How Did I Shoot This One, Part 3

1. Introduction How Did I Shoot This One 3: Hey, guys, Franker and welcome in our studio in Amloid as you can see behind me, green light, as you can see in front of me, cameras and, of course, Batman and a guitar. You might think, like, Hey, Frank, why are you showing all this? Well, the lighting is, of course, very important in photography. But everything else here in front of me actually is something that's more important. I love playing guitar and collecting guitars. I like Batman, but I also like the movies of Batman because they're dark, they're mysterious. And, of course, I like cameras. As you can see here, we have all kinds of cameras, even when we have Christmas, we have decorations with cameras. So in this series, they called How Did I Shoot This One, I'm taking you behind the scenes during photoshoots that we did and workshops. I'm explaining you the techniques, the ideas behind it, and I'm going to show you the final results. But there's one thing that I can't show you in the videos, and that's still very important. And that's having passion for what you do. If you start your day with, Oh, my, I have to do something terrible today. Let's say, for example, we filmed a whole series of interviews and they forgot to turn on the audio. For me, that's no problem because I absolutely love my work, so I'm going to do it again. And that's the same with photoshoots. If you are doing just your work, a photoshoots becomes boring and becomes doing the same thing over and over again. By showing you these videos, you can see that although I'm teaching workshops for many, many years and twice a week or doing trade shows and doing tutorials, I always try to do things differently. I never try to repeat myself. Of course, there are lighting setups in the videos that you will recognize. Like, Hey, I saw that lighting setup before. But as you can see, I'm still using it in a different kind of way. Because for me, using lighting and cameras isn't about getting a shot. It's about telling a story. And when we go back to the old times, what was everything in art? It was telling stories from the cave paintings all the way up to nowadays. Well, okay, leave away the duck faces. Let's say a few years before social media. The most things that we did with photography with paintings was telling stories or gathering news. So the next time you take your photos, think about it like this. Try to capture the character. But most of all, try to push yourself. If you're always doing the same thing and you feeling a little bit burned out, watch these videos for new ideas and try new things in your photoshoots. And always remember, if you try something and it doesn't work, it's never a failure. It's one step closer to well, perfection because now you know what you don't have to do because it doesn't work. Hey, we can talk about this for hours. That's actually how I always started behind the scenes video in this series. But let's go to our first video, and let's start with our new series of How did I shoot this one, especially for Skillshare. 2. Angling your props: Quick tip about what you can do with colors. Now, we all know colors, right? We have our primary colors, red, green, and blue, and our secondary colors Siam magenta, and yellow. And in the middle of the black body curve, we have our white point. Now, why do I tell you guys this? Well, just for fun. But there is something you have to know about colors. Colors evoke emotion, but colors can also compliment each other or create tension in a shot. And today, it's just a very simple trick. One of the things that I love to do during my lighting setup is create mood with, of course, lens flares, but also with colors. Now, in the setup you're going to see today, I'm using a very simple lighting setup. But the trick is, I'm using a model wearing a red dress, red hair, and, of course, a red fill in light. Now, you might wonder, Frank, you've done that many times. Why video about this? Well, it's because the props he's holding. In the video, you're gonna see that our model Claudia is holding a golden crocodile or alligator. I don't know which one it is. People from Florida. It's a crocodile or an alligator. Let me know in the comments below. But she's holding a golden alligator or crocodile. And the thing is, during the workshops, a lot of people had problems getting the light right on the crocodile. And when you look closely at what they're doing, they're always trying to change the lighting. They're always trying to change their own angle because they want to make sure that that light hits that crocodile right, right? Because you have that accent light coming from the site, and it will be great if you have a red accent on that golden crocodile. But you hardly ever see somebody doing what you should be doing. And that's angling the crocodile itself. So when you're shooting with a prop in your photo studio or on location, one of the biggest problems is reflection. Now, reflection is easily solved by the angle of incidence is the angle of reflection, so make sure you never shoot under that same angle. But also shooting tattered. Because when you shoot tattered, you immediately see all your images coming in on a big screen so you can check. But if you have reflections in your props, make sure you angle the props because angle of incidence is angle of reflection. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can also see the lighting setup and, of course, the final results. As you can see, guys, it's a really simple setup, but I actually love the results, and you see me shooting full body a few times. Isn't that awesome? 