From the course: Photo Tools Weekly

Finding the keeper

From the course: Photo Tools Weekly

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Finding the keeper

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- [Chris] Hello, I'm Chris Orwig, and welcome to another episode of Photo Tools Weekly. I am super excited that you're here because this week we're gonna go above and beyond talking about tools related to technology, because one of the most important tools that we have as photographers is how we creatively think, and here I wanna share with you the thinking behind trying to capture and actually find the hero shot. Which this was one of those for me when I was recently in Minnesota. So what I wanna do is just talk through my process in order to inspire your own process for capturing and creating wonderful photographs. So let me tell you a little bit of the backstory here. So there I was in Minnesota, in Minneapolis. I'd never been there before, and it was a beautiful day which was great and was walking around and searching and trying to find a location for a shoot. It was on top of a bridge. This is the view one way and then another, and I wasn't really inspired with anything yet. And then I heard of this park and this is looking down from the bridge below to the park, and I'm just capturing these with my iPhone at this point. And I think, okay, this is gonna work. There's this kind of intriguing structure down here that I wanna work with. So I get down there with friend, Luke, and at first we're gonna do some jogging stuff, but then I said, well Luke, what if you kind of hang off of the structure? And you can see he's kinda holding onto it, and I'm capturing some images, and I said, well could you kinda climb up on that? He's like, oh yeah, that'd be so much fun. And so now here he's climbing up on it, and I'm trying to figure out what is the image? And so he's climbing up just a little bit, and he's actually not that high. He's maybe like three feet off the ground at this point. And so it's almost just like a high pullup bar, but I'm trying to get a low perspective so I can get his feet above these buildings, right? 'Cause that really isn't working. And the idea for this shoot was kinda this athletic shot of an athlete doing something. And then I got a little lower and this started to work. This was the first moment where I thought, okay, there might be a photograph here. You can also see I'm shooting with a depth of field, I think it was F22, so I'm getting that sunburst effect as well. And then I'm just shooting through all this 'cause I'm thinking this is kinda fun. There he is hanging. Again, it looks higher than he is because I'm really low on the ground. And when I get to this point I'm getting excited. Like, okay, okay, there's gonna be a cool image. I love the structure, I love the silhouette, I love the sun. And then I asked him if he can hold on with one arm, and he says of course, and capture this frame. So it took a lot. I mean if I exit out of full screen mode for a second and go over here you can see it took like a ton of images, a ton of trying, a ton of mistakes to get to this point. And for me this really is the keeper. This is the hero shot. And when I was editing, like going through the images, I was hoping, okay please, I please hope that works. And it works, but the problem is that these buildings, they kinda take away from sort of the mysteriousness of the photograph, 'cause this structure is so curious and odd. So I realize, I need to fix that, and so in Photoshop what I did was cropped in just a little bit and then I changed the color, of course, just brighten it up, add some more blue, which wasn't that difficult to do, and then brought down some clouds down here. My clouds aren't perfect. I could probably do a little better work on them, but that worked a lot better than this, right? You can kinda see the difference there with how that came together. And I guess to the image I did here he's looking towards the camera, the one I selected with that. And then after that I tried to shoot some more, he jumped down and that was the end. And so the point with all of this hopefully is helping you realize is that when you are shooting, part of the process is when you look at other people's photographs like this, realize there's always a story behind it. Realize there's always some effort. There's always some experimentation. There's always, there's always mistakes behind it. And then when you start looking for your locations, you gotta really search and you gotta look for something that catches your eye, inspires you, and then you just work it. I mean, you just experiment. You just try. Say, okay, what about this, what about that, what about maybe doing this, maybe it's a silhouette. Maybe I can do something kinda fun like this, and then you get to that moment, sorry I passed it there. You get to that moment and then that's the image that you work on. And so what my hope for you today is that you get out there today and you go make some images and you really work the environment. Now some people will say you shouldn't overshoot or you should have the previous realization of the idea ready before you shoot and you should get it all ready, and you just click and magic happens. And I imagine that does happen for some people, but it's never happened for me. For me there's always this type of critical thinking process. And the tool of being able to critically think and search and explore is such a huge tool to have as you're seeking to create better photographs. Now this is important to know when you're shooting, but then also when you come back to Lightroom, so that in Lightroom when you're on image number like whatever this is, 33, and you're like oh my gosh, I am horrible, this is horrible, oh my gosh, I can't believe I call myself a photographer. Seriously, if other people saw this they'd be like, Chris, really? But you can't let that self talk get you down, rather you have to replace it with oh I'm getting there, I'm getting closer, I'm searching, I'm digging, it's almost like a pirate digging for treasure, right? And you're like almost there. Then you're there, you're close, you're close, and you're like, yes, I got it, I got it. And that really is, at least for me, the art and craft of photography. All right, well on that note, that wraps up this week's episode, and I hope you get out there and do some shootin' and have some fun with that, and then of course bring that same passion and energy and enthusiasm back to your work in Lightroom, and if you bring that back to the process it can really help you to create something which is wonderful. Have a fantastic rest of your day, and I'll see you next time. Bye for now.

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