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Inspiration on Demand

Lesson 11 from: Lighting for Boudoir and Glamour

Lou Freeman

Inspiration on Demand

Lesson 11 from: Lighting for Boudoir and Glamour

Lou Freeman

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Lesson Info

11. Inspiration on Demand

Next Lesson: Staying Inspired

Lesson Info

Inspiration on Demand

In this particular segment, I'm excited to talk to you about something a little different, so hopefully this won't be so information and technically driving this is more about how I inspire myself. I'm going to talk about the idea of creativity on demand, um, and how that affects my life. Believe it or not, it comes to a point where it just flows right out of you. One thing right after the other imprints easy on you just make things that's what we do and that's, you know, it feels good to make things, I think, into inspire others creativity on demand was something that was pushed on me at my first job at an ad agency and trying to inspire people that aren't necessarily that creative. Sometimes do you ever feel like you come up with an idea and people don't get it? So you're finding ways to be created in a way that they can see themselves for the photographs you might be taken or let's say, for a commercial assignment, we talked about doing portrait's yesterday and inspiring those kinds...

of things to be interesting in unique and you can, you know, there's a limit, obviously, but learning how to be creative and inspire people to be more than what they think they have to offer is there's a reward in that? That, to me is probably why maybe, why even do this entire process? So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how I get my ideas together, you know? We know there's a right way to do things in the economic way to do things and then there's a creative way to do things. So because of making money and keeping everything in tight tune, we have to do those things in synchronized motion or gets out of hand, so you're imagines imagination is what's going to take you everywhere but being concise and on point and being very cost effective with it will allow you to make a big statement and show your work to everyone and not feel guilty about it, and you'll have more money in the end. So it's about creating impact with your photographs is probably the most important thing I could say, and I'm going to generalize with the subject today to be about any kind of photography you're gonna create. If you're going to go to the law farmer into boudoir shoot head shots or whichever avenue of interest you've got to make impact and you have to get noticed, well, how do you do that? You have to be very quick, it'll be very quiet if you listen and you have to be able to draw a conclusion. This right for that person almost immediately, that is being creative on demand to may and seeing away where there's never any wasted money or wasted efforts in that process. For me, I started visualization process. I try to be, I ask a lot of questions right up front if it's someone coming for boudoir or it's a creative shoot I'm going to do for the department store on ad agency, I have my questions on the front of my tongue, almost in my mind of what I need to ask and then I'm very quiet take notes, and I listen, I'm trying to listen to where their fears are and where their creative motivation as I asked him what they aspire to be our who inspires them, what might be their competition, and then I do my homework. So then I start a process of making a list. I call it the birth of an idea, and if you have all the information straight thie ideas should come right to the front of your mind or maybe even several. Sometimes in the beginning of this whole process, when I was in my twenties, I was so inundated with the ideas, I couldn't decide which one to use, so I started writing things down and I use a pad and paper. I never throw those peds and paper away you spiral notebooks, I have this I love pencils, sharpies and spiral notebooks and keep them like the same size you're using their turban in my bag and sometimes I'm when I'm doing this brainstorming or idea gathering stage, I'm not typing in my computer, I don't want to deal with that till it's time to deal with that. I prefer this intimate thing with myself writing downwards, and when I go back and look at the notebook from the year prior, you know, keep it in my file with my butt but keeping stuff because it lets me kind of think, what was I thinking about then? And I can look at that list of words and see exactly where my head was going and what was making me, you know, think about all these things I might start out with when I was doing the ice princess story I started writing down, obviously ice. Then I started thinking about all of the words that related to that and how those things could stretch out into other ideas. Then I get over into my thigh zara's and start looking in words that mean the same thing but sound totally different inspiring words, other words that might lead me into a new thought process, so when I'm in that intimate interview gathering stage with my client I know that I have fifteen to twenty minutes to inspire them, and when you ask someone who's paying you to do something or potentially going to pay you those kinds of questions, you're giving them a platform of courage so that they can present to you what they want to hear a lot of people don't feel like what they want has ever asked of them, they're used to coming somewhere and they're told what they're going to get thie american way to present what's going to happen to you, you're paying for it, this is what you're going to get