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Soccer Shoot: Jump Shot Part 2

this segment I'm super super excited for we're actually doing like five or six different photo shoots in this segment so it's going to be pretty fast pace I'm gonna take you in the photo shop really quickly over the break they're some awesome questions coming in a chat room people saying like you know what you know maybe it looks like he's offsides or like what it looks like he's kicking the ball in the wrong place they're a couple of things that I want to remind you guys this is a composite image the background completely fabricated at any point in time we want to we can switch out any of these elements as of now I'm mostly concerned about getting my lighting right but if we wanted to completely change out that stadium we can totally do that we can we can really do just about anything we want to make this image work a little bit more and kind of show you that what I did really quickly over the break and again I did this really quickly so no judgment allowed but I actually created a li...

ttle goal there on the side of our image and I did this with the brush tool and I just painted white on the side of the image so quite literally this was you know it took two seconds for me to do but we did have some questions about like you know angles and things like that like you know where's he's supposed to be kicking this ball and things like that and just keep in mind these options are totally open like if we wanna have that goal obviously I just drew that with the brush tool but it's not really that difficult to find a photograph of a goal and so weaken totally put those things in after the fact after the photo shoot or here during the photo shoot we could do a little bit of a mock up for this sort of thing and it's going to then we can just use the photograph later after the day of the photoshoot just to make sure that it does actually work out really well so all these things are they're completely changeable during the photo shoot so we've got this and then we've got our other there we go we've got our other soccer player as well and there were some other questions about like you know what if it looks like he's going offsides in terms of you know the lines on the ground and all that and I just wanted also remind like I said these lines on the ground they were created also in photoshopped right so weaken we can add more of these lines we can move them around we can we can flip them and we can really do whatever we want with these lines here on the ground so you know it's definitely stuff we want to keep in mind we want to make sure the shot is as real as possible in my head I'm usually more concerned with getting my lighting nailed down and I know you know like that's why having someone on set and if you are doing like a sports type of image you know having someone that actually plays soccer like james actually does play soccer so during the break he was able to come up and we we kind of talked about it and he was like yeah maybe you know the line could be over here maybe I could be kicking with my other foot and that would make it a little more realistic things that maybe I wouldn't think of so big thing is a photographer like generally I don't try to know everything like I'm not going to know everything about soccer but I know enough about lighting where I can get that right and then if I need to know something about soccer just bring in someone they could tell me what to do so it's just kind of a little tip like if you're doing something like this it's probably worth getting it right just so there aren't people like what this is not right at all this isn't soccer you invented a new game but yeah it's totally okay to bring other people into kind of like you know to talk about those things with you so given all that information and what we did with the first segment we're going to continue we're going to continue on with our photo shoot so we're gonna do a couple more shots just like this we're going to change up the foot placement and again I'm not I haven't decided one hundred percent on whether we're going to include the goal part of me likes the idea that there's a goal in there because it makes it it gives it a little bit more depth a cz long as we find a goal that actually looks like a like a legitimate soccer goal then part of me thinks that you know maybe we could put some other people here in the ball in the air and we could totally change our composition to make it look like for instance the field that we have in our background the stadium this one over here I'm just going to hit command j on the stadium and then let's go ahead command j just duplicates that layer and then command tea is going to bring up our transformed dialogue so like if I wanted to I could totally change the placement of this and then change our lines and that totally changes where he'd be on the field so we could make this completely change the composition just based on like the size and scale of the image of things like that and then we could you know bring our lights up a little bit and we could bring james up if we wanted to as well so all these things there we go really high in the air now I guess all these things are totally changeable at any point in time so during a photo shoot I just want to make sure that the elements like our you know our our player looks good and that's what I want to make sure you know just paying attention to during the photo shoot other things we need to change those khun change a lot of time after the photo shoot is already completed so really good questions from the chat room and I hope that answered some of those questions and kind of like gave give you guys a little bit of an idea like what is possible with compositing and why you know why during the day of the photo shoot some of those things aren't they're not as important to focus on their always good to have in the back of your mind but mostly my job is to focus on like lighting and angle getting a good shot of james and making sure