little bit you can dangle those keys over the front your knees and then look up towards that light ok way check this exposure out perry gill it's an hour flashes just right with one stop increase take another shot here with her looking up towards that light this time cool chained up too so we've been america on awesome sweet sweet beautiful light on her face uh got nice little falloff of details things going down there we got a little think of the background but maybe want to try that background you know what I want I want to keep the background the way it is and just put that edge light hair light room light on her so let's do that with something with the blue try that we're going to change this grid to the tightest grid to be able to shoot it from far back so now we got a nice light on her face we've got uh background actually gonna keep it the way it is and we're gonna put a grid on this impact light I'm using this impact light now with a grid spot because as a larger grid and we have these different patterns of grids and I'm going to go with a fairly tight one so that I can shoot this boom boom boom boom bang on the back of her head like that so I want to light the side her hair she had this crazy cool here going on we want to highlight that with a little bit grid spotlight and uh we don't want to compete with the background so keep the background darker so that it will pop out against the background I'm shooting us with a fifty millimeter f one point four lens and let me just hide this you can see a little better because I like the fifty millimeter a lot like that you can shoot at one four if I decide to shoot at one four I can stop it down and get a really soft blown up background but two eight where I'm at now it's actually pretty good so I see enough of the metal but it's not too strong to compete with her so probably can't be there because that'll come a little bit more here way may see a reflection of that but we're not sure yet aim that at the at the back of her head let's see where we're at said turned on now the receiver to okay you want it up high or right where this strike where this we'll see okay mecha look work towards that light now again there that's perfect there power setting where that wouldn't even do it checking for it before now they're starting to work kicking in there on the ledge so now you can see what the edge light there's before and after it probably has to aim towards her hair a little bit more certain to highlight the side of her vest instead can you tell me if this is where this is pointed right at your head you power power is actually pretty good I can't keep where it is all right so I'm gonna shoot a few more shots here we got this little setup going on we'll work it out good let's try moving your hands together put your hat maybe on this hand and switch the keys to the other yeah you make it that kind of dangle there awesome now good chin up towards that light good forward there okay over here good good leaving for a little more and I want to see your gloves a little more so I kind of put both hands stretched out and talk to your knees a little bit yeah and then hold right they're gonna move this pocket watch out that's good there nice before all right so nice light on her face looking good now let's try want to try some standing up so what we're going to do is maybe alicia coming just we don't have to step on just put her heels in a spot that safe and don't move your feet so get up on your toes and then I'll just point your heels down where you were still one are facing you yeah I want to do this I kind of like your kind of knock kneed could've toes together kind of a field that feels a lot more funky just find someplace you stand down if you hold your keys together in front of you with two hands dangle there actually he kind of uh think holding your keys for starters and we'll have one where you can kind of grab onto this just kind of let this hanging over your hands stay all right that's cool but it's fallen stilton so we're gonna angle us up raise the light up to follow her how's that right there uh little more up there we go okay bring that up very just keeping keep close to that stand out a little bit bring the stand towards me a little bit early straight towards me so I guess I'm still kind of falling my ear to hear rule but I'm moving in a little closer because she's full length now and but we're still kind of feathering it turned towards her to spit okay so let's see where we're at now I may have ah a little less light because it's further away but I'm gonna open up here like huh we need to fix the hair like okay caroline okay michael you look towards towards that light there for a test thinks there's flashing that pointed at you you make pretty good um it's gonna have to aim higher than the hitter here all right so I want you to kind of work you're from that without your feet you're gonna have to gonna move twist into the light and a stretch towards the like some some really on unusual can lift your things up there yeah I'm kind of looking right towards that light again good I'm gonna switch into a longer linds here's wheat crop up more the background all right about a little more space back scoot back a little bit a lot more space back so I'm getting further away now if you want to come press and hide mohr of my background the edges and such and just get her that's cool meco chin up towards the light that way good and kind of you can grab that one hand on the pocket watch like you were doing earlier kind of pulled the whole little chain there yeah and look right towards that light