IntroductionSetting the stage: Flash macro shoot| 00:00 | Okay, so for last couple years, I've had a
partnership with the Howard County Arts Council,
| | 00:06 | which is this awesome organization in our county
that furthers arts, Howard County Arts Council.
| | 00:10 | And what I have contributed to that, and
gotten out of it, is just a really good deal for me.
| | 00:17 | They have something every year called the
Rising Stars Competition, in which they have
| | 00:21 | ten of the most promising young artist in a
variety of genres from around the county and
| | 00:25 | they show up and they have this American-
Idol-type show, and the winner, by audience vote,
| | 00:31 | gets $5,000, so that's a decent amount
money for someone starting out in the arts.
| | 00:35 | It's a decent amount money for someone
who has been in arts for 20 years, sadly.
| | 00:39 | So, what I have done as my contribution to
that is I photograph all the finalists, do
| | 00:44 | head shots of them.
| | 00:45 | I do magazine-style portraiture of them. And
on the surface that's just such as the straight
| | 00:51 | donation that I have made, but when you start to
dig a little deeper, you see how value that is for me.
| | 00:56 | On the one hand, I'm getting a steady
stream of a really creative young people who are
| | 01:00 | willing to try lots of interesting things, and from
that I've gotten multiple pictures in my portfolio.
| | 01:06 | Just in the last couple years, I've probably
put half a dozen pictures on my portfolio from
| | 01:09 | this project alone.
| | 01:11 | And it's just a very gratifying thing to be
working with the Howard County Arts Council and
| | 01:15 | feeling like you're part of what is
making art special in Howard County.
| | 01:19 | So, today we are at their headquarters,
and we're shooting in their main dance studio.
| | 01:23 | I've shot here before. In fact, I have
shot dancer Casey Matera here last year.
| | 01:27 | So, I'm familiar with the space and frankly,
this is a space that's available for me to
| | 01:31 | use occasionally because of my partnership.
| | 01:34 | I don't have a big studio, but I can always
come in here and use it if I need a big studio.
| | 01:38 | Lots and lots of potential good
downstreams from that relationship.
| | 01:42 | So, today we're going to be shooting
Stephanie Yezek, who is another dancer, and I shot here
| | 01:48 | recently outside at sunset, as you can see
from a picture that we should be showing you now.
| | 01:53 | And we're shooting in a controlled
environment to shoot her on white and not having to be
| | 01:57 | matching that sun ambient as
it's dropping down very quickly.
| | 02:00 | We've got a very controlled environment.
Every time she goes up, the light is going to be
| | 02:03 | exactly the same, and we can
really push and get something,
| | 02:06 | hopefully, that's a nicely timed expressive
moment that shows her off both as a dancer
| | 02:11 | and as a person.
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1. Setting Up the Space and LightingPreparing the studio| 00:00 | So, the ambient exposure for in here is
say--is all but black at 250th at ISO 400, f5.6,
| | 00:08 | so if we shoot in that environment,
everything that we do will be lit by flash.
| | 00:12 | So that means we can probably shoot at a
quarter power, which means faster recycling times
| | 00:16 | and faster pulse times.
| | 00:17 | So, let's go ahead and setup the
backdrop if we could. All right so, we're going to
| | 00:27 | slide the paper on and assemble the whole
thing horizontally on the ground, just because
| | 00:31 | it's such a pain to walk it up a little
at a time, clamp it off, and then stand it
| | 00:34 | up, move it back, and then put sandbags on it.
| | 00:37 | So, there's a hot spot of
light coming right there.
| | 00:40 | I wonder where that's from.
| | 00:42 | That's from a mirror. Not there.
It can't be there. Is it, really?
| | 00:47 | Look at that, so the sun is going to go that
way. The hot spot is going to move that way.
| | 00:54 | That's potentially a problem, because
she's going to be coming across here. Now boom,
| | 00:58 | all of a sudden she is at blind and what,
500th of a second at F 11. Oh yeah, okay.
| | 01:09 | So, we have an hour. So that light is going
to go that way and down. The hot spot is going
| | 01:15 | to come up over here.
| | 01:16 | It should be okay, but we
may have to go over that.
| | 01:20 | So, one goes on like this and one goes on like this.
And that gives here a lot a security right there.
| | 01:39 | You got that, John? Thank you.
| | 01:49 | So, we're going to use this film diagonally,
so we're going to have the most length possible,
| | 01:55 | because that gives us the ability to shoot with a
longer lens, which makes the background bigger.
| | 01:59 | Think of a background being
behind someone with a wide-angle lens.
| | 02:02 | But another thing is it's going to get Stephanie
almost like a little path that she can run across here.
| | 02:08 | So, it makes the room wider for us in both
dimensions, where we want it to be wider.
| | 02:11 | I wouldn't mind it being higher, but these are--
| | 02:15 | So, this is, I want to say 9 feet, right
above is a guess, and that's our limiting height.
| | 02:23 | So, it may actually affect
where we put her and where we put the main light.
| | 02:28 | I'd mind having that main light
tucked in above those registers and stuffs.
| | 02:33 | All right, are you set there? Okay.
| | 02:37 | So, let's just fold this in a relatively
straight line, and then we will clamp the folds, and tear it.
| | 03:00 | Dave, can you meet me
halfway? All right, thank you!
| | 03:08 | Scissors are not in the
budget. There we go, thank you.
| | 03:28 | So, I am going to put clamps on this, just
to give a little bit of weight at the bottom,
| | 03:32 | so it'll hang straight.
| | 03:46 | All right! Let's try to walk it up. So we're going to
walk it up down at that end and come up this way.
| | 03:53 | We're going to hit the ceiling, so
I guess take it down and come up.
| | 03:59 | I think we have to miss this.
| | 04:02 | I think we have to miss it to the front.
| | 04:03 | We don't have
any air flow in here, do we?
| | 04:07 | So, I am going to move this paper, and let
it come back towards you. And what I hope that
| | 04:17 | we'll see is the sun moving pretty quickly.
And the sun is going to move that way, so
| | 04:23 | the hot spot is going to move that way, and
it should move off the paper pretty quick.
| | 04:27 | It's going to be white, so it's not terrible.
| | 04:29 | Okay, is that as high as we can get?
| | 04:33 | Is that as far back as we are going to go? Yes.
Hmm. Okay, there puts her about right there.
| | 04:47 | So, the limiting factor is going to be the width of
the paper still, as far as her being able to spread out.
| | 04:53 | Another thing about white, if we get into
background problems, worst case, if you get
| | 04:58 | fingers sticking out background paper, you
can always just like Photoshop it, have white
| | 05:01 | behind and erase it, but I would rather
not do any more of that than I have to.
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| Lighting the background| 00:00 | This is the first zone that we're going to
light. I want to talk to you guys as if I am--
| | 00:04 | This is a first zone that we're going to light.
| | 00:05 | There are only two zones in this room that
we care about. One is this plane, which we
| | 00:09 | want to have lit to a nice certain even
number, and it's probably going to be around between
| | 00:15 | 5, 6, and 8, at ISO 400, because we want
have everything nailed down here, and then when
| | 00:21 | we come in here and shoot Stephanie, we create a
zone of light that's hitting that same aperture.
| | 00:25 | Actually, we want this to be a little
overlit, and I am going to walk through that in minute.
| | 00:30 | I would--man, I would love to be able to get that a
little further back, but it's not going to happen.
| | 00:34 | All right, so let's light it.
| | 00:36 | Okay, so, we're going to take two lights.
I am going to grab--where is my red bag? Oh, thanks.
| | 00:44 | I am going grab two. Thank you, thank you
and thank you. 1, 2. We should have another
| | 00:52 | one of these in here, yes.
| | 00:54 | So, I want to put two HONL Speed Straps on
those flashes and use snoots actually as gobos,
| | 01:01 | because the one thing I want is I want all
this light going on background and none of
| | 01:04 | it going on Stephanie.
| | 01:07 | Strap this. I am just putting
Velcro everywhere on the flash.
| | 01:22 | Okay. Are these both set to 70?
| | 01:30 | Male Speaker: 70mm and yeah, 70mm
on this one. Quarter power.
| | 01:36 | David: Yup, here is a neat trick on getting even light.
| | 01:39 | I want to take one light and put it over here.
| | 01:41 | I need to try to keep it out of the track
that she's going to use, and I am going to
| | 01:44 | aim the light that's on this side at the
far side of the paper, and I am going to do the
| | 01:47 | same with the other side.
| | 01:49 | One thing that's worrying me is this whole mirror
that runs along the wall, and is that going
| | 01:52 | to create a brand-new light source that
we don't want or need? But we will see.
| | 01:59 | Okay, so that will be this side of light.
| | 02:03 | I am gobo-ing this light so the light can see
the background but the camera can't see the light.
| | 02:10 | In a minute we're going to see
just how bright we are, okay.
| | 02:18 | So, you want to aim the light to where gobo
is just hitting the far edge of the paper, Dave.
| | 02:28 | Right now my worry is keeping this lights out of
Stephanie's track and keeping the lights off of her.
| | 02:33 | Male Speaker: So we should
give her room to run along inside?
| | 02:35 | David: We are going to have to figure that out,
and figure that how close we can have her.
| | 02:39 | Now we start getting into how close is she
to the camera, so how wide of a lens do I
| | 02:43 | have to use and is that going to give me a bad backdrop?
So there are going to be some physics to figure
| | 02:47 | out after we get her set up.
| | 02:49 | So, I will go ahead sync these and find out
how far back I can move them and still keep,
| | 02:55 | still keep an exposure that I
want on the back drop.
| | 02:59 | So, I am going to walk through getting a nice
exposure, a nice even exposure on white paper
| | 03:06 | without a flash meter.
| | 03:08 | If you have flash meter, this is
obviously going to be very easy.
| | 03:12 | You basically want this to be 1 stop hotter.
| | 03:15 | There we are, and I don't
have--oh that's my max, sorry.
| | 03:22 | Wrong one, operator error.
Set cord is working.
| | 03:29 | Okay, transmit. Is that firing too?
| | 03:38 | Male Speaker 2: Yeah it's fine.
David: Yeah there is optical.
| | 03:41 | David: I am using opticals as backup. Go ahead and
plug up, other side, oh that's mono-mono,
| | 03:49 | okay, mano a mano, oh yeah, thank you.
| | 03:56 | So, let's get these kind of up a little
bit, and I am starting at a quarter power.
| | 04:02 | We're going see what that
gives us on the backdrop.
| | 04:05 | And each flash should be aimed
evenly across and hitting maybe,
| | 04:08 | I don't know, a little above
halfway up that other side.
| | 04:13 | And that's probably going to give a pretty
even exposure right from the beginning. The question
| | 04:16 | is, what's the exposure at?
| | 04:20 | So, remembering the ambient exposure in the
room 250th of a second--well, for black ambient
| | 04:26 | exposure--is 250th of a
second between 5, 6 and 8.
| | 04:30 | Now I am going to do a quick test on the--
and the background is nice and clean.
| | 04:34 | I have got a nice spike.