that everything works yeah we're appreciating that that was a really great thing is that we're you know we're doing our best to teach compositing not soccer right through but we don't want to look like you know exactly yeah I really don't know that much about soccer that's thie honest truth but it it's really nice that james actually does play soccer so yeah I'm having someone to kind of like coach you and be like okay yeah that's that's really great so yeah let's go ahead and get back into the chute james you ready to go all right so we're gonna waiting just jump over back in the light room here where we are and we're using our us utility here let's just do a test shot make sure that everything is ah is working correctly here you see the progress and the shot should just show up here in light room in just a second all right perfect andi john did you wantto maybe come around and weaken grab the soccer ball again and waken do a couple test shots so I really like what we were doing before the break in any time like we find something that you know really does work well I'm just a big fan of like saying okay let's get ten more shots of that or let's get five more shots whatever it's like you know figure out okay this this pose looks good the light looks good oftentimes you could work with the subject and the subject in sea like okay this looks good but like I was photographing a ballet dancer a couple of months ago and we got our lighting set up we got you know everything was in place and I was like okay this is the pose that I really like and she came around and said you know what I need to point my toe a little bit mohr and that's going to make the shot better and I had no idea but then we worked on doing the same pose she pointed her tome or and then we nailed it so yeah I think those shots that we got just before lunch were really great if we want to just do a couple more just like that and we can try james actually have a suggestion to use your other foot as well yeah okay and I'm yeah let's let's do it and again guys we're compositing right so it's you know if we take one hundred different shot's all we need is one we just need one shot that's going to really nail it so yes yeah if you wouldn't mind standing there in about the center of the mat thanks on for reminding me alright yep we're good to go awesome oh that's actually really nice see I wouldn't have thought so that we can see everything come up here on on the screen yeah that's really really cool with that ok there's a couple of things that I'm kind of seeing with the shot just as faras like lighting and again most the time that's what I'm looking at is lighting I'd love a little bit more of a rim light on on his arm so we're just going to maybe move this move this light up just a little bit I'm gonna crank the power up a little bit on it and we're gonna move it just like that and see if we can get a little bit more on his arm there and um yeah everything else looks pretty amazing okay points that I was making earlier when I was said that generally I don't want to get a nine foot green streams like they have like a nine foot wide seamless this's fifteen feet wide and you can see he's takes up the entire thing and the reason is because he's separated so if you are using one of these green screens go as large as possible because at this point I would have to manually cut out his foot with the with the pencil not a huge deal you're doing everything right yeah we can let's do that let's move it back just a little bit also keep in mind if we move it back a little bit we want to we're going to change our focus a little bit and this is also going to change the amount of compression that we get so right now it looks like he's almost like kicking really towards the camera it's gonna look a little less like that but if it means more of hymns on the green screen maybe that's a good thing so I'm gonna focus again okay and we're good to go awesome all right let's see how that looks that's really cool so dynamic and we can see let's see if we flip back and forth that moving the rim light a little bit higher now we can see it it's lighting a little bit more on his on his arm and I also raise the power of that just a little bit as well all right this looks awesome let's keep on going all right could you go a little bit higher maybe john bring the ball a little higher awesome awesome um there's a great really okay let's do one more and then I'm gonna have you jump from the other side a couple more times again if you don't mind games really cool all right let's take a just a quick second in kind of look at the shots it's probably a good opportunity to talk about some of the things that I'm looking for in these shots which generally if someone's doing something like this I want to be able to see all of their limbs as much as possible whether it's a sports shop like this or whether I'm photographing a model from or something like a a fashion shoot generally I don't want someone's arm behind them if someone's you know got their hand out like I don't want it back here things like that people tend to be a little funny so this shot is really nice but I like some of these other shots where I can see like his other hand coming out here a little bit more you know and so shots like this to me or just like a little bit more a little more powerful because they tell a little bit more we can see there he's definitely all in the green there but we did lose a little bit of that perspective so this is something during a photo shoot we have to decide what we like you know like do we like what do you guys think here in the audience would you prefer all on the greens pray for an easy job cutting out or a little bit more perspective in the shot give me a challenge really cool perspective is that yeah totally agree all right well let's bring the crash pad a little more for then yeah I'm still using a green screen awesome thanks james using a green screen it makes it really quick and easy to cut someone out but even if we were photographing him you know and he