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Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

Lesson 47 from: Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Brooke Shaden

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

Lesson 47 from: Fine Art Photography: The Complete Guide

Brooke Shaden

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Lesson Info

47. Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Class Introduction

19:06
2

Storytelling & Ideas

27:34
3

Universal Symbols in Stories

03:19
4

Create Interactive Characters

02:16
5

The Story is in The Details

04:13
6

Giving Your Audience Feelings

05:49
7

Guided Daydream Exercise

04:20
8

Elements of Imagery

02:19
9

The Death Scenario

01:47
10

Associations with Objects

03:01
11

Three Writing Exercises

06:39
12

Connection Through Art

30:35
13

Break Through Imposter Syndrome

07:40
14

Layering Inspiration

23:13
15

Creating an Original Narrative

07:42
16

Analyze an Image

04:12
17

Translate Emotion into Images

04:31
18

Finding Parts in Images

06:02
19

Finding Your Target Audience

04:05
20

Where Do You Want Your Images to Live?

12:01
21

Create a Series That Targets Your Audience

32:43
22

Formatting Your Work

06:08
23

Additional Materials to Attract Clients

07:24
24

Which Social Media Platforms Will be Useful?

04:17
25

How to Make Money from Your Target Audience

11:27
26

Circle of Focus

07:55
27

The Pillars of Branding

06:18
28

Planning Your Photoshoot

09:05
29

Choose Every Element for The Series

07:38
30

Write a Descriptive Paragraph

09:37
31

Sketch Your Ideas

17:27
32

Choose Your Gear

02:50
33

How to Utilize Costumes, Props & Locations

26:18
34

What Tells a Story in a Series?

13:06
35

Set Design Overview

01:43
36

Color Theory

19:50
37

Lighting for the Scene

12:05
38

Props, Wardrobe & Time Period for Set Design

06:00
39

Locations

04:31
40

Subject Within the Scene

07:26
41

Set Design Arrangement

05:46
42

Fine Art Compositing

03:46
43

Plan The Composite Before Shooting

10:29
44

Checklist for Composite Shooting

18:52
45

Analyze Composite Mistakes

12:11
46

Shoot: Black Backdrop for White Clothing

10:42
47

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

08:36
48

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Accessories

08:17
49

Shoot: Miniature Scene

09:59
50

Editing Workflow Overview

01:57
51

Add Fabric to Make a Big Dress

08:35
52

Edit Details of Images

08:09
53

Add Smoke & Texture

10:47
54

Blend Multiple Images Into One Composite

24:58
55

Put Subject Into a Miniature Scenario

17:55
56

Location Scouting & Test Photoshoot

22:10
57

Self Portrait Test Shoots

22:30
58

Shoot for Edit

04:21
59

Shoot Extra Stock Images

10:01
60

Practice the Shoot

25:07
61

Introduction to Shooting Photo Series

03:33
62

Shoot: Vine Image

10:40
63

Shoot: Sand Image

09:50
64

Shoot: End Table Image

04:59
65

Shoot: Bed Image

06:18
66

Shoot: Wall Paper Image

05:54
67

Shoot: Chair Image

08:02
68

Shoot: Mirror Image

06:57
69

Shoot: Moss Image

05:48
70

Shoot: Tree Image

07:33
71

Shoot: Fish Tank Image

04:09
72

Shoot: Feather Image

09:00
73

View Photo Series for Cohesion & Advanced Compositing

07:35
74

Edit Multiple Images to Show Cohesion

36:55
75

Edit Images with Advanced Compositing

29:33
76

Decide How to Start the Composite

09:35
77

Organize Final Images

21:37
78

Choosing Images for Your Portfolio

08:19
79

Order the Images in Your Portfolio

16:28
80

Why do Some Images Sell More Than Others?

