Lessons

Lesson Info

Inspiration and Motivation

Your interview process is going to be much more effective if you have four, five questions and you repeat them if you answer the phone and you're all stressed out, you are not going to make a connection to where somebody's going to spend a lot more additional money with you if someone tries to talk you out of makeup in hair, the way I get around that is I tell them they're going to pay three times what the makeup artist cost in the retouching fees because they will, right? So you want to make sure you have your team explanation and if you presented in and that way they can't say no, they won't say no why would they buy the limousine and not put great tires on it? You know, it's, just part of it, so you want to make sure your color isn't impactful? I'd like to work with complementary colors on the set the way the set looks, the colors of the jails I use the impact of makeup everyone thinks about how colors combined blue eyes jump with oranges and browns so if you've got a gorgeous redhe...

ad ofwork sent walks in the door and she's got gorgeous golden eyes that's a field day for may hazel eyes have so much color, so you have all this room too work with there you talk to your makeup about hair makeup color stiles might be complementary and flattering to that. Suddenly, the image of the person jumps off the page when you think about the right color for the clothes, the hair and the makeup in the background. So all aspects lied to how great that person can look, because who paid you the person? So if you're working creatively, it goes off into a little more about branding for your client and things like that. So my options every time I do a photo shoot automatic hair and makeup, no questions, I never, ever shoot anybody without a professional makeup artist. I will not sit and have my picture taken without it. Although after thirty five years of shooting, I can almost getting on strike. But it's never amazing. I can get it done, but it's not amazing. I've won level and most people can do one look for themselves. Great, but to take you outside of your violence of what you look like, you find it. Another way of seeing yourself is truly amazing. And I can also say, at this point, the most important thing you can do is sit in the chair and work with a couple of makeup artisan, let them do your face and let somebody photograph you on watch how your face changes even for men. So today I'm going to bring in my team and each one of them is going to talk about all the little elements that make the impact. I do not take one hundred percent responsibility for my photo shoots it's all of us together, that impact is created by all of the glue that I'm about to introduce you to so camera styles, lenses and lights I talk about that extensively and my creator, my previous creative live I'm going today to do three simple set ups that have a lot of impact and tell you how I thought as I was creating that for you and your final tool to consider is photoshopped. The more you know about photoshopped, the more creative you khun b when somebody says to you, I have no money for my job, that means I'm not willing to spend any more money people don't think about that there could be any more money they could spend, they just think you're taking a picture of them, they don't understand all of that. So you're an educator and you're selling your product in your craft. To me, I'm not just selling it to make money, but I am selling it to make the impact required if they compromise you on any one of those properties guess what happens to the quality of the photograph you give them and they complain about it and this is every time I've ever allowed in the beginning of my career, let people go without that makeup in here, they come back and say, I'll never do that again, so you know, you have to be you have to find a way to say what you need so that the answer you get is always yes, so when you're in the beginning, you're thinking, where am I going to draw from? I want to do some artistic images for myself, and what are those artistic images going to dio don't need to go out and spend an arm and a leg, probably not, but if you don't know how to create a concept, I would suggest that the next three or four art shoots you do for yourself, you hire a team that's able to deliver some of the things you're wanting to do. If you do that, then you start to understand how the process can actually be created. You can ask people to come and help you, then you could might branch out on your own and maybe start getting a little more involved with what the images look like of your own right, so past future references is always a good place to start if you like to look at art and paintings and drawings, oh, you should have a subscription, every fashion magazine and the more european magazines take more chances than the american magazines you want to pay attention to what's going on around you at all ages take a trip to the makeup store, talk to different kinds of makeup people sit down, get to know the people in your area with your craft find out who can really make something out of absolutely nothing. Sometimes you can make people into a stylist for yourself after you get to a point where in your area where you live or you find somebody that might be crafty, you could come up with ideas and work collaboratively so basically you want to master better ideas than everybody around you. You don't want to sincerely want to give away all your secret, but you want to try to create a little bastion of art for yourself get it in front of people