Lessons

Lesson Info

Shooting for Extraction Headshot with Female Model

Okay, so let's analyze just that 7462, just the image on Shawnee there. I just wanna really look at this and make sure that we're gonna be able to cut this out of the background really easily. Okay. Cool. Now we do have something to think about here. She has on a gray dress which has pockets, by the way. That's a relatively new thing, right girls? Dresses having pockets. Isn't that awesome? My wife loves that. I don't have to hold her chapstick ever again. Ever again. Alright. Now you're looking all the way around the edges. There's a great difference between her skin tone, her bare arms and the wall. Her hair. Very easy. Everything's all in focus. We are getting in the same sort of color family when we get to her dress and the wall. What I would really look at this and I would go, there is enough contrast there to where this isn't gonna be hard for me to cut this out. Do you understand? Okay, so you've really gotta think about that. If, in the case where, let's say, she was wearing a ...

lighter gray dress and it was a lot closer, in that case I would have to do something to discern her dress more from the background. Any idea what that might be? You wanna grab a mic? You would light the back wall? I would light the back wall, absolutely. And even though I am shooting the same people for the same group shot composite extraction that I'm gonna put together in the next segment, I would add a little bit of light just to make that wall right behind her... I would spot it. In fact, we can do it. We've got the technology. Can we not do that? I'll show you what I would do. Alright. Alright. Let's do this guy. Lacey, do we have... Oh, is she here? No. I need one of the metal cones that's right there on the edge of that table. Please. See how easy that is? You just take it off the back. That is amazing, thank you. Alright. (mumbles) That's it, I'm good. Okay, I'm gonna need to grab Megan. Megan, the light stand; not Megan, the person. Here we go. (sighs) There we go. We were searching high and low for a light stand small enough to do what I want it to do. One of the amazing crew members here came up with this contraption and it's been working awesome all day. So, Megan's out of a job now. Okay. So, I am not... I am using this cone because I don't want it to hit the whole light, I want to focus it just a little bit. But I'm gonna put this on a real low power, just to start with. I just need a few shades of difference. I don't need to blow this out of the box, okay? Let me hook this on here. I'm serious about these lights, you guys. There are more expensive lights out there but I haven't found anything that these can't do quite yet. Alright. So I'm gonna make sure that's on and that I don't need a modeling light. If I'm gonna use a modeling light, I'm gonna kinda see where that light's gonna fall a little bit but I won't leave it on. But you can kinda see the spread you're gonna get. I'm putting on a pretty low power. And remember, I am shooting at F-11, so low power may not actually even register. So we're gonna put that probably on 1/16 power which is not quite the lowest power setting. And I can see with that modeling light where that light's gonna go. Okay. Now what we've got is too much light. I'm gonna pop it. Clear it. (mumbles) (camera clicks) There we go. Aww, there we have it. 64. Now do you see what happens the way that I angled that just at the wall below her? But now if we put together along with 7462, we will be able to see the difference between the two images. 64 and will be great. So what we're gonna see is that I have taken the background and I've put a few more degrees of separation of tone between the gray dress around the waist and the white wall. However, I really think that without the light, it's enough. But I did want to make the point, that you add that light if you're in a situation, you can more a little bit of light but not too much to cause a little more separation. If you run into a situation where you need more, then always have those extra lights on hand. But in this case, I don't think we need it. But you will run into situations where you're going to. So always take a look at the image. Look at what the person's wearing. What color is their hair. And what color background are you using. You can do this a hundred different ways, the main point is you have to have enough separation to grab those pixels in Photoshop and also to not get so much bouncing off that wall, that the color tone, whether it's white, green, blue, or whatever, bounces back onto the subject causing a halo. So, Gary, we did have a number of questions about wardrobe as you're talking about. Do you actually give guidelines Absolutely To people and whether that's also... Not just by color but make sure you're clothes aren't wrinkled like all those types of things Absolutely What are the guidelines you give? When we do team photos, especially that we know we're gonna extract in this situation. We actually have Pinterest boards put together which are an easy way to share with somebody. And you can show them examples of other team photos you've done. You want to encourage people to dress in the same color tone. I encourage... So if somebody's not in a navy blue and somebody's in a light gray and then somebody's in a white suit and then somebody's in a black suit, that doesn't work. If somebody's got a polka dot tie and somebody's got a striped tie and somebody's got a Spongebob Squarepants tie, you wanna make sure that they look like a team. You don't necessarily want it to be a uniform but they are gonna have to decide what works. I always encourage people, medium gray is just the easiest. You can go different shades of gray all go good together. You could go charcoal to whatever else is out there. But we do create style guides on the Pinterest board and we have a huge FAQ section that has multiple different parts and one of those parts is, what do I wear for my headshot session. How do we dress as a team, stuff like that. It is important also to make sure that, as a side note, everybody should wear a jacket or nobody should wear a jacket. That's gonna be tantamount to making everybody look good. That's fantastic. So, Pinterest