Lessons

Lesson Info

Live Shoot: Working in Hard & Soft Light

But it's a 1635 so the lens fit doesn't do much. I mean, it does the job but you know, what can you do? Alright, so I'm gonna just barely... Do that. Let me get power to- I want the light to be hitting my camera. I want it like that. Now I'm gonna start out and I'm gonna show you the difference and we might just do TTL. I'm gonna do TTL, so I'm gonna be able to adjust and change the bulb, change everything and the Profoto system's just gonna handle stuff for us, okay? So, let's pick some settings and let's let the light adjust. So we're gonna do... Why don't we just go 1/160th of a second, ISS-100. F8. That's pretty much base. That's basically where I start 'cause it's the middle of the range, and if I'm worried about Depth of Field now, I'm shooting wide, so Depth of Field isn't gonna be as much of an issue, right? 'Cause I'm pretty wide. Let's look at this, let's see what we get. I will start with a... What are you doing? What do we got? We need power? That will be helpful. It ...

helps a little bit. Yup. Okay, we've got power. We've got a silver with a sock on now, I'm gonna tell you right now I'm gonna do a bunch of different modifiers. We're gonna try a beauty dish, we're gonna try the OCF softbox, we're gonna try it with and without the grid. We're gonna do the big umbrella deep. What else do we have? We're gonna try just this regular zoom reflector hard light. I'm gonna show you, this is gonna be the biggest, softest option we have, right here. And we're gonna go from big and soft and we're gonna start to work down into a harder light. So, John, just make sure that other D2's close 'cause I don't wanna have to work that bulb in again. Right now we got the bulb on. Let's do our guess shot. Ready guys? Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, this is really cool. I like what we're getting here. Hold that. And I can really, since I'm goin' for the distortion, I can really jam this in here. Now, if you know my work, you haven't seen much distortion, but, what am I doing? Getting close. I'm breakin' some rules. I like breakin' my rules and I like distortion. I like photographers who do that kinda stuff. Good, this is a little funky though. Let's see how it looks. Hey, what are you doin'? Pay attention to me. There you go. Right there, I like that, That's kinda funky. Okay. And I wanna show it to him. We're doin TTL, let's see. Gimme my squinch, what are you doing? There you go, go nose this way a little bit. Hold that. There you go, right there. Hold that. Good. Let's see what we got. (sharp exhale) It's kinda cool, look at those hands, right? It's really distorted. Now, I don't like I could crop this and get it the way I want. I don't like the shadowing under his nose. Now what I could do is now I do the TTL. I like the look, I don't like the way the shadow looks under his nose, and I think it could be darker. So I do the TTL, and I hit it into manual. It's now locked. And I can go from F8 up to F10, I can come in a little bit. Am I pullin' that out of the way? Yes. You're pulling it away. Alright, everybody just relax. Let's just get the job done. There you go, now it's more lookin' like the way I wanted it to look. Alright, I still don't wanna see the brick. I mean, I could crop this like this, but I want that. I'm playin' with it, I want you to play with your shoulders and stuff, just separate your feet a little bit more. Is there a stool? Maybe get him a stool back there so he doesn't have to bend down so far. Use your hands in your face. This is another rule that I have, I never put hands in the face, I'm gonna break a rule. Everybody who's ever coached with me is going what the heck is he doing? That's it, Get in there. I'm goin' wide, I wanna see a little bit more fall off. I really wanna use the Inverse Square Law to darken that. This is the biggest one. So wait, let's just do this. We're gonna go back to TTL, and I'm gonna go bulb with take that off. Here, hold on. Just see, if you saw that, I'm gonna go back to TTL 'cause I just took it off and the settings are gonna be all fa guzzled. I'm gonna keep my situation the same. I'm gonna look at the heart, it's gonna be harsher, right? I can go back to TTL, I'm in. Oh, he's sittin', that's cool. Cameron, give me a squint, do I have to ask you for that? After all this. All day long, you know what I want. That's cool, okay but look, The TTL, it's a little hot for me. Isn't it? Let's go back to manual, I'm gonna go back down. I'm gonna go to F14. It's harsher, right? But I like it. Now we're lookin' cool, You see it focused the light a lot? Why you got that? You see how it focused the light a lot? It's totally different, It's very cool. I like where its going. Alright. Let me see now, see how this is way softer? I took it off. The silver went harder, and the shadows went heavier. Let's go with a smaller, more condensed, Let's go with the... Just give me the OCF with the B1 in it. Are we okay? Yeah, let's just use the B1. Grid, too. Let's try the grid we'll go nuts. Let's do that. And then we don't even need to worry about the cord and we'll just go B1 on everything. I may need to get you another battery. Okay here we go. Let's do that and be careful with the D2's. Let's do that. Let's go back to TTL, let's open up back to F8. Let me get the thing on. Let me get the modeling light on so I can see what I'm doing. I'm gonna jam it in his face. I'm actually gonna spin it so it's a little bit up and then bring it way down. And then I'm gonna check this out. Everything simple guys. Real straight forward right here, that's it. I got a lot of fall up because I got the grid on. Let's see what it does. That's great, keep your squinch on I like it, good. Okay, We're... That TTL is a little blown, isn't it? So we'll go back to manual- Did your battery go? My battery? On the B1. I don't know is the battery gone? It turned off. I don't know. Okay, let's go with another battery. Did it lock in at 5.5? Lets go back to TTL and try it again. That's it, good. What happened? Oh, I was on manual. Sorry guys, I'm on manual, I didn't. Let's go back to TTL. F8. And I'm using that TTL exposure lock like a madman. Now the TTL was bright last time, It's still really bright, right? So I'm just gonna go to manual and then I'm gonna stomp down. Scooch this way a little bit and turn very straight to me like that. Lean the body forward a little bit, that's it. Right there. That's it, Hold that. Fantastic. Let's see