Actually, Dave, you can see this.
| | 04:37 | You see that spike? The histogram right there
is giving me--it's pushing all towards the edge.
| | 04:42 | So, maybe give it a little more juice. But the
next thing I am going to do is I am going
| | 04:47 | to take this down and put that spike
right in the middle of my histogram
| | 04:49 | so I can see if there's any
weirdness and unevenness going on.
| | 04:52 | So, I am going to go down to F11 and a half
and shoot. So I am going to get a grayish backdrop.
| | 05:00 | Now, when I look at this I can see that
we're running a little too high, as far as the--
| | 05:06 | the background is darker down low.
| | 05:08 | I can see the sunspot hitting there.
| | 05:10 | So, we're going to, we're going to take the
flashes up to quarter power plus two thirds,
| | 05:16 | and zoom amount to 50,
okay? I got this one.
| | 05:20 | So, quarter power, plus two thirds, zoom them
out to 50, and point them down just a tad.
| | 05:26 | So, we are making a wider throw on these
flashes so it'll cover the backdrop more, and adding a
| | 05:35 | little power to it to compensate for the fact
that we are taking that zoom off of it.
| | 05:39 | So, it should be more even. Did it fire?
| | 05:49 | Okay, still a tad hot in the middle.
| | 05:53 | Okay, so I am going to make a--let's make a
little switch on the orientation of the flashes.
| | 05:59 | These flashes don't project in a circle;
they project in a beam shape like a 35 mm.
| | 06:03 | So, we're going to take them and point
them across like this, bring them up like that,
| | 06:09 | and turn them to where that beam is
shaped more appropriately to what we need.
| | 06:13 | So, now we are sending out a vertical beam.
| | 06:16 | Okay. So, what I'm hoping is this is
going to give us more even vertical coverage.
| | 06:28 | So that's at 70, yeah.
| | 06:32 | When this goes to white it's not
going to be that much of an issue.
| | 06:35 | We're talking about half a stop
between the middle and bottom.
| | 06:38 | Yes, vertically oriented. What is it? Is it
vertical orientation or vertical preference?
| | 06:44 | No, not that there is anything wrong with that.
| | 06:47 | Let's get these up.
| | 06:51 | We are still probably going to have to adjust these when
Stephanie gets here, to give her a track. Hey, that's clean.
| | 07:03 | And I have got a ton of light there too.
| | 07:05 | So, let's go to--so what I am doing is moving that--
moving the exposure down to where I can see
| | 07:15 | big variances in the light.
| | 07:16 | So, now when I go back to F8, there is
my spike right up at there at the edge.
| | 07:24 | So, I am going to walk around and shoot this
a little bit, and we are going to use my camera
| | 07:27 | kind of as a flash meter this way.
| | 07:30 | Not a lot of difference anywhere there.
| | 07:44 | Male Speaker 1: Is that corner still
causing a problem, or are you able to shoot?
| | 07:48 | So, we've get a hot spot on the corner over
there, the bottom-right corner on the background
| | 07:52 | paper, because of a direct
sunspot coming through the skylight.
| | 07:57 | I can't make this any wider than
it's going to be, so that's not a problem.
| | 08:00 | The problem is going to be, what is that beam of
light doing in the interim where it crosses?
| | 08:04 | You can see it on my hand right there.
| | 08:05 | So, we have got 45 minutes now before we
would even conceivably be shooting. I mean
| | 08:11 | look how much brighter my face is
here, and watch: I am going to move it into that light.
| | 08:16 | That's a huge spot of
light, and that's a problem.
| | 08:19 | So, as that sun moves that way, that spot is
going to move this way, and I think that takes
| | 08:22 | out of the zone where we have to worry.
| | 08:25 | Okay, so this is pretty much set, and if
I can shoot at F8, I am clean everywhere.
| | 08:35 | What I really hope to be able to do is to
come back here, shoot with a relatively long
| | 08:42 | lens; I might have to shoot with my 7200.
| | 08:44 | Now we're going to get a mark where
we want Stephanie to hit. Right now,
| | 08:48 | Dave, Kyle, can I use you right here,
and use this little line as a mark.
| | 08:52 | I am going to see how much light I have got
going on you versus the ambient.
| | 08:59 | Maybe I don't want to photograph this right now.
| | 09:01 | So, you should be fairly silhouetted.
| | 09:06 | And you are. I am catching just a little
bit tone on your white shirt. And Dave, we will
| | 09:14 | bring these up, actually, when--
| | 09:17 | So, in this picture you can see how the
gobos were working, and they are creating the zone
| | 09:23 | of light that only exists around the paper.
| | 09:25 | So, if Stephanie does something right in here,
she's going to be a fine here or anywhere in front.
| | 09:30 | So, I am probably going to be shooting with a
longer lens from the back, and it's all going
| | 09:34 | to depend on how
horizontal she is in her pose.
| | 09:38 | Big thing. She's not here yet.
| | 09:40 | I want to get every single bit of
technical stuff nailed down before she gets here.
| | 09:44 | So, when she's here it's all about her and
getting her in the moment and deferring to
| | 09:48 | how tired she is at any given point, and
just working with her interpersonally and not--
| | 09:53 | We're going to have to tweak the lights
some, but I really don't want to have this
| | 09:57 | be the light and chimp show, because that
would just completely suck her out of it.
| | 10:01 | Okay, so let's see. At 8 it looks good.
How does it look at 5, 6? Better or worse?
| | 10:10 | I've still got a pretty nice tight edge.
| | 10:14 | What I'm looking for is how bright that
background light gets at 5, 6. For instance, if I were
| | 10:18 | shoot this at 2, 8, my background is now
like 3 stops hotter than I want it to be, and I
| | 10:22 | am getting all kinds of
wraparound flare from Dave.
| | 10:24 | So, I am looking for the exposure that
gives me the cleanest white without getting any
| | 10:30 | wraparound. And remember, her hair is going to
be moving, so I really want to be sensitive
| | 10:34 | to how bright and flarey
that light is coming from back.
| | 10:38 | In fact, I am probably going to
shoot at F8 just for that reason.
| | 10:42 | Actually, I am going to focus on you so I can
see--do me a favor. This is going to
| | 10:52 | go sound weird, but hold a
little of your hair up just like that.
| | 10:54 | I want to say--exactly.
| | 10:56 | Ready for my close-up, Mr. Dave? Okay
| | 11:01 | Male Speaker: I can't imagine doing that.
| | 11:04 | David: But look at this. This is important.
| | 11:06 | I'm holding every little
strand of hair in there.
| | 11:07 | So there is an exposure at which you can hold the
hair and have a relatively clean white backdrop.
| | 11:13 | I can always goin and fix the backdrop,
but there is a little problem with it.
| | 11:15 | Male Speaker: So that was at F8?
| | 11:17 | David: So, this is--so F8 is our target. Everything
that we light for her is going to be at F8.
| | 11:21 | We want her to jump into this zone
and it's just magically lit at f8.
| | 11:24 | We now forget about the backdrop, and
everything we're doing is lighting this 3-dimensional
| | 11:29 | space that she is going to be in as a
3-dimensional object, as opposed to the background, which
| | 11:32 | is a plain a 2-dimension object.
| | 11:35 | And we're really taking two pictures at once:
one is lit in a plane, one is lit in zone.
| | 11:39 | We are done with the plane;
now we're moving to the zone.
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| Lighting the subject| 00:00 | Okay, so this room is situated in this way.
| | 00:03 | It's longer than it is wide. But we're kind
is working on 45s diagonally, which is not
| | 00:09 | exactly a 45 because the room is
not square. But the idea is twofold.
| | 00:14 | Number one, we want to push that background
back as far as we can, and we are, because
| | 00:18 | as you can see, the background is running
into some air-conditioner sockets, or whatever
| | 00:23 | those things are called, and we're back as
far as the can, so we're giving ourself the
| | 00:26 | most diagonal shooting range.
| | 00:28 | That's important because the further back
we can get, the bigger this background becomes.
| | 00:32 | Because we can use a longer lens, it
compresses things, makes them more their absolute size,
| | 00:38 | and we get--we have fewer problems with
hands and such extending past to backdrop.
| | 00:43 | So think about the difference between
shooting someone in front of this paper with a 300
| | 00:47 | mm lens versus a 24 mm lens.
| | 00:50 | If you were right up next to him and were
shooting with the 24 and the backdrop was
| | 00:53 | 10 feet behind him, we're going to run out
of backdrop really quickly, as you spread
| | 00:56 | out towards the outside.
| | 00:57 | But if you can back up and shoot with a
long lens, you're going to hold that background
| | 01:01 | in a much bigger way, and you're not going to be
losing hands and arms and feet and that sort of thing.
| | 01:06 | So taking the room and putting it on the 45s
and working on the diagonal also is going
| | 01:11 | to give her a nice little track to run
across and get some momentum before she jumps up
| | 01:15 | for leap, or whatever it is that
she is going to be going today.
| | 01:18 | So we've taken this room and twisted it just
a little bit and made it a much better room,
| | 01:22 | rather than just shooting straight-on,
even on the long dimension of the room.
| | 01:27 | Gaffer's tape, best stuff in the world.
| | 01:32 | So the only thing bad about this is if you
leave it on your gear too long, it will make
| | 01:36 | this white residue that is very hard to get off.
| | 01:38 | But the secret to getting the white residue
from dried Gaffer tape off is more Gaffer tape.
| | 01:43 | You just push it down on it and use the
Gaffer tape to pull the dried residue out.
| | 01:47 | Don't use duct tape. Duck tape is for chumps.
| | 01:49 | It leaves--it takes away paint, everything.
| | 01:51 | This is really strong, won't take away
paint, tears very easily. There we go.
| | 02:00 | So I want middle of this to potentially back in
that hall, which is where I might have to shoot from.
| | 02:07 | So now she has got a mark, and she is a
professional and she can hit that mark 99 times out of 100.
| | 02:13 | Oh you know what we didn't do? We
didn't bag those stands back there.
| | 02:18 | Let's go ahead and do that.
| | 02:20 | Three on each one. Just put them on the
braces, close to the center of the gravity.
| | 02:36 | Not going anywhere.
Okay so those are three.
| | 02:39 | We should have a couple of more.
| | 02:40 | I want to talk about this
for a minute too. Sandbags!
| | 02:43 | Get them, learn them, love them.
| | 02:48 | They will keep things from falling over.
| | 02:50 | They are super cheap.
| | 02:52 | You don't buy them full. Don't by the ledge
shot bags because then you're paying FedEx
| | 02:56 | to send you ledge shot.
| | 02:57 | I got these on Amazon. These are 10 bucks.
| | 03:00 | They ship without anything in them.
| | 03:02 | You go to home depot or your garden supply
store and buy pea gravel instead of sand and
| | 03:06 | you've basically got a bean bag that weighs
| | 03:09 | 15, 20 pounds, 10 bucks each, and the
gravel to fill one is just going to run you
| | 03:14 | another--I don't know 50 cents.
| | 03:17 | It's just crazy not to have.
| | 03:19 | All right, so this flash is going
to be up high all of the time.
| | 03:23 | I am syncing it with a pocket PocketWizard.
| | 03:28 | We have PocketWizards and built-in
slaves in every flash in the room, so.
| | 03:31 | Well, I think PocketWizard is just on 3 or 4,
but everytime we hit the button they are
| | 03:35 | definitely going to go off.
| | 03:37 | One thing that we're not going to able to
do is easily adjust the intensity of this
| | 03:40 | light, with it up there, without bringing it down
and taking the sandbags off and blah, blah, blah.
| | 03:46 | So what we're going to do is we know
what we're going to be shooting at.
| | 03:48 | We're going to be shooting at f8.
| | 03:50 | So I want to set up this umbrella to give f8 from
working distance of, say, eight feet away, at ISO 400.
| | 03:57 | So now, as long as we keep this umbrella
eight feet away from what we want to be lighting
| | 04:00 | up there, everything is going to be cool.
| | 04:02 | If the umbrella is a little hot,
we'll back it up just a tad.
| | 04:04 | If it's a little dim, we're going to bring
it in just a tad, but we don't have to come
| | 04:08 | in and adjust the lighting on the flash.
| | 04:13 | So I am going to have this on a quarter to--
well I can have it upto a quarter and two
| | 04:16 | thirds, because my recycle time is only
going to be as good as my most powerful flash.
| | 04:22 | So if I've got all of my flashes on 1/8 and
one of them is on full power, then my recycle
| | 04:26 | time is going to be 4 seconds.
| | 04:27 | So as it is right now, we've got both of
these on quarter power plus two thirds.
| | 04:31 | So that's going to give me about a 1.7 second
recycle, but realistically, I can do two quick
| | 04:37 | pops because I've been a full
charge built into every flash.
| | 04:40 | So if I need to motor a
couple--I don't think I will.
| | 04:43 | But essentially, I've got to
weight two seconds between pictures.
| | 04:46 | So I don't want to set this one up to
where I've got to wait four seconds.