source yeah nice going down a little lower no one right there keiko surratt all right pull that image up let her not be able to move on that table is difficult way okay cool all right so we have that's kind of a static pose but what we really want to do is the trampoline so we're gonna have to weigh have the other flat boots everything like that yes okay so let's bring her on down here and now we're going to the trampoline shots to take some questions while we reset that little scene here for the trampoline in a couple of the guys grab the fan chattered away okay uh d d d nine six seven asked I noticed you often use your rim to do double duty as a rim and background light what are some tips to make that happen and how do you position it so that we get that effect yeah if you want to use the rim light as both a rim light in the background light then of course having a grid on it is going to keep it really focuses just a background but it can also feather it's like we talked about earlier so that it hits the background and the subject so if we took that grid off of this for example and feathered it slightly towards the wall we'd actually get a nice little room like on mecca as well as some background like going on to so if you want to use it for both you need to put some sort of modifier that allows it to spread beyond just the grid spot of on your subject and a quick question from sam cox is when you are using more than one speed light and an octa box do you always set them to the same model and power level I do set it to the same power level only because it gets really confusing if you're a different settings on each flash as to how much to adjust right so it makes much more sense it's easier for me to bring them both up the same amount on both down the same amount the only time I would uh change them differently as if I had to at minimum power and it was still too much just turn one off and they don't have to use just a single but otherwise it's a lot easier because remember changing two of them one third of a stop only affects your entire exposure one third of a stop so it's very very rare that I need to have like a sixth of a stop difference which would be adjusting one down a third and leaving the other one where it isthe same kind of the same model the same brand of they don't have to be the same brand it helps to make it a little more even when you're adjusting if there were different brands and one was more power than the other and you adjusted both down a third you'd have slightly different it would be exactly one stopper one third but it's probably gonna be fine thank you okay all right okay goody we got boots on so she can get air yes let's let's ah let's see what else we got for her yeah she needs a mass because she's gonna be a superhero like flying in the air now so we're going to change this one up put a little mask on her so I'm picturing like steampunk super heroine kind of girl so water in the air and I want to have are getting some you know her legs up like she's almost flying leaping through the air and then we're gonna crop out the bottom so hopefully we only see the wall behind her so she could be flying any place and I think that would be fun if we could capture the right moment the right time without breaking anything she says she's a trampling experts so we're ready when she is very happy to hear about the trampoline today uh the thing with the trampolines that just to test them yourself and he's actually a lot of energy to jump on so don't expect your model to jump your subject jump on these all day long because it really is good actually size you think about it but again what I'm looking for from her is just something I like that in there we're gonna shoot boom you know okay I'm gonna do when you get like chicken legs and get off things like that take that blue gel off of that thing can you see it a lot of things or this feather come on let's see what can you fit there's a groovy armband that tilly looks like superhero stuff right now kevin there were quite a few people in the chat room asking if you were using high speed sync right now no I'm just using a shutter speed was one well three twentieth which is actually turning into high speed sync so these flashes we'll go into high speed sync automatically so we're at three twentieth of a second which I didn't even double check on that I said it to fifteen that was sure how they got three twenty the last one so high speed sync is in effect which is probably why I'm getting less power than I I was anticipating out of those that setting yeah so there are three twentieth I'm actually gonna bring it back down now for these two to fiftieth sink speed because I think it's cutting the power down because they're they do automatically go in with the population what's nice is the autumn I could go into high speed st mode as soon as you passed that threshold so they'll allow you to use them in high speed sync whether you want to or not is up to you because then of course your power goes down tremendously after you hit after go over to fiftieth e all right so she's going to jump um it's not like she needs one thing in her hand still she hasn't feather feather okay we'll use a feather on the hat again or and we're going to bring that power but uh two thirds two thirds on each all right we'll do a little test mecca as soon as I find out uh where we're gonna be that's gonna look we're gonna be there so yeah keeping mine where she's gonna be up you may need to stand there and kind of ok monitor that thing all right let's do just a quick little test you can take a little