16:03
81

Analyze Student Portfolio Image Order

11:42
82

Framing, Sizing, Editioning & Pricing

02:19
83

Determine Sizes for Prints

16:44
84

How to Choose Paper

13:56
85

How to Choose Editions

07:18
86

Pricing Strategies

18:59
87

How to Present Your Images

13:26
88

Example Pricing Exercise

09:39
89

Print Examples

08:23
90

Licensing, Commissions & Contracts

04:44
91

How to Keep Licensing Organized

06:07
92

How to Prepare Files for Licensing

07:28
93

Pricing Your Licensed Images

12:33
94

Contract Terms for Licensing

12:07
95

Where to Sell Images

04:55
96

Commission Pricing Structure

08:23
97

Contract for Commissions

12:17
98

Questions for a Commission Shoot

08:45
99

Working with Galleries

08:58
100

Benefits of Galleries

07:39
101

Contracts for Galleries

10:32
102

How to Find Galleries

05:22
103

Choose Images to Show

08:53
104

Hanging the Images

03:38
105

Importance of Proofing Prints

08:04
106

Interview with Soren Christensen Gallery

21:59
107

Press Package Overview

04:35
108

Artist Statement for Your Series

18:20
109

Write Your 'About Me' Page

09:04
110

Importance of Your Headshot

03:55
111

Create a Leave Behind & Elevator Pitch

20:19
112

Writing For Fine Art

04:44
113

Define Your Writing Style

14:49
114

Find Your Genre

06:41
115

What Sets You Apart?

02:25
116

Write to Different Audiences

05:10
117

Write for Blogging

39:57
118

Speak About Your Work

14:21
119

Branding for Video

07:37
120

Clearly Define Video Talking Points

14:27
121

Types of Video Content

31:45
122

Interview Practice

13:22
123

Diversifying Social Media Content

22:32
124

Create an Intentional Social Media Persona

24:48
125

Monetize Your Social Media Presence

18:46
126

Social Media Posting Plan

04:01
127

Choose Networks to Use & Invest

02:57
128

Presentation of Final Images

19:13
129

Printing Your Series

09:16
130

How to Work With a Print Lab

13:39
131

Proofing Your Prints

10:11
132

Bad Vs. Good Prints

03:32
133

Find Confidence to Print

10:50
134

Why Critique?

06:55
135

Critiquing Your Own Portfolio

10:39
136

Critique of Brooke's Series

16:18
137

Critique of Student Series

40:07
138

Yours is a Story Worth Telling

02:09

Lesson Info

Shoot: Black Backdrop for Color Clothing

I wanna photograph something fun though and really artistic and yeah, that sounds terrible, really artistic. This is gonna be so artistic you guys, it's just gonna be so great. But what we're going to do is a little bit of practice here with how do we create with nothing through compositing. So we've got this red fabric. Let me open it up. This is extremely expensive fabric. No, I'm just kidding. This was like three dollars from a fabric store. And I usually go in and I ask if they have any fabrics that they can't sell because sometimes they'll have something that got stained or for whatever reason they can't sell it or it's just a weird amount of it and I usually ask for that because then they'll give me a discount and then I don't have to pay full price because apparently I'm making myself sound super cheap and like I can't even pay for one yard of fabric, but still, why not right? If you're just gonna get it all dirty and it's gonna be disgusting, then you might as well. One way tha...

