Lesson Info
21. Creating beautiful photographs of hands
Lessons
Meet your Master
01:26 2Learn from the journey
15:24 3Using inspirations
08:43 4Photography is stopping time
09:27 5Albert's library of ideas
08:30 6Tips on preparing for a portrait shoot
12:10 7Setting up the studio
04:56 8Understanding studio collaboration
07:35The importance of casting and hair & make-up
08:59 10Foreground studio set up
08:46 11Studio session with a model - set up 1
11:23 12Studio session with a model - set up 2
05:55 13Studio session with a model - set up 3
08:01 14Picking the best shot
03:36 15Working with photoshop
13:14 16Creating a portrait of Alfred Hitchcock
04:18 17The gigantic question... Colour or black and white?
07:55 18One day with Kate Moss
05:06 19Learn to have your ideas ready
06:14 20Using Polariods
06:29 21Creating beautiful photographs of hands
04:45 22Controlling natural light
05:38 23Shooting a monkey with a gun
06:27 24Choosing your format
07:13 25Composition and lens
04:47 26Shooting landscapes. The Isle of Skye
15:18 27Planning and ideas for a landscape shoot
06:32 28Creating still life images
13:48 29Photographing the Lost Diary
10:53 30Shooting album covers
03:09 31The Strip Search Project
10:28 32Shooting Las Vegas landscapes
08:24 33Photographing Breaunna
07:21 34Balancing daylight, God bless America
03:45 35Creating the Maroc Project
10:21 36Creating the Maroc shoot
08:11 37Photographing sand dunes
04:09 38Photographing Moroccan children
10:42 39Advice on making portraits
10:12 40How to be alert to finding photographs
07:35 41Making a portrait of Mike Tyson
02:39 42Creating intense colour in a photograph
03:04 43Portraits of rap stars and a Golden Boy
08:40 44Photographing Jack Nicholson
04:20 45Creating a portrait of David Cronenberg
02:14 46How to light only using two $10 bulbs
07:29 47Studio fashion set up 4
10:47 48Studio session with a model. The geography of a face
13:05 49Look inside the picture
02:56 50Creating memorability in an image
02:54 51Combining nudes and landscapes
04:52 52A perfect print
07:50 53The business side of things
06:50 54Conclusion and farewell
03:55Lesson Info
Creating beautiful photographs of hands
(soft music) Somebody asked me if you know, photographing hands was a still life, which I think it essentially is. The hands are not dead, they're not ever dead. Although, once in Las Vegas I did photograph the death hands, made out of wax, of Liberace. But most hands are absolutely, you know, moving, living things but somehow you treat them compositionally and you can also treat them emotionally. I was lucky enough to photograph the hands of Joan Didion who's the great American writer and I was actually leaving, I had finished shooting and I just suddenly noticed that she had a beautiful collection of sea shells so I did a kind of a rather obvious thing of photographing her hands as just, quickly on a four by five camera, with a natural light from the window actually. And I really grabbed that shot at the end and later I thought it was actually a better shot than I had realized. That's something that happens, sometimes you take a picture and you think it's, you know it's okay, it's ...
not bad but then later you realize that it's actually a little bit better than you first thought, you know? And it's actually a shot that we do now as a additioned series. So photographing hands, I've done lot's of them. Little bit the sad thing, which was really you know, once again, even though that I'm working all the time you still make mistakes and that's one thing you have to kind of learn from. I remember photographing in the flower market in Marrakech. I was waiting for some models to get ready you know and I noticed that the flower seller, a woman, her hands were henna tattooed and she was selling roses. So I took a few rose petals and dropped them into her hand, you know, and just natural light with a four by five camera and I had this kind of what, now looking back at, it was a bad habit, where I would do Polaroids for people and just give the Polaroids away. So I would do the Polaroid and you know, give it to the editor or a model or just give them to people. Give them to the flower seller. Here's a Polaroid of your hands. My assistant at that time said He said "You do Polaroids all the time, why don't you just do two sheets of film?" And I said, "Oh I can't be bothered." But then he said "Here, here you go." And he put the film in my hand and I shot and I kind of realized from that point on that I should always do that. You know, just taking some nice pictures because a lot of time I'm focused on what I'm doing. If I'm doing 20 pages, 40 pages for Italian Vogue then that's what I'm doing, I'm there to do 20 pages. And I'm not necessarily there to do my own projects. If I do my own projects it's so so. So he actually changed that, that guy, that assistant changed it and it actually was quite a, there was a lot of things that came along that I started to do. And I actually went back one time and found some great old Polaroids which later we actually used as part of a big project. So I did go back and find some of these old Polaroids that we used. But photographing hands is a very nice thing to do. You know one thing, when you're photographing hands you can always try and see, you know when you're working with somebody's face you're working on emotions but you can do the same thing with hands. You can, you can really treat hands softly and delicately. The flower sellers, Moroccan flower sellers hands are done that way but I've also done, you know, boxer's hands and I've done hands aggressively. I've done hands in movement, I've done hands sleeping. I mean, I've photographed Snoop Dogg's hands when he was fast asleep on my couch. So you know, you should always be kind of keeping little things like that in mind. And as long as you can, you have the speed to do these things fairly quickly, you don't always have to use a four by five, you can use a smaller camera to do that. I think it's a pretty good exercise to improve your, your awareness of who and what you are. (soft music)
Ratings and Reviews
Richard A. Heckler
"Unless you're Mozart"...this course is an invaluable asset. I'm a pro, humanitarian/documentary photographer, & wilderness...and I've learned much from the 40+ sessions here. This is truly a Master Class...next best thing to being with Albert. And although I could watch studio sessions forever, this course offered a very balanced curriculum of technical information, artistic encouragement and guidance, and a open, generous window into the thinking of a gifted artist and photographer, sifted from decades of first class experience. Kudos to all involved. Excellent!
a Creativelive Student
I purchased my first CreativeLive class in 2011 and have continued to purchase many classes over the years. I have learned so much from the many great instructors. This one is not a technical class that will tell you to set your camera at f4, 1/60, ISO 400 and you can get this shot. If you are looking for that, there are many other options. If you have a solid working knowledge of photography, this class is so much more. The way it was filmed is like you are there with him in conversation or in the room with him watching him shoot. To see and understand the how and why he does what he does. Not to take anything away from other classes that have helped to give me a strong understanding of photography, this is my favorite CreativeLive class so far.
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