From the course: Photo Tools Weekly
Finding the hero shot
From the course: Photo Tools Weekly
Finding the hero shot
- [Chris] Hello, friends, and welcome to another episode of Photo Tools Weekly. My name is Chris Orwig, and thanks so much for joining me this week. Recently I have been expanding Photo Tools Weekly to cover topics beyond software so we can talk about other photographic issues and tips and techniques and tools which will help us to be a better photographer, and that's exactly what we're gonna do in this week's episode. This week's episode is less of a tutorial and more of a conversation. And I wanna talk about is how we can capture and find that hero shot. I mean the best shot in a mini photo session. How do we do that? And in order to talk about that, I wanna show you some images that I captured recently and tell you a little bit of the story behind them. And I wanna do this as a way to share my own process with you and also to inspire you in your own photographic process. All right, well, here we are in Lightroom. Press F to go to full screen. Let me tell you the story behind this picture. First off, this isn't a great photograph, but what happened was I got up early and I rode my bike up into the mountains, which I love to do. And I was so excited to be 4,000 feet above sea level. I'd just ridden my bike I think about 12 miles, and I was excited, right? I took a picture with my iPhone, but it wasn't very good. And the question is, why? And the reason that it wasn't good is 'cause my experience of being up there was so amazing that I was just so excited, I just pushed the button without really thinking like a photographer. So I decided to try to capture a selfie, (laughs) and the selfie is, it's really bad, right? It's not very good either. So I decided to try another perspective. Still not very good. I decided to zoom in a little bit. It's not very good either. So it really wasn't working at all. I tried maybe a horizontal perspective versus vertical. And photographically, it's really doing nothing for me. I mean, it was great to be up there, but that feeling wasn't being translated into the image. And then next what I did is I looked over to the right and I could see the coastline going down here. This is the ocean below, the marine layer. And if I zoom in on this, I wonder if you'll be able to see this. There's a little picnic table right here. I know it's kinda pixelated, but next to it was an old piano, and I thought, yes, I need to go check that out. This was just about one minute away from me, so I rode my bike down to it. And I'm getting close to this, and I see the piano and think, yes, this is amazing! A piano on top of the mountain. And I took a picture, and still it wasn't very good. And I think this picture doesn't work because the piano kinda blends into this rock right here and you don't really know what's happening as a viewer of the image. As the person taking the picture, I knew what was happening, but my viewer didn't. So then I had to say, okay, Chris, I need to think like a photographer. So what I did is I climbed up on this rock right here, and I took a photograph standing above, looking down. Let me show you that one. And this one I think is the hero shot. And what it did was it showed some of the piano. It showed the coastline down here. It gave the eye kind of a way to travel through the image so we kinda have this almost triangle right here. And this is the image that I ended up posting on Instagram, and it's one of the photographs that has received more likes than any of my other images. And I think that that works or this image works because of the angle and perspective, and I cropped it just about like this, and because it says enough but not too much. It kind of catches you. It makes your imagination kinda start to spin and get interested in what's happening here. And then I decided after taking this one, 'cause I thought, this is kinda cool, I'll try something else, kind of a similar version, and then another one from a different angle. And this image really doesn't work at all. And then that was the end, and I biked back down to my house. If I exit out of full screen for a moment and just pull up kinda some of the images which I think represent a little bit of this process, maybe these right here. I'll press N and then Tab to hide everything else. And if we look at this process, it's like this. You have an experience and you take out your camera, but you have to realize that isn't necessarily going to be the good picture. Then you're gonna see something in that environment or in that moment that attracts you, that you're like, whoa, okay, this is the thing that might be cool. And it was over here. Next, what you have to do is you have to get close to it. I got close right here. But I was so excited to see an old piano, I wanted to try to play it, and I was like, wow, that I still hadn't thought like a photographer until I said, okay, Chris, get up here, climb up, get that angle, and get the shot. And then of course I could try different angles. This one didn't work. But you really have to go for it and try that. Let me go back to full screen so you can see that. And like I said, I cropped it, probably about right here. And I think that process is an incredibly valuable tool to keep in mind so that when you go out shooting next, if you don't get the shot right away, tell yourself, hey, it's okay. (laughs) That's why we take pictures. We're taking to learn, to discover. We're kind of digging deep. We're trying to figure out the scene. And the way that we explore that often is with that camera taking the images. And then we get to the good shot and you find that, what you wanna do is sort of recognize it, experiment a little bit more, and sometimes it means that you won't get anything else beyond that. And then of course when it comes to the post-production work, like with this one, as I mentioned, I ended up cropping it. So when you find the keeper and you're reviewing your images, you want to just work on that image. Ignore all the others. The others are basically, they're like the rough drafts, so to speak. And this is the one where I'm like, yeah, this is cool. This is fun, this is interesting. I love it. And if you love it, there is a greater chance that someone else might as well. All right, well, I hope that these few tips help you as you seek to create better photographs and capture those hero shots that really stand out from the rest. And mostly I just wanna encourage you that if you ever feel like you're shooting and you're getting discouraged, keep at it. Keep working it. Try a different angle, get closer. Try up, down, sideways, whatever it is. And ask yourself, okay, this is exciting to me, but is it photographically exciting? And how can I think and work like a photographer to capture that image? All right, well, that wraps up this week's episode. Thanks for joining me. And also have a wonderful rest of your day. See you next time. Bye for now.