little jump pull your legs up with you and you jump all right yeah so look to the light like you're just going towards that light you know it's like that's the sun pulling you up there your superhero girl heroin girl and let's crack that up still didn't go far enough you teach let's go stop more from here yeah I think we pulled it further away we're gonna need more so what you're gonna do mecca is tow you really have to kind of pull your knees up to be able to get you in my frame because if you're if you're just tippy toeing and jump in your two too tall too tall that's never said teo all right a lot of it right here okay ready for you nice to see that light looks like we'll go for a pose that's cool all right so remember look up towards the light mecca okay yeah it looks cool so we're still gonna need what we have power setting we out here uh thirty second plus okay we got plenty to go yeah so stop go one more stop up we're going to shoot so after I shoot a few I'm going to shoot a few of our jumping gonna do a few more close ups of the jewelry and then uh I'ma let you guys my studio audience come here and shoot some shots two of her okay so I'm gonna give you my camel you can pick your lens you have to give it back when you're done and uh unless you okay mecha go for some superhero girl poses like oh sam boom nice that was close your other hand you gonna hold onto that pocket watch too if it's slamming into you when you're jumping for let's try uh let me see what those look like okay so what we're gonna do is you want to get your legs kind of more kung fu ninja superhero okay so we're gonna instead of ah you got him tucked up together here maybe we tried like one here one there and then your right hand you will punch up towards the light when you jump in and left and kind of back you're gonna be like some like that because this one was close here if you can see it but she can't she can't see what we're talking about her so just get your legs in different angle like you see in that same spot all right try it again here we go here okay yeah it was cool that was good I like that one leg up it was like superman girl you just hang on to cool it with the girl that light needs to go you know that's close that's really close we'll want so when you do that keep your chin extended okay that was a good football is a good pose oh did you see can you say it all you were doing with your legs with the one leg up in the other one back all right nice cool let both hands go this time so your left and they go that thing so you're left and kind of pulled back like your yeah nice mom I do it oh yeah that's the one flying everything nice alright called job mecca all right so you can see on screen here I'm just adjusting this too I can see what's going on and we gotta cool how that was almost that that's the pocket watch find like aereo so we got our super heroine pose he's flying through the air we just crop out the sides and tweak on that one little bit and I think we've got the shot we're looking for a sharp cool okay so let's get uh you guys come on over here and we could do a few shots and actually you know what let's do let's pull it down real quick let me do some close up we could take that feathered thing and put it up on her head so it's the mask is under her hair and we just do a few little close ups right here good thing that a dent in your nose from this thing was it hitting singing you know yeah sarge it out a little bit okay who's gonna shoot come on over you're going to do a portrait of just a portrait of this and then we'll uh we'll let you shoot hi how's it going on all right let's see I want to do something kind of a head and shoulders that has your I'm kind of this armband in here you know may well save it because it looks kind of contracting with this stripey things we'll save this for earlier shoot hey mecca someone from your soccer teams have to be careful so that you don't hurt yourself I'm not sure who it was I'll find out who said that and let you know they need you in there you're a good player all right so uh well let's take you off the trampoline so we don't hurt your soccer team will be pissed at me ok so all I need here is a little or flick actor to fill and we're gonna do just some head and shoulders just some kind of things to highlight the jury specifically with our octo and we're gonna put the box at or above eye level so starting but right here bring it forward towards me from here to here on close as I can get so we'll get a soft as it can be on what uh accessories do we have to highlight here were so pretty hot on this yeah that's gonna have to come down a bit that was pretty bright so bring that down quite a bit dangle those in one finger I'll feel thank you stick your beak into this one thing just hold that in your hand pull up against you there like that uh two hands turned like that grass there yeah maybe don't lower I want to see the belt actually okay you're gonna turn towards alicia just little bit turn your shoulders back towards me and we'll see what that light looks like how far did you bring that light alicia what uh we're at one sixty fourth each okay all right we lost little the background turned towards me naked filled it with same thing right here okay we got a nice soft light on her but uh because we changed the angle of where I was standing in the less reflection I saw from the actual metal wall because I looked straight into it I lost the highlights in the wall which was looking so cool in the angled shots I had to just move myself to this angles I catch more reflections off the metal from the window