Studio PortraitureStudio lighting tools| 00:01 | Okay, we're in our studio here in the
Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, where we work,
| | 00:05 | and today we're going to be
working with strobe, electronic flash, and
| | 00:09 | this is very critical to a lot of the work we do.
| | 00:12 | Some of the advantages of strobe--
People sometimes say to me, why do you shoot in
| | 00:16 | strobe instead of natural light?
| | 00:18 | Some of those advantages
are the light is consistent.
| | 00:21 | Sometimes we work at 11 o'clock in
the morning whereas we also may have the
| | 00:25 | other subjects who say they'll be here
at 11 in the morning but they actually
| | 00:28 | end up here at 11 o'clock at
night and we have to still shoot.
| | 00:31 | And if you're relying upon
daylight only, that's very limiting.
| | 00:36 | I've done a lot of work working with
cosmetic clients, people who make the
| | 00:42 | beautiful perfect faces that you see
in the big magazine covers and ads.
| | 00:46 | And there are certain rules of
what of they'd like and their perfection.
| | 00:52 | One of those is that it must be flawless.
| | 00:58 | That's what you have to see and imagine.
And it's usually aided sometimes by a
| | 01:03 | little retouching at the end.
| | 01:04 | But what we're going to do today,
we will make as perfect an image as we can
| | 01:09 | that does not need retouching.
| | 01:11 | We would be working with Courtney
here first and we're going to see this
| | 01:15 | wonderful face that she has at her best.
| | 01:18 | And what I'm going to be doing is
showing you different types of lighting we
| | 01:21 | use and how and why we use them.
| | 01:24 | We work predominantly with soft boxes.
| | 01:26 | A lot of soft boxes, but we also use
spotlights, and they all go through
| | 01:30 | the strobe light.
| | 01:31 | Now in addition to having the advantage
of being able work at any hour with the
| | 01:35 | strobe lights, they go, we'll say, to more
than a 500th of a second, higher than a
| | 01:40 | 500th of a second speed,
a 500th, 1000th, 2000th of a second.
| | 01:43 | So if somebody does that,
you don't get a blurry picture.
| | 01:49 | That's one of the
advantages of electronic flash.
| | 01:51 | Plus we have enormous control and we
can repeat it week after week, year after year,
| | 01:58 | if we have to, with the same, clean,
wonderful daylight look, and you get
| | 02:02 | enormous clarity in the images.
| | 02:05 | Okay, here are some of our lights and
our devices, how we make it all happen.
| | 02:10 | This is where the beauty comes from.
| | 02:12 | This is called a boom and what we can do
with this boom is we can turn it around
| | 02:17 | to make it do all sorts of
different things here on the end.
| | 02:21 | It gives us a great deal of
control over the light and we watch very
| | 02:25 | carefully how it happens.
| | 02:27 | If you'll come up here with me,
I want you to see this device.
| | 02:29 | This is so cool.
| | 02:30 | This is one of our secrets frankly.
| | 02:33 | We have this, we can make it a circle.
So you get a nice clean circle on the eyes.
| | 02:36 | Or at other times, we don't want that.
| | 02:39 | We want an open shape, for example
like that, and you get a different type
| | 02:43 | of light here.
| | 02:44 | It's that simple.
| | 02:45 | Now over here, let's take this off.
| | 02:49 | Miranda is helping me here
and Jeremy will also be helping.
| | 02:52 | This is another small light which is
very useful for giving a nice shine in the eyes.
| | 02:59 | We would be doing this in a moment and
you'll see us as we shoot with Courtney.
| | 03:05 | So we have this. We call this our
key light, and this is our fill light.
| | 03:11 | Again, I'm going to repeat that.
| | 03:13 | This light here we call our key light
or our principal light, and this is the
| | 03:19 | fill light, and both are
necessary and we can do so much with them.
| | 03:23 | I'm going to demonstrate
something here if I may.
| | 03:27 | We may, with this boom, take it
here and put it almost overhead to get
| | 03:33 | an overhead light.
| | 03:34 | See all that control we have?
| | 03:37 | And we might give it quite close and then
if you only have this, you might have
| | 03:43 | too much shadow in the bottom.
| | 03:45 | So to fill that shadow, we come up
with this. This is our secondary light, our fill light.
| | 03:51 | These are our simple devices
and I'll show you a few more.
| | 03:53 | So there're lots to talk about.