3. Bubble magic meets smoke: Hey, guys, Frank, here, and welcome to another episode of How Did I Shoot This One? And we're still outside because it's nice weather, so why not right? You know, I love testing new products, and sometimes we get stuff send in. Hey, can you try this out? And, you know, sometimes stuff just works. But there are also instances where you get stuff where you go like, Hey, this is something that I didn't see before. Let's try to use that creatively. Now, as you know, I love high contra lighting, but I also love to use smoke and color in my images. Now, with smoke machines in the past, it was very simple. You have a thicker smoke quality for those nice flumes and those great contrasty patterns, and you had the haze. So what is the haze? Think about this. Every movie that you watch from Hollywood, right? If they go into the cellar and they turn on their flashlight, what do you see? You see that beam of light, right? And they even have it in homes and wherever they are. Did it ever occur to you that while you do that, that you don't see that beam of light. So what's going on? Well, maybe there's a lot of dust in those areas, but also in houses, no, of course not. To create the filmic effect, they use haze. And haze is actually smoke, but it's already cleared up. And there are still these little particles because whatever we do with lighting and whatever we do with our photography, we always photograph reflections. Without reflections, we don't have any pictures. So that means that those particles in the air actually catch the light and reflect that back. This is also one of the main problems, of course, of a smoke machine. Think about it if you drive in your car and there's a lot of fog outside when you turn on your headlights, if you keep them low, that's no problem. But as soon as you start aiming at the fog, you will get a big white area and you can't see anything anymore. And that's the same with smoke in our photography studio. If we light it from the back, you can see all the patterns, and you can see a nice smeared out color effect. But as soon as we start lighting it from the front, yeah, there's the problem. You have a white wall and you don't see anything anymore. So that means that we have to do a few things. First things first, let's place the light as close as possible to our model and under an angle so we don't hit the smoke straight on and, of course, use backlighting. Now, let's talk a little bit about that smoke machine. So during a recent event, I saw a smoke machine that did all the tricks, dry ice where it just stays on the floor. You can do haze, you can do a lot of smoke. You can do thick smoke or all that stuff. There was one thing that I never saw before, and that was actually smoke bubbles, smaller ones, medium ones, and big ones. And I immediately saw a model turning around, hitting those smoke bubbles and just exploding on their bodies and all colors. And, of course, that's great to think about, and maybe you can do it in AI. Doing it in real life, that's a lot harder. But we decided to do it during a workshop. So, during a workshow with Lorena and the styling, by the way, was with Nadine, we decided to do different setups and just see what we could do with the smoke machine. The first thing you will notice is that as soon as you start blowing those bubbles, that, of course, to create the image that I wanted, we need a lot more of those bubbles. This is the first point where the smoke machine actually surprised me. The bigger bubbles take a long time. The smaller bubbles are a little bit too small for me with a model. The medium bubbles, in all honesty, they were pretty fast. So I was expecting to shoot maybe four or five images, combine them into one to make sure that all the effects were there. But in the end, we ended up with only two images, one for the motion and the model, and one to get a little bit more of those extra bubbles in. So the smoke machine was fast enough to do that. So how did we started this setup? The first one, I just tried to get everything right at once. And as you can see in this image, it's okay. The model is just holding up her hands. You can see some of the bubbles exploding. You can see some of the patterns. But, yeah, it's nice, you know, but it doesn't really tell me a story. Oh, by the way, for the lighting setup, we're using two lights from the back and one main light source to make sure that from the back, of course, we have the smoke lit from the back as you should be, but also for the bubbles to create a sense of depth and a little bit of reflection on the little bubbles. Of course, one light from the front. And from the front, I'm using a smaller light source with a grid to make sure that I can focus my light on my model, and everything else is done with the backlighting. So the first image, okay. But after that, we started to go like, Hey, maybe we can add some motion. And one of the cool things about motion is that while they are hitting the balls or the bubbles, you get a lot of haze in your studio. So that already helps with filling up the studio for the next set where we're using the contrasting light sources, a little bit more extreme. So I thought, when we do the motion, let's also try one where you can just touch the bubble and it explodes. That was a little bit harder than I thought, but in the end, we got one of those shots, as you can see here, it's okay, little bit on the corner, but we manage. After that, I thought, Let's do a lot more motion, but let's zoom in on the motion. And this is when tetering really shines. With tetering, you connect your computer to a larger device. So every image that you shoot, you see on the larger screen. And that also means that details jump out. Now, I'm not going to say to you guys that if I didn't shoot tattered, I would never shot the next images, but it did help a lot because when I zoomed in and I took that close up of the hand just going through the air, hitting the bubble, I was just going like, Wow. This almost looks like a universe with just one planet floating a top of her hand and one sun