Inside de Model Shoot

1. CHAPTER 1 Intro: Hey, guys, my name is Frank Dorov and welcome to this video. Now, this video is slightly different than you're used to, probably. In this video, I'm going to show you some of my images and how we created it. We took some video during the photo shoots. So, in other words, these are photos that we literally shot during workshops or during photo shoots. And, of course, we also have some videos to explain lighting setups. But most of all, this is going to be a video about workflow and about how you can succeed in getting great images without putting too much effort or budget in it. Isn't that what we all want? So enjoy the video. And if you have any questions, you can always reach out to us and ask your questions. Let's start. 2. CHAPTER 2 Gear: Now, before we go into the photo shoots, there's one thing that I have to make clear, and this is one of the things that always comes back when I teach workshops or when I post images online. And that's about gear. Now, we all know that gear is awesome, right? There is an expression called guess, gear acquisition syndrome. But that's not really a problem unless you're married and your wife finds out what everything costs, of course. The gas syndrome is not a real problem, as long as you know why you buy new gear. If you buy new gear to be inspired, that's awesome. I have that with Vintage guitars and tube BAMs. But if you buy gear because you are covering up things that you can't do or think that you can't do, that's where you have a problem. That's why before we go into the studio, I want to make one thing very clear. Of course, I'm shooting with the Sony A seven R five and a great G master lens. So yeah, my gear is great. But I can also take exactly the same pictures with my iPhone. And stroke wise, of course, you can use bronze color. You can use Pro Photo. You can use Ellen grom or Hansel. A great brands. But the last two years, I've been shooting with Gekoto and that's actually are much more affordable brand. And in all honesty, my images didn't become any worse. The reason I actually switched to a hybrid strop is for the very simple reason. We are doing a lot of photography on location, and I just got tired of, well, carrying around very heavy gear and very expensive gear when I can also use stropes that I can just fit into my bag and shoot 400, 450 images on full power with one battery. So it's all about horses for courses, but also the quality of your gear is, of course, really important for durability. It's important for your light shaping. But don't let anybody tell you that because you don't use a very expensive camera, you can't take great pictures. You can do it with literally everything. A light bulb, look at these images or a chandelier. Look at these images. You can literally use everything you want for your photography. So don't let gear hold you back. But if you love to buy new gear, be my guest. Okay, let's go into the studio. 3. CHAPTER 3 Tethering: Okay, now, of course, we're going to talk about lighting. We're going to talk about how you approach your model and a little bit about styling, of course, because that's one of the most important things. In a photo shoot, you have to make sure that you have something cool to look at. But there are some things that are really important in your workflow. Now, in this next chapter, we're going to talk about tethering. Now, you might wonder, what is tetering well, you know that when we switched over to digital, one of the biggest improvements was that we now don't need poloids anymore. Now, I'm not from the age where we used poloids. And that meant that when you shot film, you didn't have any feedback. So you shot film. You needed a light meter, of course. And the first thing you shot was a poloid to check if your images were okay. Now, in all honesty, a poloid isn't the same as film. So it was more like well, it came close. Of course, the switch to digital was awesome because now you can take a picture. And on the back of your camera, you can literally see what you're doing if your composition is right, if your lighting is right. And that's actually almost the image that you will get in the end, of course, without your retouching. So, now that we see all our images on the back of our camera, are we done? Not really, because when you do a photo shoot, isn't it really irritating when people constantly look over your shoulder, ask you like, Hey, how does this image look and I see the image? Yeah, that doesn't really work. So we need a way to get those images straight out of the camera onto a big screen. And that can be a TV, a laptop, or an iPad. And that's actually what we call tethering, connecting our camera to a display or a device that will show your images. Now the cool thing is, as soon as you take that image, the image will appear on that big screen. Now, this is a huge improvement in your workflow. It doesn't only show you if you shut your images the right way, but it also shows your client how the images will look in the end. Let me rewind it. You just said that the images were raw when they came in. Yes. But in some instances, like for example, with Lightroom or Capture One, you can actually tell the computer that every time when an image comes in, you want it to run a certain well, preset. And now when your client wants to see a black and white image, you can literally shoot it in black and white. So your client can see the images straight when they come in. And they can also, of course, say, like, Hey, I really like this image. Let's give it five stars. So it's a huge improvement in your workflow. But what do you need? Well, in the studio, it's pretty easy. You can use your laptop, you can use Windows