Transcripts
1. Photography Course Introductions: Hello. My name is Jay Scoville, arm of a personal
wedding photographer. I would like to welcome
you to this course. Now in this course, the main objective is to
get you to stop thinking. Stop taking pictures like
an amateur. Too many times. Amateurs, when they
see something, they will, though they're
Campbell up and they'll take the picture in
the nail. Move on. With today's technology,
cameras have come a long ways expressively. Our cell phones. They have some outstanding
cameras built into them now. But Destiel doesn't take
away from actual technique. It is that technique that I want you to focus
on in this course. I want to teach you how a
professional photographer looks at analyzers and
takes their pictures. Now why should you listen to me? But as I stated earlier, I'm a professional photographer. I've been doing photography
for over 30 years. My studio was located
in Springfield, missouri and my primary focus
was reading photography. Now are no longer practice
reading photography. I'm Ashley, kinda semi retired. I moved to Bangkok,
Thailand in 2017. My photography has taken me all around the world, all corners. And I've really enjoyed IT, meeting new people and
exploring exciting new places, new opportunities for
that photo shoot. So I would love to be
able to pass on some of the knowledge that
I've learned over my 30 years to you. Somebody you are here
because you just want to learn to take
better pictures. Others are here
because you want to be a professional photographer or pursue a photography career. Whenever your motives,
that is perfectly fine, but you're going to learn in
this course will help you. You don't need any
special camera gear. You can use your cell
phone throughout the course or
professional camera if that's what you have. You don't need any
prior experience and matures to professionals. Everybody can learn. Without further ado. I would like to
again say thank you for taking the time to
check out this course. And I will see you
in the lessons.
2. B.A.S.E. What Does it Mean in Photography: Welcome to Lesson one. In this lesson we're
going to talk about the formula base b, a, S E. Now when I say base, but comes to mind, for most people, we're
talking about like a base of operation or the
foundation of a structure. Take for instance,
a house of cards. Who's ever built
a house of cards? You know that when you
go to build that house, you got to have a
good solid base. If the base of the cards
are not structurally, say on immensely, the cars are going to
crumble down to the table. Another example would
be like cheerleaders. Have you ever been to a game? And you're asked to
cheerleaders putting on a show and they build a pyramid. The girl on the top, it's got to have pretty good
confidence that the base, the two liters on the
bottom can support her or she's going to come crashing
down, hit pretty hard. So the base has to be solid. And that's true in anytime
the base of a building. If you build in a
sky rise building, an app base is not solid. That be honest, not
going to stay in, is going to crumble
to the ground. So base, in the case of
our course here today, is talking about the foundation, the building blocks to a
photograph that was separate you as an amateur and move you into the category of
very professional. Simply put, if the base of
your picture is not solid, fundamentally,
fundamentally say on your picture will be weak. Base B a S, E is what we're
going to talk about over the next four lessons. I will break down each
letter one at a time, starting with the letter B. I'll see you in that lesson.
3. B Stands for Background: Welcome back. So as I have discussed earlier, we're gonna be learning base BAS and the three
rules of photography, as well as the
exposure triangle. Now, a triangle only
has three size. And if you'd look at the resources that
I've provided for you, you'll have a cheat sheet
for the exposure triangle. Now, since the triangle
only has three sides, but there's four
letters in our formula. B ASE be is standalone. B represents background, and that represents the
entire picture 100%. Now, background does not
just include background. Background can be
the foreground. It is the entire picture or subject and what is
surrounding our subject. So with background, it's
very important that we are aware of what is
going on in our picture. If something does
not mean alone, we need to try and remove it. If we cannot remove it, then we need to move ourselves. So we need to shift either
to the left or to the right. Maybe just step a few steps
back or a few steps forward. Whatever it takes so that we are eliminating distractions, undesirable items in the picture that do not bring
value to our picture. Have you ever had a person
or maybe not a person, an animal or anything? Photo bomb your picture. It happens. Sometimes we leave them because it makes
a funny picture. Sometimes it does not. But that kind of relays to
what I am talking about. Sometimes the items that
are in the picture, plane bow you should
have picture. Other time that you'll just mere distractions that do
not need to be there. Let's take a few minutes
to look at a few pictures. And as you are looking
at these pictures, I want you to be thinking, is there something in the picture that shouldn't be there? Is it distracting? Or did the photographer
do their job in isolating involving
you're tensing to what they were trying
to photograph. Did the photographer
do their job? Whether you think Was there
anything distracting in the pictures or were
the pictures on point? Remember, if it doesn't
meet loan, remove it. If you can't remove it, then move yourself
so that the item or items are no longer
in the picture, degrading, taken away from what you are trying
to photograph. Let's move on now to the next three letters
in our formula, a, F, and E. Now, these three
letters all refer to the exposure triangle. So they tied
together to make up, aim to give us the formula
that enables us to have be the background or the
entire picture as a whole.
