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P isn't for Professional

Lesson 3 from: Family Portraits

Michele Celentano

P isn't for Professional

Lesson 3 from: Family Portraits

Michele Celentano

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Lesson Info

3. P isn't for Professional

Next Lesson: The Art of Posing

Lesson Info

P isn't for Professional

who shoots and p anybody raise your hand if you're sitting at home and you shooting p now okay it's so hard not to be able to see all those people raise their hand alright so for me for my portrait work I shouldn't aperture priority which means I have full control of my aperture which means I have depth of field control on but I work with my exposure compensation and custom white balance guys costume white balance here's what I think about cameras they're awesome a love my cameras they're so amazing that get you in the ballpark right they literally your cameras are so amazing to get you in the ballpark exposure is really close most of time it's it's good white balance it's good it's good it's really good but if I could now a home run I'm going to do that so I'm I'm old school but I'm an old school photographer I believe in getting it right in the camera first time ah hate postproduction hate sitting behind a computer I hate the term don't worry about it now we'll fix it in photo shop e...

arlier there I don't think there's anything else in this world that could drive me as mental so doing these particular things for me is my way of controlling it and getting it right in the camera aperture and selective focus this made me you know uh common knowledge for most people but for new photographers it could be really I opening so I shot these elephants using a two hundred uh no it's a one hundred millimeter macro lens that opened up to two point eight and so what I really want to show here is what happens as you go forward and you'd start to stop your camera down so here in this first image the only thing that's in focus is that little silver guy up front I collect elephants by the way and it's an old italian thing but the note the trunk has to be up and they have to be facing a window that's good luck so you got an elephant at home and you need to go turn it right now go turn it to the window it's gotta be facing a window and the window is see look it's actually facing window okay anyway so that's two point eight four point oh the guy behind becomes a little bit more and focus five six little bit more aito we're starting to see some detail on the gray elephant in the middle at eleven we start to see more detail in him sixteen the white elephant is in focus at twenty two all the elephant sir and focus now we're all the way at thirty two not only are all the elephants are in focus but the texture on the wall is just tax harp everything is in focus in this image and that's cool but if we wanted you selective focusing to create those soft dreamy beautiful backgrounds then we really need to understand how to manipulate that so here we go the other way now or thirty two and I maintain my focus on the back elephant I change nothing else in my camera except the aperture so the back elephants going to stay in focus and at twenty two I was still pretty good but watch what's happening to the little guy up front let me go back because by the time we get done the little guy in the front is almost unrecognizable so a twenty to everything in the back is still and focus but the front is out at sixteen were getting a little bit more out of focus look att f eleven on this camera and the back elephants still unfocused but look at the front guy he's like totally out of focus and that's a f eleven at as a it's like pretty fuzzy the pink elephants out of focus the gray elephants out of focus of five six still on lee those back to elephants are in focus at four if two point eight on ly that back elephant isn't focused this is really really important when you're photographing people for two reasons one if you want to create the soft dreamy backgrounds we need to be a little bit more wide open so that's why I prefer controlling my aperture as opposed to shooting and p for not professional or pro but anyway um and then depending on how many people you have in your portrait you'll need to adjust your aperture accordingly so that one person isn't in or out of focus right I won't talk about how we do that later again now this is shooting from a high camera angle and f thirty to both of those elephants are in focus mama elephant and baby elephant but f a a baby elephant is a little bit out of focus a two point eight bombs trunk is totally tack sharp and everything else is out of focus so you can get really creative with this depending on what you want to do it you could have if you doing lifestyle you want mom and dad to be out of focus in the background but you want to focus on the baby all right what do you do you're gonna open up you want to blow mom and dad out maybe you want mom and dad in focus but you want the baby crawling around out of focus kind of thing so being able to play with your aperture is super important and this is why I recommend good glass right because good glass gets us down to two point eight two point no one point eight the fire truck is a great example two point eight the only thing and focuses the headlights on the fire truck at five six we get a little bit more at f eleven a little bit more f thirty to the texture on the wall and the you know what the fire truck is