just And at that moment, I thought, You know what? I love superheroes. I love the whole comic book genre, but also science fiction movies. Why not create the Queen of the Galaxy? With all those bubbles, you have planets, right? And when they hit the bubble, you have these nice patterns, almost like the nebulas in the universe. So let's try that. For the next shot, I wanted to do the Queen of the universe. So two accent lights and a model, three quarter bodies floating around. We have some bubbles exploding on her dress. We have a nice smile because Hasy's the queen of the universe, right? And the only thing I changed the Photoshop was actually get a little bit of a star effect on those bubbles to make them shine a little bit more like almost like stars. And then we started to think, you know, color evokes emotion. Why not add some color? And you know those pictures from the Hubble telescope and, of course, those beautiful pillars of creation with all the colors? Yeah, let's add some red, right, because red is, for me, one of the strongest colors. Now, we started out with red from the bottom and aiming up. That didn't give the effect that we wanted. So at that point, there was already a lot of haze in our studio, and that means that all the colors will spread out nicely. So we're using still those two accent lights to create a nice dense field of light from the sides. And then the red light on top of the model aimed towards our camera, not to create lens flares, but to nicely spread out the light and the color to the sides. The only thing you have to do is make sure that your timing is correct, combine two images, and, of course, and this is incredibly important, change your color balance just slightly to make the sides look a little bit bluish. And that you don't even need a blue gel or you can do it with a blue gel. But if you just change the color balance with a red gel and to white, you can actually manipulate the color towards a little bit of blue. Hey, we talk a lot about styling. We talk a lot about posing, but timing in these kinds of setups is essential because in all honesty, it was pretty easy to shoot the bubbles, but to get it exactly right, yeah, that takes a lot of time. So I'm not 100% satisfied with the images yet, because this was the first workshop. We ever tried it. We never worked with Lorena before, but I think she did a great job, and I actually love the images. So imagine what we can do more. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can see the whole setup and, of course, the final results. Oh Oh. As you can see, the smoke Nina is one of those gear that, you know, sometimes you have gear that just doesn't work. Like, for example, beauty dis, does it work as a beauty dish. Then you get gear where you start to experiment, and that's one of the things that I love, for example, about the rogue equipment with the whole magnetic system, the snoot, you get stuff that you can use in many, many different ways. I think the smoke Nimia for the first time is a smoke machine that's one portable and that just triggers me to keep shooting. Of course, with the dry ice option, I loved it with product photography, but for model photography, for me, the dry ice, it's fun, but I don't use it a lot. The bubbles, I'm pretty sure you're going to see those a lot during coming workshops because I still want to try a lot of stuff with that. 4. Lantern: Hey, guys, Frank, here, and welcome to another episode in our series. How did I shoot this one? And today we're going to take a look at this shot, and it's actually much easier than you might think. Now, sometimes during the workshops, we do have some time left, and I always love to do an extra set, even if it's just 15 minutes or 20 minutes, I just love to do extra sets. And one of the sets that's very easy to set up, but is always very cool to shoot is with the Gekoto lantern. Now, every single light shaper, if you look at the design of the light shaper, you can predict what it's going to. For example, if you compare the S 26 from Dakoto with the quickie, you can see that the S 26 spreads out the light more and the quickie focuses the light more. But if you look at all the soft boxes, you can see that they're all black on the side and white on the front. And that means they don't emit light from the sides, but just from the front, may mean you don't have any spi light. And that's awesome, right? Because if you don't have any spi light, well, you don't have to flack everything, and we can really focus your light on your model. But what if you do newborn photography or product photography or a fashion shot where you want the whole set to be lit, but you can't move all the way back to create that effect, or you can't bounce off the ceiling, or maybe you want those shadows to run there, but you need more light. Now, of course, you can use an umbrella, but an umbrella it's a great light source, but it's a little bit limiting, of course. One of the light sources I love to use for these kinds of setups is our brand new Lantern from egoto. Now, the lantern from Gigoto has a great design. You still have that flat front so you can focus your light on your model, but the sites are totally open. This is something else than a normal lantern where you have that round front. This is a straight front. Now, I'm using the lantern mostly to use, for example, side lighting in a Rembrandt setup, where you don't need any lighting on your backdrop anymore, you place the light slightly behind your model, and because it's open on the side, it also spreads out over your backdrop, creating a much nicer setup than with previous setups where you use a softbox and excent lighting from that site. Now, in this case, we wanted to mimic something that well, a little bit of a wink to the old folk commercials. So a great red dress, a big hat, and, of course, well, a little bit of an