4. A Stands for Area of Focus: Let's start now with the letter a in the remainder
of our formula. Now a stands for area of focus, or you might say aperture. Let's look at our exposure
triangle for a second. Only I suppose, or
triangle as I mentioned, there are three sides
and one of those size, if you look at temperature. Now, temperature or area of focus is what a
formula stands for. Area focus to be simple. That is, what is in-focus in our picture from the item
that is closest to us, to the item that is farthest
away or depth of field. If you look at Amateur here, in this picture, you will see that the bigger the opening, the more light into our
camera, onto our sensor, the smaller the opening, the less light
that we're letting into our camera
onto aren't sensor. Aperture does not just control how much light is
coming into the camera. A lot of photographers
do not know. Amateur photographers
do not know. He's at aperture, also
controls what is in focus. Look at this diagram. Here you will see that
the bigger the opening, the less that is in focus, and smaller the opening, the more that is in focus. Now, recall that depth of field. And you'll see that
in a lot of pictures. Take this picture, e.g. if you notice that our
subject is in perfect focus, but the background
is all blurred out. We got that very blurry effect. And that is a desired effect that a lot of
photographers shoot for. And that is all accompanied by the opening in
Orleans or aperture. The bigger the opening, the less that is in-focus, the smaller the opening, the more that is in-focus. We will go into more
detail about this when I actually get into
the exposure triangle. The main thing I want
you to take away from this lesson is that a in our formula
stands for area of focus. What is in focus in our picture? What are you trying to achieve? You want everything? Or do you want to
isolate your subject? Let's revisit the
pictures that we looked at when we talked
about background. Again, I want you to be thinking about these pictures
as you look at them. What is in-focus? Did the photographer isolate one specific item in blurt
out everything else? Or did they give
us any penalty of focus from the closest to
the farthest in the picture.
5. S Stands for Speed: Welcome back. I do hope you are getting some
value out of this course. It is now time
that we talk about the later S in our formula. Now S stands for speed. Speed. In case of our formula is, what is our subject doing? Is our subject standing steel? Or is our subject moving? Now when most people
think of speed, this, look at our exposure
triangle one more time. You'll see that speed is one of the factors in
our exposure triangle. And if you look at this diagram, you'll also see that the
faster the shutter speed, the more Rican freeze or
subject lock it in place. Who has the slower
the shutter speed, reintroduce more motion blur, more blurriness in our picture. Now, just like we
have an aperture, the shutter speed also
controls how much light is coming into our camera. How much light
hitting our sensor. The faster the shutter speed, the less light
hitting the sensor, the slower the shutter speed, the more light
hitting the sensor. But in the case of our formula, just like with temperature, we're not focusing
on the light aspect. We are focusing on what
is our subject doing. Let's talk about some examples
on what I'm talking about. Let's take a cheater.