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| Creating an environment| 00:00 | Okay, here we are with Courtney and
she's being prepared beautifully by Mandy.
| | 00:06 | Mandy's work with Courtney is very
important because you get down to precise
| | 00:10 | details because ultimately that's what
it is and it's a combination. If you're
| | 00:14 | shooting as a photographer,
| | 00:16 | remember your ultimate picture will
only be as good as Courtney in this case
| | 00:22 | or the subject feels.
| | 00:23 | If they don't feel right, you will lose.
| | 00:26 | You as a photographer cannot do it alone.
| | 00:28 | So that's why it's so
important to have a comfortable team.
| | 00:32 | Courtney has had some coffee.
| | 00:34 | Courtney: Great coffee!
| | 00:36 | Douglas: Thank you!
And it's a nice atmosphere.
| | 00:40 | Have a good atmosphere.
| | 00:42 | Again, that's one of the secrets.
| | 00:44 | If everything is smooth and comfortable,
if everybody is feeling good, you are
| | 00:48 | going to come off with a much better
image and pictures than if it was--
| | 00:52 | It is not mechanical. That's what I am saying.
| | 00:54 | Then it must be comfortable for everyone.
| | 00:56 | I want to show you the really
secret part of the assistant system.
| | 01:02 | This is Francoise.
| | 01:03 | She is often referred to as my
secret weapon, but look at this spread.
| | 01:07 | This is all her.
| | 01:09 | Francoise: Well, this is just breakfast.
| | 01:10 | We are going to have lunch later!
| | 01:11 | Douglas Kirkland: But you know, I said earlier,
it's only as good as the atmosphere is and
| | 01:16 | Francise is very good at creating atmosphere.
| | 01:18 | Francoise: Well, that's also why we work in
our house, in studio or our studio is in our house,
| | 01:22 | because it creates like a family
atmosphere, which I think makes a lot of
| | 01:27 | difference in the lot of shoots that we do.
| | 01:28 | Douglas Kirkland: Everybody has to feel good.
| | 01:30 | Mandy, Courtney, and our
assistants, Jeremy and Miranda.
| | 01:36 | It's all the team, I
keep saying it. But it's exciting!
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| The shoot| 00:00 | So Courtney, I want you to--
It's all very important how you feel.
| | 00:04 | So I am going to ask you to come
here and sit here and just to see if
| | 00:10 | you're comfortable here.
| | 00:11 | You can find your own spot, you can do
that or? Oay, now okay, this is great.
| | 00:17 | It is very good, it's very
clean and get our fan ready, please.
| | 00:23 | The show is hers at this moment.
| | 00:25 | It really is.
| | 00:26 | So okay, now I have to-- One of the
things that interestingly you have to
| | 00:32 | critically ask yourself,
and a lot of people miss this.
| | 00:35 | See how the hair is separating at
the back. I don't want that to happen.
| | 00:38 | So Jerry, a little less.
| | 00:41 | Now see how it's improving.
| | 00:43 | This is the picture being created here.
| | 00:45 | This is very cool stuff.
| | 00:47 | What I am doing right now is I am
watching her very much, and here we are.
| | 00:51 | Yes, yes, yes, right, good.
| | 00:53 | Okay, great, great, wonderful.
| | 00:56 | That was 11 1/2.
| | 00:57 | Yes, yes, nice, nice, wonderful, wonderful.
| | 01:00 | Yes, yes, I'd like what
you'd started to do, that.
| | 01:02 | That's great.
| | 01:05 | This lens is a fairly simple lens.
| | 01:07 | It goes from 70 millimeters to 300
millimeters and frankly, it's a Canon lens.
| | 01:14 | This particular one, is the
Canon 1Ds Mark III camera here.