| | 04:49 | Okay, so is it going to pop? Yes.
| | 04:53 | This flash, if you take a look at it, also has
-- it's my key light flash. You can see it's
| | 04:59 | got a warming gel on it.
| | 05:00 | This is a one quarter CTO.
| | 05:02 | So rather than putting the gel on the flash--
we've talked about this before I think.
| | 05:06 | Every time that you're going to do a key
light someone, I just have a flash that I use for
| | 05:10 | key lighting people.
| | 05:11 | Ultimately, it probably means this flash will wear out before all
of my others, but it saves me a lot of time. Let's walk this over.
| | 05:21 | So what I want to see now is what is my
shooting range at one quarter power. Am I quarter
| | 05:26 | power plus two thirds or quarter
power? Quarter power plus two thirds.
| | 05:33 | This may be too much power. I may need to
knock it down because I've only got a certain
| | 05:37 | amount of ceiling I can go up in.
| | 05:40 | And this is not our only light.
| | 05:41 | This is just the main light. This is the key.
| | 05:44 | Dave: You're going to get this over it as well?
| | 05:50 | I do, I've got a CTO so, that's going to
knock down--a quarter CTO is going to
| | 05:55 | knock down a third of a stop.
| | 05:56 | I don't think it's going anywhere right now
I am not going to bag it yet because I know
| | 05:59 | Dave can can run.
| | 06:03 | So at that distance, that is pretty
darn exact, maybe a third of a stop down.
| | 06:12 | So six feet away, we have a
really nice light coming from this.
| | 06:16 | So if we can keep this as
six feet, then we are good.
| | 06:20 | So we want to set this up in a way to where
it's always going to be six feet away from
| | 06:24 | her when she is in her apogee.
| | 06:26 | This is very important. The reason this is
up on a boom is we have not yet figured out
| | 06:30 | which way she is going to be looking when
she is doing her move, so if she's looking
| | 06:34 | up like this, I don't want the flash
coming from there, because it's going to kind of
| | 06:37 | low on her face. I may need it coming from
way over the back of her head, because I want
| | 06:41 | to light her in a way that's flattering to
her face and then fix anything else that her
| | 06:46 | body needs, as far as the
light with additional flashes.
| | 06:49 | I don't know if I need to alter this
boom or not. No, oh no, here we are at top.
| | 06:52 | So this boom and stand combination, it
tells you you should have the boom on the very
| | 06:57 | top segment, which is why my boom is here.
| | 07:00 | So what I am going to do is to loosen the screw
a little bit and see which way it wants to fall.
| | 07:07 | It still wants to fall to the back.
| | 07:09 | So I want to have it balanced, even before
I start clamping it down and weighting it.
| | 07:13 | That means I can give myself some
more space out here, which is good.
| | 07:22 | Okay, so let's loosen it and
see what it wants to do now.
| | 07:24 | Again I am just letting
gravity kind of do its thing.
| | 07:28 | It's completely loose, and it's barely
wanting to walk right now, so we're good.
| | 07:32 | So that means it's as stable as it can be,
even before we start adding our weight to it.
| | 07:37 | And I can adjust the angle of the umbrella,
and everything is going to be, it's going
| | 07:41 | to balanced; it's going to be counterbalanced really well.
| | 07:43 | So if we put some sandbags on this, it's
going to be very, very sturdy, which means I can
| | 07:48 | also go up higher with
this and have it sturdier.
| | 07:50 | I am actually going to have that umbrella
tucked up into the rafters a little bit because
| | 07:54 | I want to give myself some working room.
| | 07:55 | Because, remember, she is going to have some height.
She is going to be taller then where Dave is right now.
| | 08:00 | Okay, can you get on your mark, Dave?
| | 08:05 | Can you see that full umbrella right there?
| | 08:07 | Dave: Okay, it's just a little white.
| | 08:09 | Okay, so he is going to be a little
dark if I shoot with this right now.
| | 08:14 | This isn't going anywhere,
but I still want to bag this.
| | 08:21 | Just a couple will be fine on this. Safety first.
| | 08:27 | One thing I am thinking about here is I want to
keep her alley nice and straight through here.
| | 08:32 | So I think I am going to
totally defer her judgment.
| | 08:39 | What we can do is we can tighten up the stand
a little bit, so keep this flash exactly where
| | 08:43 | it's at and move the stand.
| | 08:45 | Maybe I do the right screw. There we go.
| | 08:58 | Okay so that gives--where is the mark?
| | 09:01 | I probably need to move the mark
up two feet towards the door.
| | 09:07 | And now she has a got a nice alley.
| | 09:09 | It's a little tighter than I want it to be
on the landing, because I don't want it to
| | 09:14 | have to concentrate on not hitting my stand.
| | 09:21 | Okay, that's good and so that's her--
whatever she is doing, she has got a play, she has got
| | 09:30 | a way to come across at
90 degrees to the camera.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Reviewing the setup| 00:00 | Okay, blow-away white, which is what I
think of white seamless because the detail to be
| | 00:04 | completely gone--really useful thing,
especially if you're shooting pictures that are going
| | 00:09 | to be used in a lot of spaces.
| | 00:11 | What this does is create a background
against which we can basically cut out the picture
| | 00:15 | of a floating dancer, and she can put that on
a business card, she can put it on a webpage,
| | 00:20 | she can put it on a poster, in any context
and float that in any way that she needs to go.
| | 00:26 | Anther thing that it takes away is
it takes away a frame of reference.
| | 00:29 | It takes away the horizon. So she can jump
up 2 or 3 feet in the air, and I can literally
| | 00:34 | be shooting from down on my knees and
get the appearance that she's just soaring.
| | 00:38 | So hopefully we can save her muscles a little bit
throughout the course to the afternoon by altering that.
| | 00:43 | I did a shot of a helicopter a couple of years
ago where I was on the ground, the helicopter
| | 00:47 | was in the air, and it's coming at me like this.
| | 00:51 | So the fact that we didn't have a horizon
behind it, we just had sunset sky, meant that
| | 00:55 | it looked like I was above the helicopter, because of
my point of view. I could see the top so the rotors.
| | 01:00 | So Perry, who's just a little bit nuts,
used to work with me on Baltimore Sun staff
| | 01:04 | came in like a pocalypse now style, and
because of that, it looked like we had two helicopter
| | 01:08 | chasing each other on the shoot, rather than on
guy standing on the ground and another helicopter.
| | 01:13 | Same thing with this.
| | 01:14 | We're altering our perspective reality and
that gives us the ability to project her higher
| | 01:19 | or lower in the air, based on our camera angle.
| | 01:22 | So how many lights do you need to
do this kind of blow-away white?
| | 01:24 | You can technically do it with one flash,
but honestly, that's not particularly flexible
| | 01:29 | and it's almost more of parlor trick, like
I can name that tune in one note kind of a thing.
| | 01:33 | In that case you would fire the flash
through some kind of diffusion on your subject and
| | 01:38 | you would let some of the raw light leak
past the diffusion and light up the background,
| | 01:43 | still very much of angle, saying very much
of a pool shot to figure out, and you're not
| | 01:46 | going to have any flexibility on your lighting.
| | 01:49 | Minimally, I would think that you need two
lights to do this, where you would have one
| | 01:53 | light on the subject and then one light
directly behind the subject, hidden by the subject,
| | 01:58 | pointing at the background.
| | 01:59 | So that light is going to light the background,
not going to be particularly even. You need
| | 02:03 | a lot of space, blah, blah, blah.
| | 02:05 | Practically, you want two lights in the
background to get even light, just the way we did earlier,
| | 02:09 | and then at least one light on your subject.
| | 02:12 | When it comes down to it, the more flashes you
have the better. And what we're going to be
| | 02:15 | doing, I think, today, we got
two lights on the background.
| | 02:19 | We've got a third that is going to be our
key light, and that's got the warming gel on it.
| | 02:22 | We've got a forth light this is going to be
our fill light, and it's going to come somewhere
| | 02:26 | near the camera axis.
| | 02:27 | It might be a ring light, it might be an
umbrella on the ground, but that's going to fill in
| | 02:31 | all of the shadows made by this key light
to whatever level we want them filled in.
| | 02:35 | And then with a fifth and sixth light
we're going to accent her, probably very subtly.
| | 02:40 | The last thing you want to do is have someone
blown out with rim lights against white light,
| | 02:44 | so we're really going to get for shape
from light from behind and really think of her
| | 02:49 | body as a three-dimensional object in space,
completely lighting it in a cool way without
| | 02:54 | regard for the fact the that
our background is just pure white.
| | 02:57 | So when it comes down to shooting on
blow-away white, the more lights the better.
| | 03:02 | Two is a practical minimum, but the more light
you can bring to bear on it the more flexibility
| | 03:07 | it will give you, because your first two are
going to go for the background, and then you
| | 03:11 | want access to everything that can
possibly have to light your subject in as many ways
| | 03:15 | as you might choose to light them.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Refining the lighting and exposure| 00:00 | So I'm going to take a moment
and set up my two accent lights.
| | 00:04 | As it is right now, the background is white. We've got
a nice soft key on where a Stephanie is going to be.
| | 00:10 | I'm probably going to be filling with an Orbis.
| | 00:12 | Big surprise, right?
| | 00:13 | So I want just a little bit of texture
wrapping around her from the back, and I'm going to
| | 00:16 | do that with the couple of lights
from the back pointing in towards her.
| | 00:21 | So I'm going to point the slaves forward.
| | 00:23 | I'm going to just do these optically.
| | 00:24 | They can't mess with this many flashes
going off in a room. And I'm going to put a snoot
| | 00:28 | on them, and these are little custom snoots
I've made for my SP800, and they're just sections
| | 00:33 | of a spaghetti box.
| | 00:34 | A one-pound box of spaghetti fits in SP800
perfectly, and the tape is there because I'm a professional.
| | 00:42 | So it takes if form being
cardboardy to black Gaf.
| | 00:46 | It's just the simplest thing, and I use them
all of the time, and you can sit down and make
| | 00:49 | ten of these things while
you're watching a movie.
| | 00:52 | I sometime prefer these to the professional
models, although I do use both, because I can
| | 00:56 | take them and alter them.
| | 00:59 | If want them to be a snoot on
four sides, I can use them as is.
| | 01:02 | But if I want to allow that light to spill
on the back, I'll just tear it and tear this
| | 01:06 | back section out, leave a little stripe going
around there, and you've got three-sided snoot
| | 01:10 | that's going to allow light
to escape from the flip side.
| | 01:13 | So it's crazy not have a
few of these in your bag.
| | 01:15 | All right, so these are ready.
| | 01:17 | Now you bring them out. Oh!