machine or a Macbook. But on location, well, that becomes a little bit more tricky because a laptop, of course, is always well, vulnerable. Let's just look at my laptop. We have a big screen. We have a keyboard. We have all these ports. We have a track pad, and we have to make sure that it stays really nice and clean, right? Because if there's a little bit of dust on your keyboard and you close the cover, yeah, my own screen is the witness of that. You can literally just damage your screen if there's a lot of dust or sand on your keyboard. Now, this is something that you don't want on location. Plus, you want to move around very quickly. So a more modern solution is actually using an iPad. Now, in my case, I'm using the iPad Pro 12.9. And in the past, with the iPad, you had a lot of problems. It was only possible to shoot wireless, and I'm not a big fan of shooting wireless. Most of the times it works, and then you arrive on the location, and somehow it just doesn't work or you're at a trade show, and it's very busy with Wi Fi, and the image don't come in. So you don't want it. Nowadays on the iPad, we have several solutions. I myself use Cas cable, which is a one time buy. I believe it's 65 euros on the app store, or you can do a subscription. But you also have capture one, which is a subscription, which is not my personal favorite thing to do. So my personal advice is use Cas cable. Now, the biggest change for me is when the iPad started to support wired tethering. Now, again, I'm not a fan of wireless. I want it wired. But how do you connect it to your camera? Well, first thing I have to explain to you guys is there is a huge difference between normal USB cables and cables dedicated for tethering. Now, my personal choice is IQ wires, and I have it here on my camera. Now, the most important thing is that you protect your camera. Now, there's always people walking around at the set, so you want to make sure that it can't hit the side of your camera because that will break your port. Now, in this case, we're using a connector here. We're using the flap of the port over here, and we have a smaller connector which actually goes straight into the port here and is very well protected. Now on the bottom part, we also have to make sure that it's tight and connected. So in this case, we're using a slider system. You just connect this and you just take the slider out, which is very, very easy. And you just click it in like this again. So this is a very nice solution for on location or on the studio. But what if somebody stands on your cable? Well, that's why we use a cable release. So, in other words, you don't damage your cable. Length wise, in our studio, I'm using 15 meters in one piece. I don't want any connections in between. And the cool thing about IQ wires, they deliver five, ten and 15 meters. So it's always something well, that you can fit in your workflow. But how do you get your images onto your iPad? Well, with a newer iPad, you, of course, already have a USBC connection, and this is where you connect the cables straight into the iPad when you're on location. But in the studio or on a trade show, you also want to connect an external monitor, and maybe you want to charge your iPad while you're shooting or giving your demos. And this is why we're using so called dogs. Now, this is a very simple dog from Anchor, and it just uses one USBC connector, and now I have two USBC port, an HDMI port. I have a network port and a card reader, of course, and some USB A ports. Now, with those dogs and dongles, you have to be a little bit careful when you go online on Amazon or AliExpress or wherever you want to buy it or at your camera store, make sure that you buy a dongo that has the option to charge your iPad and also has a data connector. So, in other words, two USBC connectors, one for data and one for charging your iPad. And in my opinion, HDMI is also very important. Now some of those dogs will work flawlessly. Some of those dogs won't. This is something that you have to do by trial and error. I spend about three or four dogs before I found one that actually works all the time, and that's the anchor. And well, your mileage may vary. It also depends a little bit on your iPad and the camera you're using, but just test it out and make sure that you can send it back within 30 days. On the laptop, by the way, everything is no problem at all because you already have the ports on that laptop. Now that we set up tethering, let's talk a little bit about color management and calibrating your monitor. 4. CHAPTER 4 Calibrations: Okay, the final part of the boring stuff. Now, we already discussed tethering. Let's talk a little bit about getting your colors right. And I immediately have to say one thing about this. This is just between you and me. This doesn't take away your creativity. This doesn't kill your creativity. And for certainly, it doesn't slow down your workflow. What I'm going to tell you now, if you don't do it already, will change your workflow forever, and it will be much better. So let's take a little bit of a sidestep. Let's talk about color. Now, I'm not going to dive very deep into color, but let's just give you the color triangle, as you can see here. Now, we have red, green, and blue, and in the middle, we have the so called black body curve. Now, you might recognize this red, green, and blue. Those are indeed the primary colors. Now, when you calibrate your monitor, and this is the part that you really have to do. Let's talk about that a little bit later. You are choosing a white point, and that means that well, there is a certain point on that black body curve. It's actually a little bit of the black body curve that we agreed upon to be a neutral