you want to craft your own lighting style if you have to lighting setups and that's all you know how to dio if you make wonderful sets and every one of those two lighting setups, you could do that for a long time and nobody will ever know the difference but to take it on another level and see how light and how style can change the whole impact is what I'm going to talk about now, so I have lots of people, lots of places that I now all over the country that have all kinds of things that I can create prom or draw from museums I offer to give contributions to museums that won't let me shoot there and start paying a location thing there's other ways to think about it you have to open up your mind and think creatively I also make stuff myself you know from time to time there just simply really is no money maybe the inclement weather you know I've met several people that live in canada and they told me about how long the winter is there and they can't get outside and they go crazy for locations I bought a bunch of backgrounds from denny they're all photographic backgrounds a light them and for the most part nobody can really tell where I'm at on I came at this business for fashion advertising I knew nothing about the portrait side of things till I started teaching I found these backgrounds and was like you know what this is going to be really wonderful for me I could pack up a bag of these and go to another country and if it's snowing who cares I could still make great things so if you decide to do that start out with neutral ones that you can use again and again and then buy them there if you join their membership thing I think they'd give you great discounts different event the different times so if you can't I can't create your set not willing don't know how you just literally are at a pass the best thing you can do against o'hara set stylist that's that stylist is different from my collecting stones sets tell us will help you make the place the style, the location the event looks like it needs to look to help it happen for you. So if you're shooting commercially and you need to create like a vintage, you know, kitchen or something like that, you need to know who you could call to help you pull that together for a little bit of money. So the most important thing is that you demand inspiration from yourself and you keep yourself motivated to do something different never accept what is exactly easily available. I usually say to myself, my first idea might be a good one, but usually my better ideas come from on down that list. If I have a job, I usually would create what I think they want me to give is an idea to present, and then I come up with two or three others if someone fights me on a concept like, oh that's not I really don't want to do this, I'm insisting on wearing that dress or something like that and, you know, it's the wrong choice. You have to go ahead and let them have that choice especially if they're paying but then you the way you get around that is saying after we shoot that dress can we go back and shoot this other dress you just know that you're gonna have to spend another forty five minutes with this person to give them a better example most of time they will end up choosing the images you shot but you cannot take it in a negative direction never let anybody sway your dream from happening sometimes my ideas come from locations and my kind of my thought processes if you've got a really complicated location you want to kind of keep what's in the shot comes simple um streamlined swim suits don't have to just be bikinis they could be all kinds of other things if you want to shoot somebody in swimsuits find somebody who could make them uh find somebody that can help you create something that's a little different from what you're used to seeing so if you got into a complicated location this is this wonderful a studio set that I found with heather leary who's here today heather young larry who has the dollhouse studio out in san diego this was absolutely perfect scenario for may when I'm working with something that's kind of complicated I worked with complicated even further in other words I take it even further I try to find the right location the right situation with the clothes the complexity of the hair and makeup everything needs to be together or work in the opposite my friends tell me I'm a cross between barbarella and a granola granola girl so my work has a tendency to look like that so my complex city is to me if it's a madhouse and it's a crazy house or funhouse than everything in it needed to kind of coordinate with that so I'm showing in this image for a for a reason think simplistically are complex lee when you're lighting and styling sometimes it works off the styling props or the location you get asked to shoot at this particular location I had this plane was given to us this young lady wanted to do a boudoir shit with me and so we created a kind of military look we found this outfit on victoria's secret website I ordered it was on sale it was like twenty nine dollars we get there in the bottom of the swimsuit are bottom of the andre was too tiny and she wasn't willing to walk out in the airport to the location or even stand there so we found another outfit and just changed it out for a skirt so we send the same message without being so exposed which leads me to one more statement I save my nude photography and my overtly sexual photography for that genre only I use my boudoir this invitation photography that's, the motive of it and every start ideo all the poses there about that motivation and what I'm doing