old fashioned backdrop. I just love that backdrop from click backdrop so you can see the three dimensionality. Lighting wise, just a lantern only from the side, creating a little bit of shadow, but a very soft shadow, and that shadow actually creates depth. Now, to let our model pose against, we're using a big box that we have in our studio, and that's actually the whole setup, meter it and shoot it. So let's take a look at the behind the scenes video of this very simple but very cool lighting setup. So, now as you can see, lighting setups don't have to be very complicated or difficult or expensive. One light source can go a long way. Now, of course, normally, I love the more high contrast stuff and the more darker stuff, but in this case, well, sometimes it's just fun to do something like this. And of course, sometimes clients need an image like this. You can, of course, create everything high contrast and dark and Rmbrant like. But if your client doesn't see anything bright and he looks for anything bright, he won't call you. So make sure in your portfolio, you always have different kinds of images. Thank you so very much watching, guys. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below, and maybe your question will be answered in the next 5. Out of reflection : Hey, guys, Frank here, and welcome to new episode of How did I shoot this one in a totally different environment? Because, hey, it's summer, it's nice weather, so let's sit outside. Now, during the workshops, we always try different stuff, but sometimes we also have new models. Like today, we have Lorena, and this is a totally new model for me. We never work together, but that doesn't mean we can't take great images. So during this workshop, all the styling was done by Nadine, and we also did one set with Nadine, by the way. But now let's take a look at the first set. Now, when we set up our lighting, we have to always take into account a few things. The first thing, of course, is what kind of lighting do we want? Do we want flat lighting, or do we want contrast lighting or focus lighting? With flat lighting, we often mean that we use a bigger softbox or an umbrella that spreads out the light, and that actually gives you a beautiful lid image where you can see almost every detail. Now, as soon as we use more focus light, you will find out that it's more difficult to control because we are just hitting a smaller area of our set and, of course, also less of our model. But there's an added benefit. We get a lot more shadows, and with shadows, we get more detail and more grunginess in our image. So for the first setup, I'm just using the lantern from egoto on our model. It gives you a beautiful soft light quality. And in all essence, this is great for product photography, newborns, and, of course, to light a whole scene. But we wanted a little bit more. So we decided to use a frame in the picture. And actually, when you look closely, our model is standing on a mirror. Now, you might wonder, how can a model stand on a mirror without it breaking? Well, this is a plastic mirror. And one of the big advantages of a plastic mirror is that you also don't have the double reflections that you have with a normal mirror, and it doesn't break evenly easily. So, the model is on the mirror and she's stepping out of a frame from a mirror. And I thought this was a cool idea to combine those two. You will find out in the final images that we don't even show the mirror in all the images. That's something you always have to remember. Sometimes you have a great idea, but it just doesn't work in the total image. And it doesn't really matter as long as you get a great shot from that setup, and maybe next time you will shoot a full body or three quarters, and it will work. So in this case, we have some images with a mirror, but overall, I just like the close ups more. So we started out with flat lighting to actually show you what the flat lighting does. After that, we decided to take a different road, and this means high contrast lighting. Smaller light source, a grid, really focusing that light on our model, creating more harsh shadows and more depth in the image. But sometimes it happens that you just don't have enough light in the shadow. So what do you do? You can open it up in light room with a shadow slider, but then you open up all the shadows and it just doesn't look nice. Much better solution is a so called lighting light solution. Now, in this case, we're using the lantern on a much lower setting than our main light. And that means that you first shoot your image, of course, without stroke. So if a black image, then you shoot your image with just your main light. You look at all the details you're missing and then use a broad light source, for example, an umbrella or the lantern to open up those shadows. Now, we all know dynamic range of our cameras, so that means that when you stay about three stops below your main light, you just have enough light to open up those shadows. But you know the drill, we can talk about it for hours. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can see the lighting setup and the results. As you can see, two totally different images, one with a lantern from Gekoto for broad light, soft light quality, beautiful. And then, of course, high focus light with a grid and aimed at our model. And the frame, the expression of the model, it all works perfectly for me. There's one final tip. Of course, we can make our model stand like, Okay, pose, take that action, and no one, two, three, I'm going to shoot. But somehow, when you make your model, relax and then count one, two, three, make that move. Even if it's just a small move, you will see that difference in your final image. So my advice when you want to do something with a little bit of motion or the hint of motion, don't make your model just pose, but count down one, two, three, that's actually counting up. Three to one is counting down, and then make your mode you got it. One, two, three, and then take the pose. It just gives you a little bit of extra tension in the muscles. You can really see it back in the final image. 