there unprepared for that question from you, so that makes them feel like there's a release there and you start a conversation and opened up comfort zone. I want everyone I'm shooting and everyone on my team on a crew to be on a personal level with me so that they're not afraid to ask me tell me if I need something or create something or what about when I'm getting ready to come up with an idea so ideas storming once I get to that full point, then I start creating a vision on that concept, and then I'm writing that down and forming an opinion on that so starting with that list, starting with that outline, I wanted to be the concept of my dream think big get outside of your comfort zone what if that's, when you're really going to start living it, hovering above the ground with your ideas, if you hold yourself back, fear will will haunt you for your life. Fear will haunt you from speed lights. Fear will hunt you from studio lights it will haunt you from creativity and if you have a little statement across mine, top of both of my computers in my office, one says it's there's always a way to win, and the second one says, do that which you fear them us and I sit there and think, what am I what's holding me back once a month? I go through this one help what am I holding myself back from something I could potentially be doing in my life when I was younger? I never have sense of things time running out, but as you get older, you start to see that and you want to achieve as much as you can in your life, so I urge you to achieve maur if that's what your goal is be in the certain places and you're not getting there. The only person that's holding back is you. So make yourself on achievement list every year and try to do those things, so the question and answer phase is going to start really makes him connective ity between you and your client you're going to be able to tell right up front if it's a boudoir shoot, what come close, they have what kind of shot they want? Half you can ask him questions about the location they might be in living in, or things that they love to do that could be ideas for you to be shooting with. You might not know that they have all these cool props are a waterfall in the backyard or an amazing black swimming pole? Or, you know, I could go on for days that the list of things that I found when I've asked these questions of other people, so the style and the look and the color of our identity of a commercial product is also something you want to know about. I try to do as much homework as I can if I'm shooting for a lingerie company, I want to know who their competitors are, what their ads look like, and I want to come up with ideas that are forward thinking not something I saw from ninety in forties and let's that's the trend around us I want to help everyone in my commercial world stand out is significant. Andi, if you think about what's going on in the design world in terms of headshots, most people are trying to get a more modern, youthful look about the business. That they're approaching so in terms of you shooting more business head shots that's something to think about the even the look of those can be more modern, natural light, more interesting shots not necessarily a seamless with a tie, you know, inspire if that's what they're doing do that then inspired them forward at the same time if you have time, those kinds of relationships and that trust brings you back year after year, time after time. So there's lots of options that I'm going to present to you of ways that you can start thinking I have my personal way, but when I'm looking at my list here and my inspiration for a photo shoot for a boudoir, you know, today might be about a costume or it might be about hair makeup may be I'm working with somebody really closely and I'm going through a phase where everything I do with them has really dynamic results sometimes I take it on phases where I'm working kind of constantly with one person and then you go through a phase where things were kind of complacent. It is time to change it's time to grow when I was creating my look fabulous dvd siri's one of the best things that happened in mie creatively was the fact that I couldn't have my favorite to makeup artists working with me next thing I knew I was working with new people fresh inspiring people that were excited about being in my space and working with me then we're complaining about anything they couldn't wait to get there. I want that energy around my clients and around myself it makes me feel good to pay them at the end of the day makes me feel great for my client if I was sitting in that chair, I would want that kind of energy there like they were glad to see me when I got there to spend my money. So look for things that you can have for inspiration on the day, even if it's just a simple, you know, lingerie shot or a simple headshot find a way to make every shoot unique and different. So even after you come out with all these ideas you want, always be checking your cost efficiency and you know if it's going to cost you personally a lot of money to produce a shoot, you really want to say that when you're doing your major revamps of your book and portfolio for the year, you want to try to get people to collaborate with you in and banning have your client's help you pay them for that and the results most of my clients want to see some of the shots that I've done with the makeup and hair people that I'm working with so that it will give you a chance to get your working relationship down pat and then when you bring him into a paid circumstance, they're much more motivated to provide a great result from you and treat you super respectfully