art fashion shots are our glamour shot it's, a little more tasteful, sexy but not obviously overtly sexy, and not everyone needs to be shot and completely in their underwear. So there's all million ways around shooting people like that, sometimes I'm motivated simply buy makeup and hair when I do something along those lines, the background sometimes can be simple. Thie concept has fully developed the shot on the right here. I was painted for the most part in reality, with clown makeup from from the actual costume store, and then I finished out the way it looks in my photo shop techniques. The shot on the right was all about posing and glamour. The makeup in the hair was done for that just for that purpose. I direct a little bit today, and when samantha gunn comes in my makeup artist for this, for this class, she's going to talk to you about what it takes. To make a great connection between you and makeup artist and why it's so important to kind of know what you want at this particular point. I always like to say when I wasn't the height of my career and I was in new york shooting for macy's and neiman's and sacks and all these other department stores and I'd have a wonderful chance to shoot with celebrity models, I would ask them like what? What is it about a photographer when you're in a photo shoot that makes you go? Well, this is going to be an amazing experience, and they all said to me, it's when the photographer really knows what they're doing and knows what they want, and they bring it that to my attention pretty quickly, and they treat me as if I'm a team member and I'm a part of the activity, not just someone here being painted models don't automatically know what to do in front of the camera. They can't understand how they're supposed to behave unless you share the concept with them, just like you do the hair and the makeup styling so it's really important that you to some degree, you don't know how you don't have to understand the concept of how to color hair, but you do want to know what kind of girls you want. What kind of you need to be able to look at your subject and see? Does she need hair extensions brought to the shoot? I asked them, do you have them? So many people have things like that now, eh? So it's really important that you have some of those questions in the interview process? So this is going to lead you to have better options at the photo shoot, then going, gosh, you know, she didn't bring her hair extension, I really wish she had them. I should happen to me today. Somebody, I think, samantha said. Lu, do you have your hair extensions? And I was like, no, so so you want to pre qualify your team and make sure everybody's able to do what you've asked them to dio if you're going to do something really crazy and weird on the shoot out their artistic thing, you might want to do a test shoot to make sure everything is working in that direction. So knowing the craft of a hair and makeup in the trends you don't have to be an expert at it or be able to do it yourself, but you do need to know what you're asking for it. How to ask for our inspire people it's better to do a reshoot while you're shooting if you get your subject down on the set and they're like, well, I'm not sure about this hair sometimes it's bigger than it needs to be to read, I usually say hair and make up and styling his times. Two tell my dry queen friend just describe the women to themselves, their women squared sometimes photography has to be double in an impact with hair and makeup is telling to get the impact to read in the photographs you're looking for, so in your own creative process you want to do is much asking and styling and designing from within you as well. You want to be an active participant in what you're doing, otherwise you get what they give you have we've all been sitting there and the girl comes out and it's beautiful but it's not what your vision wass if it wasn't what your vision wass then you did not share clearly I have a vision board to share what that isthe so I brought this image and this is kind of a funny, funny image, but this was part of my story that I created called the ice princess and I hired samantha to help me do this because she's like a genius with hair she can't prepared with ways to make all of this happened that I would have never even known about I kind of gave her an idea of the dimension and scale of what I was looking for, but she knew how to do it when she got there and all I had to do was wait for her to deliver it and it came off like a you know, just a breeze. So the important part of what I'm trying to say is knowing what you want is ke someth ng we wardrobe styling sometimes of wardrobe is given to me, I might be shooting for sacks from the men in macy's, and they say here's, the rack of clothes we're going to barbados, I decided to shoot a steampunk story, but I didn't want to do steampunk as its intended. I wanted to do a fashion story about it. Oh, so I worked with a new hair and makeup artist to create hair and makeup that had the same kind of impact with the clothes ah future chic sort of story. So I gave all of this imagery to the hair and makeup persons that this is kind of what I'm feeling we work for two days, we created about fifteen different images and I create pulled seven from that most of my editorial stories that I create for myself or an odd number seven for some reason, seems to be the number I don't know why, but the hair and the makeup to me has to have the same impact is this too close? The clothes and the hair and the makeup have to have a matching impact, so if I was