6. Overhead striplight: Hey, guys, Frank here, and welcome to another episode of How did I shoot this one? And today, it's so incredibly simple. You're gonna hit yourself in the head if you never tried this out. Today, we're gonna talk about something that I love to do when I'm well, feeling a little bit like I have 5 minutes left. I want to create a great shot, and it has to be fast. It has to be great, and it works in all locations. That's the setup of today. Now, when I started out with photography, I love to work with backdrops, but not the way that you think. I love to work with backdrops that were invisible. For the very simple reason, I didn't have any control over my shadows. You probably know the problem, right? Shadows are everywhere. You have there's ugly shadows on the back, you don't want them there. And it takes a while before you start to appreciate those shadows before you start to realize that shadows are the soul of a shot. Shadows glue everything together. It's like in music, that little synthesizer in the back. If you take it out, it sounds horrible. But if you listen to the music, you probably don't even hear the synthesizer. And that's because the people that record that music know exactly where to put that synthesizer. Exactly how loud should it be that you do hear it, but you don't notice it. And that's the nice thing about shadows. If you control your shadows the right way, you can do so many great things with it. But most of all, you can steer the viewer exactly to where you want it to watch. Now, take a look at the shot. As you can see here, my model is standing almost straight against the backdrop, but you can still see that we have nice lighting on our backdrop, but also this effect. So how did I do this one? Well, it's actually pretty simple. When you look at a light source, you can literally predict how the light source will project your light. Just look at how everything is built. So if a light source aims the light like this, well, you probably already know the light is going like this. If the light source does something like this, you know, the light will spread out. If you use a grid, you know, the light will be steered. But there's also something else. If you angle your light sources, actually, the same thing that you do with your camera, you will also distort those lines. So lines will never go straight. They will always extend. And this is actually the trick I'm using here. So my model is placed against the backdrop, and I'm actually using a strip light on top of my model aimed slightly forward. Now, if you want more light on the backdrop, the solution is very simple. Just angle the strip light slightly more towards the backdrop. If you want the backdrop totally black, that's also possible. Move the model about 50, 60 centimeters forward. Also move the strip light and angle it forward, because if there is no light hitting a subject, it won't register on the camera. That's, of course, also important that you have your studio really dark because if you have a lot of light in your studio, you have spill light. But that's why in the studio, it's always dark. Look around me. I can't see anything. And that's the best way to shoot because then you can set up your lighting perfectly. So in which situations do these setups work great? As mentioned before, when I started with photography, I didn't want any shadows in my images. But I did like backdrops. So I always was in this little competition with myself. Like, do I want to backdrop? Yes, but do I want shadows? No. So what did I do? I use seamless paper in different colors, placed my model in front of it, use two strip lights from the side, one on my model, and then create a beautiful, nice vignette with light on the backdrop by using an extra strope there. A little bit like a pin up setup, really nice, really fresh and cool. But no shadows. And that means that it also looks like your model is a little bit glued on, just doesn't look right. The moment I started using backdrops as real backdrops, so making my model lean against it, using the shadows the right way, that's when everything just clicked together. Everything just moved very nicely in the shut. But the problem is sometimes you don't have that space. So when I'm teaching at a trade show, I'm lucky if I have two by 2 meters, and then I have to fit myself in there, too. So it's very, very tight. So I don't have any room to say to my mother, Well, let's go 2 meters away from the backdrop. I also have no options to create something nice on the backdrop with nice backlighting because, well, my mother is almost against the backdrop. And this is when I started to use this technique, and it's awesome. Just place a light source right above your model, but make sure it's a longer light source. So for example, the Frank Dora flash bender in strip light configuration or a strip light, but it has to be a longer one. And the reason is simple, we want to light both the back of our model, but also have enough light on the front. So it doesn't make any sense to do it like this because no light will hit your model. So we always have to angle it slightly towards the model, and then you also have enough light on your backdrop. There is only one thing in this light setup that makes it really tricky. The model has to look up or wear sunglasses. But if she does, well, you get some really amazing shots. So, let's take a look at the behind the scenes video that you can see how incredibly easy this setup is. And well, of course, the final results. As you can see, a setup, you can do very easily in your own studio. You only need one strip light, and a boom arm, by the way that also helps because you make sure that that strip light is on top of your model. And this is why I love those Jicoto strops so much because they're run on batteries, so I don't have any problems with cables, and they are very lightweight. So I can just play them straight above my model with a relatively light boom stand. 