white. And in all honesty, it isn't neutral white. It's just a little bit reddish white. Now that we know that coordinate, this means that we can now use a so called calibrator for you monitor to create a neutral white. Now, normally, when you calibrate your monitor, it will go from black to white in several steps. That's called the gray scaling, but that's only for the whites. Now, how about the color? You probably already know in Photoshop or Lightroom or whatever raw convert to your work that you see certain color spaces like for example, SRGB Adobe RGB, and pro photo RGB. Well, the gray scaling or neutral white in most of those color spaces will look the same, and that's supposed to be, right, because we want to have neutral white. Where it does differ and differ a lot is the coordinates for your colors, your red, green, and blue. In your SRGB color space, you have a small color space. That means that all your colors will fit nicely in that color space. You can use JPEC eight bits, no problem at all. Now as soon as you go to Adobe RGB, that's a bigger color space. And now with JPEC eight bits, it becomes a little bit more difficult, but it's still pretty doable. Now, when you go to Photo RGB, that's a really big color space. And this is also a color space that you can't store in JPEG anymore. You need TIV 16 bits. Now, I'll nest, my workflow mostly is editing in TIF 16 bits and then storing in JPEG Adobe RGB for the final results for the very simple reason, hard drive space is limited, and TIFs are very, very big, and JPEGs are a little bit smaller. And when I have my final result, I don't have to go back. So we talked a little bit about those colors and the different color spaces. Now, for every color space, the coordinates for each color is fixed, and those are three coordinates. We have an X, a Y, and a big Y U, saturation and luminance. Now, you probably notice from your printer CMIK. Hey, wait a minute, CMIK? Yes. Next to our primary colors, red, green, and blue, we also have secondary colors, sion magenta, and yellow. Now, when you print, you probably already saw that you print not with RGB but with CMIK. Now, what's that K? A lot of people think that the K is actually black, and that's because in the printer, it's actually used as black. But it's not really black. The K stands for K, and that means the brightness. Now, remember, X, Y, and the big Y, saturation and luminance. Now, this means that when you shoot your images and you want 100% accurate colors, you need, of course, something of a reference to make a calibration for. So we calibrate our monitor with a color analyzer, but we also need to make sure that we calibrate our camera because every sensor, well, gets the pictures just slightly different. So we have to make sure that that also fits in that profile. Now, this is where we use a very, very handy tool called a color checker. Now, this is a so called duo color checker. This is for video. So this part is for video, setting your blacks, setting your medium, and setting your whites, and of course, your colors. And when you open it up on the other side, you now have one for photography with your white balance, and of course, your squares for your colors. But if you don't do any video, you can, of course, also get away with the normal full photography where you have this one, where I only use actually the bottom part, and I do white balancing on the gray squares. I never use that part. If you want a little bit more well, green your landscapes or a little bit more red in your portraits, they have that option. But for me, I want it neutral, so I always use that one. And we open it up on the other side. You have two ways to do your white balance. Now, in all honesty, I mostly use the duo because, of course, we also do video, and the duo is very handy for that. Now, with a color checker, you might wonder like, Hey, if I have the color checker, everything is set up correctly, right? Yes and no. Now, you remember that I told you that there are three coordinates, the X, the Y, and the large Y, or in other words, the luminans. And that's why you always see me using this tool when I'm shooting a photo. And this is called a light meter. Now the light meter is incredibly important. It might be the most important thing because the light meter determines your exposure. Now, the light meter isn't there to make sure that you don't over expose your images. The light meter, they also do, of course. The light meter is mostly there also to make sure that you expose correctly. And when you expose correctly and you use the color checker, all your images will look perfect. And that's also where the problem comes. Do you want your images to look perfect? In most cases, I don't want my images to look perfect. I want my images to give a certain mood, a certain look to my photos. And that means that I always change my images. I always use preset. So why should I use a color checker? Why should I use a light meter? When later on in Photoshop or Lightroom, I change everything and use presets, and the colors look totally different. Well, that's the trick. When you create a preset, you are creating a lot of different actions that are, well, literally executed on one image. If that image isn't 100% correct, let's say your color is slightly off, your color temperature is slightly off, your exposure is slightly off, then that preset will give you a totally different result than on an image where everything is exposed correctly. And that's why when you want to use presets, it's vital to use a light meter and a color checker. The images that come in will look very boring. They will look all exactly the same, very sterile. But it also means that if your client wants perfect colors, you can just do your adjustments with your contrast. You can do your sharpening. You can create a vignette or crop or do the skin retouching and deliver those images to your client, and you will have perfect color. But if you want to run preset, well, that's the trick. If you use the light meter in the color checker, every time you run that preset, the result will be exactly the same. So, in essence, it will speed up your workflow a lot, but it will also make it possible to shoot the same look images under tungsten light, fluorescent light, and outside in the sun. But I think we talked a lot about theory and about all the boring stuff. Let's just go into the studio and let's see what we can do with some proper lighting setups and our models. 