| | 01:18 | It's not a very expensive lens, but
it's a very good one because you can
| | 01:21 | get just about as close as you could ever
imagine wanting to get and I am just going
| | 01:26 | to demonstrate that.
| | 01:27 | See what you can do? There is the
closest at 300. And then I can go easily
| | 01:32 | to this.
| | 01:34 | So here you can see that as well.
| | 01:37 | It's all within an
instance's change, instant change.
| | 01:40 | Okay, yes, yes, yes.
| | 01:44 | I am sitting on a stool here, which is
a device I use, and I am just raising
| | 01:48 | it a fraction. Because I worked as
an assistant years ago for a man name
| | 01:52 | Irving Penn.
| | 01:53 | He was one of the people who said don't
waste your energy as a photographer if
| | 01:57 | you aren't comfortable.
Make yourself comfortable.
| | 02:01 | Courtney, it's you though now.
| | 02:02 | It's all? Irving who?
| | 02:05 | Yes good, great, very good.
| | 02:06 | Yes, yes, yes, nice, nice, yes, yes, yes.
| | 02:10 | It's almost like a wonderful dance
together when you come to this point.
| | 02:15 | You know, you need the intensity to-- Yes!
| | 02:15 | You are good, you are good, you go, wonderful!
| | 02:19 | Okay, assistance!
| | 02:21 | Just connect the back light please.
| | 02:23 | Great!
| | 02:24 | Then read the front quickly.
| | 02:29 | Now we have got the same deal.
| | 02:32 | Okay, now what we're doing here is we
got the same picture but with gray light,
| | 02:36 | by just unplugging the backlights.
| | 02:38 | A fast change!
| | 02:40 | Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
| | 02:41 | You have to respect everybody.
| | 02:44 | I respect everybody on the shoot
because everybody is doing their job.
| | 02:49 | Mandy is in there right now and she
saw something and Jerry, move the other one back.
| | 02:54 | Thank you.
| | 02:54 | Yes, yes, yes, okay, you are good.
| | 02:57 | I am going to lower my camera a little.
| | 03:00 | Now Jerry, get ready to plug in that
spotlight and to make a spot on the
| | 03:06 | background. Plug it in now.
| | 03:08 | What we have done, we first started
with a bleached white background, then we
| | 03:12 | went to a gray background and now
we are going to put a round spot right
| | 03:17 | behind Courtney.
| | 03:18 | And Miranda, move it to camera
left so it's behind her body.
| | 03:22 | Okay, come back a little more.
| | 03:24 | Okay, okay, now read the bright area
and then read the gray area, please.
| | 03:28 | I am going to give you some
numbers that we are doing on.
| | 03:32 | This is the logic of how it's working.
| | 03:36 | We have these strobes. It's all coming
off of one 2000 pack Dynalite and we have
| | 03:42 | split the sides so the background is on
a separate side from these front lights.
| | 03:46 | So on the front lights, we have lit, so
you get the meter reading of 11 1/2 and
| | 03:51 | in the brightest spot in the background,
it's 16 1/2, one and a half stops brighter.
| | 03:58 | In the gray area outside
the spotlight, it's 5, 6 1/2.
| | 04:03 | Now you might say, all these numbers,
they come together, but truthfully, we are most
| | 04:08 | concerned with what's on Courtney
and all the other is just ambience.
| | 04:12 | So it's the ways we work. Okay, yes.
| | 04:16 | I love your hand back if you
are just doing, yes, yes, yes.
| | 04:20 | Okay, there you start to
see the effect right away.
| | 04:22 | See the effect of the spot.
| | 04:24 | At a time like this, Courtney,
what do are you thinking about?
| | 04:28 | Where is your favorite --?
| | 04:29 | Courtney: I feel like getting into-- (inaudible)
| | 04:31 | Douglas: Yeah, Courtney talked to me
about maybe becoming a photographer herself someday.
| | 04:35 | So that's cool.
| | 04:36 | A lot of the great models of the world
have become great photographers too and
| | 04:40 | people in front of the lens, the great
ones, really understand the process just
| | 04:45 | about as well as any of us.
| | 04:49 | Okay, now Courtney, I am going to ask
you, is there a way of sitting maybe a
| | 04:54 | little further back on the table?
| | 04:57 | Just a second, hold the line.
| | 04:58 | Why don't you get up for a second?
| | 05:00 | Let me move this.
| | 05:04 | Is it possible to sit here?
| | 05:06 | I would like to see that shoe, if I could.
| | 05:09 | Douglas: See how that works.