7. Portrait: Guys, and welcome to another episode of Digital Classroom. And in this series, I show you images we shot during the workshops. And how did I shoot this one? And today, we're going to take a look at this portrait from Jenica. Now, I love old fashioned photography. I don't know what it is, but new lenses are, of course, perfect, but sometimes they miss a little bit of character. You might wonder, What's character? I don't know. If you put it next to each other, I may or may not pick out the old lens, but when you shoot with those lenses, I don't know, something magical happens. So that's why I love collecting those old lenses. Now, of course, we didn't shoot it with a Jessica. Don't you just love these kinds of cameras? Oh, by the way, if you take the lens cap off, it works so much better. Now, this one is awesome because it has a light meter inside and it has, of course, a twin reflex. The problem with these kinds of lenses, by the way, is that you look through one lens, and you take the picture with another one. So there's always a little bit of a difference between what you see and what you get. But that's so cool about these kinds of cameras. Still use them. They awesome. Of course, we also have the 35 mil ca R cameras, great cameras, but most of all, great lenses, if you can't afford the M lenses. But if we go even further back in time, we of course, have our older Pentax cameras or minota cameras with great lenses. Now, you might wonder, Frank, where are you going with this? Well, let me tell you. As you can see here, this is a so called Zebra lens. And here we have another one. If you see silver with black, it's often called Zebra lens. Now, those lenses are very special, and that's also because they have a certain name. You might wonder what that name is. Did you ever hear the name Jenna? Probably not. But did you ever hear the name Zeis yeah, you probably did hear the name Zeis, right? Zeis Jenna. Those older lenses, I kid you not, are absolutely awesome. Now, the most lenses I'm using are, of course, the 42 mount. Now, the 42 mount, let's make it very simple. In the past, you, of course, Nikon, Cannon, and they all have different mounts. And one of the screw mounts is 42. Now, how do we fit something like this on a modern camera? Well, there are several converters on the market, like, for example, Photo Dox or tech art, and they make actually converters that you can use these lenses on your camera and you have auto focus. Believe it or not, it works like a charm. But for this setup, I'm not using one of these older lenses. I'm actually using a minota 8,051.8 lens, and it's an awesome lens, and it has a very, very high quality. I think it's maybe even better than some of the modern lenses because it has more character. So how do I use a lens like that, including out of focus on my modern Sony A seven R five? Well, that's where you need the so called LAI converters from Sony. Now, in this setup, I'm using the LA and I hope I can pronounce it correctly, the version five. Now, be careful when you use the minota lenses on your A seven R five, that the four and the three will give you some issues because they don't translate well with an older lens. The weird thing is on the A seven R three, everything worked fine. On the A seven R five, I really need the converter five. So if you're into old lenses, make sure you buy version five. Now, for this setup, I'm using the lens wide open. Now, wide open gives you a very shallow depth of field, but you have to be careful. If you want a shallow depth of field, it can also help to shoot from a slightly lower angle because then you get this really nice, smoothy silk focus. It's just awesome, as you can see in the final results in a moment, and already in the image I saw you in the start. Now there are a few things you have to be very careful when shooting wide open. And that's, of course, make sure that your focus is on the closest eye and make sure you focus correctly because one slight difference, especially when you shoot from a lower or higher angle, will be dramatical in your images. It will be totally unusable. So this is also one of the things why I highly recommend shooting tattered, because if you shoot tattered, you see the images coming in, and you can immediately check if the focus is on the eye. But hey, how do we use our lighting setup for this? Because I want to shoot wide open. Now, wide open with strokes can be a problem for the very simple reason, a strope has a lot of output. And in the studio, we have to shoot on 125th of a second because of the sync. So we need strokes that can go down to a very, very low setting. Luckily, we are using our Gigoto stropes and they have something that is, of course, well, a heritage from the speedlight era, they can go all the way down to 128th of an output, and that gives me very, very low light output. And that means they're perfect to combine with wide open lenses. Now my main light setup is the Gekoto quickie softbox to make sure that I focus my light on my model. But of course, we also want to open up the shadows on the other side, give a nice accent light. And that's why I'm using an accent light on the other side. Now, in this case, I'm using a striplight, and I'm using a striplight for a reason. Don't want to use the striplight only to open up the shadows on that side and give a nice accent. But I also want to use the striplight to give a little bit of light on the backdrop. And this is where the striplight is awesome. I always tell people