had a brick wall behind him was something you could always go back to something like the pen tool and use that to cut someone out which if we do want to be using one of these images I'll show you guys how to use the pen tool to do that and it's it's a really great tools to make accurate selections and that's what we would probably use for for the area around his foot as well so yeah this first shot I actually really like I like that in this shot your hand is more open and asking a model tow like keeping all this in their minds when trying to jump I generally don't ask them to do that stuff because it could be overwhelming like okay like sure you look enough alike and keep your hand open and twister foot out this way n jump and like you know all these things and it's just like I think it's better just take five more shots and hope you get hope you get the right thing also if you needed to which I'm not a huge fan of this to be honest but if we did want to take this arm his his right arm so the one that's further closer to the top of the frame take this arm and use it instead of that one or that hand if you do want to replace body parts it's totally possible I'm not a huge fan of that because I find most of the time just looks really really weird unless you do it just right but if you didn't need to do it you do you do have that option some of the time all right yeah let's do a couple more with with with the pad a little bit closer I think that looks great all right yep if you want to stand in the thank you okay let's do a couple more from the from the front side maybe just two more like that and then we'll do a couple from the back oh man that was awesome yeah as really cool cool let's go for it again wow that's awesome all right I'll try to capture a little bit earlier I think I was a little bit late on that one all right yep ready whenever you are sorry alright let's do one more if you don't mind james oh man that's that's really awesome okay cool let's do maybe a couple from the back side if you don't like that's like bruce lee that's yeah quick question do you mind before the next shot yet go ahead awesome so we talked earlier about focus are you doing back buck but back button focus or are you setting your focus to manual after you set your focus good question so I am I'm using the button to set my focus while so with the cannon my focus between auto focus and manual focuses on my lens which is the same for nikon I believe I started out shooting olympus and it was in the menu system so not as good so what I've been doing is hitting auto focus on my lens using the back button teo focus and then switching it meant switching it to manual focus so my focus is locked so when when we're ready I don't want the camera have to think about any of this stuff right like I don't want the camera have to like try to sir from focal point while he's in the air so I got my finger on the trigger and when I'm not even looking at my camera most of the time I'm looking at my subject and when I see he's in the right place I'm hitting it and it should trigger exactly right and oftentimes you kind of have to hit the trigger just before you think you should to get the to get the right action good question all right great let's thank you couple more awesome if we can do maybe you write the harm up yeah just goes across your face a little bit awesome I'll get you a little bit early on that one oh that's really cool there was contact yeah okay really really cool all right this is it I mean they definitely look like action shots which is which is exactly what we want all right so let's just kind of take a look at these we'll take the two second break james if you know what all right so we've done I think you know we've started out with the crash pad basically parallel to the back wall and those shots to me looked a little bit static they looked a little bit boring if you guys remember let's just go back in time that looks awesome so doing these shots we started out in this way and these jumping shots they worked but they were a little bit more on on the aesthetic side so then we move the crash pads in the forty five maybe twenty degrees clockwise and it kind of minimize the kicking and then we brought them the other way and it it made the kicking it made his feet appear a little bit larger which I think really helped out you get high on that one um so kind of like looking through these shots that's that's a really just awesome shot so looking through these now we kind of decided like you know do we like kicking from with this foot versus the other one so that's another thing like everything we stack on so it's like okay we have a couple of shots where he's farther away and a couple shots where he's closer and then we looked at those and said you know what I kind of like the closer ones more so then we're going to shoot maur closer shots we've got shots with him kicking with his left leg and then you know some kicking with with right leg which are over here and what do you what do you guys like here in the here in the audience will put it to a vote from this side or from that side seemed a little bit more dynamic just so yeah it kind of does right it really does just kind of like it twists his body a little bit more I think which to me makes it it definitely look a little bit more dynamic three shots are good but they you're right I think that they're I think that twist in the body is really what does it so looking at that you know then it's like we're going to move on from that so each of these little things because we get a composite thes we don't have to get anything right in one frame you know weaken make little adjustments and kind of building building building so the idea is that you know an hour into the photo shoot you made a bunch of little yes no decisions like okay we want to hear we wanted you to kick from this side we want to do this we wanted to this so by the time you get to the shots there at the end of your photo shoot those should be like your best range of shots because you've made all