on the set. So, um when I'm making the props in the sets as you guys have seen this week live on the show, we know that some of the sets may look like they're expensive or, you know, out of control complicated to make I always asked myself this is what I want this is what I wanted to look like how can I do this on my budget that I have, you know, how much am I willing to spend on the set? Can I find any of this pre made first gonna borrow it? And then can I make recreate it or make it and nine times out of ten, you can obviously there's drifting that weaken dio? But you know, sometimes I'll go to the highest in place to look for inspiration and find a way around, creating that on a budget that I can actually live with on ben asking lots of questions from the people I know that air also creative. So you know, one thing that you might need to make the shot seeing you may not be able to find might be out of season even so one of the things that I've done over the years, even when I'm writing for classes or writing for for an idea for a new advertising agency is create something called a mind notre. An outline when your first creating your first editorials, you want to create a little body of work that has a mood to it. Sometimes I'll create a body of work into is create an entire port little booklet report foliar around that that's what goes in my purse for a couple of months, and I show it to everybody I know physically, so I kind of and always creating new things like that that are inspiring to show and all of the other income streams come from all of that stuff. So if you're not into dealing with riding, designing, you can also make a pinterest board and put your ideas together. I had a bride send me a pinterest board this week, and so, you know, I really want to do a bridal portrait with you. I just wanted to show you everything that's included in our our programme and it was such a nice way for me to see it and it was all in one place. I didn't have to go searching for it go through an email with a folder of files, it was all right there. And it was something she had used to make our life easier, presenting it to other people that were going to be participating with her event. And I thought, you know that the really great way for you to make a presentation back, teo, the people, financial people, your shit shooting and it looks really professional nice, eh? So you want to come across, is forward thinking and well thought out as you can when that communication break comes through, when you finally see that idea in your head or a couple that you want to present, showing physical photographs is always a good idea or images may be that you shot along the same line, and if the hall oates fails, a classic outline is always good as a reference did and then go back and check it that I do what I set out to achieve when you actually get on the set. When I was younger in my career, I would start out with five shots and I would get three done, and then someone would suggest we change the hair or a style and we would veer off the track of my creativity and I'd have three shots that coordinated with the other two were beautiful, but they had nothing to do with that body of work I was creating and buy that body of work on humans. The father six shots that you create with a couple of outfits that relate like yesterday when we shot the snow scene at the end of the day if you're going to go to the trouble to set that up you might as well make a few shots with impact party models just flip them back and forth and work through your day that's how you start that whole process of creativity and building a body of work so the classic outline as an all else fails successful image making and with advertising agencies is something that is a little more challenging because it's not just your creativity or your set of rules they're going to have a product to sell and there's going to be you know the line items of what is safe to deal with there you want to make sure you know what they stand for and what they want to say with the product so even if you come up with this amazing idea you want to make sure that you're paying attention to that client not even the middle person as much as that client the bigger the job them or impact is going to make on your career so there's two things you really want to make sure you try to focus on getting a few celebrities in your book and getting a couple commercial clients under your belt and then make yourself a bullet point outline of the questions you ask so you keep referring to that as you're designing the sheep concept as you're implementing the design on the actual physical shoot itself is a couple questions you're going to want to ask yourself do you really have the concept down that they want to convey in one single photograph? Is the message happy sad or indifferent are you trying to talk about something that's going to be pivotal in you know the general public's I will people notice this picture why would anybody want to look at it? You have to ask yourself the same questions that other people might say why have you seen such and such add what is it about that's going to draw me in creative composition? You want to think about interest points in your image when I look at every photograph that I create or every vision that I have a photograph I create I'm thinking aboutthe shape you know that vertical format the horizontal format am I making the most out of that shot am I is the body language conveying any part of that message? How about the expression on the face? What could I have the people dio and I'm still writing words down that lead me in this direction it sounds complicated but