Lessons
Class Introduction
13:35 2The Inverse Square Law
06:24 3Shoot: One Light, Single Subject
20:44 4Shoot: Group Photo
14:48 5Shoot: Group with Diffusion
29:06 6Lighting Diagrams
14:48 7Strobox Demo with Chris Coe
05:25 8Softbox Set Up #1: Overhead Drama
13:33Softbox Set Up #2: Beauty Box
09:37 10Softbox Set Up #3: Backlight
07:40 11Softbox Set Up #4: Backlit Silhouette
10:00 12Creating a One Light Playbook
13:02 13Shoot: Bare Beauty Dish
14:47 14Shoot: Stripbank
07:12 15Shoot: Magnum Reflector
11:18 16Shoot: Grids
11:21 17Shoot: Beauty Dish with Sock
08:50 18Introducing Multiple Lights
10:47 19Shoot: Clamshell
17:10 20Shoot: Softbox & Beauty Dish - Main/Fill Lights
27:02 21Shoot: Softbox, Edge Lights/Striplights, and V Flats
30:45Lesson Info
Shoot: Beauty Dish with Sock
Let's just do something tasteful, like how would I use one of these things? Like a one light easy go-to guy. Let's do beauty dish with a grin. Yep. Yep. I'll take that, thanks. Dude man, T right, T-bone? Come on up, all right. Uh-huh, yep, uh-huh. All right. Is there, there's no way to dim this stuff a little bit is there, no? Yeah, is that annoying? You want all of it dim or-- No just like these two just a little bit if I could get it dimmed a little bit? Just so I can really see this monolight, jump up T. All right, just gonna sit you on here so you're a little bit lower, right? Okay. How's that? Yeah, better right? You guys see that monolight a little bit better? Right on, okay cool. So yeah just sit a little forward on your knees. Right on, great, okay. And let's walk this a little bit closer. And make it actually a little bit back, Chris. Right on, and lower it, right on. So I think we really get into modeling light when we start to do dark light dark light when the li...
ght kind of moves through the shot this way, and this to me is like a great way to make one light look like a couple lights in the studio just with a beauty dish and a grin, yep. You can bring your chin down, T-bone. Yep nice to meet ya, uh-huh. That's what we want. Really getting locked in with T-Bone. I am, uh-huh. I've given him a street name so I won't forget it, uh-huh. All right. Got my light meter? I do. Uh-huh. Got my photo stance on. You kinda you know want a good photo stance sometimes. (laughing) Yeah, all right. Eight nine. Eight nine, all right. I'm gonna call that 11 right? And what I'm trying to do is 'cause this light's so focused you'll see it in a second. It's gonna light here, dark here, light back there and it's gonna fall off a little bit there so I'm gonna work with the amber square law and create like a nice painterly effect that's going to look like a couple lights, right? Beautiful, yep. (laughing) Yeah. So pretty heavy shadow right? But I like that. Don't even change the shadow, keep it dark Chris. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah, great, that's what I like. All right, so you see how, hold this for a minute Chris? Do we have it here? Yep, doesn't this look like a second light lighting the background, right? So it's got that little bit of a glow of it. It's just coming in, we got a good catch light. We've got good shape here. We have a pretty strong shadow, so maybe we'll just try to noodle in with the fill card a little bit and see if you know, I'd probably leave it like that. I like shadows. I don't think I have to see all the detail in my shadows all the time. Some people get really noodly about that. I teach at this very technical school where people just talk about that constantly, it drives me crazy and I think I'm there to shake things up a little bit. Am I there to shake it up Chris? Yeah! Yeah, great. That same sort of white chocolate sort of looking dude, uh-huh yeah. (laughing) I'm sorry. You can make fun of me at the break, yeah uh-huh. Perfect, uh-huh, chin down just a little bit. Yep, yep let's bring that light in just a little bit. Yeah. Yeah let's go with the silver side and try to give him an edge from the back here. Lower. Right, yeah so I'm just trying to see if I can get a little edge back there too and just chin down yes, good, uh-huh. Oh, such a handsome fella! T, oh I'm sorry, yeah, yep. (laughing) Uh-huh. For the ladies, all right. We're not really getting that edge from the back though are we no? No. If we bring it closer. Yeah okay we'll try to bring it closer. I don't know if it's gonna work. Yeah there it is. Focus McBride, you're a little on the left far, yep thanks Chris, all right. Yeah, getting a little kick there but just scroll through them a little bit for me Chris? You got it. Right on, so this is definitely one of my go-to simple, one light set ups right? And