shooting the same story on the same list, then I'm going to go in photo shop and make something look like it has that same impact in the background if I want, so these images here are straight out of the tube. I haven't re touched these, and I'm showing you these because I want you to understand and my next siri's how to control light to make everybody look flow us because light in the right place will make the skin looks flat and smooth and claim, and then how you process it out photoshopped full till sometimes you're going to be given something so weird to shoot or you're going to decide you want to shoot something really weird and you're like, how am I going to get the impact? I need to make that really go somewhere so the photograph says, well, who is she, what is she doing? I make a lot of my own templates in the beginning I used a lot of pre made templates and then I started realizing that every photo shoot that I do that maybe I should be shooting some of my own to employees make my own statement my own work of art so there's plenty to buy their amazing timeless too graphic authority just came out a few months ago it's got some wonderful template I use those on a regular basis and then I shoot the others so on the last note you wouldn't know it by looking at my client's story but it is not it is important to know when to say when every once in while you're going to go off on a tear and some of these kind of bring something for you to shoot, you've got an idea and to get there and it's just not quite right you want to emulate is close to what you're saying around you that you know you inspired to you but you have to be careful that you don't get caught up in something mundane are cheap looking if it's cheap looking the whole thing's gonna fall apart and it's going to be a disaster so you wantto take your time afteryou preconceived and you get your shot together do a test look at it in advance then go out, make plenty of options on and then ask yourself should I every time you shoot if you blowed upon props as yourself before we break this set, should I take away some of these props? Should I shoot it simply? I can't tell you how many times I've walked away from a set going you know I should have shot that dress just plain background with well because you'll start to make something creatively later and like I said it's easier to do the re shoot while you're there so sometimes simplicity is best if you don't know what to do if all this seems like crazy to you and over the top simple is the best simple light simple makeup but finished elegance can be made in simplicity I don't feel like you have to go to the nines every time and you want to mix it up. When I moved to new york city, I had nine portfolios nine print portfolios, beauty shots in one lifestyle photography one high fashion in the other it wasn't what celebrity had shot, but what magazine was I n this month that was the going statement that was made to me so that intimidation factor was off the chart at times to try to keep up, make sure you were in the limelight all the time, so as times have changed, I think it's really kind of up to you to make the impact in the shots that you're showing to the public so simplicity and complex you wantto have something that you could put in a bag or in a portfolio and show and enough variety and variations you get a yes on every job you go too carve out your diminishes who was talking about this earlier if you've got three or four areas that you think you shine in keep those things developed and up to par and so that you are always really proud of what you're showing if you're proud of your work there's never a easier way for you to sell yourself then when you've just created a body of work to show people on you're excited about it put a book get a book printed call the lab, make a small book I use miller's to make books a lot for me I put him in my purse and take him with me everywhere and you can't you still cannot pass over the visual quality of touching print images so props it's really important if you don't own the props if you don't know a stylish yet you either need to find something like it be able to make it or rent it or find a stylist in your area so the images you're looking at here are two things I created the image on the left was a piece that I did for cannon and it was all shot with speed lights out in san diego I did this last year there's siri's of speed like videos for cannon and the shot on the right is shot with natural light in ice lights as fill in the ice lights, too may have provided such a a wonderful lightweight easy fill light in the beginning, I thought, I don't know if I can spend the money, but I cannot tell you I would be lying if I told you I didn't use him and almost every photo shoot um, I have to I want to more there they put out a beautiful, clean, white soft light on dh you don't even really see the light as it's touching her face little bright sun filling in from underneath just a little clean up on the face the edges were actually created brought him from some of the background that you see hanging behind her, so you want to make sure that all your elements, your hair, your makeup, your styling in your wardrobe, the props, the set and everything is perfect when you go out on the set. The most important thing that I want to talk about is that all those people stay with you on the set while you're shooting, lest idea I'm going to step off on here is if you follow yourself in a place and you just can't think of anything creatively, um, you don't look too children and look for nursery rhymes look at