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Contents
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Workflow strategy when shooting Raw + JPG3m 54s
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Quicker processing with review and camera calibration4m 15s
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Creating a concept layout with Lightroom and Photoshop8m 56s
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Fun layer project in Photoshop and Lightroom7m 43s
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Brush away unwanted objects in Lightroom CC5m 11s
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Using blur and type, part 14m 26s
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Using blur and type, part 26m 16s
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Better black and white workflow, part 19m 28s
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Better black and white workflow, part 24m 4s
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Action sports retouching, part 18m 57s
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Action sports retouching, part 26m 14s
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Face-Aware Liquify6m 59s
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Fixing teeth in a fashion photograph7m 51s
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Replace the sky in a drone photograph9m 6s
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Creating a great exposure from a single frame, part 15m 30s
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Creating a great exposure from a single frame, part 29m 29s
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Creating a luminous black-and-white portrait, part 14m 13s
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Creating a luminous black-and-white portrait, part 28m 8s
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Fixing overexposure with Camera Raw, part 15m 10s
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Fixing overexposure with Camera Raw, part 28m 52s
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Creative layer blending with Adobe Mix9m 58s
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Making a composite with Adobe Mix9m 35s
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Bring out detail in a landscape photograph, part 16m 20s
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Bring out detail in a landscape photograph, part 27m 51s
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Export a image from video footage9m 9s
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Finishing an iPhone photo11m 38s
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Combining the best expressions from two images5m 30s
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Celebrity portrait workflow in Lightroom: Part 15m 51s
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Celebrity portrait workflow in Lightroom: Part 26m 22s
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Creative layer blending project9m 14s
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Replacing a background and creating vivid colors6m 7s
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Jump for joy: Finishing a beach photo in Lightroom and Photoshop8m 57s
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Becoming an expert with masking in Photoshop6m 12s
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Advanced masking speed tips8m 29s
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Preparing a portrait for Instagram with Lightroom5m 25s
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Finishing a portrait with Photoshop7m 59s
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Using Lightroom to creating a stylized look that prints well5m 22s
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Cleaning up a creative portrait6m 37s
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Hacking Lightroom to create layouts for other projects6m 17s
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Using Content Aware Scale to add to the composition4m 25s
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Extending and filling in the background projects7m 27s
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How to create Gradient Tone Mapping color effects9m
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Creating more precise Gradient Map effects6m 47s
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Natural wrinkle reduction7m 10s
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Advanced wrinkle reduction12m 50s
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Tips for viewing and organizing your layers in Photoshop8m 11s
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Becoming an expert in layers in Photoshop5m 17s
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Using VSCO in Lightroom7m 27s
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Syncing adjustments in Lightroom7m 18s
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High-impact color with Camera Raw and Photoshop6m 57s
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Using Lightroom and Photoshop to create vivid color6m 1s
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Intro to better B&W with the Silver Effex Pro plugin5m 47s
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Taking a deeper dive into Silver Effex Pro10m 10s
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Creating a Panoramic Photo in Lightroom4m 47s
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Advanced Lightroom and Photoshop Pano Workflow6m 55s
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Opening raw files into Photoshop4m 13s
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Three ways to work with Camera Raw and Photoshop8m 14s
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Smart Filters: Using Smart Filters for creative options6m 53s
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Stacking up Smart Filter effects6m 2s
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Cleaning up and removing the background of an image8m 8s
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Two ways to add a new background8m
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Covering up problems in the frame7m 36s
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Removing a person and finishing a photograph9m 20s
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Photoshop Fix to Photoshop CC workflow11m 22s
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Add light to photos with Lightroom10m 56s
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Use Lightroom Collections to process color and black-and-white images6m 39s
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Skin smoothing with the Imogenic plugin Portraiture7m 27s
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Advanced Skin Smoothing Control with Portraiture9m 7s
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Accurate sharpening with Lightroom6m 4s
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Create Collections in Lightroom8m 12s
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Craft creative looks with the Alien Skin Exposure plugin in Lightroom10m 25s
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Use the Alien Skin Exposure plugin in Photoshop11m 32s
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Quick mobile retouching with Photoshop Fix7m 47s
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Add Lens Flare with more precise control9m 50s
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Two ways to crop in Photoshop and extend the canvas6m 9s
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A few methods for working with canvas size7m 45s
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Use plugins in Photoshop for special effects: Analog Efex Pro6m 57s
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Use plugins in Photoshop for special effects: Analog Efex Pro Advanced5m 41s
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Lightroom cropping shortcuts7m 59s
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Remove unwanted objects in Photoshop4m 30s
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Remove unwanted objects in Photoshop: Advanced5m 56s
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Use plugins in Photoshop for better results: Color Efex Pro11m 10s
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Preserve tones with the help of Lightroom clipping indicators6m 3s
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