For instance. There's, a cheater
is sit and steel. At rest, not moving. We do not need a super
fast shutter speed or a slow shutter speed
would be more desirable. However, if that cheetah
is in hot pursuit, racing a class to Savannah, then we're going to need a fast shutter speed so that
we can capture that cheetah. Or we will have to develop
a painting technique. Whereas we'll painting
in moving our camera, grief or subjects,
trying to maintain the speed as we pan so that
we can capture the image. Otherwise, it's just
going to be a big blur. Like for instance, let's look
at this car picture here. You can see that everything
is just blurt out. We can make out that as a
car, It's all blurred out. Now. Maybe just maybe that might be the effect
you're going for. But what if it isn't the
effect you're going for? You have to be aware of
what is your subject doing? Again, is it at rest
or is it moving? Take sports for instance. Here I have a pair of basketball
shoes and a basketball. So now moving they are at rest. Steel. I don't need a fast
shutter speed. But take this guy, he is in the process
of Dunkin the ball. You can tell he's in the air. If you do not have a
fast shutter speed, this would be a blur. And you will not be able
to capture him in flight. As he speaks in the
dunk, the ball. Reuse shutter speed
a lot of times in nature, in
scenery photography. Here are a couple of pictures of walked through
where we actually stopped. The water in action, flows it in place, and you can seed into
reusable water droplets. Now, flip the coin and
let's say we don't want to see all these
individual water droplets. We weren't that silky smooth, the majestic of bag rule. We would want to slow
down or speed so that everything kinda close together and you get that mysterious, majestic look versus speeding up the shutter speed and capturing each
individual watered well. So in our formula, S, S is speed. And when I'm talking
about speed, I'm not talking about how much light is hitting or sensor that we're
letting into the camera. We are talking about what
are we trying to achieve? But desired effect. Do we want in this picture? Do I need to freeze my subject? Or do I want it to flow and be a silky smooth effect like
in the case of a waterfall. Or capturing an athlete in flight during
a sporting event, I need that fast shutter speed. But if they're just sitting
there idle at rest, like in the case of the cheetah. Didn't know, I do not need
a fast shutter speed.
6. E Stands for Exposure: Hello and welcome back. We are now going to
talk about the lake to e. The letter E is for exposure. Let's take a look at our
exposure triangle one more time. Now, as you can see on near
suppose, explain goal. We have aperture, resource, the area of focus a. We have shutter
speed, was speed. And we have the last side
of the triangle is ISO, which stands for the exposure
in our formula for base. Exposure is the light. How much light is in the scene? Too much light, and the
picture is billowed out. Too little light in this
picture is dark, underexposed. Let's look at an example here
of a picture that is just like there's plenty of
light, nice and bright. Now let's look at a
picture where we, it is very dark and
there's not enough light. Now we have the exposure, we have to take into account just how much light
is in our scene. If there's not enough light, we need to find a way to introduce to bring more
light into the scene. If there's too much light, we need to find out how
we can take some array so that is not as bright,
not overexposed. Light is wanted the key
fundamentals of photography. In fact, the word photography in Greek means
painting with light. Photography comes from
Greek, painting with light. In this diagram, you will notice that we are talking about ISO. Iso is the sensitivity
of the sensor. The lower the number, the better the quality
of the picture. If you'd look at an ISO of 100 or pictures nice and clear. But if you look at an ISO of the scope Judy extreme on
this diagram of 51,200. The picture is very noisy, very grainy, very undesirable. So the lower we can keep
our ISO, the baker. But the I is 0, relies on light, relies on near exposure coming
into and hidden or sensor. If there's not enough
light and we cannot introduce if we can now
add light to the scene, option would be to
increase the ISO so that we have more
sensitivity on our sensor. But when we increase the ISO, we also introduce more noise and our pictures
start to degrade. Now there's other ways
to introduce more light into the scene if we need
to keep our ISO down lower. And we can do that by
temperature or by shutter speed. Making adjustments to those. Remember I told you that expose a pyramid is
a balancing act. It uses aperture, shutter speed, and ISO to balance out and give you a good exposure
of your picture. Now for the purpose
of this course, I'm not going to be
talking about IS, Oh, I'm gonna be talking about
actual light in our scene. Can I add light? Can I take away light? Sometimes it's just as simple
as changing your position. Take a look at this picture. Now here you can see that
it by staying in one area, the sun is very bright. If I stand in another area, we are standing in the shadows, so a little bit darker. And a lot of times, just picking the proper place to take the picture can
make a big difference. As I discussed in our formula, is exposure in simple terms. It is how much light do we have to work with when
taken our picture? Underexpose, overexpose,
or just the right amount.