the striplight you can see as three different light sources. In the middle, you have a very bright, harder light source, and on the sides, it just fares away. So in this case, I'm using the sights to give the accent on my model. I'm using the sight to light the backdrop, and the middle part, it just disappears a little bit between the model and the backdrop. So it doesn't really bother me in the shot. Also call this a sandwich technique where you're using the outsides of the stroke and the middle side, of course, it will infect the image, but it doesn't have a big impact. And the cool thing about this setup is you can just angle your striplight to get more light on the backdrop and a little bit less on your model or aim it the other way, get more light on your model, less on the backdrop. It's an awesome way to shoot. But we can talk about it for hours and I feel like I already did with all these nice lenses. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video. And As you can see, shooting wide open gives you a totally different look. Now, it's not something I would advise to do all the time because it can get old very quickly, but sometimes and especially with shots like this, it just really adds some atmosphere to the shots. Thank you so very much watching, guys. If you like what we do, subscribe to our channel, leave comments below and of course, Ms the L and bell notification button. But most of all, tell other people about our channels. We can grow. It helps us out enormously to give you more free content. And by the way, if you have any questions or you want to know more about these lenses, also leave comments below because maybe your question will be answered in the next digital classroom. Again next time. I think I'm going to take some pictures with old lenses and have some film, and the cameras still running. See you again next time. Bye guys. 8. Smoke under my umbrellala: His Frank here, and welcome to another episode of How Did I Shoot This One? During the workshops, we have one model, and this time we actually had two, and that's because we had a new model, Lorena, and Nadine did the styling. And that meant that also for one set, I couldn't resist to ask Nadin, of course, to also be our model. And during this workshop, we were also trying out a new smoke machine, the Smoke Nina. And one of the cool things about the smoke Nina is that it can blow bubbles with smoke, but we didn't use it in this setup. For this setup, Nadine had this beautiful Asian outfit. We had a beautiful backdrop from Click Backdrops the Botanical Garden. And, well, we had an umbrella. And I thought, you know, that mix of those is awesome. What if we just blend them together and create more surreal image, a little bit like a movie. So we wanted to use smoke, but not in an obvious way. Like, hey, just pump some smoke and let's see what we can do. So we decided to do it differently. On our front light, we have our main light source, and that's a larger softbox aimed directly at our model. This will give you a beautiful light quality, but it doesn't give you enough light to light the whole set and just overpower everything with light. It just gives you the right amount of light. Now, if you need more, move the light further away. If you need less, move the light closer because that narrows the beam of light or widens the beam of light. Of course, we also need some back lighting. And in this case, I'm using one of our ecotostropes with a blue gel. Now, the reason I'm using blue because in this case, I want to create a little bit more distance. Now, red is a color that I love to use to really draw the attention of the viewer towards the light. In this case, I don't want to draw the attention to the viewer to the light. I just want to use the light to create a nice dense image where everything just seems to blend together. And blue for me in this setup was awesome because it's very contrasting to the clothing and the backdrop. So how did we create the effects? Well, that's actually pretty simple. Nadine, hold the umbrella, and we just used the smoke machine to fill up the umbrella. We waited a few seconds. I focused. There we go. Now she moved, and then we took the shot. Now, it doesn't look like it's coming from the umbrella, but because we placed it inside the umbrella, the smoke, we have a lot of control over where we want that smoke. I didn't want it everywhere. I just want it localized. So in this case, I think the images turned out pretty well. Also, this is a technique that you can experiment a lot with. You can do different kinds of lighting with it. You can light it from the top. You can light it from the bottom or from the sides. You can move around a little bit faster or you can even hold the umbrella and just let the light, if you back light it, just drop out of the umbrella via the smoke. Lot of creativity. In this case, we just opted to add a little bit of motion. Let's take a look at the behind the scenes video so you can see the lighting setup. You can see the smoke and, of course, the final results. Now, one of the coolest things about photoshoots is, of course, finding creativity. You can do stuff ten times the same way, or you can try to incorporate new methods to shoot the same material. This is very nice to train yourself that whenever you're on a location and you have to do a shoot for a client and the client wants something different, you can switch very quickly. If you're always used to do the same thing and only that thing, you are literally just locked into that workflow. By experimenting with new gear, like, for example, the smoke Ninja or new lighting equipment, you will find that creativity, but also force yourself to find that creativity. You buy a piece of gear and it says you can only use it in the front, use it from the back and see if it works. If it doesn't work, at least you now know that it doesn't work from the back. But if you never tried it, maybe you lose something what works great. So experiment and sometimes just fill up an umbrella with smoke. 