and a FAQ. Oh yeah and you have to gather as much information as possible. And even be ready to let them take pictures of what they're planning on wearing and text it to you or whatever. We do that all the time with clients. Great. Now, we're talking about trying to not get white and necessarily, in this scenario, what everyone's wearing. What about doctors and their offices where they're all wearing the white coats, what do you do in that scenario? Excellent point. We do have stuff with lab coats. Then I will use a darker background and I will use a little separation lighting on the subject. If you have something to wear, everbody's gonna be in a white lab coat, that's a totally different scenario but I will probably still shoot on a gray background. The ultimate background will still look gray. I want it to be as neutral as possible. It's how light of a gray am I gonna use. Because, when you shoot gray, you're gonna find it very easy for most hair color to really get it off the background. And I would probably use a slightly darker gray if I was doing a bunch of doctors in lab coats. I've had that happen before, for sure. If I was shooting to composite which is what we're talking about. Cool. Alright. So, let's start... We're gonna go ahead and go without the light and I wanna start creating some of the poses which we're gonna use for Shawnee for the extraction. You ready? Okay cool. Turn your body this way just a little bit. That's perfect. Point that toe at me. Good. I want you to just relax your hands at your sides, like this. And then I want you to turn your head into the light. Tilt a little. Drop the chin. That's perfect. Okay. Remember, we're real estate agents, so we wanna look very happy, please. One, two, three, ready. (camera clicks) Okay that was miserable. (laughs) (camera clicks) Okay good. Tilt a little more. Good. Okay. (camera clicks) I love that. Oh man, we're having some pocket wizard problems. Here we go. (camera clicks) Might be a battery issue with the pocket wizard. (camera clicks) Oh there we go. We'll just power through it. That's perfect, Shawnee. Okay. Turn a little bit more to that light. There we go. (camera clicks) And I want you to drop the chin just a little bit more. That's awesome. Good. Now, here's a move that works really good when it compositing those team photos. Just go ahead and take your right hand and put it on your hip, like so. Cool. This gives you a really cool way, you can slide the man behind the woman and have her arm go across the body. And if you cut it out really well, you'll obviously be able to see him clearly through the arm. Alright. That's pretty cool. We're closing. Shoot to close. Perfect. You look like you're ready to sell a house. Perfect. Good. Alright. Nailed that. Now, I want you to go ahead and give me the closer stance. Yeah. That's perfect. Turn your head a little that way. Alright. Good. One. (camera clicks) And two. (camera clicks) Very cool. Now we'll go ahead and turn into the light this way. Perfect. Just so. And we're closing. We're gonna tilt your head this way a little bit. There we go. Turn your head just so. Yeah. I think I like this angle a lot. It's really good. And two. Good. And now crazy insane person smile. (chuckles) I'm just kidding. That's too much. (chuckles) (camera clicks) You did good. Tilt a little this way, Shawnee. Perfect. Alright. Now just a small smile touches the corners of your mouth. Great. Okay. Perfect. Now put your right hand, drop it. And, left hand is gonna go on your hip. Boy, that's perfect. One and... (camera clicks) Two. Cool. And tilt your head this way. Got one. (camera clicks) Good. And two. (camera clicks) Alright, now relax both hands at your sides. I want you to just bring the elbows back a little bit. Yeah, there you go. Perfect. Turn this way a little. And one. (camera clicks) And, tilt your head this way some. Drop that chin. Turn your head a little bit. And two. (camera clicks) Boom. Okay. Absolutely, couldn't be any easier. Now we've got about ten different options to work with for each person. And, so, we're gonna go through the images, later in the next segment. We're gonna pick those ones that are best and then we're gonna be able to cut them out and put them together. Okay. Cool. Alright. So, now we're gonna change the lighting set up just a little bit. And, I'm gonna go a little bit flat and we're gonna go a little tighter in. I'm gonna raise this up a little bit. (exhales) Hold your breath. Here we go. (groans) We got caught on the leg here. Hold on one second. There we go. Alright, I think we're good there. Perfect. (mumbles) And reflector underneath. Alright. You can kinda start to see the pattern, sort of the basic lighting technique. It's either open directional or straight on for me for most stuff like this. (mumbles) And because I moved the light and it's a little more direct, we might have to adjust our exposure just a little bit. So let me do a quick test shot, see where we're at. Okay. Yeah, it's a little on the bright side, so I'm gonna lower my ISO. About 250. See, the thing is, if I'm controlling the exposure... (mumbles) If I'm controlling the exposure with the ISO, instead of... I think it's my mirror that's getting caught. Time for a replacement. There we go. Alright. If I'm controlling the exposure with the ISO, instead of adjusting the light, the power on the light, I don't have to waste a bunch of shots on the light. Like, okay now I've gotta dump it 'cause I changed the power. I don't have to get up there and change it every single time. Now there are plenty of studio strobe systems, Einsteins and, I think, Pro Photo has them, and Phottix, plenty of others, where you can actually adjust the power from a control unit on your camera, which is great. I think those are really awesome and in a perfect world, everybody would have those. But if you're starting out your photography business, you're not necessarily gonna wanna spend $1200 a light to get something like that. So, where you can get an Alien Bee, like Bee-800, for around $300, as opposed to $1200. So, this is making my life easier, getting up and getting down, changing the lights. So, I know the settings are locked; my aperture, my shutter speed, and I'm controlling the exposure with the ISO.