I do think about that because you will be in the middle of the set and I think you have everything going on and somebody will throw in one little you know tasty treat like that for you to think about it will railroad the whole idea you had so you kind of wanna be prepared for the pitfalls as well as the positive things and all this inspiration you're going to bring so you're ready for that I'm like a trouble shooter if that makes any sense I make sure that I've covered my bases on the bad sides so and then there's technical aspects do you want to do something creatively with lenses or light or unusual colorations how does that tie back to the commercial client or to your boudoir glamour person if they come in and telling you they want to shoot with you and there's like three things they'd love to see you want to make sure as you're addressing that that all the shots you create focus on that don't ignore what they're important desires are because sometimes it's been delivered down from commercially from several levels above you when you get out to that subject they're going to say well you know you didn't do what we talked about even on your cool idea so and last but not least if you have a story to tell are let's say you're doing a boot to our shoot and the subject's husband is at war and she wants to present him something when he comes home is there a story being teldyn your photo shoot you want toe is is there a start a middle a finishing an ending did the message she want to say get conveyed in your story so those are the kind of things I think about and I want to make sure that I'm complete and then I keep talking to the subject as I'm shooting them or to the commercial client in both cases and make sure I'm delivering that and get a sign off before I walk away so it's much easier to create the concept and deliver it and ask these questions and then if you need to re shoot something or change the angle of something while you're shooting it then after you get home process out the images and go we didn't quite do that last shot I said I would d'oh so be careful what you say you khun dio and if you write it all down like that, take it with you use your checklist you will deliver all of that so if you have a great concept usually pretty much ironed out that vision you're going to create uhm limitations for may for concepts sometimes is the physical time to go somewhere sometimes I'm on a plane I can't carry everything I own and all my cool stuff with me when I'm travelling so using backdrops has helped me create things anywhere it's kind of eliminated that doing great post work and having post is a concept sometimes helps me out of that situation most of the people that I shoot still like walking into a cool set up and sometimes I do that now just for the sheer joy of making the whole production aspect of it what I think it should be so if you have a great concept putting it together is going to lead to a great vision so on my suggestion to you always sit and calmly visualized before you shoot on dh take time for that that's the fun part to me that's the enjoyment phase that's when you're going to stand up and present and be really calm and happy about what you're putting together so if you're not willing to change you've been doing the same thing over and over and you keep using the same umbrella and the same thing and you keep going to the same window and you know you've got the same four five background backgrounds and your work's looking nice but it's like an eight hour seven and ten one two ten and you want inspiration on ly person that can challenge you is you so you need to apply self challenges I'm going to do a story that includes five set ups wants him up or something like that I'm going to step out of my box I'm going to put down my speed life I'm going fully get on into studio lighting I'm not going to use that underlie I use every day for six months when I was in my twenties, I made myself go through a phase where I took my life's apart every day and put them away, so I didn't just roll the same things over that always worked into place, and I forced myself into creativity that way on I think that's sometimes good, I like change, so if you take on the subject of shooting one shot for somebody, go ahead and make more out of it while you have it all together, shoot for the person didn't shoot for yourself when you have that gorgeous person that calls you and says, I want to a shoot while you have the hair that make up this dallas and all that under the umbrella, go ahead and book yourself out a couple of more hours and that's, the subject you came to, she was may I'm so excited about you, I would like to do some more shoots with you additionally, today, so then you're not doing it totally for free, they've paid you, and then you can inspire from there. So guess what else you've just done with that client made them feel like a million dollars, and they'll say, oh, we did this in this in this it helps everyone when you inspire forward like that so and creating the five to six stories you don't have to release all of those shots at one time I create a body of work out of each one of these shoots and then I kind of trickle two or three hours then I'll trickle to three more out all in the background I'm creating materials to market with getting ready for my website and I make a bin of images that I'm going to circulate through my website and I dropped those in I don't dump it all in there once because then everybody's so why did you see it great and they don't come back you want to kind of keep trickling this new stuff in there that's killer so that people won't wow did you see what else they're doing? Oh