Yeah, yeah jeez. Who is this guy?
| | 01:24 | We are going to do the same trick with
these that we do anytime we are slaving--like this is
| | 01:32 | actually going to kind of
hard because these are stiff.
| | 01:35 | Like this and like that. That allows me to
have to the slave pointing forward and to be able to tilt this.
| | 01:44 | So I'm just rotating the flash 90
degrees in the mount. Same deal here.
| | 01:51 | This is one reason I like the Frio
better than my long-time Nikon AS19s,
| | 01:54 | because they don't get in the way of the
little knobs when I'm doing these kinds of things.
| | 02:01 | So I want these up to be pretty high, and I
want them to be pointing probably above where
| | 02:06 | the mark is that she's going to be hitting.
| | 02:09 | The snoots will keep them
from hitting me, hopefully.
| | 02:16 | So John, for continuity, have it even with poles.
| | 02:21 | We don't have 3 or 4 feet over there,
| | 02:23 | so I am going to need to come in little
closer on the other side and just kind of point it
| | 02:27 | back right at the mark.
| | 02:32 | Dave, for continuity, can I
have you give the camera to Mark?
| | 02:39 | And I'll get you back on the spot. John, sorry.
| | 02:45 | I was thinking Mark, because I was looking at the--
Okay, let's see how you're starting to look now.
| | 02:56 | Did this fire? Yes.
| | 03:00 | So let's go to one quarter on this.
| | 03:03 | I might need to have something other
then this as a fill. Let's take a look.
| | 03:12 | So that's a little hot.
| | 03:16 | I hear Stephanie I think.
| | 03:18 | We are getting the tinniest bit of light.
| | 03:26 | So I'm going to back to
this and see how dark that is.
| | 03:32 | Yeah, I'm definitely catching it.
| | 03:37 | So just leap away high into
the air, Dave, if you could.
| | 03:48 | I need to see more from those backlights, and I'm
going to need to be back here with a longer lens.
| | 04:04 | No, they're there. Yup, I do.
| | 04:07 | So let me go to 7, 1 and see
what that does on your hair.
| | 04:15 | It's funny. The hair comes down like a
third of a stop. It really does. And 8.
| | 04:23 | Okay, I can live with 5, 6. I prefer 8.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. The Photo ShootPlanning the shoot with dancer Stephanie Yezek| 00:00 | So we're here with Stephanie Yezek, who is
one of the finalists in the current year's
| | 00:05 | Rising Stars Program that I was talking
about earlier, and I saw her perform, and it was
| | 00:09 | absolutely amazing, frankly, just
like every one of the Rising Stars was.
| | 00:13 | And we did a session couple of weeks ago,
three weeks, maybe a month ago, something
| | 00:17 | like that, where we were shooting against
sunset with her doing leaps and such, and
| | 00:21 | I wanted to come in and do this against white, so
we can completely take out the background if we want.
| | 00:26 | So her job will be to just do amazing leaps
and suspend gravity and hang in the middle
| | 00:32 | of the air like Michael Jordan,
and my job will be to do this.
| | 00:35 | So that's the division of
labor as they exist here.
| | 00:40 | And we've got a mark for you right here.
| | 00:43 | That tripod is going to move,
| | 00:44 | I would think, or it's going to be a really
interesting first sequence, as you come running through.
| | 00:49 | We can move this mark a little bit if we
need to, depending on what your line is going to
| | 00:53 | be, but I want to make sure you've got a
really door to exit out of going that way, without
| | 00:59 | having to hit anything.
| | 01:00 | Stephanie Yezek: Everything happens there.
| | 01:03 | This is where the magic happens, right.
So whether you're static and going up--and
| | 01:06 | if we need to move this around, the main
thing is consistency, so we can tweak the lights
| | 01:09 | and have it look good right in there.
| | 01:11 | So we're setting up a three-dimensional
space of cool light, like right in here. Think of
| | 01:17 | it like an orb that's got
maybe a 4-5 foot diameter.
| | 01:21 | We're also, that's another plane. That paper
is being lit separately. But if we can--
| | 01:26 | I noticed who were really, really
good at hitting your mark as you came across,
| | 01:28 | which is like gazillion years of practice.
| | 01:33 | And so the more consistency we can nail down
in the lighting for each pose, and the more
| | 01:39 | of the problems we can work out before the
fact, the more granular we can be, which is
| | 01:43 | trying for that one little extra thing,
whether it's body position for you or timing for me,
| | 01:48 | or expression, I like
you've got the thing nailed,
| | 01:51 | now just like relax and enjoy the
moment when you're doing it. Big, big.
| | 01:56 | And I don't know if we talked about this on
camera or not earlier, but big difference
| | 02:00 | in an amazing technical thing happening, with your
face being all concentrated, you're making--it's work.
| | 02:06 | You're doing work at that point, whereas if
you just let it go and you just, it's almost
| | 02:11 | like you don't even the viewer's there.
And it just literally that thousandth
| | 02:15 | of a second is the only thing that is going to
be recorded, so that'll be your hardest thing,
| | 02:20 | I think after we nail everything down, is
to just like let go and enjoy it. Cool!
| | 02:26 | So show me what you're thinking about doing.
So let's plan to do something doing across,
| | 02:33 | something static, and then we'll pull paper
out, and do something that'll be, yeah, more
| | 02:38 | of a grounded straight portrait.
| | 02:39 | We have got plenty of that on that paper.
| | 02:41 | You know, it's actually not going to be easy.
| | 02:43 | We can bring it down.
| | 02:44 | Okay, we have two people. We can bring it down
and walk it out at the same time, no problem.
| | 02:49 | Stephanie Yezek: Do you mind leave my pants on for now?
David: Yeah, yeah sure, me too, I'm going to.
| | 02:53 | David: I'm just going to leave my pants on for now.
| | 02:56 | Now, if we need to move that a couple of feet
in either direction--
| | 02:59 | Stephanie: Well, I guess my question is, can I be, can I
be this way? I don't have to do that?
| | 03:03 | David: Yes, exactly. So the main thing I would
| | 03:06 | worry about, like not being higher than
this when you come down and get here.
| | 03:10 | We can move this up a little bit and rotate
it down. So I would almost say you want to
| | 03:17 | be just starting to come down as you
cross this mark, because your form will still be
| | 03:21 | there and then we're going to have any errors
going to be working to lift. And before
| | 03:26 | if I forget I want to take that fan and
move it around. Of course we don't have a
| | 03:29 | plug on the other side, but I have got an
extension cord that's reasonable, so we'll
| | 03:33 | probably have a fan right here, behind the
stand, pushing up to you to accentuate whatever,
| | 03:40 | whatever wind you're creating as you go.
| | 03:42 | Okay, so yeah, let me just watch you a
little bit and see what you're doing, and
| | 03:54 | think pace yourself too, because--I mean okay.
| | 04:01 | So my first problem I see is
you're like, you're so horizontal.
| | 04:05 | You're definitely sticking out from behind the white.
| | 04:07 | I can deal with that.
| | 04:08 | I can totally deal with that, but it might be that
we want to move this on the diagonal a little bit.
| | 04:16 | Okay yeah, let's see. That's better.
That's definitely better.
| | 04:21 | You know you're still going to be
sticking out behind the white a little bit.
| | 04:24 | This is a full-width white seamless, but
since we're on white, I can, after the fact, I can
| | 04:30 | go in and extend that canvas and do like a
literally a pixel-by-pixel cutout around your
| | 04:36 | feet. So that's not, that's not going to be
too much of a problem, yeah. If that window
| | 04:41 | is behind your hand as you are coming down,
that could be a problem, but I don't think
| | 04:45 | we're anywhere near that.
| | 04:51 | But we might want to think about less
horizontally expansive poses as you're coming out. And work
| | 04:58 | a different track if we need to work
a different--yeah that could work.
| | 05:09 | So the further back I get--I'm going to go ahead and assume
that I'm going to be shooting from back here. Try that now.
| | 05:20 | That already is better. So moving back here
forces me to shoot with a telephoto lens, which
| | 05:25 | compresses everything, which makes
that background optically bigger.
| | 05:29 | So I can hide you inside the
background easier that way.
| | 05:32 | I'm wondering if maybe we need to
move this track back just a little bit.
| | 05:37 | I'm going to move this mark
just a tad, maybe a couple of feet.
| | 05:48 | Does that make more sense for you as a mark?
Okay, right, yeah the last thing I want is
| | 05:53 | to have you mess up one of
these lights stands you know.
| | 05:57 | Blood is hard to
get off of him.
| | 06:02 | All right, let's see what you're thinking.
| | 06:04 | Yes, yes, yes. You're completely contained
in there. In fact, as you're coming across,
| | 06:13 | I want to take that mark and move it that
way a little bit, because the picture
| | 06:17 | is going to happen when you're coming past the
mark a little bit, like towards you, just a bit.
| | 06:22 | Okay, just one centimeter,
adjust to that please if you could.
| | 06:26 | Okay, all righty. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you need to decide whether you're going to
| | 06:36 | be looking at me, which is--it's got
advantages and disadvantages, because I'm every person
| | 06:41 | that looks at this picture, so
you're not looking at the camera.
| | 06:44 | You're making eye contact with the person
looking at your website, or looking at a dance
| | 06:47 | poster or something.
| | 06:49 | This could literally be the only element in
a dance poster, and you'd have all that white to do
| | 06:53 | whatever you wanted, so
would you be looking at me?
| | 06:57 | I think maybe not. We can try some both ways,
but that's one more variable to get almost
| | 07:04 | right and if everything else is perfect
and you're looking like almost at me, because
| | 07:07 | your eyes didn't quite focus in on time, then it's
like, other than that this is Lincoln, how was the play.
| | 07:16 | Okay, so let your face flow where it's
naturally going to flow, and then if we have to tweak
| | 07:23 | it, we will tweak it, okay?
| | 07:26 | Yeah, yeah, I like that.
You were kind of back up here.
| | 07:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The first test shots| 00:00 | Okay, we need a little
more light out of this I think.
| | 00:10 | Do not try this at home.
I'm a professional.
| | 00:16 | So I'm going to focus on the
mark, just as a dumb guess.
| | 00:20 | All right, go ahead and pop
through that just like you did,
| | 00:32 | Okay, let's take a quick look
at this. You want to look? Stephanie Yezek: Sure.
| | 00:37 | Okay, so I'm missing you just a
little bit, so I may move that.
| | 00:40 | Stephanie: Oh! I was like, what is that black?
It's my pants. It's interesting.
| | 00:45 | It's very flamingo actually.
| | 00:47 | Yes, yes, oh yeah the layer, definitely.
| | 00:50 | So I may move your mark a little bit that
way, like two feet maybe, because I got
| | 00:56 | so much room on the light on the other side.
| | 00:59 | I would like to get this other,
this background light, higher.
| | 01:03 | I'm going to have to to switch stands, and I want to take
it down in intensity just a little bit, so
| | 01:09 | if you can give me just a moment.
| | 01:11 | This one looks fine. So I'm
going to move your mark this way.
| | 01:16 | How's this floor on your feet?
Are you okay. Okay, great!
| | 01:21 | Is it better than the rocks
and glass we had on the--
| | 01:23 | Stephanie: Actually, I mean yeah, it was a nail I think.
| | 01:27 | David Hobby: Always pull it out from
the front, you know, don't back it out. That's bad.
| | 01:35 | Right. So I want this a little less hot.
Two thirds of a stop I just took off of it.
| | 01:42 | So these are like really dim right now.
| | 01:43 | These are just about 164th power.
| | 01:48 | All right, let's try one
of those again. Where was I?
| | 01:58 | I'm going to back up a little bit and
use a longer lens too. Where's my dot?
| | 02:11 | Could I get you to stand just
like one foot your side of the mark.
| | 02:17 | I'm going to focus on your face, and
I need my thingamabob. Whoa, whoa.
| | 02:28 | I had the--what is it?--the VR on in the lens,
so it was like getting drunk on me. Normal
| | 02:41 | active, normal, okay. So no fill on this.
| | 02:49 | Really nice highlights on the
background, on her, so okay.
| | 03:03 | So what I'm doing is I'm looking at the
difference between these two with this ring flash.
| | 03:08 | This ring flash is really
trying to work going this far.
| | 03:16 | I used a bigger version of
this, a similar kind of a light.
| | 03:19 | I used a pro photo ring flash as opposed to--
| | 03:23 | Okay, so right now I'm just looking and seeing
what my fill looks like dialed in, and this looks actually
| | 03:29 | very good. Okay, the
question is, can I hold all of this?
| | 03:35 | So there. Okay, so I'm going to send you
through that mark again, and let's see if I can
| | 03:42 | hold you all in the frame.
| | 03:47 | Okay, this is actually getting pretty
close. You want to take a look at this?
| | 03:54 | Okay, so think about your
body attitude now and such.
| | 04:01 | Stephanie: I'm not quite sure what's going on there.
Arms are not-- I don't know.
| | 04:04 | Okay do want to be more, less horizontal, more
rotated away from me a little bit, do you think?
| | 04:09 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah maybe
that's, something like that.
| | 04:12 | David: Okay, and I'm thinking about
accent lighting you from lower, as opposed
| | 04:18 | to trying to out-height you, which I don't
know that I can do. Since my main light is
| | 04:22 | coming from up top, maybe I
push the accents from down low.
| | 04:31 | This may look really cool or it may just really
look bad, but we won't know until we do it.
| | 04:43 | It also can give more of an illusion of height
for you, so I think that can be cool too.
| | 04:47 | Stephanie: Oh but how
about it against the back?
| | 04:51 | I mean it looks almost super-imposed.