7. More On the Exposure Triangle: We have been talking
about base BAC, and each of those letters stands for, as mentioned earlier, I would like to take
a few minutes to actually talk about
the exposure pyramid. Because this suppose
a pyramid is the key factor in base b, as we mentioned,
is the background or the foreground is the
entire picture as a whole. But B by itself cannot stand. It needs help of the
other three letters, a and E, a, B and aperture. You look on your
exposure pyramid. You'll see that wanted to
size is aperture for a. Now, the bigger the
opening, say f, one point for the less
that is in-focus, but the more light
that is coming into the camera and
hidden or sensor. If we go the opposite
direction to say F32, we have a very tiny opening. Little light is coming
into the camera and hitting the sensor and
everything is in focus. The next letter in
our formula was S. Russ, I said stood for speed. Now speed is, what is
your subject doing? Is you're subject
moving or is it steel? When calculating a N D sound on how to
capture your picture? We need to take into account
what are subject is doing because that will affect the
end result of the picture. Now, speed does not only affect what our
subject is doing, moving or at rest. It also controls light as well. The faster the shutter
speed, the less light, the slower the shutter speed, the more light in that in
turn controls sharpness. Rather, the picture
is crystal clear, or is the picture very blurry? A fast shutter speed,
sharp picture, a slow shutter speed
blurry picture here. And if we keep moving around
on our explosive pyramid, the ISO, ISO is how sensitive
our sensor is to light. A lower number like ISO 100, be less sensitive, but give
you a far superior picture, very low if any noise or grain. A nice clean picture. However, less light is
hitting the sensor. And if we move to the opposite
side of the spectrum, ISO 25,600, more light
is hitting the sensor. But as a result, the picture is very
noisy and very grainy. It's not a very good picture. So here we are talking about actual exposure on the light, how much light are dealing with. And as I mentioned,
E, for exposure. Can I add light to my scene? Can I take light a
wave from my scene? This is very important when you're trying to
compose and trying to position yourself
so that you can capture the images that you
are looking to capture. The exposure triangle plays hand-in-hand with
base, background, area of focus, speed
of the subject, and exposure, the light that we have to work with.
There you have it. This section is now complete and you now have a
understanding of what base and the base formula
is and how it relates to the
exposure triangle. In the next section, we will talk about my three
moves up a cartography. Now, not just my walls, a lot of my colleagues use
the same three sets of rules. And you will learn those. I'll see you in
the next section.
8. Message From Jay Scovel: Congratulations, you've completed the first
section in this course. Now we will talk about the
three rules of photography. Now these walls, I follow
with every picture I take. When I bring the
camera up to my eye, I do it without even thinking. They are a natural part of the
process that I go through. Just like what you learn
in the first section, base and the exposure triangle. I no longer think about it. I just do it. It just happens when I
bring the camera up to my eye in me as a
professional photographer, I use a digital SLR camera. I do not use the LCD screen
on the back of the camera. I actually physically
bring the camera up to my eye when I am looking and
I am taking my pictures. Not just say that, that's
what you have to do. You take the pictures that you feel more comfortable with, even if you're
using a cell phone. But I am teaching today
applies the same. It doesn't matter what the
cargo PU you use cell phone, digital SLR camera or
a tablet or computer, whatever you use for it. Now, like I said, I apply these principles every time I bring the
camera up to my eye. I don t think about it. I just do it. E.g. when I have the camera
up to my eye, I'm always, always scanning my
background, my foreground, I'm scanning, I'm looking
at what's in the picture. I do this even before I bring
the camera up to my eye. When I arrive on location of where on one big
taken a picture, immediately scan in the area. I'm deciding what would be the best place to get
this picture from. What angle, what composition, how do I want to approach to
achieve the maximum result? I'm always looking at
what do I want in-focus? Do our adjust my subject? Or is this a very
interesting scene? And I want everything in focus. I'm always evaluating what is the subject do
and are they moving? Are they sitting still? Do I need to account for that? I'm looking at the lighting. Is it too dark here
or is it too bright? Now, I think this will work. Gas by, I think an ISO
will 100 will be great. I can keep my noise down. There's enough light that I'll
have a good clean picture. I'm always doing
this is natural. It comes second nature to me. And it will for you too. The more you practice
your photography, the more you will
start implementing base, the exposure triangle. And the three words about Tartuffe that you're going
to learn in this section. You'll do without even thinking. It'll just come natural to you. So, without further ado, let's dive into wool number one.