t I like to work is with fabric instead of dresses because I think that fabric is very moldable and dresses already have a certain look. So you saw April in this dress that I forced her to wear today and it's messy and it's all yucky and it has a certain look to it. I mean, first of all, it is a wedding dress, so I've already had several people ask me if I'm getting married when I've been out wearing it and one time I said yes and it was fun to lie to people. But yeah, this will not have that look. No one's gonna look at this and say, oh that's a cocktail dress or that's a wedding dress or it's this or that. It just is. But how do you make it look realistic? So I've got this dress and generally what I will do with creating a dress is to wrap it around my subject something like this, obviously without wearing a black shirt underneath it, just to give it some shape. And I'll sort of wrap it like that so then you can see the body shape of the person, but I'm worrying exactly about exactly what type of dress I'm gonna make. Will it be a princess dress? Will it be an A line dress? I don't even know. What is the other one? A fishtail dress, is that what's that called? Mermaid dress (laughing). Fishtail, mermaid, whatever. That's a braid. Fishtail is a braid. So I'm not worrying about that yet. I'm just making sure that it's form fitting enough. And then I'm going to take this fabric, once I've got that general shape to the person and just fling it all over the place to create nice flowing fabric and then it can be whatever I want it to be later on. I am, however, paying attention to a couple of things. One, making sure that when I fling it out it comes back to the person so that there's a believable perspective here, so that the fabric isn't like swoosh up in the air, like okay let's photograph this fabric even though it's supposed to be down there as a dress. You know, like if I'm trying to make it look like my dress is flowing out this way, I would rather do it like this, connecting it to my waist, flowing it out this way instead of doing these crazy things up in the air. It just won't work. The other thing that I'm thinking about is lighting, so I'm simply not changing my lighting situation in between. And then we go through our little checklist. Is there going to be blur on this, but not somewhere else? Something to think about. Where is your focus going to be and are you changing it? And in fact, focus is a big one for a lot of people because I'm on a manual focus lens, so I'm not switching my focus back and forth between like the background, the subject, the foreground, all these different things. So if you're on auto focus, you might find, depending on how you're using your camera that when you go like that your focus shifts to this piece of fabric up here or the tip of the fabric or something like that. So I like to keep my subject standing in one place, just move the fabric around like this and always pull it back to the subject so that this part of the dress is more in focus than what's in the foreground. Other things that I like to do if you're creating a gigantic dress out of this fabric, then maybe you want the fabric to come toward the camera more, so then maybe you'll take a step forward and this will be the lower part of the fabric coming closer to the camera. But that's something that we may or may not need to do here. So Tori, are you ready to be my model? I am ready. Yay. And what I have here is we're just using people in the studio today to photograph. And this should be pretty simple. I am going to, oh my gosh, you're so tall. Should I take my shoes off? No, you're good. I'm looking at her like wow this is like a giant dress on me and just a piece of fabric on you. But we're gonna make it work. So I'm going to tie this around here like that. Sorry. And I'm just getting like a knot in the back going because I am not even remotely organized enough to have any safety pins or anything like that with me. Is that okay? Uh-huh. Okay, well it's not okay for me, hold on. So instead of having safety pins with me, I just tie knots in fabric and people always say, but that doesn't look realistic and who cares. I don't know if you guys have heard, but pictures are 2-D things. So I don't care how the back of it looks as long as the front looks alright. And you're looking okay. You're looking a little baggy here, so let's pull it in a little bit. And I'm just going to make sure that when I take the picture this is pulled in so that she has some shape. And if she doesn't, I have been on many a mountaintops where I have this tied just exactly as you see it and then later on I'll just give myself some shape in Photoshop because that's possible. And you don't have to do it in person, but best to do it in person if we can. So I'm actually just gonna steal one of these clips because it's not everyday you're in a studio and you find clips just sitting in the corner of the room. So let's go for it. And I'm just gonna clip this fabric together. Perfect, okay, well you look perfect except for your straps. Would you mind pulling those down a little bit? Do you want it off the shoulder or-- Tucked into the dress fabric dress. Is it tight enough to be able to do that? Okay, good. I don't want any accidents on set today. So what I'm going to do is just take a quick step back and frame you up while you're doing that, so no pressure. And as you can see, I'm up kind of high right now, like I have my camera held up, not quite to my face, but pretty much, and I think that I would rather get a slightly lower angle on this because I want this to look really dramatic and you're already so tall. Good. So I'm gonna get down a little bit lower. I can't believe our luck with this black fabric. It's like so great. But I need to fix my settings because right now I'm at F2, which I'm okay with, I like a shallow depth of field, but I'm at 125 and I need to switch that, so I'm gonna go into manual mode here on my camera and I'm just gonna reset my settings because what I'm considering now is do I want blur? Do I want there to be blur on this dress or not? And that's something that I need to decide now, not later. So I'm at 125 for my shutter speed and I'm gonna take a quick test. Would you mind just kicking your leg out a little bit. Yeah, good. No, that was perfect. It doesn't have to look good, just have to see if we have any blur. And right now, we've got a little bit of blur, but I actually like that amount of blur. I think that that's kind of an interesting amount and I like the lighting too. And you might look at this and think, whoa that is so opposite from how I would shoot this. Like this is so dark and this so, like you're gonna have grain in that. And I know, I've been told over and over and that's fine with me. So right now, I'm sort of prioritizing my shutter speed, making sure that it's fast enough, that it's not just like a ghost of fabric that we have here because that would be really weird, but also making sure that my ISO isn't too high, so I'm just balancing those two needs here with my F2 aperture.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Guided Daydream & Writing Exercises Workbook (Lessons 1-11)
Creating an Original Narrative Workbook (Lessons 12-18)
Finding Your Target Audience Workbook (Lessons 19-27)
Planning Your Series Workbook (Lessons 28-34)
Set Design Workbook (Lessons 35-41)
Compositing Workflow Checklist (Lessons 42-49)
Editing Workflow Checklist (Lessons 50-55)
Location Scouting Workbook (Lessons 56-60)
Stock Image Downloads for Practice (Lessons 61-72)
Organizing Your Portfolio Workbook (Lessons 77-81)
Pricing & Editioning Your Work Workbook (Lessons 82-89)
Writing Contracts & Licensing Images Workbook (Lessons 90-98)
Gallery Best Practices (Lessons 99-106)
Pitch Package Workbook (Lessons 107-111)
Writing Your Brand Workbook (Lessons 112-117)
Marketing Workbook (Lessons 118-122)
Social Media Workbook (Lessons 123-127)
Printing Methods Checklist (Lessons 128-133)
Self Critique Workbook (Lessons 134-137)
Bonus Materials Guide
Syllabus
Image Edit Videos