Isn't it independent of height when jumping?
| | 04:56 | David: So but the fact that those rim lights are
coming from up underneath you, it's almost
| | 05:00 | more of a psychological
thing than a physical thing.
| | 05:03 | Subtle. Now that can get just down to ground.
| | 05:12 | I can't get this as low as that one.
| | 05:15 | Okay, so they both are a tad high.
| | 05:31 | Okay, so when you're going up, rather than
straight towards me, you may want to keep
| | 05:36 | your body more rotated
around towards Dave Kyle.
| | 05:41 | It's all about Dave Kyle at this point.
| | 05:51 | You know what I'm going to do, very
quickly too, I'm going to set up--
| | 05:53 | We've got, do we have one more stand?
| | 05:55 | Male Speaker: I do if you need one.
| | 05:58 | David: Good, good, good I'm going to throw an
umbrella on this and not have to worry about this ring
| | 06:02 | light, so I'm changing up my fill from a ring
to an umbrella that's very close to the axis.
| | 06:08 | And frankly, I can even make it nicer than
that by taking--this is a fairly white wall,
| | 06:12 | so I'm going to take a light and fire it into
that white wall and see how much I can get
| | 06:16 | off of it. It doesn't get much
more simpler than that. Oh!
| | 06:20 | The light is in the Orbis.
| | 06:32 | So as long as I can keep this from hitting
my camera, that should give me a pretty good,
| | 06:42 | pretty good pop off of there.
Did I just kill your chip?
| | 06:49 | Okay, just stand one foot your side of
the mark, if you could, Stephanie. Thank you.
| | 06:54 | That's going to be one less thing to worry about.
| | 07:04 | So I'm getting a ton of fill off
of that, way more than I thought.
| | 07:06 | I can drop that down on another two
thirds of the stop, maybe even a full stop.
| | 07:13 | Let's try it with a full stop.
| | 07:18 | Okay, don't move Stephanie.
Maybe another two thirds of a stop.
| | 07:26 | This is a very efficient wall.
| | 07:28 | I don't need to walk back
there to do this. There we go.
| | 07:35 | So this is almost being like a--it's an
on-axis fill-ish, kind of close, with a little
| | 07:41 | bit of shadow on that side, but I'm okay with
that, because I've get a rim light happening
| | 07:44 | back there anyway, so--All right, let's
try that, and don't put too much into this.
| | 07:48 | I'm trying to save you. Oh, oh!
| | 07:50 | Hit your mark for a second.
Let me focus on you. Thank you. Okay.
| | 08:05 | That's really nice!
| | 08:14 | I like your arms much better when
| | 08:16 | you're rotating like that. So take
a look at that. What do you think?
| | 08:19 | Stephanie Yezek: Oh yeah, it's better. So what
do you want to fix about this, body-attitude-wise?
| | 08:24 | Let me come in close and be
looking at your face at the same time.
| | 08:30 | I'd like to get that light up a
little higher coming down on you.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Making refinements| 00:01 | That boom is really, really useful right now, because
we can get that light all the way up and over
| | 00:05 | her, but we don't have to worry about her crashing
into a stand or having a stand popping into the picture.
| | 00:12 | Okay. So, you're ready. You want to tr--
| | 00:17 | Let's get one more test, and then we'll
try to shoot some--shoot with real bullets.
| | 00:24 | I'm still not married to those accent lights.
| | 00:27 | I don't know whether I want to include
them and have that rim light you, or maybe put
| | 00:33 | one right behind you, knowing that I'm
going to have to cut out the stand, and let that
| | 00:37 | throw some layers of texture into the
translucent parts of your dress as you're coming by.
| | 00:42 | So, I am just going to focus on
the mark here, okay? If I can see it. Oh!
| | 00:51 | There she is. Okay, stand right there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you very much.
| | 00:58 | All set. Okay, thank you.
| | 01:05 | Now come on through.
| | 01:12 | That's nicer. That's nicer!
| | 01:13 | You've got a really nice point and extension
as you're going across there, and I'm trying
| | 01:18 | to--Really work on the hip rotation when you're
going around too, because that gives you a really nice look.
| | 01:30 | So your feet are turning this way below
your hips, and you are rotating back towards me.
| | 01:34 | In fact, you could even--you don't need
to be looking back over my shoulder here.
| | 01:38 | You could just keep that going, keep that facial
expression going off the way that you're going.
| | 01:42 | Stephanie Yezek: Is it okay?
| | 01:45 | Yeah, you don't have to come back over your
shoulder like that, necessarily--exactly,
| | 01:52 | and you are rotating.
| | 01:53 | I am going to be you for a second,
so try not to laugh if you could.
| | 01:56 | So you are rotating your hips around,
but you are really getting your lower body around.
| | 02:02 | I don't think you have to
bring your face all the way back.
| | 02:04 | It's almost a real, like
almost too much of a spiral.
| | 02:08 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay. Okay. Hang on.
| | 02:14 | David: I'm going to focus on the
tape. Boom! Got it! Okay.
| | 02:27 | I like that.
| | 02:30 | I really like that, and I think that--okay,
so let me show you the difference between the two.
| | 02:36 | I mean maybe you don't look straight ahead;
maybe just come up more at a 45 this way.
| | 02:40 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay.
| | 02:41 | David: But when you are going back the other way, it's
like there is almost no place you can put that where--
| | 02:45 | It's like your body is facing
one when your face is facing other.
| | 02:48 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah, it's spiral.
David: Exactly, and there is some continuity this way.
| | 02:51 | David: So I would definitely put you on the
right-hand side of text and stuff, whereas if I put you
| | 02:56 | on the right, you would be
looking off the page this way.
| | 02:58 | So, nice rotation. Instead of looking
straight that way, maybe you are looking up, like at
| | 03:04 | this T juncture right there.
| | 03:06 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay.
| | 03:06 | David: So that keeps everything in your body, your
facial expression, everything is flowing that
| | 03:09 | way, and then we can start working on just
literally your facial expressions as you're
| | 03:13 | coming across there. Okay.
| | 03:16 | I want to focus on that.
| | 03:24 | Okay, I am shemping a lot, but your body position,
that's looking really nice, and it definitely looks better.
| | 03:43 | I can go--I literally can go either
way with that as far as your face.
| | 03:46 | The one thing I do want to do is to get the
fan around to where your hair starts getting
| | 03:49 | pushed, and your dress is getting
pushed as you're going by there.
| | 03:52 | So we will see how much
fan we can get away with.
| | 03:54 | How does that feel?
| | 03:56 | I think that's going to help your hair because
you're going to add to that wind because you're
| | 03:59 | moving across--exactly!
| | 04:04 | It's about where your face is looking too.
| | 04:07 | Okay, stand on the mark, if you could.
| | 04:11 | I'm going to go way back.
| | 04:14 | Yeah, it really doesn't matter too much from my
perspective because you are coming across my frame.
| | 04:23 | Maybe if I put my camera
on focus. Oh, that's it.
| | 04:27 | You can't miss that.
| | 04:28 | Okay, one quick look. Okay.
| | 04:33 | So, you should see a lot more extension in your
dress and your hair coming across here this time. Okay?
| | 04:40 | Stephanie Yezek: All right!
| | 04:41 | David: Yeah, when you're ready. What was the oops?
| | 04:51 | You are going to back, yeah.
| | 04:55 | All right, give me a try. That's nice!
| | 05:04 | My timing is getting better every time.
That's the good news.
| | 05:08 | Let me have you try something.
| | 05:09 | Rather than bringing your arms up, is there
any way you can like--I don't know if you
| | 05:12 | have to bring your shoulders
and your face around that much.
| | 05:15 | See, there is an attitude.
| | 05:17 | You know what? Do whatever feels right when
you're going through and I'm going to shoot it.
| | 05:25 | That's actually really nice.
| | 05:26 | I want you to see this for a
second, see how you would tweak that.
| | 05:32 | Really great point!
| | 05:34 | It almost looks like I'm catching you in a turn.
| | 05:37 | Stephanie Yezek: Oh! Yeah, it does.
| | 05:39 | David: But you're not really going through the turn, but
it's as if you were spiraling through the air like that.
| | 05:44 | You almost have too much
point on your down foot.
| | 05:47 | Stephanie Yezek: You think so?
| | 05:48 | David: Well, I mean you have got like a
hyper extension sort of a bend to it.
| | 05:53 | Stephanie Yezek: You mean in my leg? Yeah, Yeah.
| | 05:55 | David: But that's a dancer thing. I'm stupid.
| | 05:57 | Stephanie Yezek: Like it's really hard to that.
| | 06:01 | David: No, no, I'm saying, I'm just seeing this from
a total layperson's point of view, and I don't
| | 06:06 | even begin to be able to criticize the dance.
| | 06:09 | I mean I want you to see how this feels.
| | 06:12 | Stephanie Yezek: Sure! Okay.
| | 06:14 | David: But I like that top to bottom.
| | 06:15 | I like the way that feels.
| | 06:17 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah. Oh!
David: Great, I like that.
| | 06:23 | I like that this muscles defined.
| | 06:24 | I can very easily say that.
| | 06:26 | That's no worry at all.
| | 06:27 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay, it's okay.
| | 06:29 | Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's right.
| | 06:31 | But if you hit your head, we'll
talk from there, right? All right!
| | 06:37 | Whenever you are ready. Well, it's good, except
it looks like you're pulling your own dress off.
| | 06:44 | Other than that, it's just exactly the moment.
| | 06:47 | So, I'm going to cheat that a little late.
| | 06:49 | So hold yourself from the waist up for a
little while, because as you start to come down,
| | 06:54 | that's when your dress and
hair gets all the body. Okay?
| | 06:56 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay. All right!
David: All right! Whenever you are ready.
| | 07:01 | David: Okay, you are off the ground.
| | 07:06 | I waited a little too long.
The dress is up, a bit too high. Here we go!
| | 07:10 | Bit of Marilyn Monroe steam
grate thing going there, okay?
| | 07:18 | That's pretty close. Okay.
| | 07:19 | Are you okay to do a few more of those?
| | 07:22 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah. Okay.
| | 07:26 | David: You are holding that a nice long time, and
I'm trying to vary when I am grabbing your
| | 07:32 | apogee as you are coming off of it. Make sense?
| | 07:35 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah. Okay.
| | 07:37 | David: So you are doing these leaps and I'm getting
tired because of the weird squatting position I am in.
| | 07:42 | That's the sad thing. Break!
| | 07:49 | Okay, start to sell me,
above your waist, at this point.
| | 07:53 | If I start thinking about your facial expressions,
because we're to the point where we're working on smaller stuff.
| | 07:59 | So yeah, center--and your legs are
doing everything that you want them to do.
| | 08:05 | But when you are hanging in the air, you
would be thinking about that posture, and
| | 08:08 | then as soon as you can forget about the posture,
be thinking about where your face is in the moment. Okay?
| | 08:25 | I want you to see this.
| | 08:26 | I am thinking that this is starting to
be--I like what your hair is doing here.
| | 08:32 | There is a lot of motion in it.
| | 08:33 | Do you want your hair up higher like that, or do
you want it where it's back and down like this?
| | 08:39 | So we can really start to tweak that.
| | 08:41 | You can see, this is shot earlier, this is shot
kind of mid, and this is shot later in your arc.
| | 08:48 | Whenever you're ready, I'll
catch you just as you come. Yeah!
| | 08:55 | I like what your hair is doing later.
| | 08:56 | And go ahead and like loosen your hair a little bit before
you take off, so get it where it wants to move. Nice face!
| | 09:15 | Okay, I'm going to wait a lot later this time.
| | 09:18 | So, as long as you can hold that attitude
as you are coming down, make sure you can
| | 09:21 | catch yourself, but I'm going to try
to give your hair more body. Okay?
| | 09:34 | It's literally just going like
straight out behind you at this point. Oh!
| | 09:43 | I like that. Yeah, a couple of more
like that. Yeah, yeah! Oh! That's sweet!
| | 09:58 | You are very lemmy--I mean you've
got slimmer shoulders, sort of thing.
| | 10:02 | So as you compact, you start to--it
connotes more power I think than--
| | 10:08 | Stephanie Yezek: It's like a smolder--
David: Yeah, it's like compressed energy is what it feels like.
| | 10:14 | Stephanie Yezek: Okay, yeah. Okay.
| | 10:17 | David: I want to focus on you since we
came all the way up there. Okay.
| | 10:21 | Get you in focus. You are sharp. Thank you!
| | 10:28 | Stephanie Yezek: Thank you!