sitting on is totally in focus oh yes maybe before we move on we have a few questions related to your portrait's that were shown earlier okay but okay if we jump in with us absolutely there are a ton of great questions and I'm catching while we're there um let's see here let's start with toledo born asked you ever end a session if you have a child that won't cooperate um depends on the age but yes I've had to end infant sessions because they're just super colicky and they're crying if it's because of a two year old no I'll just explain to the parents that there's going to be a little bit more environmental it's going to be a little bit more lifestyle I'm the only time I really had to end a session in because of really cranky or sick baby or polic and sometimes it's just come back the next day when they're feeling better but I have told children I'm done photographing you like no more I had one little girl who was so bad and she like totally beating up on her mom yeah and she was six and I wouldn't do anything ask her to do it every time I picked up the camera she would turn her back to me no I'm not doing that you know like that little and I was like okay and you know this this is great her mom's like that's not a good choice okay from new york from italian catholic we don'thave that's not a good choice we have are going to kill you where you stand so so anyway so I'm like you know just try to like bite my tongue and then finally she comes over to me just like so if you take a picture of me doing cartwheel and I was like no and she looked at me and I was like no I'm like why should I do anything for you you haven't done anything I asked you to do you turn your back to me every time I want to take a picture you're not sitting with your brother like your mother want you to you're not listening to anybody no I'm not taking a picture of you she started bawling I don't think anybody had ever said no to her like seriously so I'm like well if you do everything I need you to do with last thing we'll do is I'll take pictures of you doing a cartwheel totally cooperated after that I'm not even kidding well don't take any more pictures you you're annoying me like you know sometimes you just get in be honest and your mother is like I've never seen that before I'm like yeah the hey that's not a good choice isn't working okay well in the chat rooms were commenting on your a statement about the guy with the scruffy yes and they were they were saying whoa did she really did she really call him out did you actually yeah so you're pretty I am who I am and I have very little filters practically have no filters so I say what comes to my mind and but it but yeah I told me I was like why would you shave to come to for a portrait session like with you anyway yeah way maybe ask a few more questions way love this bird to marco is wondering it does the client pick the location and if so are and when you do get to the location do you plan the leading lines on location or does that happen through impromptu uh okay so there's a lot of different locations that I shoot at in my area and most of my know pretty well so depending on what the client wants if they want a park scene with lots of greenery if they want a desert scene with more mountain and desert will pick a location based on that if they want to do something in their home or in their yard or on their own property we'll pick a location like that but yeah when I scout out a location I'm always looking for lines texture depth and most importantly the direction of light which way's light coming from where am I going to put my subjects um which way are we going to shoot we're going to be a little bit back later we're going to use a reflector here where is the best place for this portrait so I'm always definitely looking for leading lines looking for texture looking for depth and that doesn't always mean the pretty location and sometimes they take clients to locations and they're like why are we here like this is ugly like no trust me you gotta trust me on this gonna look beautiful and actually have examples of like not great locations that shoot out all the time that actually work out beautiful so I was that how is that marco thanks for watching but yeah uh next question is from pro photographer do you usually crop in camera or in post ninety percent of the time I cropped in camera now keep it in mind we have a four by four by six crop and if I'm making eight by ten I always leave a little bit of space so I know I can easily crop to an eight by ten but I like to do I like to do everything in the camera as much as possible I leave his little to post is possible because I really don't know I post that's not where my fund is spent that's not where my money's made hate post really let's get it right and camera let's get it right I mean I grew old school you know light meters listen when I was tires go out and measure the bellows and learn what reciprocity was and how to adjust my exposure for the length of the bellows and that's what I grew up with so for me the digital age wasn't like oh hey it's a free for all its still like just because we have a new medium doesn't mean that we should get lazy and not do what we know we need to do in the camera so that it makes for a lot less work later fantastic I'm going people out there know what reciprocity is in the fellows tweet me and if you know what reciprocity and bellows is that's cool not a lot of people know that all right I think we're good to move for us um