Courtney: I can try.
| | 05:10 | Douglas: I know you will.
| | 05:12 | Douglas: Disconnect...
Miranda: White?
| | 05:14 | Douglas: Yeah, go to white please and
we will need a lot on the background and
| | 05:18 | a minimum in the front.
| | 05:19 | Do a reading on the front please,
and then reading on the background.
| | 05:23 | Jeremy: 11.
| | 05:24 | Douglas: Okay, what do you got on the background?
| | 05:30 | Jeremy: 11 1/2.
Douglas: Okay, cool, just what we want.
| | 05:33 | You know what? I am going to need a wider lens.
| | 05:36 | So may I have the lens?
| | 05:38 | Thank you.
| | 05:40 | One of my favorite lenses is the 24-105.
| | 05:44 | I use a minimum of lenses because
I want to go smoothly and quickly and
| | 05:48 | I want to get my attention to
the subject, not to the camera.
| | 05:56 | Okay, yes, nice, nice, nice,
wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
| | 06:01 | Nice, nice, nice, you are looking really good.
| | 06:03 | Yes, yes, yes, Courtney, wonderful.
| | 06:07 | Having fun with it! Yes, yes, yes!
| | 06:08 | I wish there was some music!
| | 06:09 | You are good, you are good, you are good.
| | 06:11 | Yes, yes, yes.
| | 06:12 | Now, what's happening as I shoot here,
I am getting excited, I get talking,
| | 06:16 | I have to make sure I don't make errors.
I don't bump the f-stop, get the focus off,
| | 06:21 | and that's critical.
| | 06:22 | There's another machine going in
my head with all this excitement.
| | 06:25 | That's great! I am watching and
everything and I am watching that I am
| | 06:28 | not making mistakes.
| | 06:30 | If you get the picture out of focus or
something, you may have the most exciting picture in
| | 06:34 | the world, but if you don't have it,
technically, you don't have it.
| | 06:37 | Yes, yes, yes, this is
why I became a photographer!
| | 06:41 | Whoo! One more, Courtney, and I am
going to get a quick vertical here.
| | 06:45 | It's useful to do.
| | 06:47 | Don't make all your pictures
all horizontal or vertical.
| | 06:49 | Yes, yes, yes, I keep seeing new images.
| | 06:52 | Courtney is creating
wonderful images as she flows.
| | 06:58 | Courtney is an artist.
| | 07:00 | That's what we are seeing here.
| | 07:02 | That is work of an artist and she
really is good and she has to get the credit
| | 07:06 | she deserves. Because without somebody
with her creativity, there is no picture.
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| Drop-out white critique| 00:00 | Now, since you've seen some
of our work, let me show you some specifics.
| | 00:04 | I'm going to start with the
dropout white. How do we do this?
| | 00:07 | I teach frequently and one of the
questions often asked is, how do you get
| | 00:11 | this dropout white?
| | 00:12 | It's not that complicated.
| | 00:13 | Let me show you.
| | 00:15 | Here's our deal. Here's our subject.
| | 00:17 | You make sure she's comfortable.
| | 00:19 | In our case, she is sitting on a table.
| | 00:22 | She could be sitting on a chair,
whatever, or sometimes people even want to
| | 00:25 | sit on the floor.
| | 00:26 | That's secondary.
| | 00:28 | But make sure she's comfortable,
and this is your main first light.
| | 00:31 | We're using four lights
really to create this effect.
| | 00:34 | This is the key light, the principal light in other words.
| | 00:36 | That's giving the main light.
| | 00:38 | Now there is a weaker light, it's a
fill light that's coming up from underneath
| | 00:41 | just to fill the shadows in.
| | 00:42 | And then in the background,
we have these two lights here.
| | 00:46 | They're giving an even
illumination on the background.
| | 00:48 | I'd like to put them off umbrellas
and just to get that evenness of light.
| | 00:54 | We have the table in about the center,
because I want a distance between
| | 01:00 | subject and the background, because I
don't want any of this background light
| | 01:06 | to spill directly.
| | 01:07 | I don't want the light spill directly
from those umbrellas under the subject,
| | 01:11 | our subject here, because that
would really destroy the effect.
| | 01:15 | So again, very simple.