when I'm working with a client like I love providing options, options, options right? Boom boom boom boom, get me lots of options right? So a very quick, easy change or I'd just be losing this guy right? And I was talking about getting the most out of your beauty dish before, and the closer the light, the softer the light so if we really want to see, did I say the essence? What was the silly word I used before? I forget. Got your light meter Chris? Yeah. 11 four. All right let me put it down a little bit. 11 one even, okay cool. All right. Sweet. Okay, beautiful just compare those two right? Let's compare it with one of the moodier dark ones right? Uh-huh. (laughs) Give him a little bit more, let's not humiliate him like that. Give him something else, yeah. Okay cool, right on. So a beauty dish can very quickly give you two totally different looks. The shapely look with the grid, the more focused look, the more sort of character sort of deeper soulful look and coming in here it's just gonna give you a real, beautiful, soft overall frontal beauty light taking away all those shadows. There's also socks for these guys. Do we have a sock somewhere around here? Not that I've seen. No, looks like a shower cap. It's just a bit of diffusion that goes over the top, you saw a sock? All right let's hit that sock just to see if it's any different. Shower cap. Oh yeah, that thing. Right, so it looks like a giant soft shower cap. T-bone, grab the top of this. Yeah. There you go. I imagine it's going to be about a stop a light, so. Usually one of those pieces of diffusion's about a stop a light. I was at 11, it should be eight. 11 seven. Really? Yeah. I can't believe that, let me see that again. All right, one more time. 11 five. Really? Yeah that's just nutty. That doesn't make any sense, something else changed. Maybe I didn't dump. (laughs) Could we see any difference in those two? Yeah, yeah, cool. So what's going to be softer really how the light falls off from light to shadow. See how flat that is? Now I really like when a light starts to do this sort of thing. I mean one you know you've got some good, oh look at that light on him there. All right, yeah. Shoot that Chris, just shoot that, don't move, don't move. Shoot it wide, shoot it wide, horizontal. Yeah get his hands in there. Yeah, cool. Right on, totally different sort of look and feel, but I just like how mysterious and moody and dark it is. Definitely a situation where we might start to add a second light, but go back to those two up top there? Cool, we're comparing these with the sock and without the sock. Okay, just so I'm totally sure. This is five, this is six, sock, no sock right? You see how this light starts to fall off towards the back of your face here? This like little bit of a shadow? I don't know, I get very involved in that, in that subtlety, I think it's very exciting for some reason. It shapes people's face. I guess maybe 'cause I spent about 30 years like studying this thing, like putting these four lines around something round called the head, you know what I mean, studying it, you know? So these little bits of subtlety in how this light, do you see this here T-bone, you with us? Come back. Is it falling on your head, yeah? Okay, I don't know I get sort of excited about that sort of stuff.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
KIS Photography
WOW! I was getting ready to go to bed, when I saw this class last night as I was perusing the classes available. Got the notification that it was playing, so I thought I'd check it out for a minute or two. Well, once I turned it on, I couldn't turn it off! As someone who has shot musicians on stage since I was 16, I've recently been interested in shooting portraits of them, so Clay instantly intrigued me! The more I watched, the more I couldn't shut it off, and I stayed up til 5:30 in the morning to finish the course (financial issues, so I can't afford the class right now) This class is amazing! I love Clay's teaching style, his willingness to step outside the box and play by his own rules, and his lighting is awesome! As soon as it is possible, I WILL be purchasing this class! Loved it! Thanks again CreativeLive for introducing me to yet another outstanding photographer to learn from!
Jason Darr
I absolutely loved this. Great instruction, great content and very inspiring demonstrations. I'd highly recommend this course
Gene Tolan
Awesome intro to lighting. I love Clay's teaching style and his personality infused presentation was a pleasure. I highly recommend this course.
Student Work
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Portrait Photography