5. CHAPTER 5 Working with models: Okay, guys, just in between. And this is one of the parts that a lot of photographers struggle with. Now, I teach a lot of workshops. I haven't been doing it for a long time. And one of the things that always strikes me is how photographers treat their models. A lot of photographers don't even talk to them models. They take the camera. They take some images, they look at the back, and sometimes they get a really nasty face, like, Ooh, I don't like this image. And then they shoot again. What kind of idea do you think this gives your model? Now, to have a proper photo shoot and to make sure that you get the images that you want, your model has to be at ease. And do remember, just like you, your mother loves compliments. So don't just say to your model, this looks like crap. This doesn't look right. Oh, my, this pose is terrible. No, always be positive. If you don't like a shot or you don't like a pose, you just say, that's great. Let's try something else. And when you really like something, well, you will probably hear it in your voice. And the thing is, don't over tire your model. One of the tricks that I always use is shoot some images, let's say ten or 20 images just to loosen the model up. And from there, I'm just going to select my best image. So let's say I take an image and I really like it. That's the one. Then I take another five shots. If in those five shots, there's one that's better, I take another five shots. And if in those images, there's one that's better, I take another five shots. You get the idea, right? But as soon as I take five shots and I don't get an image that's better, that's the moment where I stop. And the reason is very simple. Your model doesn't need ten shots from one setup. So he needs only one or two. Three quarters, portrait, full body or whatever you want to do, of course. And the way that you work when you keep the energy level high is that one, you can do more sets a day, but two, you keep the energy level high. So your model is totally pumped up. So sees the images, and after 5 minutes, well, go into makeup and change. Wow, I'm already done? Yes, you're already done. Do you like the images? I love them. Okay, next set. And that way, you keep the energy level very high. The biggest problem in a photo shoot is when the energy level goes down, or if there's no proper communication between you and your model. And the communication starts already with the email. Make sure that when you plan your photoshoot, you have a mood board. In other words, you know what your client wants or you model, and you know exactly how to set up your lighting. This means that there's no stress for you, and that also means there's no stress for the model. Now as soon as the model comes in, don't start shooting right away. Sit her down, give her something to drink, make sure that her favorite music is playing in the studio, and just relax. A photoshoot is 90% relaxing, 10% working. Well, that's how it should be for the model. For you as a photographer, it's 110% working to make sure that it looks like you're 90% relaxing, because the more relaxed you are, the better the photoshoot is. So, that's a little bit in between about working with your models. Let's continue with our photo shoots. 6. CHAPTER 6 Different softboxes Horses for courses: Okay, now, this setup might be one of my favorite setups. And, hey, I'm Dutch, right? Rembrandt. Now, the Rembrandt lighting is really interesting. Now, when you start out with photography, one of the things that may or may not be the first things that you try is actually the Rembrandt lighting. The reason is very simple. You get a great high contrast image, and it just looks absolutely beautiful. The trick about Rembrandt lighting is to make sure that you get that really nice triangle over the nose. And how do you achieve that? Well, the light has to come from the back. So it has to just wrap around your model a little bit. So one side will be really dark and one side will be really bright. Now, the main problem with the light setup like this is because you're placing your softbox behind your model aimed a little bit forward, that means that there's no light hitting your backdrop. Now, in some cases, you don't want light hitting your backdrop. You like that really nice dark backdrop. Maybe you like it black. But in some cases, you do want light on the backdrop. One of the many solutions is, of course, to use a separate light source on your backdrop. For example, a snoot or a reflector, maybe add some color on your backdrop. But what if you don't have enough soft boxes for that and you still want to light your backdrop? This is why we are using for this setup, the so called Lantern softbox. Now, the difference between a normal softbox and a lantern is, well, clearly visible. A normal sof boox just emits the light from the front. You can use a grid, of course, to narrow that light beam. But a lantern doesn't only emit the