Let's look at what happens.
| | 01:18 | So you come around here and
this is the effect we get.
| | 01:20 | We have this wonderful bleached background.
| | 01:23 | It's very simple.
| | 01:24 | so we got our two lights on the
front as I mentioned and then we have the
| | 01:28 | two lights on the background which
are just making a very even light on the
| | 01:33 | background and giving that dropout
white with slightly greater exposure as I mentioned.
| | 01:38 | Now this is what we get.
| | 01:39 | This is the result and
again, it's not just lighting.
| | 01:44 | It's talking with your subject,
making changes, and you can have your
| | 01:49 | subject and she must be
comfortable, it must be speaking to her.
| | 01:52 | Because your lightning will do a
lot of it but ultimately it's your
| | 01:55 | connection with the subject.
| | 01:56 | So here is-- Okay, this is
where it gets really exciting!
| | 01:59 | You make a few small changes.
| | 02:01 | You know in your head as you're
shooting the pictures that you've gotten it.
| | 02:04 | And then you say to yourself, what do
I do a little differently, what could I change?
| | 02:07 | So, in this case, I ask
Courtney to turn, turn to the side.
| | 02:11 | Now, most people, and I've learned this
some time ago, you ask them to turn and
| | 02:15 | they'll turn like that for you, not
really moving their feet or their seat, and
| | 02:21 | in a moment they pop back.
| | 02:22 | So the thing to do when you ask
somebody to do this is actually rotate. I had
| | 02:26 | her rotate on the table she was sitting on.
| | 02:29 | And then we get this look. And that's
beautiful, because look. As she looks back
| | 02:33 | over her shoulder,
she looks like she's in command.
| | 02:36 | There is a beauty here.
| | 02:37 | This is where beauty comes from, this
how we create beauty, and that's the
| | 02:42 | excitement of this kind of photography.
| | 02:44 | Now the last element here that we
do, it's a very simple one again, is
| | 02:47 | just take a fan.
| | 02:49 | Blow a little fan and the key I
always tell my assistants is less is more.
| | 02:54 | Don't make it too strong and don't
get it so somebody's eyes tear because
| | 02:57 | it's so strong.
| | 02:58 | It's very gentle, just to make the hair blow.
A very simple elementary thing to do,
| | 03:03 | but it gives this wonderful look.
| | 03:05 | It's a sense of being in charge here.
| | 03:08 | She looks good and she knows it, and
that's where great pictures come from.
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| Middle-tone gray critique| 00:00 | So you've seen how we bleach
a background, how we get that beautiful dropout
| | 00:04 | white as we call it.
| | 00:06 | But we don't only want that.
| | 00:07 | We want to get more than that out of a
shoot and one of the devices we use is a
| | 00:11 | very elementary one.
| | 00:12 | I wanted you to see this.
| | 00:14 | We get this look and it's done in a
very simple way and in a very deliberate way,
| | 00:19 | and you keep the flow going.
| | 00:22 | People don't even know that any change
has been made and we could change the
| | 00:26 | background paper, yes, and all that sort
of thing, but we don't want to take the
| | 00:29 | time because we want to keep the
momentum. We want to keep the spirit of the
| | 00:33 | subject going and moving.
| | 00:35 | What do we do?
| | 00:36 | We'll switch off the background lights.
| | 00:38 | These two lights that have been
bleaching the background are turned off.
| | 00:41 | So there's no light on them ,but now
what's happened is that background is
| | 00:45 | only being illuminated from these
lights up here, our key lights, our key and our fill.