what's going on in the movies, look at what's going on in the books you're reading try to come up with something that everybody can relate to if there's a figure that's famous with young people, you want to be talking about that and some of the work that you're creating that it's a character from a movie, create an avatar, if you will, for people to use. So creating with light when I teach classes, I'm amazed at what people have, some people have all street, your lights and people have speed lights. I've just finished a tour with lindsay adler last year and my overall concensus of everybody that we taught everyone has speed lights and keep them in the bag. I'm like, why are you using those things? Um, scott, kelby and I had lunch once and he said, you know, I don't care where the little spot of white light comes from a long as it comes from somewhere. So if you think about that no, you're light know what quality of light comes from that know how you can change that quality hard, soft were simply with your reflectors if you're going to use a flexible reflector. To move self light open shade or you're going to stand out the sun with it and move the light across the room to where you need it to bay I put light where I want it I can shoot my subject where I want to shoot I don't pick the light and on lee shoot where there's pretty light that's limiting to me and I don't want any limits as an artist I want to be able to create whatever I can so the shot here on the left in full daylight he's outside he's back lit with sun by the time I got ready to shoot the shot decided going around behind the building and I couldn't get even light so there's four speed lights on him I'm standing in a black hoodie with my head like those in the camera I've got a black background hanging behind me and I'm shooting through a plate glass window that I brought the speed lights air all directional from behind bouncing back into him I put my fourth speed light on a wrinkled piece of mylar to make the reflection of water reflect back on him so I'm thinking how can I make water he's not he's not in the water he's near the water so you're gonna have to be creative with the light move it, reshape it bend it be creative with it and then you just adjust your exposures to get what you want the shot on the right is the same kind of concept really in the studio they're six lights on her the beauty version of this I'm going to say in every photo shoot I should of women I prefer a flat light on the face or a rembrandt slight shadow on the side I feel underneath with everyone either put a flexible phil are amused my cake pan here I like to highlight that iris of the eye said the light comes into the I in our silent movie picture what's the connector the eyes so you want to spend as much time on the makeup on the eyes and the light in eyes as you possibly can every woman wants to be smooth young beautiful radiant men want to be sexy and edgy so you can have a little sideline on guys but women leaned toward flat if you can so here again when she mastered the speed lights I have the cannon six hundred artie flash unit's I used the trigger that comes with it there are four speed lights on the shot on the left there's only one in front of her I'm using a rogue modifier turned into a strip bank and I'm standing beside that little stripping so pegboard painted black three speed lights behind it with gels forcing through the back so have fun with your light don't just put it on a tripod put a soft box and call it line like, okay, that's nice, but you could do so much more. The shot on the right is all done without ice lines there's a little video floating around on youtube now, with me actually showing that so photoshopped, the more you know, the more creative you can get the better chances of you saving your photo opportunity. So if somebody says to you, I really can't go to the location. I don't really I want to do anything, but I need an ofsome picture with impact. You just changed your thought process of thinking about photo shop first, what do I need that I could quickly shoot to put in the image to make it have impact? Maybe it's making a montage of some sort or a collage of things, so if you go out and shoot somebody and you're in a warehouse somewhere, why not shoot all the machine parts? The broken glass you see paint chips on the floor, rust up close, faraway things in and out of focus, use those to help build impact when your image making is going along. If you know more about photo shop and you can get into doing a little bit of design work, you could make your own advertising pieces in your own web pages can be developed with more creativity, you could save yourself a lot of money. So my gear, I'm not going to go into this in detail about how it works I'm going to give you what my list is if you want to see how it works, I show that on the previous creative live in great detail on all the sets we did, I use bowen's lining, I have three kits, all five hundred watt packs I've never and current times need more than a five hundred head many times I'm working in the mid range on that, but I do know by buying that if I have to go shoot the inside of a warehouse, I have enough power to light that, um the modifiers I usually have to strip banks I like to control like coming straight out of the head is hard light like son, I like to be able to modify the quality of it and then I want to control the spread of it and I use this analogy a lot talking about making sexy light for my playboy shots sexy light isn't walking into a bedroom and flipping on the overhead light. Is it it's