those little yes no decisions that got you to the place that you like and even if we decided to if if we didn't have any more time I think we would still have some amazing shots that we could use in our composite all right cool let's take a question in the meantime we're going to up the ante a little bit and I think everyone here on creative live knows what that means all right I'll take a couple questions and okay you anything from the in studio because I got a couple up here all right great so um here's a question chris san diego this is a fundamental course on compositing and I believe a lot of people I have already taken so much in and are falling in love with compositing could you give some ideas for getting started in a career specific and another question added to that is how do you make money from this those are great questions okay compositing is huge there are a lot of people who start out in photography and they're they're all aware of the job called professional photographer but the longer you're in this profession you realize there's so many jobs in so many careers that revolved around the photography industry that are not professional photographer and one of those jobs is re toucher another one of those jobs is composite you know our composite er and there are people who do this stuff professionally so let's say you have a photographer who specializes in sports photography you know they're working with the subject they know they're lighting and things like that but maybe they're you know they just haven't spent the time in photo shop those people are going to hire out professional rita cher's professional composite er's to do that sort of work for them so people make you could make pretty good money is the re toucher as well I know some professional researchers who do very well for themselves and a lot of those people don't do a lot of photography themselves so they take care you know they'll talk to their clients ahead of time and I nowadays most of what I do is education a couple of years ago I did a lot of consulting and a lot of this work professionally for other other photographers and professionals kind of how it works is basically a photographer you know they look at your work they see you know how to do compositing things like that bid for the job you get hired for the job and then you come on as a consultant early on so the composite or the re toucher they're coming on from early early on and saying you know what okay talking to the photographer I need this shot this shot this shot in this shot okay you need to shoot on a green screen and I would prefer you know set up four rim lights so sometimes I would be on set sometimes I would just be on the phone and I would say okay I need you to do this this this and this and then I'm going to take these files and make it work so the photographer they don't even have to all these things that were kind of talking about today the photographer oftentimes they don't have to think about this stuff because the re toucher or the depositor is talking to them and they're making sure that the photographer takes care of these things so it would be like shoot on a green screen use foreign lights I need my exposure look about like this make sure you use a white card things like this adjust the angles it's going to look like this and then the photographer will shoot that the retention will get it back and take care of all those details so that's a quick answer how you can make a living doing this sort of thing thea other thing is this sort of compositing it can go as complex or as simple as you like I'm a big fan of making it complex because it's fun for me I did the simple stuff years and years ago and to me it's it's kind of like I could do it any day of the week it it's not challenging for me this is the cool kind of like challenging stuff for me but even the simple stuff you khun you can make a living doing this simple stuff you know think about like we don't have to be shooting a sports portrait here if we were shooting a baby portrait you shot him on a green screen and put like a nice really beautiful out of focus background with really nice glow on it kind of like a and get these type of look you could make amazing beautiful shots there a lot of derek few photographers that come to mind who do like children photography and there what they do is they cut their they cut the children out of the background they use a background that's like super out of focus and like bright and glowing beautiful colors they match the background color to the outfit or use a complimentary color through the outfit of the child and come with stunning stunning shots like they look like they were taking it f point three or something like that and it sze compositing but it's not like out there composing it's not like this stuff we're doing now so these same techniques you can do with just about anything you think of that you were photographing a mechanic and you know like a in the garage and you when you photograph you amazing shots of the garage at a certain time of day but the mechanic wasn't there or maybe you wanted to manually you know combine a bunch of different shots and then you photograph the mechanic on a different day and you put him in the background things like that are really really common in the professional photography industry because you're oftentimes working with different people schedules in hollywood for instance like getting I remember the like a lot of time we'll see those like vanity fair portrait's or like the arrested development shoot for when netflix redid the arrested development siri's like they shot that cover like in ten different locations because they they couldn't get all the different actors together at the same time so they would photograph one actor and then you know like photograph another one and try to do similar lighting for all of them and they put them all together in post so compositing it's huge it's so prevalent in our industry that like learning this skill is it just opens up doors and really really does