David: No, thank you!
| | 10:30 | David: All right! Here we go. Okay.
| | 10:41 | I think you nailed that one and I think I'm a
little bit late on it. Do that again, okay?
| | 10:44 | I love your face on that, okay?
| | 10:47 | Your eyes just look like you're lost in it.
| | 10:50 | If you come down and break both ankles, the important
thing is we got the picture, right? That's it! That's nice!
| | 11:01 | I think everything is just
pulled in. I like that. I like that.
| | 11:05 | Stephanie Yezek: There is
something nice about that.
| | 11:07 | David: It's like your hands aren't forced.
| | 11:11 | Your feet are great.
| | 11:15 | When I process this, I can tweak this a little bit
and like accentuate your lines in your muscles.
| | 11:20 | I'll do that with other picture.
| | 11:21 | I mean you see how that
just like has a cut look.
| | 11:24 | Not like you are not cut,
but I want to emphasize that.
| | 11:27 | I want to emphasize that. Okay.
| | 11:29 | Do you feel good about this, because we want
to think about how you're spending your energy?
| | 11:33 | Stephanie Yezek: Yeah, that's okay. Okay.
| | 11:36 | Let's try something. While
we've got this light set up,
| | 11:38 | let's try something in a more static--
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Another pose| 00:00 | So show me which way--show me how you want
to jump and then let's rotate you around and
| | 00:04 | see what the best angle is going
to be for that, see more that way.
| | 00:07 | Try, yeah, try that, see what that--okay,
rotate that 30 degrees and try that again,
| | 00:14 | because yeah, the arm wasn't a problem at all.
| | 00:17 | That's cool, that's cool, and I could light
you from the back, which puts your face in
| | 00:21 | the light but your armpit in the shadow.
| | 00:24 | And I can dial that shadow up and down
with the Orbis Ray Flash.
| | 00:28 | So, yes remember that angle, and
I am going to take this light,
| | 00:31 | I am going to wrap it around and
get you from the other side, okay?
| | 00:33 | All right, it's going to take me two or three minutes.
| | 00:38 | Yeah, let's pull this. So we are going to
slide it over to camera left and then we are
| | 00:44 | going to pull it down and just literally just
rotate the beam around to flip that flash, okay?
| | 00:48 | I've learned not to keep it up all the
time when I am moving it around like that.
| | 00:53 | At least--I think I got it, yeah.
| | 00:59 | It's balanced really well,
so when we fixed the balance earlier--
| | 01:03 | Speaker: Yeah, you tested out earlier--
David: It's all clamped down, but I can pick that up with
| | 01:10 | David: one hand, because--and so that's not putting
any stress on this clamp, and it's not really
| | 01:13 | wanting to fight against the bags.
| | 01:15 | It doesn't need to be this
high as it was last time.
| | 01:20 | You know what? Rather than just--why
don't we kill two birds with one stone?
| | 01:26 | Can I have you stand and just turn and look
over your shoulder without leaning your feet?
| | 01:31 | Okay, so I want this like to be
more over you. It's so over you.
| | 01:44 | It's almost like behind you a little bit.
| | 01:53 | All right, let's try that.
| | 02:01 | One second, I am going to
rotate it just a little bit.
| | 02:09 | Okay, you don't need to jump.
I am just going to look.
| | 02:17 | Okay, may/be for just a
tad, and I think we are there.
| | 02:23 | I think your face is going to be in a little
bit of a different place when you are jumping
| | 02:27 | too. I am just trying to get it
close, so we can just be fine-tuning.
| | 02:31 | Okay, my accent lights are firing.
| | 02:34 | Okay, so you are like this. Where would I want
that light to be coming from? I think just one.
| | 02:46 | I am going to use this.
| | 02:53 | So with the accent light, I am pushing back
up against the fill light. I mean the key
| | 02:58 | light. And that wall, do you see there is a flash
pointing against wall, is doing everything for on camera.
| | 03:04 | So, nothing is going to be in total shadow.
| | 03:06 | I can control every depth of
every shadow independently.
| | 03:30 | Okay, if I sit in right there. This may be
too hot at this distance, 164th. All right,
| | 03:41 | you don't even need to leave your feet;
you are just kind of throwing yourself horizontally
| | 03:44 | around that--I'm going to catch you.
| | 03:52 | Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just need to move it
around and catch your face more.
| | 04:04 | This is set at 164th power on an 85
mm throw, so it's pretty zoomed in.
| | 04:10 | And that mostly to concentrate the
light and keep it from furling into my camera.
| | 04:14 | All right, one more of those, if you could.
| | 04:23 | Yeah, that's defining you really well.
| | 04:27 | Okay, so let's--yeah, I am going to back
up so--and the reason I am backing up again
| | 04:34 | is to give myself more paper.
| | 04:36 | I am probably still going to
need to cut this out a little bit.
| | 04:39 | I need to be low. Let me focus on
you. Okay, whenever you are ready.
| | 04:54 | Okay, I think I am a little late on you,
because your feet are starting to come back down,
| | 04:59 | but hold your face as long as you can, okay?
| | 05:01 | Okay, all right I am going to
focus on you, and yeah. Okay, my miss.
| | 05:27 | I like that, yeah. So there is something
going on behind your eyes there, as opposed to you
| | 05:34 | being an amazing mannequin, now you are a person
who is doing something amazing. Okay, that's good!
| | 05:52 | Your face is where it needs to be.
| | 05:54 | Let your eyes just be more relaxed.
| | 05:55 | You don't have to push your eyes.
| | 05:56 | Your eyes don't have to lead where your face is
trying to go. Just don't push your eyes so far up.
| | 06:03 | Your face is pushing up really
nicely, okay. That looks cool. Try a couple of those.
| | 06:16 | You have got that same that spungness,
in the one that you like coming across.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lighting notebook: A dancer in action| 00:03 | So this is going to be a little bit
involved, but let's jump right into it.
| | 00:06 | This is our lighting diagram for
Stephanie Yezek, our dancer on blow-away white.
| | 00:13 | A lot of things are consider here. And the first
thing we consider is we want to give ourselves
| | 00:17 | as much room as possible in this dance studio.
| | 00:20 | It's a decent size, but I could deal with a
higher ceiling, and you can always use more room.
| | 00:24 | So we decided to approach the room on the
diagonal, which gave us the longest lens throw,
| | 00:32 | which was very important because if we can
back up and use a telephoto lens you start
| | 00:37 | compressing those objects, and by those
objects I mean Stephanie flying through the air, and
| | 00:42 | are full-width seamless.
| | 00:43 | So we have a better chance of keeping her
contained within that seamless. So that distance
| | 00:50 | is important and turning the room
on its diagonal helped us do that.
| | 00:53 | The other thing it gave us from the opposite
corners is it gave Stephanie the longest possible
| | 00:58 | approach route to get to her mark,
where we wanted her to be in the air.
| | 01:03 | So just a little thing, but it basically
made room bigger for us and capitalized on what
| | 01:07 | would have been a little bit of wasted space.
| | 01:09 | So I am going to be shooting back in the
hall, and I am shooting with a Nikon D3s 70-200.
| | 01:14 | And again this going back as far as I
possibly can, and shooting with a long lens is going
| | 01:21 | to help that compression.
| | 01:22 | It's going to give me
more background to work with.
| | 01:24 | And that's the reason that you didn't see
me working at what would have been a normal
| | 01:28 | distance actually in the
same room with Stephanie.
| | 01:30 | I am back down the hall, getting
every bit of distance I can possibly get.
| | 01:35 | So the first thing we are going to do--and
you have to think of a blow-away white picture
| | 01:39 | which is what this is, blow-away white or
silo some people call them, or a dropout picture,
| | 01:45 | pure white, you know
whatever you want to call it.
| | 01:48 | There are two zones here. The first zone is
going to be the white background paper, and
| | 01:53 | we want that lit exactly to a certain level, and
we want that lit as evenly as we can possibly get.
| | 02:00 | So one trick is to take--we've got a couple flagged
Nikon SB 800s and where we've got little flags
| | 02:07 | or gobos on the front of them, and it's
actually a Honl Shorty Snoot, a five-inch snoot, Dave
| | 02:12 | Honl five-inch snoot. And we have those on
the front just so that light won't spill back
| | 02:18 | into the front camera, because it might be
fairly close to where Stephanie is jumping in.
| | 02:22 | If it's right at the edge of the frame,
| | 02:23 | it would flare into the frame
if we didn't have a go boat.
| | 02:26 | As you can see--and this is actually drawn
to scale--those flashes are each pointed at
| | 02:31 | the opposite side of background paper.
| | 02:34 | So you got a little X thing happening there
where flash on the right is pointed at the
| | 02:38 | side of the background paper
on the left and vice versa.
| | 02:41 | What this is going to do is account for the
feather of each light, and it's going to give
| | 02:45 | you a fairly even overall light across that
paper, much more so than if you aim either
| | 02:50 | light at the middle and certainly more so
than if you aim the left light at the left
| | 02:54 | and the right light at the right.
| | 02:56 | It's just a simple little trick. It just costs you a
little bit of light because it throws longer,
| | 03:00 | but you get it back in evenness,
and it's very much worth doing.
| | 03:05 | So let's bring Dave Kyle, the always-
trusty Dave Kyle in front of the background.
| | 03:10 | And this is a straight out-of-camera picture, and you
can see just how evenly that background light is lit.
| | 03:17 | This is a little bit of a math problem to
work out here, and we're doing it primarily
| | 03:22 | without a meter, because a meter
is not going to help us that much.
| | 03:25 | Here's the thinking.
| | 03:26 | I'm going to put these flashes on one
quarter power and I'm going to--I am going
| | 03:33 | to take my light and fire it, even it off at
the paper, and I am going to open my aperture
| | 03:40 | until I see that I have got a nice
white paper that doesn't quite blow out.
| | 03:44 | And I can check that by looking at my histogram
and seeing that I have got all my tones for
| | 03:47 | that square stacked up against the right side.
| | 03:50 | So what I want is a piece of paper that's
almost pure white, but not quite, because
| | 03:54 | I don't want it to bleed through any loose
hairs. Stephanie's hair's going to
| | 03:59 | be flying around; with Dave
it's not that much of a big deal.
| | 04:01 | But I want to hold those hairs.
| | 04:02 | I don't want it to flare out.
| | 04:04 | I don't want that contrast to go away.
| | 04:06 | So once I get--I find the aperture that I
can shoot at and get a nice clean white but
| | 04:11 | still hold a nice silhouette on Dave, then
that tells me the working aperture that we
| | 04:15 | are going to have for this whole shoot, and
I am going to try to light Stephanie to hit
| | 04:18 | that aperture, and once I do
that, all my problems are solved.
| | 04:21 | So we are going to take a Westcott 43-inch
shoot-through umbrella, and again fly it from
| | 04:27 | a little bit of an atypical position.
| | 04:29 | We are going to dangle it right out over
Stephanie, up high in the air, because we know that she's
| | 04:34 | going to get some vertical extension, because
I've seen her jump before, and this lady pretty
| | 04:38 | much can defy the law of
gravity any time she wants.
| | 04:40 | So we have got to get that above her head height
when she's flying through the air on the leap.