about putting what dimmer switches and lampshades and lower wattage bulbs and getting control of where the light spreads? So when I'm shooting and a short space we're gonna shoot and really short spaces today most a lot of people don't have the glory of this wonderful studio that we're in it's kind of like if once you start filling your studio up with things you can shoot, then you spread all over it no matter how big it is, but a small space is going to make you become or efficient and if you can shoot in a short space, you're going to need small modifiers and be able to control that spread of light. So if the light is spreading all over the background, you're goingto hand up with that what that overly lit bedroom shot so grids on top of soft boxes will also control down the spread of that quality of life grids on a hard light such as they were seven inch reflector with your stroke going through, it is another way to do that so I always have on my on task at every shoot all of those things for the most part every time I go to a location to take everything I have because then I'm never going to be caught not having a cord not having something I need the bowens kit also has a battery pack available that is going to allow you to take these lights outside work with him if you want to shoot in the woods or you want to go to a bar or something issue you can set it up and have that option these air my basic lighting setups that I do kind of on a regular basis sometimes I only want to work with one line one like to me is pretty much fashion or in and dramatic kind to the center clam shell to me however I create that I can use to light so I can use one light and whatever type of reflector I want I'd like to put things underneath the face balancing out if you think about a piece of corduroy if you wanted to like that corduroy and show the ribs you'd have sidelight if you think about a woman's face she doesn't wanna have sidelight on her face it needs to be closer to being klatt or a broader sources himself and fill in so mirrors reflective surfaces I have my cake pan you could get flexible phil's stay away from the gold reflector used the silver wraparound light for may is like from the back a woman standing against the window with a sheer curtain in the background phil for the face could be a reflector our mirror to pop a little light back in sidelight causes texture to be developed so if you're shooting a body you might want sidelight down the bottom flat light on the face so now you can start to think a little bit how I went about lighting playboy playboy lining we put its key light or a catch line on every part of the body that we wanted you to look at we varied the exposure enough thatyou went wow wow wow, and you didn't even know it. So those are the kind of things that you want to think about. How can I bring wow to everybody's body their face if the person walks in and you're going, oh, oh, jeez, what am I going to do? Look at the cheeks! Look, the chant I don't know there's a million ways around all of this shadowy light will thin people down if you use it to a great degree darker clothes, I could give you tons and tons of ideas when we have the posing class on better choices of close to suggest for people to wear, most people that you're going to photograph are not used to seeing themselves in front of the camera. They're going to go get their favorite dresses and choose out of the closet, but they may not bring everything. They need your lighting and having it all around you and knowing what kind of favors you can do for someone with forgiving light is going to be how you think. How can I make the personal compute? Most beautiful, like handy, you focus always on the best assets. Steer your eye away from the worst in your composition, so today I'm going to show you another tool that bowen's makes called ice like most panel led panel. And I've enjoyed working with ease because of the light weight quality of it there. Once we have today are daylight control. We do have the match so that all of the lighting in the studio here is on the same plain and errol the color matches for the actual visual part of the video making process. But the one most wonderful thing is you can take these anywhere, shoot some video, you can shoot still photos with them. You can vary the power by simply pushing a button up and down there's also a battery pack option for these things. They wait, there is light is a briefcase. So if you're worried about carrying things around, I keep a set of lights stands my westcott shoot through umbrella two or three of my cake bore lines and these in the car so somebody calls me and asks me if I want to do a shoot it's in my trunk is hidden away, and we could never see it so very affordable, easy to put together, and they come with all kinds of barn doors and diffusion panels. You could put jill's on them as well. I also use the studio light a lot when I'm working with more fashion oriented things. Uh, these air fluorescent tubes, they also come in the same kind of operational system on the back for you to be able to easily raise and lower the power they tilt, they swivel. They also have barn doors as well. I'm a cannon user. I work with five d mark three and the one d x have a variety of lenses I use, but have a tendency to put the twenty four two one o five on and leave it there. I'm travelling on a vacation that land seems to be. Well, let me go ahead and use almost every possible need from shooting landscape to a headshot. But for the most part, I'm using longer lenses and staying with beauty. Eighty five to one two.