| | 00:49 | There is no other light in the room
and that gives you that grey look, and
| | 00:52 | that's the result of having
this distance from the background.
| | 00:56 | You could be a stop to two stops darker
and this is the look you'll get and
| | 01:01 | this is the image you'll get. And again,
you frame up and it's quite beautiful,
| | 01:05 | Just look at this one.
| | 01:06 | It's very simple and it's how we
work and we keep that momentum going.
| | 01:11 | I'm talking with the subject.
| | 01:12 | They almost are unaware that anything
has happened but I've gotten a whole new picture.
| | 01:16 | Especially important when I
work with a lot of the superstars whom I
| | 01:20 | work with and you have like one hour
with them. You want to get as much from
| | 01:24 | that shoot as you can. This
is one of the devices we use.
| | 01:27 | So here we are.
| | 01:28 | Courtney is great, she moves,
and we usually have music going.
| | 01:32 | And it's not my music.
| | 01:33 | it's their music.
| | 01:34 | If they want to hear Brahms, it's Brahms.
| | 01:37 | If they want to hear Michael Jackson,
it's Michael Jackson, or anything in between.
| | 01:40 | Because it's for them. They must feel good.
| | 01:42 | Your relationship with your subject
is very, very important and that's
| | 01:46 | where these images come from. But
there's still one more lighting technique
| | 01:49 | that I want to show you.
| | 01:50 | So we'll do that next.
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| Spot vignette critique| 00:00 | The final technique I'd like to point
out today and show you is how we get an
| | 00:05 | effect that's very special like this,
with a spotlight on the background.
| | 00:10 | You get a different look.
| | 00:11 | And all these looks, all these vastly
different looks have been done in minutes,
| | 00:16 | just with lighting changes predominantly,
and you get all these possibilities and
| | 00:21 | Courtney doesn't really almost
know that any change has been made.
| | 00:25 | What we're doing is we're
putting a spotlight on the background.
| | 00:27 | We turn out all the other lights
except for the key and the fill light.
| | 00:31 | No other light on the background. Just
that one spotlight which we put a grid on
| | 00:36 | the front of our reflector, of our
strobe, and point that up there and there are
| | 00:41 | different sizes of them.
| | 00:42 | Here you see it's so simple. And this
where you get your gray from, because
| | 00:46 | it's already gray.
| | 00:47 | All we're doing is getting that spot
and again your key and your fill are
| | 00:52 | still working.
| | 00:54 | So now we have three lights.
| | 00:55 | Key, fill, and spotlight on the background.
| | 00:58 | That's it, that's what's
doing this, and watch what you get.
| | 01:01 | See the effect?
| | 01:02 | You have this nice vignette feeling.
| | 01:04 | It's very enhancing.
| | 01:05 | What happens is it brings your eye
into the center and you can use different
| | 01:09 | sizes of what we call grids or spots.
You can change them, make them bigger or
| | 01:15 | smaller and get still a different look.
| | 01:18 | The composition changes,
the sense of the image changes.
| | 01:21 | That's the power of using these
wonderful tools like a spotlight.
| | 01:26 | Now this is my favorite image.
| | 01:27 | This is the last one that I really
care about and what I really want to show
| | 01:31 | you is what happens when I go back to
the studio and I put the image into my computer.
| | 01:36 | That's the final touches that really count.
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| Post-production review| 00:00 | When I shoot portraits, I want to make
the image as perfect as I can in the camera.
| | 00:05 | I feel that's the right way.
| | 00:07 | However, when I look at my pictures
carefully, I see some small refinements I can make.
| | 00:12 | Let me show you some of them.
| | 00:13 | Here is Courtney. I was very happy
with this image. I felt we had it, but as I
| | 00:18 | looked it a little closer,
I saw a few little things.
| | 00:21 | For example, these are normal little
specks and little hairs here, just not in the
| | 00:27 | perfect place. A little spot in their nose.
| | 00:29 | And then I wanted to soften this a little bit.
| | 00:32 | It's normal, but we are
conditioned to see such refinement.