my goodness that's new to and wow did you see this new story? You have to constantly be working on the inspiration to get the people to look at you so that when you go out and do all the marketing we're going to talk about later this afternoon every single thing on that website is killer everything that you're marking with his killer so if you can't find somebody who wants to be inspiring with you then that's probably going to be a world block you want to set up interviews, call the modeling agencies, go look and see who the coolest hair and makeup people are in town and make those do test shots with them see how the energy flows between the two of you see look at their books and see what their strong points are you might want to pair them up together if you think about making all of your money from these inspirational shoots you're going to do for the next year it makes it worse while to invest the money and to have it done so we're going to look at a couple videos right now which you're pretty awesome and these concepts to me glamour and boudoir really won um for me I shot glamour for playboy for such a long time and when the cop concept of boudoir photography came about on the way it was marketing it's being marketed through photographers as a channel seemed to be a wonderful way to make it all okay you know for us to shoot these amazing pictures of women or even men in this world that we live in now it's a lot more acceptable to do than when I started this it's been a joy for me to share all of the different ways I like things to help you guys bring and his fire of the whole gamut up too to par to another level I should say s o don't be afraid delight people light makes the magic but bring all the rest as well parent makeup and these are kind of fun so I'm kind of looking forward to sharing with you well, communication is the most important thing and from the beginning I tried to make sure the makeup, the hair, the styling and my team have everything they need to put everything right in place I communicate with concept first and deliver that makeup and hair people so they can get their work underway right after this I have my assistant's begin setting up the lighting in exactly the same quality and kind of style lining them, seeing from my contact sheets that I brought to the photo shoot today we're working with speed lights and I have a menagerie of modifiers that I like to work so they begin setting those up I always have this stylist here make up in the model myself always bring clothes and props I find the more we have the better of the shoot. Hee hee hee right here ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ee ah ah ah ah I so that's something I might present to them after so that was about four hours of shooting what you just looked at all done in one day one afternoon we had at one place all of those wonderful locations were in this one house, so that's the way you kind of if you're gonna go to a location to really use something amazing like that, I don't go to that house over and over you don't wanna wear out your opportunities or the look of something you want to repeat it a few times but you want to keep moving most of the images that you looked in there some had been retouched thumb had not I just wanted I left it that way so you could kind of really see what it looks like when you're taking the picture most of the production work that I do and post on these types of things I've been around thirty minutes on each thing smoothing, cleaning up and getting everything perfectly executed the light there went from speed light toe I slight to natural light to total natural light and phil I think we did almost five shots in that segment of time from start to finish set up we arrived at one thirty lf they're five fifteen, five thirty so it's not so bad right and there is also one more this one is outside and on location no, wait yeah on wait here yeah, you got it wait wait wait you we did although the aerial shots with cam ranger above the car and above the bed as you saw there worked everything from the ipad downloading application for cam ranger up to my ipad you do this you can also download it to your laptop if you want are your iphone or if you have an ipad mini or something like that so as you can see, everything starts with a concept, the ideas come in, then the concept happened. Once the concept happens, then I start looking for a way to facilitate that. So, anywhere, any time you can, you want to try to find something that's going to give you a catalyst to drive your look with. This woman had such an amazing body and amazing physique, and she works at all time. And we thought, what a great way to show it. You know, we'll do something high. Glam will do something kind of exotic and sexy, sort of like the sports illustrated magazine feel on dh that's, how the whole thing began. And in the beginning it started with the tiki hat, and I met this gentleman that is, all he does is build tiki hats and build these things for events and parties and so forth, and I called him, and I rented the space for him from the day, and it was just spectacular. It gave us sebastian to be in out of the sun. I could set up out in the yard and put my whole scream gym set up together, and then apply the light on these images were inspired by this italy castle we were, and just a month or so ago, hasbeen maybe two months now, but sometimes it's about this was all started with the hair. Really? To be honest with you, I knew I was going to a castle and I had to make up artist create this hairpiece for me. So sometimes it begins with something that simple is one idea. And that idea brings on another idea. This