| | 04:45 | So we need to be pretty high, and we're using a
tall stand and a boom to run that Nikon SV
| | 04:50 | 800 and the Westcott shoot-through
umbrella. And we checked our light by just lighting
| | 04:56 | a proxy subject six feet away from the
umbrella when it's down at ground level.
| | 05:02 | Once we get that power level that gives us--
I think it was f8 was our working f-stop in
| | 05:06 | this picture, then we can raise that up there,
and as long as the umbrella is the same distance
| | 05:10 | from Stephanie, we are not going to have to
adjust that light, and we are going to be able
| | 05:13 | to hit our working aperture.
| | 05:15 | So let's go in and see what this light looks
like on Dave all of a sudden now. And he is
| | 05:19 | our stand-in for Stephanie, obviously a very
poor substitute, but we will take what we can get.
| | 05:24 | And you can start to see that we are
working this light in two different zones.
| | 05:28 | Now we've got our even light on the background
paper and we are beginning to have more of
| | 05:32 | a sculpting light in our subject area,
and Dave is standing right on the mark.
| | 05:35 | So we are going to have plenty
of consistency as we go forward.
| | 05:39 | The next thing we are going to do is to
take a couple of lights and shoot them off the
| | 05:43 | back and give a little bit of separation,
and this is the one thing that we can't really
| | 05:48 | check with Dave, because Dave is wearing dark clothes
and Stephanie is going to be wearing lighter clothes.
| | 05:55 | It was either just kind of guess the way
our separation lights are going to look.
| | 05:58 | And you can see them back there right by the
paper, separation lights on the left and right.
| | 06:02 | They are snooted, so they
won't flare into the camera badly.
| | 06:06 | And frankly, we had a choice between a rough
guesstimate based on the fact that Dave is
| | 06:10 | wearing darker clothes, or have Dave take
off all of his clothes and frankly, I'd rather
| | 06:14 | just guess on the lights than see that.
| | 06:18 | So we are going to get our closest guess and
if we need to adjust those when Stephanie comes
| | 06:22 | in the frame, that's just fine.
| | 06:24 | We will do that later.
| | 06:26 | So here's Dave, executing his highest
possible vertical leap, and you can see how
| | 06:31 | this umbrella is lighting him from the front.
| | 06:34 | Those separation lights are doing very
little on him, again because of the dark clothing
| | 06:37 | that he is wearing.
| | 06:38 | We got a very subtle look on Stephanie later
and frankly, it wasn't even enough to show up in
| | 06:42 | his dark jeans and his sweater.
| | 06:45 | But you can see this is zone B light
starting to take effect, and there Stephanie up there
| | 06:50 | on the left warming up, which I'm
sure is not intimidating at all to Dave.
| | 06:56 | So the last thing we are going to do is
we are going to bring in our fill
| | 07:00 | light, which, by the time we finished--it's
started out as a ring and this is Stephanie.
| | 07:04 | That's actually not Dave there.
| | 07:05 | We have changed to a real dancer now.
| | 07:07 | We took that light and we have bounced it
right off of that wall near me and made a
| | 07:11 | nice big, broad fill light. So what you have
got now is our final lighting scheme where
| | 07:17 | there are two different zones of light, and
we are going to go to that in just a second.
| | 07:21 | But the zone that Stephanie is in has a
nice high key that's positioned correctly.
| | 07:26 | It's got a couple of very
subtle separation lights.
| | 07:28 | And you can see that, especially in her back,
just that little bit of skin coming off her back.
| | 07:33 | There is a little bit coming off of
front too. But they are very subtle.
| | 07:37 | I didn't want to make them bright, because
the last thing I want to do is have a flare
| | 07:41 | or a specular right next to the white
that I am trying to separate her from.
| | 07:45 | The key light's hitting her face, and
everything that's not being hit by the face of the rims
| | 07:49 | is being filled in by that
-- it's a quasi on-axis fill.
| | 07:54 | It's very close to the camera,
bouncing off the wall right near the camera.
| | 07:57 | And what that's going to do is give you
a very controlled three-dimensional look.
| | 08:00 | If you didn't have it, you would be at the
mercy of whatever this room is going to kick back
| | 08:04 | from all the flashes bouncing around, and
it is not going to be a ton of light.
| | 08:08 | So what you are going to get is something
that looks really lit, you know "lit," and
| | 08:13 | I don't know that I like that for this.
| | 08:15 | I want three dimensionality.
| | 08:17 | I want muscle tone, but I
don't want super-dark shadows.
| | 08:20 | I want to be able to see everywhere.
| | 08:23 | So here are our two lighting
schemes, and it looks complicated.
| | 08:26 | You have got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 lights
bouncing around there, but what you really have are
| | 08:31 | two completely separate and discrete lighting
zones. And let's take a look at the first one.
| | 08:37 | The first one is the lighting zone that lights
the background, and that is completely independent
| | 08:41 | of the other lighting zone,
which is what's on Stephanie.
| | 08:45 | Now there are four lights on Stephanie, and
we could have lit her with one light, but
| | 08:49 | again, like I was saying earlier in the--
while we were shooting, the more lights you have
| | 08:54 | when you're sculpting something on blow-away
white the better it's going to look, because
| | 08:58 | you are going to blow two of them if you're
doing it right, at least, lighting the white
| | 09:01 | background, and everything you can put on
your subject gives you just another option and
| | 09:05 | another ability to the craft
that subject three-dimensionally.
| | 09:09 | Yes, you can do blow-away white with one flash.
| | 09:14 | It's a little, it's very restrictive, and it's
more of a parlor trick than a lighting technique.
| | 09:19 | You can do it with two, with one on the
background and one on the subject, but you are really
| | 09:23 | giving yourself lots of limitations.
| | 09:25 | If you're coming to do something on blow-away
white or pure white backdrop, the more light
| | 09:30 | sources you can bring with you,
the happier you are going to be.
| | 09:34 | So let's add in both of them together.
And you can see our whole six-light setup there,
| | 09:38 | all speed lines, but still a reasonably subtle
light when you look at the final product because
| | 09:43 | we are controlling every
light as it's coming in.
| | 09:45 | Again, we built the--we have got the
exposure based on exactly what holds the background,
| | 09:50 | and I believe that was at f8 or f7.1.
| | 09:52 | I can't remember at this point.
| | 09:55 | And then we let our key light match that on
Stephanie's face, and then we built the supporting
| | 10:01 | lights on Stephanie to underexpose her to the degree
that we wanted the shadows underexposed. So here we are.
| | 10:07 | Here is a triptych of Stephanie flying through
the air, and what I really like about this
| | 10:12 | is it's three-dimensional and it's crisp,
but it doesn't scream that it's lit.
| | 10:16 | It's not like, hey, everybody, look at my
light; ain't I got something cool here?
| | 10:20 | It's a picture of Stephanie.
| | 10:21 | She is a dancer. She has got amazing motion.
She has got an amazing dancer's body, and she
| | 10:26 | can just do really whatever she wants to do.
| | 10:28 | It's just kind of makes me sick just to
think about what she can do versus what I can do
| | 10:33 | in that same space.
| | 10:36 | Now we have the two pictures on the right,
the key light was coming from the upper camera
| | 10:42 | left and the picture on the left.
| | 10:44 | The key light was coming
from upper camera right.
| | 10:46 | This is obviously a composite, but I just
wanted to give you a quick little look at
| | 10:50 | the some of the
different looks that she gave us.
| | 10:53 | Again, if you look at--let
me see if can find one here.
| | 10:56 | Okay, let's look at the picture on the on
the left-hand side. Look down at her legs.
| | 11:01 | You see that subtle shaping that's coming from
the rim light that's off to the back camera left?
| | 11:07 | That's what I'm talking about with that rim.
| | 11:09 | Not a lot, just enough to get
three-dimensionality there, and we are carving those muscles.
| | 11:13 | You know, she's got just gorgeous muscle structure.
| | 11:16 | So I want to make sure that stands out,
but I don't want to do it in a way that makes
| | 11:19 | her look like an over-the-
top Nike or Gatorade commercial.
| | 11:24 | So this is what we have.
| | 11:25 | I am really happy with this, due in
no small part to her amazing ability.
| | 11:31 | We were just standing around watching and
pushing the button. But, wonderful picture.
| | 11:35 | Very, very thankful to get a
chance to work with Stephanie again.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Portrait of a DancerSetting up for a portrait| 00:00 | A really, really, really useful thing.
| | 00:04 | This is a Botero 5X7.
| | 00:06 | It's white on one side, or
at least it used to be.
| | 00:08 | And it's black on the other side.
| | 00:10 | So I can use this as a subtractive fill
or an additive fill or a white backdrop.
| | 00:15 | Not really anymore.
| | 00:16 | Or certainly a black backdrop.
| | 00:18 | So that's what we are going to use it right now.
| | 00:21 | So this isn't totally black, but you've got to
remember that we are not going to be pointing lights at it.
| | 00:24 | So it's going to go black very fast.
| | 00:25 | We may need to gobo off the raw spill
from this flash that will be coming in over the
| | 00:31 | top of her. But everything is going to be coming from
the back that's going to give accents. So let's see.
| | 00:35 | Remember, I said similar we are
using Shorty snoots as gobos.
| | 00:40 | So now I am just going to literally
wrap them up and use them as snoots.
| | 00:43 | This is to keep this light going in just one
place, to not have it hitting the background,
| | 00:46 | and to not have it hitting my lens.
| | 00:48 | I am going to use the same mark, I think, for
her, and this is going to need to go very low.
| | 00:58 | I am going to start with this on
164th power at 105. That's good there.
| | 01:13 | So I am going to wrap here from the top
and bottom on both sides, 164th power at 105.
| | 01:38 | Yeah, this is very, very cool-looking light.
| | 01:48 | You have got an awesome back,
and I want to show that off.
| | 01:52 | But I want to show it off in the context of
a portrait of you and also just wrap a little
| | 01:57 | bit of a rim around top and bottom from the back.
| | 01:59 | So I am putting all.
| | 02:01 | Stephanie: A figure of light?
| | 02:02 | David: Yeah, just a little bit of separation from
the black, not much at all. Stephanie: Okay.
| | 02:07 | David: The symmetry is going to be
really important here for me.
| | 02:10 | Dave, if you need me to do
anything different just let me know, okay?
| | 02:17 | So what I want to do is I want to get my exposure
nailed on all the backlights, because there
| | 02:21 | are four of them, and I will go to the trouble
to adjust the top light to match them, rather
| | 02:28 | than adjusting all the backlights.
| | 02:29 | I should have one on the floor. Here we go.
| | 02:33 | Now, I am going to make sure I have
got my lights with some symmetry here,
| | 02:36 | so I am going to stand here and
look at them. It's pretty close.
| | 02:45 | There is a quick change-up, and it's
going to be such a different picture.
| | 02:52 | I am going to use the shade here.
| | 02:56 | Hey, Dave, or Mark, John, sorry, Matthew, Luke,
can I get you stand on that X for a second
| | 03:05 | while Stephanie, you're a stand-in?
| | 03:07 | John: I don't have her back though.