light from the front, but it also emits the light from the side. You could say it's a little bit like an omnidirectional light source, except it doesn't emit the light to the back but hey, we don't need that right. Now, the big advantage is that I can still light my model with the sof box. And in this case, actually the side of the light because that's nice soft quality. The main light just spills over, so we don't need that. And because we have a translucent material, also on the side of the sof box, it will also light the backdrop. Now, with the first image that we're going to take, we're not going to use the strip light on the right side. And we're going to show you how that translates back into the photoshoot. And as you can see, without that strip light, yeah, it does look a little bit dark. So we want to add something extra on that side. Now, the strip light we're using from the back of our model aimed forward. The reason for this is actually pretty simple. We don't want two light sources from each side because then we lose that contrast in our image. What we want is a little bit of an accent. I always call it a kiss of light. We just wanted to wrap around the jaw line of the model or in this case, the clothing of the model. So we're going to turn on the strip light, and we're going to make some images with that. Now as you can see with the strip light with way more definition in that shadowy side of our model. Now, the lantern lights the backdrop and it lights the model. The thing that the lantern doesn't do is give any direction on the light of our backdrop. In other words, it just lights the backdrop, and of course, you have your light fall off on the back, but it just lights the backdrop in a very even way. So that's why, of course, for the next setup, we're going to change the lantern for a normal self boox. You might say normal self box. Yes, a medium sized saf boox with a grid. And let's see what an impact that has on our backdrop. Okay, we changed the lantern for a medium sized soabox with a grid. Now, the grid makes sure that I focus my light only on my model. And that means that with a setup like this, there's no light hitting your backdrop. You're going to see that in a second. So choosing the right modifier for your shoot is incredibly important. For example, if you look at the lantern, you already know it's great for, for example, newborn photography, product photography or fashion photography where you want your light on your model, but you also want to fill in the shadows. Like, for example, if you have a big elaborate set, the lantern is great to use a few stops under your main light to just light up the set. There will be a chapter when we're actually going to show you this, too. But for now, we change the lantern for a medium sized sof boox with a grid. Now, the grid already channels the light a lot, but also with a normal softbox, you don't have that translucent material on the side. So that means that with a setup like this for Rembrandt, there's no light hitting the backdrop at all. If that's what you like, this is the perfect setup. For me, the backdrop is a little bit too dark, but we're going to solve that with our strip light in a moment. So first, let's take a shot with only the softbox. Now as you can see, that's pretty dark on our backdrop. Now, let's say that we want to open up the shadows just a little bit on the other side. And remember, that's where we use the strip light. So by using the strip light, we are opening up that side just a little bit, as you can see in these images. But what if you also want a little bit more light on our backdrop? This is where you can actually use the grid to its maximum potential. Now, if you look at the strip light with the grid, you can actually see that it's a rectangular shape. So that means it isn't very white, but it's very tall. So you can light the model from top to bottom without having any spills on the side. But what if, like in this case, we only want portraits or three quarters? You don't need the full length of that strip light. So that also means that if you want a little bit of light on your backdrop, you can use the grid and the strip light to literally just aim your light perfectly. We're going to switch the strip light over from vertical to slightly horizontal, light our model and our backdrop with only one light source. It's going to be totally different from the lantern, but that's the cool thing. You can do both in your photo studio, and you have a lot of different options for lighting, depending on what your client wants. Now as you can see the strip light is a very important part in this photoshoot. The main light, of course, you can use omnidirectional to also light the backdrop, but that strip light you can use not on your backdrop or by slightly tilting it to also light your backdrop. That's why probably the strip light, including the grid is one of my favorite modifiers for accent lighting, but also for main lighting, if you really want to draw the attention to your model. 