all began with the pinup siri's. Then we found the airplane. Then the whole look of the makeup and hair in the style and kind of pulled together with the pink. When we found the flower in the belt. This was all inspired by the water patterns on the swimsuits thes air from ob naka ture. This is also the same designer that made that awesome dress that we shot in the snow scene yesterday and is going to bring on ah shot today force today can't wait to share with but, you know, these are things that I look for that would be great for photo shoots and make a big impact in both of these swimsuits. One was better on one girl and one on the other, so all the posing all the movements, everything was based on around the water and the style and the look of everything that you're saying here sometimes it's about amazing hair and makeup. You know, maybe I'm inspired by we were talking about marilyn monroe for a week, and the next thing I know, I'm doing a maryland kind of inspired story, but a modern version of it. And when you work with really great, creative, concise people, you get really amazing results makes it more fun, more exciting, even though this is really simply executed, I think the impact is strong, so sometimes the best impact is being a simple or approach with a bigger impact sometimes it's something as simple as a prop somebody wants to shoot with in this case, this young lady had made this pillow and she called me, she said, I want to do like a maryland inspired image, and I have some unbelievable pillow I had made. I'm not sure about the size of it that's what I'd like to bring, and I shot this from above while lying on the scaffolding and I set up the bed set everything from right underneath my vision, and I shot through the slots, the floor it's actually really comfortable and easy to do. And this was all started with the bra owned abroad for a while, and I could never find anything that matched it quite perfectly, and then lindsay gave me the the eye mask for my birthday, when we were on the tour and I was holding onto it because it was like I couldn't wait to shoot it, and then this whole thing kind of came together and the young lady brought the underwear so it sometimes it begins that simple and makes the biggest impact, and she was the perfect person to wear it. Sometimes I have these costumes and pieces that I buy, and they'll lay there in the bin, and the right person doesn't come along, and then suddenly there they are, and it fits them great, and you have a perfect scenario for a great shoot, and this particular image is going to be something like what we're going to do on our first set up today. This was natural, light and studio like on this location, but we made everything she's wearing, and we're going to do something very similar that today it has a really big impact. This was all inspired by the underwear and the location, hair and makeup, and everything followed suit to that, bringing the silver beads. You know, I made the decision to bring those because I knew that they would match anything that was silver and pewter tope all that sort of mentality feel anew that she could probably easily go in the bronze direction, but I thought the contrast ing complimentary silvertone pewter tones would be really great against her skin and in the end, after I shot everything this ended up being to me the most powerful shoot out of all of them an amazing makeup you know, I showed this to you at the other day, but I wanted to reiterate this because I cannot tell you how many times people want to scrimp on the makeup and scrimp on the styling this gramps, gramps, ground and it's all about the money to them in the beginning. But those are the things that make the shot look like what it does if you don't have great makeup, the photograph is going to be weak or never have the impact for me a lot of times it's the hair too should they be fun? Beautiful she's a beautiful girl in reality, but baby find straight standing hair so too get the impact I needed somebody that knew how to manipulate the hair, to give me the impact I want and when you're asking for make up something that I wanted to say in terms of the snow shot yesterday was the impact of the snow shot, the hair and the makeup had to be two or three times what it would normally be in its effect toe to resonate and play in the field that's no scene yesterday or it would have been lost it would have been very weak, I think so bringing things up so it really has the equal impact to the set you create and knowing what to ask for is really great you don't want to ask for it after it's applied you want to ask for it before you ever even start to shoot and show show your artist what you're looking for were and feel confidence with them and then talk about it with the subject and make sure everything's okay with the impact we took her photo shoot in waves and built up to this she would have never had or makeup down on any kind of professional level and to see that in the beginning could have been talking to her as a feeling like showing a lot of makeup that it does actually I think was what had she held it together to be honest and this particular photo shoot when we were putting all of this together we were in a wonderful garden in a jungle environment with a pool in the middle and all I could think of was hawaii and flowers so it suddenly became about the flowers and I spent a little bit of time trying to find things that were affordable for us to work with, to use and as many colors as possible and I knew I had this cute little dress to work with and everything was inspired from that one one piece of fabric in the garden all together and this is obviously