9. Rule Number One in Photography: The first row of photography
that I'm going to talk about has to do with what we are going
to be photographing. Now, I don't want you to look
at these as actual wars, but more as guidance,
guidelines. Some rules are
made to be broken, others are not used. These three rules
that I'm fixing to give you as guidance. So the first rule
of photography, as I mentioned, we're
photographing something, correct. So the wool is
know your subject. Now when I say
know your subject, I'm not talking
about their name. This is uncle or aunt Sally. I'm not talking about like
this is a Chevy truck. No, that's not what
I'm talking about when I say know your subject, what I mean by
know your subject, every photograph has to have a primary reason for
taking the photograph. What are you photographing? You see something interesting that you wanted to
take a picture of. Is that your subject? If that is your subject, that is what we want to isolate. That is what we want to bring attention to in our picture. That is our subject
to know your subject. If there's anything
in the picture, that doesn't mean alone, that's not going
to bring value to your subject, member
base, background. Try to eliminate it, trying to remove it, or try to change
your position so that your subject is brought
out in their best light. Rather that is a person, place, or thing that
does not matter. What matters is that you
know what your subject is, what made you stop
in the first place? Why did you decide to
take this picture? Know your subject.
And we've been, you know, your subject. When you get a firm
understanding of war number one, you will find yourself
looking at the pictures, looking at the scenery, looking at the area. And I'll totally
different light. You will start thinking
like a photographer, instead of like a random
tourists who just those two camera up to their
lie and snapped a picture. You will actually put
dot into your picture in that separate you as an
amateur versus a professional. Professionals always put thought
into everything they do.
10. Rule Number Two in Photography: It is now time to talk about my second rule of photography. In the first module, we talked
about know your subject. And that is very important. You don't want to
guess randomly, be snapping pictures
of everything. Your subject will get
lost in the process. Your viewer will not
know what. To look at. The second row of photography ears bring
attention to your subject. Now what do I mean by brain
attempting to your subject? What I mean is there are certain other voice of
photography that we use. You've may have heard of them. The rule of thirds. The wall or bleeding
lines frame your subject. Beyond the frame
with your subject. These were all
different ways you can brain accessing
to your subject. The idea here is that you want your subject
to be flattened center. You want them to be the
main focus of the picture. You want to bring
attention to your subject. Now you can do that
in various ways as I have just mentioned. But the key takeaway
for more number two is to bring attention
to your subject.
11. Rule Number Three in Photography: In now we come to
war number three. Now wore number three, combined everything we have
learned in this course. It combines base, combines
the exposure triangle. It combines one,
know your subject. It combines all to bring
attention to your subject. Wolf three is simply hold the
attention on your subject. And what that means is
that is growing in brain, in the entire picture together, brain and everything into sync. You've got your background
straightened out. You have your bulk
is straight now, like do you run in-focus? You know what you're doing
as far as your subject. Is it moving it since deal, you have the proper light
to light the subject. Are they in the dark
or is it too bright? You know, your subject
wore number one. So you know exactly what
you're photographing. You have you have a purpose, not just randomly
snapping pictures, willy nilly, you have
to have a purpose. And more, number two, you bring attention
to your subject. Now, I mentioned that brain
or tensing to your subject. There are other rules
that we follow, e.g. the rule of thirds. As you can see here, the Woolworth there
is simply divides the picture into thirds. Left, Miro, center,
top, middle, bottom. If you look at this picture, you can see that this jar with the flowers is on the left
thirds of the picture. And if we look at
somebody's other pictures, you can see the same vein. You can see where the subject
is in a third of the frame. The next rule that we talked
about was leading lines. In. If you look at these pictures, you can kind of see that
your eyes follow a line, they follow a pattern. The next rule that we talked about was framing your subject. In. If you look at these pictures, you can see how we kinda
flamed or subject. Sometimes we used
three limbs or trees. Sometimes we use leaves. Sometimes we use arts raise, or in the case of this picture, curtains with the chairs and the table kind of
framed in between. Now, the final way of
glowing attempting to our subject is to fill the frame to make
them larger than life. As you can see in
these pictures, are subject literally
fills the entire frame. Sometimes we enlarge the Emmys an blur out the
background GS enough. So they are, you can still make out that
something is layer. But your focus is on
the main subject. They are in nice and sharp. They feel the frame and everything else
isn't blurred out. So well, number three is
simply tie in everything you have learned together to
make that perfect picture. And once you start doing that, you start applying base, utilizing the exposure triangle. Utilizing the rewards
over cartography. Know your subject. Grant accessing to your subject, hold the attention
on your subject. Your pictures will go for air. Yeah, it's nice to, wow. Who took that picture?