7. CHAPTER 8 Working with gels and getting white light: Okay, guys, now, as mentioned in the intro, color consists of three colors for our primary colors, red, green, and blue. Now, those are the colors that you will also find in Photoshop in your channels, your red, green, and blue channels. This is also the color that is used by, for example, projectors and monitors. Now, the colors itself interact with each other. So that means if you combine red, green, and blue, you get white. This is how the whole gray balance works, right? You mix red, green, and blue to create white. But what happens if you use color with gels? Now, let me show you an image. As you can see here, the sky is magenta, but the model looks natural. How the heck did we do this? Well, we're actually using a very, very simple trick. By using a green gel on our strokes, we're actually shooting our model like Kermit frogs. It's totally green. But by selecting that green as a new white point, we're actually lowering all the other colors. So, for example, the white in the sky towards magenta. Very simple. You just lower it. You can also do this with blue, for example, to create nice yellow use, for example, in a hotel, when you want nice golden light coming in. But what if we don't do it with one color, but we do it with all three. So when we combine red, green, and blue, you should have white. And this is what this setup is all about. We're having one stroke on our left with a red gel. We have one stroke on our right with a blue gel. Now, those two combined don't give you a natural looking image. They just give you a blue and red image, which is okay. But on this strope I'm using a snoot and behind the snoot there's a green gel. So that means that I'm shooting with the three primary colors, red, green, and blue. That also means that where those colors interact, they will start to mix with each other. And that's why the snoot is on the face slightly higher than the other colors. Now, green is already a very, very strong color. We see green 66%, 22% red, and 11% blue. So you have to be careful when mixing this. Don't use a light meter for this. Just do it by eye. You can use a light meter, but it's just way easier to create it by eye because sometimes you don't want the perfect mix. You want a little bit more creative looks in your images. And it's actually exactly what we're doing here. So I'm not using a light meter. I first set up red, then I set up blue, and then we're adding this one. So let me first show you how it looks with only red and blue. Now as you can see, it's interesting, but it's red and blue, right? We don't see a model. Now, only turn on the green and watch this. Now as you can see, now the image comes way more to life. And green for me personally, isn't a color that I would use as an accent or that I would use as a main color for the very simple reason. We have several different connections with colors. For example, if we think about red and blue, we always have emotions with red and blue. For example, blue is distant called the future uncertainty. But, for example, red is hate, love. Hey, those two are already interesting, right? Hate and love both together in one color, but also danger, warmth. Red and blue are what we call the emotional colors. Green, I don't have any connection with green, to be honest. So green is more a color that doesn't give me any emotion. So in my photography, I don't use green a lot. However, if I want to manipulate colors, then green becomes very vital because in the color triangle, green is actually on top of the triangle. So that means, as soon as you start using green, you really start noticing attention because you can't get around around green. You will see it. So by using green in this setup, I'm, of course, creating green light, but I'm also creating little sparks of white light. And that's with tree strokes, At Gelt. Isn't that awesome to play with? Think about all the possibilities you have when you start mixing this in shadows on your subject or as we do here, to create a certain mood in your images. So let's start shooting and let's create some cool shots with three colors, which actually creates white light in the middle. 8. CHAPTER 7 Medium Softbox with grid and accent: Hey, guys, let's take a look at this image of Kiara. Isn't it beautiful? Now, don't you just love that soft blue light from the side, just giving her a little bit of an accent? Well, actually, this lighting setup has a trick. What I'm going to explain to you guys now. Now, it's my main light source. I'm using a medium sized softbox with a grid. In this case, we're using it slightly in front of our model, so we're also hitting the backdrop, so we don't need a letern for this. In this case, we can literally just aim that light straight on our model and also light the backdrop just a little bit. But I didn't want to use a normal white light from the side to give an accent. I wanted to give a little bit of an extra tint to the color. Now, in the past, with my old stroke system, I could, of course, use gels. But most of the time I was limited for using gels on reflectors. And that mostly meant that, well, I got a really harsh quality of light. If I want to use gels on a soffbox there was only one option. Just gel the whole soffbx because inside, I couldn't place any gels due to the modeling light, and, of course, the flesh tube emitting way too much heat. Now, with our new system, the gecotos, we're now using hybrid stropes and that has a big advantage because when I look at my hybrid strope, I now have glass in the front, and this means that I can now use, for example, our magnetic system from Rogue with a blue gel and just place it in front of my strope and now as you can see in this setup, I'm using an adapter. On my stand, the strope is mounted inside that adapter, and on the adapter, I can now use any bones mounted softbox or modifier. So that means that I can now tint every single modifier I want. So I'm not limited anymore to that harsh quality of light. I can now use big soft boxes and tint them from the inside, which gives you a much more beautiful quality of light. And if you still want that harsh quality of light for, for example, lens flares, that's, of course, when you use an open reflector. Or just no softbox at all. So let's take a look at the final result of this image and later on in the video. I'm also going to show you what you can do with soft boxes, color, and how to combine them all for something really cool. But let's start simple by just adding a very soft quality of light on the side on our model Kiara. 