the simplicity of it, just the american flag and this image when I took it, I never realized how many times I would pull this image out or what kind of impact it would make for me. But I get so many compliments on this picture and it's too may the opposite of some of the styling we've been doing sometimes simple bruce weber styled all american clean, sexy natural is the right way to go. Oh, um, and this particular image, this awesome subject is a very good friend of mine. We've worked together a lot, she's the same person it was with the red pillow, she personally made the headboard in the pillows and talk to me about the wallpaper background, but it would be pretty easy for you to create something like this on your own if you're not into it. Denny actually has backgrounds that have headboards made onto the back, and you could set up your own bed a couple of feet in front of it and it would read is if you did so it's, the impact really is up to you and how you create it if you don't want to go anywhere and you want to set it up in your safe studio, you can create something really fun like this. She had the telephone we used that I laid her on her back that's the classic pose that I say it's okay to shoot along someone's body but she had on really beautiful lawns you're a really beautiful support garments in everything that made everything just so fingernails hair styled to perfection to go with the look she was trying to achieve sometimes the inspiration is the subject and severity of the hair her hair came when she showed up her head was shaved so we were we thought at first this is limitation but it ended up being the inspiration and I kept thinking to myself she looks like grace jones I keep feeling grace jones every time I look at this and the next thing I know we were styling it moving in that direction and the color and the side of the hair and the makeup and everything was from that impact from the two outfits the posing and the car and everything it was all kind of synchronicity the right pose with right line right situation. This was all inspired by this sort of many west image and the truck shooting in black and white was a decision I made a cz we were doing it the makeup and hair was absolutely standing, but to me it just I was singing as black and white saying hear all about the impact sometimes I'm inspired to help people look the best they can sew the style of the hair might be I might you know ask the makeup ours can you make the hair a little bigger toe offset you know a figure I might choose an outfit to actually be more flattering to the figure the interaction that happens between these subjects is usually conceived but me they don't know each other they walked out they stand there and they look like you know to stiff individuals unless I inspire funny conversation you know if you use your personality to get people loosen up and cut up and connect and I call it disarm you have to get them out of there fear zone to get them to interact with each other and that person on that personality that you developed can also be another catalyst and how the photographs turnout and I find that over exaggeration in that makes it even more impactful seems like everything in photography's times two or three sometimes I might just have an idea strictly ofthis story or maybe I've been to the movies and I was moved by avatar or something like that you never know what it's going to be with me and I'm saying as I began today as you open up the door of constant idea flo and concept making you will free yourself of any fear and you'll just start making things but I do suggest if you're going to step out into that environment you want to make sure that you do it, too, to the best degree possible, be thinking about color and style and design and placement of things inside the images that you create. So everything is full and rich, and if you're going to go to the trouble, make something that you could work in in multiple shots on the same set, even on some of the sets. Today, we've joined the set. We don't have enough room to do it separately, so we've got it kind of together very easily, even just gonna walk across from one thing to the other and make it all work together. So to me, there's, there is no dumb questions. There's, there's, no failure, there's. No reason to say no to anything. Once you agree to say I can create, I can make things happen in the best of my possibility.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Canon 600EX RT Flash Set Up.pdf
Lighting for Boudoir and Glamour Slides.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Lou is one of the most inspiring photographers Ive seen on Creative live. When I watch her, its like watching a great guitar player... in that, she hears the music before she ever plays it. Lighting and posing flows out of her with incredible ease. She inspires me so much! No fluff here, just pure maximum quality info and inspiration. Id love to meet her some day just to thank her for what she has given.

Francie Fillatti
 

Lou is one of my favorites. Although I shoot primarily woman, I don't do Boudoir. I love her calm, methodical style, and attention to detail. I respect that she always makes her women look elegant and empowered instead of objectifying them. Her images are sensitive and beautiful and I can't wait to watch her again today! I learned so much from her..

Bridget Murphy
 

I am amazed at how much information Lou gives away here. Her knowledge of the craft is extremely apparent and the end product is always stunning. I could watch this over and over for its ideas and inspiration.

Student Work

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