12. Photo Project: Time for our final project. In our project, I
want you to go out, find a place, any place. It could be your
backyard to be the park. Anywhere. The place of your choosing
is totally up to you. Then you bind a subject. Any subject, something
that you feel worthy of taken a picture of. A, can be, again, a person, place, or thing. Object can be an animal,
a family member. Again, this is
totally up to you. Whatever you do. I want you to use. The photo check sheet that I included in the
resources on that sheet, you will see base BAC. I want you to check
the background. Make sure there's nothing in the picture that
shouldn't be there. I want you to decide
your area of focus, your aperture, what
you want in focus, the human gesture subject? Or do you want the
entire scene in focus? I want you to look at the speed, but it's just subject doing. Did you choose a subject that is at rest or is your
subject moving? Then I want you to
check the exposure. How much light do you have? Do you have enough light? Or do you need to add some? Maybe you have two months and
you need to take some away, whatever you can
to try to control the light after you've gone through your
checklist of base. Next, I want you to
focus on the three wars. Know your subject. Make sure you know what
you are photographing. Too many items in the
picture that do not bring value will make the
picture that's desirable. So make sure you have
an understanding of what you are photographing. Now, we're going to do our
testing to our subject. Use. One of the other
wolves that I talked to you about used award thirds. Maybe leading lines. If you can, maybe you might
try to frame the subject or enlarged in the frame so that it fills
the entire frame. Whatever choice you choose
is totally up to you. You know, the situation, you know what you
are looking at, what is in front of you. So choose the best option that you think would bring
attention to your subject. An EN row number three, as I stated in the course,
ties everything together. Rule number three
in this case is, hold the attention
on your subject. So after you've gone through this checklist,
take your picture. If you are happy
with your picture uploaded to the project gallery so that other students can see how much you have improved
in your photography. Show off your picture
and why you added, take the time to comment on
other students pictures. Db be back to them. And they will give
P back to you. And I, myself will give be back. I do hope you got value
out of this course. And with that said, keep taking pictures,
happy photography.
13. Course Conclusion: I would like to give
my gratitude and thanks for taking
this course with me. I do hope you got
some value out of it. Even if she has a
little some of this, you may have already
known somebody. You've may have never heard of. Hopefully, something
good came from it. My hope that you
will start to apply base store to utilize
the exposure triangle. An applied of three rules that I talked about in this
course. Over time. You'll stop even
thinking about it. They will come second nature. They will come naturally to you. When you go to take a picture,
you will automatically, without even thinking,
starts again in the area. Looking for the best possible angle position to
take the picture. You will spark means it
should be there and you will automatically remove them
or reposition yourself. You will know instantly
what you want in focus or what you
don't want in focus, or maybe the entire picture. You will know, do
I need to adjust for movement or is my
subject sentence deal? You will be able to analyze the light and know if you
need a introduce more light. We'll take some away. If that's not possible, maybe just change locations to where the lighting is better. All of this was starting to
become second nature to you. The same thing with the walls of photography that I discussed. You will learn to identify what your subject ears so
that you can draw focus to your subject and
not have your viewers eyes just wondering everywhere
all over the picture. You will borrow attention
to your subject so that when your viewer looks at the picture
for the first time, they go instantly
to your subject. And again, not just
all over the place. And you'll be able to maintain the viewer's attention to keep them from
wandering off the page. Because once their eyes
leave the picture, you have lost them as a viewer. So we want to
maintain that focus. We want them to be
engaged in our pictures. Applying what you've learned in this course will enable
you to do just that. To keep your viewer
engaged in your pictures.
Jay Scovel