9. CHAPTER 9 Putting it all together: Hey, guys, so what happens when everything comes together and you are really starting to think not about just your image with one light, but you're actually starting to think in layers. Now, thinking in layers may sound a little bit complicated, but bear with me, it isn't. It's actually pretty simple. So let's take, for example, this image from Nadine. Yeah. Well, it looks very complicated, and in essence, it is pretty complicated, but let me just walk you through it. Now, this was shot during our fashion event, and as you can see here, we started out with two chairs, and from there, Nadine actually, together with the attendees, build up a complete set with a lot of dresses. Now, the idea was to create a Phoenix rising out from the ashes and with a lot of fire. Now, of course, we don't want any fire in our studio, and I really don't want to use it in Photoshop, although, Okay, let me show you very quickly what we did with one image AI. It's not something that I'm really proud of, but, hey, we just did it for fun. So let's just continue to the rest of our set. Now, as soon as our ANDs build the set, there's a few things that you have to take into account. The first thing, of course, is from which angle am I going to shoot? If I'm shooting too low, I don't see all the beautiful work that they put into this big dress and set. When I shoot from too high, I may not get that hero pose. So I have to make sure that I find a position to shoot from a nice angle. And I think in the end, we ended up slightly under your normal viewing angle. This is also because Nadine, of course, is pretty high up in this setup. Now, of course, Phoenix, so that meant fire. Well, what color is best to get fire the red, of course. So I immediately knew that this setup we wanted to do something with red lights. But when we talk about Phoenix, we also want smoke, of course. So we already knew that we wanted to use smoke machines. And what is the best combination to get fire by red smoke and lens flares? Yeah. So set everything like that up and then make sure that your model jumps out. So how is the light setup set up? Well, of course, our first light that we have to make sure is our main light source. And in this case, that's a little bit tricky. Because I want to make sure that the whole set is lit and I see all the detail in the dresses, I have to make sure that I use one light source that's a little bit omnidirectional, but doesn't have enough power to also light our model. In other words, it's the shadow sliders in light room. And we have the perfect soffbx for this, and that's the lantern. Now the lantern is a sort of omnidirectional light source. It differs from a softbox because it doesn't just emit the light straight from the front, but it also emit lights from the side. And in this case, that's awesome because as you can see in the video, I'm aiming it slightly away from Nadine. Nadine is still hit, of course, by the omnidirectional light source, but most of the light is actually aimed towards the front of the set with the dress because I know all the other light sources will come from the back because we want to make sure that our smoke shows up and then smoke, of course, we have to light from the back cause if you light it from the front, it just gives you, well, a miss bank, and we don't want that, of course. So by opening up the shadows, I already got an image where I can see all the detail. The model was way underexposed, of course. Now, for our red, I'm using a very, very bright red on the right side of the image with no other soft boxes. So that means just the gel straight on our GT 400 from Gigoto. And that means that that one will give me a harsh quality of light. It's not aimed straight at our model, but actually straight at my camera. The reason for this is very simple. If you look at light sources, they all behave approximately the same. The center of the light will be very bright but also very harsh. The more you go to the sides of the light, the output will lower, but the quality of light will be softer. So this is why with hard light sources and especially with gels, we aim the hot spot of the light exactly into my lens so we get all that quality of light straight into the lens, all that power to create the lens flare, and the sides of the light will just give a kiss of light to my model as an accent light. Now, on the other side, we wanted something a little bit more softer. So on that side, I'm using a gecotostrope with a red gel from rogue and a strip light. So we're using the gel behind the strip light, creating a beautiful soft quality of red. Now, the lantern, of course, already shows me all the detail in the dress. The only thing that I was struggling with is how to get your model jump out. Now, a lot of people will go like, Hey, you can do that in Photoshop, right? Yeah, you can do a lot of stuff in Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, but you don't want to do everything in Photoshop. It's much more satisfying than do it on the set. And also, it just looks way better if you do it on the set. So what is the trick in this setup? If you want to make sure that your model jumps out, you make sure that there's light on your model, right, exactly in the spot where you want it. Now, if we shot this whole image without that extra light source that I'm going to introduce to you in a second, it looks very dull. There's not enough light on our model. Now, I don't want light on the whole of my model. I only want it on the face of