9. Visualize perspective : Hey, guys, Frank, here, and welcome to another episode in the series How Did I Shoot This One. And today, actually a pretty simple one, but a very, very important tip. Now, a while ago, one of our models had a mirror and well, the mirror broke, and he only got the frame left. And he was going like, Hey, do you need the frame? I'm like, Yeah, I love that. And that's the first step, actually, when somebody has something that they don't want anymore and it looks cool, and you have to space, store it in your studio. And Anik is not here, but we're almost like guppies, you know? If you put us in a bigger bowl, we just grow and grow and grow. But the cool thing about it is you always have something to shoot. And having props in your studio, I think, is one of the most important things because let's be honest, a model in front of a backdrop is just a model in front of a backdrop. Maybe you can get away with families with that for one shot. But as soon as you start adding props, everything becomes much more interesting. For example, if you shoot a family and you have kids and you give them a baseball, a baseball bed, a glove, a soccer ball, whatever, the parents will always choose the images with one of the props. So, in other words, if you use four props, there's a big chance the parents will actually buy four images, meaning more revenue. But there's more. Think about the creativity when you're using props. A prop isn't just there to be there. It's not somebody that just sit at a bar, drink something and you don't hear it. Now, a prop is there to have a function. It can create three dimensionality. That's why we often use blocks, for example, to let the model pose against. But it can also add point of interest, something that draws your eyes. But at that point, it becomes really important how you shoot this. So during the workshops, we give a lot of attention about what does composition do? What is a leading line? What does distortion do? And in this case, because in this workshop, we already talked about angles, it was very important for me to throw in this one because there's a problem when you shoot a frame like this and you let your model pose against it. Now, in previous images, we already had a model coming out of the frame, standing inside the frame, and at that point, the frame becomes part with the model. So when you shoot something perspective wise, it's all correct, right? But if we do a shot like this one, as you can see now, this is our final shot, there's something else that works, and as you can see here, there's an angle. And our model is actually further away from the frame than the frame itself. And because you're shooting with a wider angle, it always means that what is rendered larger is more in front of the camera, and what is rendered smaller is further away. In other words, when you use a 70 mill, your distance will be something like this. If you use a 24 mill, it becomes something like this. Just to give you a point of perspective. If you have somebody extending her arm and you shoot it with a wide angle, it looks like the arm is 2 meters wide, long, sorry. If you shoot somebody with a 70 mil, it looks like the arm is much shorter. So that's what compression does. The problem with compression is if you start using a prop and you place the prop a little bit too much forward, your prop will take up all the frame and your model will be very small in the back. Now, in this case, that's not really a problem because, well, the frame is important, but I wanted to frame as a leading line. So angling the frame becomes really important, but also play with your distance. Do remember the camera doesn't see distance. So that means if you have your model like here and the frame here, and you shoot it straight on, you might think, like, Hey, that's the proper setup, right? But what if you just angle it slightly? It doesn't really look different on the camera, but it will make it much more easier to create that depth because now you are placing your model slightly forward. The prop slightly to the back, it still looks like that same angle, but because the model is a little bit more forward, she will appear larger in your frame. So play with that composition. Now, also in this image, there's another part, and that's the dress. Now, sometimes we use wind machines or sometimes we just let the model move around and move the dress. But in this case, we decided to do it a little bit easier. And the week is on the side of the frame, just holding up the dress. And as soon as I say, one, two, three, she just lets go of the dress, and that's how we actually took that shot. So motion can be done by using wind, can be done by motion by a model itself, or just by holding the dress. But the most important part of this shot is I love shooting wide angles, and the problem I always encounter is if the prop is too close to the camera, it just becomes too big. So in this case, just visualize an angle, see it as a ball, and just turn it around and just place your model slightly closer towards the camera. The prop slightly more away, and at that point, it looks the same, but your composition is much better. So let's take a look behind the scenes so you can see the lighting setup and, of course, the model and the final results. Oh. As you can see, a pretty simple lighting setup, just one striplight with a grid on our Gigotostrope. But the most important thing is always think about lines for your light, but also think about a globe for your angles. And you can move that globe around on the image, it will look the same, but it will give you a proper perspective. I hope you enjoyed this little tip and see you again for the next one.