| | 00:36 | So here is what I did. A very light
hand. I have a very light hand when
| | 00:40 | I'm retouching.
| | 00:41 | I don't want people to look at the
pictures and say oh, he's retouched her.
| | 00:44 | I don't want them to be
aware that she's been retouched.
| | 00:47 | That's my philosophy on retouching.
| | 00:50 | So there she is.
| | 00:51 | I feel I have the right picture here.
| | 00:53 | Now there are a couple of other things I found.
| | 00:54 | Look at this.
| | 00:55 | I see a little problem here.
| | 00:58 | As I speak of that as a problem, it's
a normal thing, but line of her dress and
| | 01:02 | then she is leaning against the
table, which I asked her to do.
| | 01:06 | And there is one other thing.
| | 01:07 | her head was a little close and the
lens gave a distortion and it was a little large.
| | 01:12 | So what did I do?
| | 01:13 | Here we did.
| | 01:14 | So I can get rid of that, smoothen
this. And don't smoothen that too much.
| | 01:19 | Don't make it perfect.
| | 01:20 | It should have a few little
wrinkles, because you don't want it to
| | 01:23 | look retouched.
| | 01:24 | And then we make the hand a
proportionate size that looks better.
| | 01:28 | And this is the image we come up with.
| | 01:30 | This I feel is my final statement, my
final image of Courtney, the one I care
| | 01:35 | the most about from this series.
| | 01:37 | I feel it's really quite successful,
but I want to show you something else that we did.
| | 01:41 | This was a picture,
| | 01:42 | this is one of the pictures
we were taking against a dropout white.
| | 01:45 | And I was in the studio and Courtney
had these shoes she thought were really cool
| | 01:50 | and when she showed them to me, I thought
yes, those are very nice, but how can I
| | 01:53 | get those in the picture, because I
want to see her sort of from the waist up?
| | 01:57 | And then I thought maybe asking her
to sit on the table, but I quietly--
| | 02:01 | I can tell you this.
| | 02:02 | I said to myself, the probability of
getting those in the picture is rather small,
| | 02:06 | but I tried it anyway.
| | 02:07 | And as I looked through the camera,
I said to myself, looking at the lens,
| | 02:13 | I said, hey, it's something kind of cool here.
| | 02:15 | It's contemporary, it's a
cool look, if I can make it work.
| | 02:18 | But I did see through the viewfinder,
I saw there was a cord here, a little bit
| | 02:22 | of the edge of the umbrella
from lighting the background.
| | 02:26 | And I could have stopped things and said,
okay, let me move this, but you know
| | 02:30 | what would have happened?
| | 02:31 | I would have lost the momentum.
| | 02:32 | I would probably have never gotten that
same feeling of fun. There is a little
| | 02:36 | fan in her hair, it's all
the elements are working.
| | 02:39 | So I kept shooting, because I knew
it'd be very simple to remove this,
| | 02:43 | especially since it's on dropout white.
| | 02:46 | It was got in a second. And finally, I
thought, I've got an image that I really like here,
| | 02:51 | but there was one thing. I said to
myself, I know actually there is a
| | 02:57 | little edge I can give it here.
| | 02:58 | The composition can be better and it
can become a better piece of artwork.
| | 03:02 | So this is what I did.
| | 03:04 | I crop that side off, giving it a
sense of a line going from the top-right
| | 03:09 | corner to the bottom-left.
| | 03:11 | And then it became a composition that
I was really much more comfortable with
| | 03:15 | and an image that I felt really was my
statement of how I've wanted Courtney
| | 03:19 | to look.
| | 03:20 | I love working in the studio.
| | 03:22 | Why? Because it gives me
great possibilities creatively.
| | 03:28 | All the elements, whether it's lighting,
whether it's music, a fan in the hair
| | 03:32 | as you see here, all these
elements. They all help make the image.
| | 03:36 | So I hope you've enjoyed being part
of our process today and I hope you get
| | 03:42 | something that helps your
photography and carries you to a new place.
| | 03:45 | Thanks very much!
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