the model, maybe a little bit on the chest. And that's why we need a light source that can be focused really, really accurate. That light source, ladies and gentlemen, is, of course, a snoot. Now, the snoot is a light source that's often disregarded as it's way too harsh. It is too small, and a lot of people don't use it except maybe for product photography. But for model photography, it creates a beautiful way to just give an accent to your model's face or any other part of the body that you want accentuated. So how does it work? Now, in this case, I'm using a Gekota GT 200. Now, the reason I'm using this one is actually double. Now, when you look at the strope on the front, it's a rectangular strope. Now, when we look at the GT 250, that's a round strope. Now, you might wonder like, Hey, why are you talking about rectangular and round? What's the difference between those two? The difference is very simple. When we use a snoot in this case, I'm using the rogue collapsible snoot the thing is that if you want a round image on your model, so you want round light, you use a diffusion panel in the back of the snoot. And this is also, of course, included in the box of a snoot like this. But if you take the diffusion panel out and you place it on a rectangular strope, you're actually getting a rectangular light source. This is awesome because now when I have a rectangular light source, I don't have to worry about the roundness of that stroke. In other words, I don't have to aim it up to make sure that only the face is lit and not too much of the chest. By using it as a rectangular light source, I can now literally just aim my light perfectly on my model. Another big advantage of a collapsible snoot is that you can literally go white, a little bit less white, a little bit lesser white, and, of course, a very, very narrow. And I believe in this case, we ended up in setting two to make sure that our model was properly lit. Now, in the end, the only thing you have to do is make sure that everything is balanced nicely. Now, you can do this with a light meter or you can just do it by eye. And I have to be totally honest with you guys. I love using a light meter to get everything perfect. But in this case, it's just a matter of making sure that everything looks great. So that means that my main light source, in other words, the snoot I did meter with a light meter, but everything else, we're shooting tetered. I'm just looking at my screen. Do I like this detail a lot, yes or no? Do I like this color there? Do I like the lens flare? Yes or no? That's actually how you build up a set like this. So when you do a portrait, of course, everything is the light meter and the color checker, and you keep it as perfect as possible. But when you do a shot like this, that's more creative. You have to make sure, of course, that the face of the model is perfectly lit, and then you just build everything up the way that you see it. I sometimes call this cooking with light. Sometimes you need a little bit more and sometimes you need a little bit less. That's the fun part about photography, right? You start with a black canvas and you can just build it to everything you want. Okay, let's take a look at a close up of this shot. There you go. And, of course, well, let's zoom out a little bit. And then when you add a little bit of extra special effects in bore as affix, and the only thing I actually added here was a vignette and a slight reflection. So we call that a particle simulator, you can see in the image. We didn't change it a lot from the original, but as you can see here, adding those small elements will really make an image jump out. And if it's already great in camera, you only need a little bit later in Photoshop to make it really from zero to hero or from o to Wow. A 10. CHAPTER 10 Final: I almost finished my drink, and that means that I also almost finished this video. Now, I hope you understand that taking photos of models is way more than just a pretty girl in front of a camera or in other words, in front of a great backdrop. Photographing models is about communication with your model. It's about making sure that the styling is correct, making sure that you find the proper backdrop with the styling that you want. Or in other words, what kind of mood do you want to present to your viewer. Sometimes you need images that are 100% perfect. This is where you use, for example, a color checker and a light meter. For example, for a CEO or portrait or maybe some clothing that you want to sell online, you have to make sure that the colors are 100% perfect. But sometimes you also want a lot more. Think about shooting a cos play. Well, you don't need it perfect, right? You want some funky effect. You want fire. You want smoke. You want colors. You want lens flares. You want everything that's not realistic. This is the power of photography. We as photographers are storytellers. We frame literally pieces of history that never come back again. But we can also create different moods. We can create different atmospheres, and we can create totally different worlds, especially now with artificial intelligence. So you as a photographer, you can play along with your lighting, with your backdrops and your models, but always remember that there are no limitations. The only limitation is what you think you can do with the gear that you use. And trust me, even with your smartphone and just a small light source, you can create beautiful images. I hope you enjoyed this video and all the information I shared. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out via social media to us. We always try to respond within 24 hours. Thank you, how very much and keep shooting and stay creative like yes.