Ratings and Reviews

April S.
 

I tuned in for most of Brooke's lessons in this course and watched some of them more than once as they were rebroadcast. First I want to say that Brooke is a very good instructor. Her easy-going, friendly, down-to-earth, somewhat quirky manner cannot be mistaken for unprofessional. She is very prepared, she speaks well (not a bunch of hemming and hawing), she is thoughtful, she is thorough, she is very relatable and at ease, and she is definitely professional in her presentation. I really thought when I first tuned in that it would mostly be background noise while I was at work, sound to keep me company. Not because I didn't like Brooke but I really didn't think I was into fine art photography nor did I think I cared about the business side of things much. Not now anyhow. I was really wrong. Brooke sparked a deep interest in me to delve into fine art photography, to consider creating images for myself, from my imagination. In fact, I realized that this was something I'd been thinking about for a couple of years though I hadn't put a name to it (the idea of creating pre-conceived images based on my own creative goals). I gleaned many little treasures from her about image sizes, working with printers, different types of paper, selling, interacting with galleries, and so much more. I may not need all of what she taught right now because I'm definitely headed in another direction at the moment, but she planted ideas and information in my head that I know will be useful at some point. Things I may not have thought of on my own, but that seed is in my head now so when the time comes, I'll know. I'd really like to buy her course but at the moment, with the holidays right around the corner, it's not in my personal budget. I'm grateful to have caught the live and rebroadcast lessons though, and her course is on my list to own. I think it's a great reference to be consulted over and over again, not watched once and forgotten. Kudos Brooke for really putting together an excellent course.

Ron Landis
 

I'm retired now, but spent decades in the people and training business. Brooke is extraordinary! Even though this course is extremely well organized and she's left nothing unattended, she moves through it with friendly conversational manners and without a sense of it being stilted. It's as though we are all her friends, not students, as she shares her heart and passion with us. What a joy it is to listen to her. And what a clear, unambiguous command of her subject. Wow! She explains it with such ease using explanations and techniques that won't overwhelm artists just starting their portfolio or the Photoshop-squeamish among us; but despite its simplicity her resulting art is breathtaking and beyond original. I wish more of my professors at school were as engaging. This was by far my best buy at Creative Live yet.

Angel Ricci
 

When the title says comprehensive, it means comprehensive! I loved every part of this course. It's inspirational, motivating, and insightful towards creating art work. Even if you are not necessarily considering a fine art specialty, the concepts discussed in this course are applicable to many areas! I find this super useful as a videographer and photographer and look to apply all of these exercises and concepts for my personal and business work moving forward. It is lengthy, but you will not regret a single minute. Brooke Shaden is an amazing artist and educator. I recommend keeping up with her work, presentations, and any future courses that may come in the future.

Student Work

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