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Lesson Info
22. Surf Day
Lessons
M0 - Introductions
1Series Introduction
01:30 2Introducing Finn Beales
01:34 3Q&A Coffee With Finn & Alex
09:48 4Welcome to the workshop
02:31 5Gear
06:56M1 - Storytelling 101
6What is a story?
03:50Essence: Location
05:19 8Essence: Character
03:52 9Essence: Events
04:51 10Photography as a Medium
02:27 11Recap
00:44 12The Importance of Shot Type
08:53M2 - Prepare For Success
13Prepare for Success
00:59 14Asking The Right Questions
05:18 15Identifying Your Locations
03:27 16Developing Treatments & Mood Boards
07:19 17Creating a Call Sheet & Shot List
04:59M3 - SHOOT
18Meeting Your Subjects
04:19 19The Board Room
10:12 20Location Recce
05:24 21The Roadtrip
06:13 22Surf Day
06:14 23Shooting Technique 1: 50 & Stitch
07:13 24Shooting Technique 2: Tracking Shot
05:36 25Alex Shoot Day
13:36M4 - Edit. Better.
26Introduction to Editing
03:21 27Making Selects
08:52 28Grading in Lightroom
09:15 29Analog Film Elements Using the Exposure Plugin
09:58 30Building the Story
10:59 31Using Squarespace to Display Your Work
08:55M5 - Q&A
32Q&A: Q&A: Editing
25:44 33Q&A: Pricing Your Work
22:36 34Q&A: Shooting
33:20 35Q&A: Photography Today
24:17 36Stuff That Alex is Curious About
14:38Outro
37Alex
02:09 38Finn
01:12 39What Alex Learned
02:12 40Bonus: Finishing Touches in Photoshop
13:04Lesson Info
Surf Day
Jump in the sea, do your thing, yeah? Have to wax cause the board has no wax. Okay. That's a nice thing to shoot. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. Nice process. Where would you do that? On the front? Yeah. Closer to the car you know, as soon as I take the board out. Okay. I put the wax. Cool. And you put a wet suit on? Of course. (laughs) Just the wide shot of Dan taking his boards off the truck. (camera clicks) I've given Dan really minimal direction here. He's totally in his element. I want him to do his thing, concentrate on what he does best, working with his boards, setting himself up, ready to ride these waves. If I see anything that I like the look of, I might step in and stop him and ask him to repeat it, just so I know I've got it on my card. But otherwise, this is his time. (camera clicks) So I'm just shooting everything associated with the activity Dan's about to do which is getting in the water and riding these waves. So that's waxing the board, attaching his fins to...
the board and shooting it from a variety of angles through the land Rover, against the land Rover, wides, with of both them in the frame, capturing the cliffs, also really close in crop details. So when I bring all of those together in the edit, it tells a full, rounded, rich story. (mumbles) Yeah. (ocean waves) (camera clicks) Yeah, you do your thing. These are our last few moments before he gets in, and I'll lose contact with him. So I just wanna get some shots of him walking up and down the beach, connect the beach to the ocean, him to the ocean. I'm really excited to shoot this next bit. (ocean waves) (camera clicks) So it's now time for the big guns, bringing back in range, 7200, 2. as the light drops. This will be able to keep up. This is magic moment, this part. I'm really excited, it's like the end of three days. This is the culmination, you know? And I think he's the happiest at this point. He's happy, I'm happy, all winning. For the final image, I actually want something really elegant. I'm hoping he'll stand on the front of his board, arms outstretched. I've shown him a shot that I'd like him to mimic. It shows me it's easy to do the move. I don't know about shooting it, we're about to find out. This isn't necessarily the end image I had in mind. I actually have an image of him packing up his boards on the top of a cliff as the sun sets behind him or something like that. And I may use that to round off the sequence. So this may be maybe be like a a culmination image, everything's coming together. This is him enjoying his moment. (mellow music) That's good. It's a waiting game, bit like fishing, love the silhouette against the sun as its setting. So this is it, the end of the shoot. The sun's sitting behind me, Dan is out there doing his thing. I'm super happy with how everything's gone. The majority of the process went smoothly. We did a ton of preparation over the summer me talking to Alex back and forth, but also preparing mood boards that I shared with Coolant Vintage, and also with Dan out there. So everyone was on the same page from the outset. I looked into the history of Coolant Vintage, I looked into the history of Land Rover. I looked into the history of surfing, I referenced old vintage surf posters and Land Rover posters, which produced my colorway, my palette, which influenced my edit, basically prepared everything before I came out here. My takeaway for you guys, if you're gonna shoot anything, is make pictures, don't take them. It's, you'll come away with a better product if you put thought into the prep and produce what's in here. So if you come up with a concept, you have an image in your head, make that picture. Don't just ball up there and take it hit and home. Prepare, create a mood board, have a look on the internet for inspiring images. Anything that like sparks your interest, put it all together, share it with whoever you're working with, bring it on the shoot day so everyone's on the same page. You will end up making the pictures you want not just taking whatever's happening.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Brent Morris
Fantastic My thoughts on the storytelling workshop. The short is; it’s fantastic. The long is I loved all the details covered, from shot types and the ideas behind them to the call sheets and shot lists, and the whole process. I felt like I had a better understanding of how to schedule a professional shoot and I really felt like I had a much better grasp on many ideas and concepts, and I believe I’ve been able to improve my photography with them, so thank you and Finn. It really is fantastic.
Oswaldo Martinez
A path to better stories Very happy I got this workshop. Finn and Alex do a great job at teaching highly useful methods and specific advice to help you improve your own work, and more importantly, tell better stories that are meaningful to you.
Tommaso Selleri
Simply the best This is simply the best workshop out there on photography and storytelling. Finn is awe inspiring and so real and authentic. A pleasure to watch, a joy to learn from such master. I really hope a volume 2 is coming soon! Thank you for this one!
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