David: No, you don't.
| | 03:13 | We have got the tiniest bit of light
coming from there, and you are wearing black.
| | 03:22 | So I want you to turn around
and face towards that corner.
| | 03:24 | Actually, face towards Dave Kyle.
| | 03:27 | Now, just kind of turn and look almost
down towards the ground on this side.
| | 03:31 | Yeah, just like think Jet Lee from The Crow.
| | 03:34 | Was it Jet or Brandon? John: Brandon.
| | 03:37 | Pardon me. It looks cool.
| | 03:40 | I have something that's too hot on your face.
| | 03:43 | So I am going to float this down right
over for her head, just right out of the frame, and
| | 03:50 | I want to have to turn down the
volume on this because of that.
| | 03:59 | So I just took a stop and a third out of
this light, because I want to have it very close
| | 04:05 | so it wraps in a very, just a wicked-cool way.
| | 04:12 | The thing that I am worried about this umbrella,
| | 04:13 | I am shooting through it, but anytime you
are shooting through an umbrella, if you go
| | 04:16 | up there and see that flash right now,
you can actually see the front of the flash.
| | 04:20 | So you are going to get some raw light
spilling out, and that's what you got to worry about.
| | 04:24 | It's not so much of umbrella as bouncing
back and hitting the ceiling, although it is.
| | 04:28 | But I wouldn't mind having all black walls
and ceilings in every place that I shoot
| | 04:32 | so I can decide where the
lights are going to come from.
| | 04:34 | But your biggest thing with
the umbrella is raw light.
| | 04:36 | There is a way--in fact, there is--I
am going to make this umbrella smaller.
| | 04:40 | Right now it's about this big.
| | 04:41 | If I choke up on that shaft, just like you
choke up on a baseball bat, I can make that
| | 04:46 | umbrella, the actual light source in the
umbrella, smaller, and it will sculpt her back better.
| | 04:50 | So that's the next thing I am going to do.
| | 04:52 | And that will also solve my raw light problem,
because I can literally stick the flash inside the umbrella.
| | 04:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The photo shoot| 00:00 | Yeah, yeah, three quarters.
| | 00:04 | You can keep everything on.
| | 00:06 | So, face away from me, and you were coming over.
| | 00:10 | Wait, which shoulder were you over? Okay, good.
| | 00:13 | I was going crazy here for a second. Okay.
| | 00:15 | I am just going to look.
| | 00:16 | I am just going to look and take a test. Okay.
| | 00:20 | So, here is my very first test, and I am already
being okay with this, but I want to work this more. Okay?
| | 00:27 | So, I am going to micromanage
this light so it sculpts your back.
| | 00:31 | You see how different that is now?
| | 00:33 | This is like, by day, she is a
dancer, by night, assassin ninja.
| | 00:40 | I like that little catch that's
happening on your eye right there too.
| | 00:42 | I don't know if I want to leave that or not.
| | 00:44 | But this little wrap on your shoulder,
that's what that other picture didn't have.
| | 00:47 | So, that's all that's coming from the top.
| | 00:50 | So we are defining you.
| | 00:52 | So, I think maybe turn away from you a
little more, and I will just catch a little less
| | 00:55 | of your face. And I am going to play.
| | 00:57 | And I want you to think tight with your back, so,
well not like -yeah, but like you are about to take--
| | 01:08 | I told like right before the ball gets, my
son, who is a goalkeeper, I'm like, tighten up your
| | 01:12 | armor, and everything just you know. Okay.
| | 01:15 | So stay on your mark, and I mostly want to
light for your--now, come around towards
| | 01:22 | me with your face a little more, back
over your shoulder. There you go! Okay.
| | 01:29 | That's getting close.
| | 01:29 | I think I need to back away from you just a
little--no, no you are fine. You are fine.
| | 01:34 | Rather than move the light, I am
going to move you. It's all relative.
| | 01:36 | So, your mark is now 3
inches to this side of the mark.
| | 01:40 | Yeah, towards me, towards me, yeah!
| | 01:43 | Now, come back around, and eyes down at
the ground, yeah, yeah. Sweet, sweet!
| | 01:52 | Okay, go that way about 2
inches towards the background. Yeah.
| | 01:57 | Now, rotate around, around 15
degrees with your feet. Camera left. That's right.
| | 02:05 | Okay, now when you come
around, yeah, there you go!
| | 02:08 | And down, yes, that's good. That's good!
| | 02:11 | Okay, rotate around a little more, keep with your
feet, keep doing that, and come back around towards me.
| | 02:19 | There you go! Okay.
| | 02:22 | I want you to see what this is
looking like as you're coming around.
| | 02:28 | It's very theatrical.
| | 02:30 | Now, I want to see how this innerplay is
starting to happen on your back now. I like that.
| | 02:39 | I like that your face is in
shado like that too. Okay.
| | 02:43 | So, I am going to push you back onto the
mark again and keep you with that amount
| | 02:49 | of rotation--in fact a little
more rotation. There you go!
| | 02:53 | I like your hands behind your
back like that. Try that, try that.
| | 02:57 | See, I leave you alone and you fall into
things that are way better than I can ask you to do.
| | 03:02 | Stephanie Yezek: Is that true?
David: That's true, that's true! Okay.
| | 03:06 | David: Can I get someone to raise that background--
not you Stephanie--anyone else to raise that
| | 03:09 | background stand 2 feet or so,
whatever you can give me out of it. Okay.
| | 03:16 | Good, good. All right!
Okay, come on around.
| | 03:21 | That's good. Without moving eyes at me. Okay?
| | 03:26 | Chin around a little bit more towards me. Okay.
| | 03:32 | Chin up, a little more. All right!
| | 03:39 | Relax your hands for a
second, bring your hands in front.
| | 03:42 | So, bring your hands in front. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
| | 03:45 | Now back around towards me
like you were doing. Okay.
| | 03:51 | Now my question now is, do I put a
little bit of fill on your face?
| | 03:57 | Okay, so I am trying to--I am basically
wrecking my light to get your eyes, and I
| | 04:02 | don't want to do that.
| | 04:04 | So, be looking off towards, maybe
towards Dave Kyle a little more.
| | 04:08 | Yeah, chin up a little confidence.
This is good. Okay. Don't move.
| | 04:16 | Now is when I am going to bring out
that little Orbis flash and fill you.
| | 04:21 | Then I think we are out.
| | 04:22 | I am just going to take a guess and put
it on 116th power and see what happens.
| | 04:36 | Yeah, look right here for a second if you would.
| | 04:39 | And I will actually try to
take the picture, a 61 frame.
| | 04:45 | This is actually getting a
tad heavy. Got that. Okay.
| | 04:50 | Yeah, now I can see when you turn around. Okay?
| | 04:52 | Relax for a second. There we go!
| | 04:54 | I am going to take this
back. All right! Bring it.
| | 05:04 | Give myself a little more power from the front.
| | 05:09 | So I am going from 116 and two-thirds, I've just
added one stop. Okay, all right! Here we go!
| | 05:24 | This is really nice. Don't move!
| | 05:27 | Look down and away like we were doing earlier.
| | 05:31 | Come around towards--yeah, there you go,
but just not at me. Arms folded. Okay.
| | 05:44 | See, when you are looking at me,
I want to be able to see your face.
| | 05:50 | I want to be able to see in your eyes.
| | 05:51 | Let me go, before I did the
ring, and that's all just.
| | 05:54 | I don't see in your eyes that way.
| | 05:56 | I think that's kind of cool too.
| | 05:58 | I like playing with your
hair a little like that.
| | 06:01 | Stephanie Yezek: That's
very sculptured. Isn't it? Cheekbones and everything
| | 06:08 | David: You've got just an amazing like
layers of muscles on layers of muscles.
| | 06:16 | This is fantastic! Thank
you! Thank you so much.
| | 06:18 | Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!
| | 06:20 | I am looking forward to
playing with these on the computer.
| | 06:22 | Stephanie Yezek: Great! So, great!
| | 06:23 | Stephanie Yezek: And thanks
everybody else! That's right!
| | 06:25 | Dave, my other brother Dave, my other
brother Dave, my other brother Dave!
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lighting notebook: Portrait of a dancer| 00:00 | Welcome back to our diagrams, where my
drawings exist for one primary function, and that is
| | 00:08 | to make you feel superior
about your own drawing skills.
| | 00:12 | So this is an amazing likeness of
Stephanie, as you can tell, our dancer.
| | 00:17 | And we are doing something a little more
edgy compared to the white picture that we did.
| | 00:21 | We are going Yin Yang, and we're
going to do a shot on pure black.
| | 00:27 | She has an amazing back, and
I wanted to capture that.
| | 00:30 | I saw it in another frame that had been done
by another photographer a couple of years ago.
| | 00:35 | It's a back you just look at and you say, I've
got to get a chance to shoot that back sometime.
| | 00:40 | It's just gorgeous musculature
and just an amazingly fit person.
| | 00:45 | I knew right away I didn't want
to light it from a typical angle.
| | 00:48 | This is a portrait of
the definition of her body.
| | 00:51 | So I wanted to light it from the top and
hang an umbrella right over her, which frankly, is
| | 00:56 | something that I do a lot.
| | 00:57 | I spent a lot of time shooting with
umbrellas at 45 degree up and 45 degrees over, and they
| | 01:02 | have just long since ceased have
become interesting for me at that angle.
| | 01:06 | But I do like what they can do if you float
them over someone and just move them around.
| | 01:11 | Maybe move them a little to the left, a
little behind, a little to the right, a little in
| | 01:14 | front, and you're going
getting a very, very different looks.
| | 01:17 | Certainly that was the
case here with Stephanie.
| | 01:20 | So we get a typical 43 inch shoot-through
Westcott doubled-fold umbrella with a Nikon SB 800 in it.
| | 01:28 | This umbrella is slightly
behind her and over to camera left.
| | 01:34 | So we are working in some black background,
and that's going to make her really pop against
| | 01:37 | the black. But as you travel down her body,
that body is going to go more into shadow
| | 01:41 | and you're not going to get any separation.
| | 01:43 | So we are going to bring in a
couple of separation lights now.
| | 01:48 | These will be rim lights, Nikon SB 800s, and
these are designed specifically to separate
| | 01:53 | her body from black in just a really subtle way.
| | 01:56 | The light on the left, the back camera left
rim light, is also going to serve double duty
| | 02:01 | as a kicker light for her face.
| | 02:03 | So there are going to be two zones in the
interface. One is top lit by the umbrella
| | 02:08 | and the other is back rim lit by the left
back bare SB800, and let's bring this up now.
| | 02:14 | So the secret of this picture is
letting a lot of it go into shadow.
| | 02:19 | Obviously, the background is going to be very
dark, but you define those muscles going down
| | 02:24 | her back by letting the shadows remain shadows.
| | 02:27 | Very subtle with the separation,
just enough going down her arms.
| | 02:31 | The cool thing is, is, for instance, her camera
right arm, the camera right rim light in the
| | 02:37 | back is separating the right side, and the
camera left rim light in the back is separating
| | 02:41 | the left side of that right arm.
| | 02:43 | Take a look up on her face, where we get her
cheekbones really getting popped by that umbrella
| | 02:48 | flying over the side--or flying over
the top rather than back left top.
| | 02:52 | But her eyes and her lips and her chin and
around her shoulder, that's being picked up
| | 02:57 | by the rim light right there on the edge.
| | 03:00 | So you have little extra
definition coming around there.
| | 03:02 | Then the last thing is that rim light on
the right is separating her hair and her bun.
| | 03:08 | I love this picture, mostly because I think
it's one of the most amazing backs I have
| | 03:13 | ever seen. I am just happy to
have gotten a chance to photograph her.
| | 03:17 | But this is just a cool image, and you
can't go into this picture lighting typically,
| | 03:21 | because, unless you really start sculpting
with a lot of hard lights, you are just not
| | 03:26 | going to bring out the definition.
And certainly if you were to go with glamour lighting or
| | 03:30 | beauty lighting, which in a lot of ways is
designed to fill in wrinkles or to gloss over
| | 03:35 | imperfections, at the same time you are
going to be glossing over all the definition you
| | 03:39 | want to see in her muscles.
| | 03:41 | So if you're going to use an umbrella,
it's reasonably safe light source.
| | 03:46 | Really think about what you can do, as far
as flying an umbrella over someone and top
| | 03:50 | lighting them or sticking the umbrella on the
ground and creating some atypical fill, and
| | 03:56 | then maybe coming in with a hard
light on someone's face is a key.
| | 03:59 | Or as we have done before, just take an
umbrella, sticking it behind the camera, and using it
| | 04:04 | as a very low-level fill, building a safety net
against which you can you can add more interesting light.
| | 04:11 | But in this case it's the umbrella that's carrying
the weight, and it's carrying it from directly above.
| | 04:16 | That's what's giving us that
hard-to-find look in Stephanie Yezek.
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