where we're at. I'm at F11 guys now, I'm workin' each scenario. Not a huge difference in there. Am I zoomed in on that? Yeah, I was zoomed in, sorry. But see how the grid, you can't even see his hands are really dark. Watch this. Take the grid off, yeah, I got it. I got it, I got it. Alright, let's try that. That's it, hold that right there. Now, we took the grid off it's gonna get a little brighter. I'm just gonna keep it at F11 though and let's see what happens. Nope. But see how it lit his hands back up? Which I like, I like this light a lot. But it's still blown out, so we're at 9.5, so I don't mind Depth of Field, I don't care. I'm not playin' that game right now. I'm lookin' at his expression I'm tryin' to get this right. I know I'm at F11 and it was hot I'm gonna go F16, I'm gonna go F18. It's really hot, right? Yeah. Let's try F18, let's really darken him up. Let's get some saturation out of that wood, and there we go. I actually like this. Hold on, let me see this. I like that light. Why? 'Cause the shadows are softer, right? They're not as severe underneath the nose. They're softer, they're good. Kinda cool. I wanna compare that to a beauty dish, don't I? Yeah. I knew you guys were excited to do that. (laughs) Alright let's do that. Profoto came out with this new collapsible ridiculously convenient beauty dish. And we're gonna try that. And I'm gettin' hot. And we wanna compare, we wanna see what's goin' on here with this situation. Can you pull this arm? What do you need? Pull the arm out like this. Hold this for you. Is this ridiculously tight- Yeah it's really tight. Alright lets just take this off, we don't need this. Alright here we go guys. Alright, so I'm pointing it straight at the background so it's gonna fall. It's not pointed directly at him, so the light's gonna fall down a little bit but it is low. I got it low. That's it. Stay just like that, Cameron. That's fantastic. Really nice, let's check this out guys. Let's see if it's a little hotter because I took the... Wow. Cool. Do we like that? Yeah. Start to work with your hands. Lean in a little closer to me. Lean in onto your hand. Put your hands up, like do something. Act like you're... Yeah, Hold that. Hold that, Hold that. I can work with that. Good, good. Now just act like you're picking your nose. I was kidding. (laughs) Guys there's always a moment for laughter on a photo shoot. There's nothing that matters that's said between the moment I press the button and what's captured on the screen. It doesn't matter what I say, it matters what I get. It matters how we behave. I want him moving. I don't want him staying seated 'cause I'm pretty tied in to where I'm shooting right now. I actually like what the softbox is doing so I'm shooting up, I'm actually gonna move it a little bit lower because I can't see it in my frame yet, and I wanna eliminate those shadows. And I like the light straight on like this. So, I'm through it, still. Look at this, I'm just barely through the white. And let's see, when we lowered it, what it did to that shadow on the nose. Look at that. I tightened that shadow right up a little bit, look at that. Still went darker though, that was strange. Alright, let's see what happens. Because it's pointed. It's the highlight. It's a beauty dish, so what's happening is if you look at his hands, the beauty dish, the diffuser, the disk is creating the shadow, and the light is falling by his hand. So Cameron, keep your hands by your face. Yeah, there you go, good. Good. Act like you just put on some Jergens lotion or something. You just. (laughs) There you go, good. Good. That's kinda cool. Now, did I get the darkness around the yeah. Now I'm playin' ball. Now I'm playin' ball. Look how beautiful this is, guys. Look at this. You see how you can create life in it? Good, That's it. Nice. Yeah, that's it. Actually, yup, wipe your ear lobes. That's good. (laughs) Good, There you go. Good, good, that's it. Nice. Try somethin' with the hands, flat but close to your body, so that they're flat down but close to your body so they're not that high. Drop one hand down underneath the table. Yup, There you go. Good. Look. Gaze off into the distance. No, you're just looking, I want you to gaze. (laughs) No, that's a stare. (laughs) Can you just give me a glimpse? (laughs) That's awesome, guys. Alright, guys. You see, I like to have fun with people. I hope over the course of this thing you've learned something. You've got your base down, right? What are we going back to? Simple lighting for portraits. Your foundation is your base, right? Didn't I screw up and I was doing all sorts of lighting but then I found my calling and I went a straight direction. I found my base. I want you guys, I seriously want you guys to have learned from this. And I want you to go out and apply it. Your goals will not get accomplished without action. You have to step foot and step forward and start going towards those goals. I want incremental goals for you. I want you to go. I want you to watch this and I want you to make a picture. I want you to figure out what your goal would be for one picture at a time. And then I want you to make your second picture. And then I want you to look at them, and I want you to figure out if this is a style that you like and which one you like better. And then I want you to make another one that's a little bit different than that. And it's close to it, and then I want you to work with the light you have, which could be natural light, which is your foundation. Because all light behaves like light, and all of these are designed to emulate that. I want you to start there and then I want you to build that base and once that foundation is set, what are you doing? You're goin' bonkers. And you're buildin' a portfolio that is consistent, that has lookibility, that people are gonna wanna love, and inside here, your artist is gonna feel great. And you are gonna say to yourself, I'm happy to lend you the word. Alright? You can say shabang, or you can use a word of your own, (laughs) Alright, but I am so happy for all of you guys that have been online watching this. I never dreamed that I'd be spending two days at Creative Live doing lighting with a awesome crowd, and ridiculously awesome models, and awesome people all over the world. So guys, with that, I'm gonna end with a really loud, the loudest one yet, because I didn't lose my voice over this entire course, and now I can really let it rip and I want you guys to let it rip. 3, 2, 1... Shabang.