all right so exposure compensation this is one of the most important things that you can learn and it's goingto irritate a lot of people but it's true and I promise you okay so dslr sze in thirty five millimeter cameras whatever using have reflective light metering system in them right so they basically meter what is reflected off of your subjects now all cameras need to have a starting point for an exposure that's what we call eighteen percent or middle gray it could be twelve percent there's numbers all over the board but basically it's called middle grade and that's the basic starting point of any dslr for exposure now here's what's interesting if you're shooting in that programme mode you need to make certain compensations based on what you're shooting to get a correct exposure if you're going to be totally manual if you're gonna go and meet her your subjects and set your exposure great but I like shooting an aperture priority I leave the shutter to the camera but here's what happens now this is a black card a great card and a white card at zero compensation in aperture priority seventies haven't done anything to adjust my exposure here now that white looks pretty great to me you know people say about that white they say it's muddy you know that term muddy okay no it's not muddy it's under exposed like I never got that term muddy it's not money it's it's literally under exposed right and so the gray looks great though pre much right the black not so much all right now if we goto plus one on my exposure compensations that little dialogues that little exposure compensation scale that every camera has I go to plus one look what happens to my white now look what happens to my gray but now my black is what it's over exposed because the black is turning gray here's plus to that plus two my white is white my gray is light gray and my black is medium grade now this is so important especially for wedding photographers if you're shooting in some sort of auto exposure mode because you have a white dress on a bride getting out of a white car on a bright sunny day and what are you going to need to do in order to make that white white in your camera without having to move a slider and post later we've got exposure compensate so depending on your camera every cameras different you know mine goes in third stop increments some cameras or half stop increments and every camera is going to be sensitive in a different way so if you know your camera and your third stop increments you go one third two thirds full stop half a stop you know whatever it is that you're going to get and try this out if you don't believe me I promise you go get yourself a black grey and white piece of paper tried at home with your own camera so that you'll know how much exposure compensation you really need before you get a true white that makes sense and this way you don't have to go reading history graham you just know in your head right so we're back to zero now we'll see what happens when we go the other way now we went minus one stop now my white is totally great my black is looking pretty good my middle gray is pretty dark two stops look at that it's the same piece of white gray and black paper this is a key element to getting it right in the camera when you're working in a programme mode makes sense any program old even if you're just in p and you want to use a program you still need to know you're looking at your subject is it mostly why is it mostly great ofthe overall your scene is pretty grey you might be good at zero or maybe even plus one third if you want to brighten it up you may be shooting a group of guys all wearing black what we're gonna need to do we're gonna need to dial down because my camera's going to see that black and go I need to make that black grey so it's goingto overexpose it's that classic is shoot a whole group of people wearing black tuxedos and their faces are blown out it's because the camera was exposing for the black so I shoot in center when a meter center wait meter um oh I'm sorry evaluative metering mode so evaluated metering mowed takes my entire frame into consideration and evaluates the whole scene and then gets me in the ballpark and then I get a home run right I almost never have to adjust for exposure and postproduction because I've already done it in the camera even though I'm shooting in a programme mode that makes sense this is so key and the best way to figure this out for your particular camera is to do this test in the same light I just put all of all of these sheets of paper one on top of each other in unveil a ble white room actually was a window nice open window and you just do the test I promise you you'll be amazed at the difference in your camera and how it's like I said some cameras now back in the day when digital first started on I learned this technique from shooting black and white film because I'd send my black and white film to my lab and the lab akane say your stuff is kind of under exposed you know are you compensating that salem no and basically it's kind of using ansel adams own system knowing your white whites and your black blacks and the grease in between and using that scale to adjust while understanding what the cameras doing and so I really you have a question the head okay so given that we saw that when the whites were perfectly white are blacks were slightly over exposed so let's say we have a bride now I don't shoot weddings but ah brian a groom we have white dress and black which do you prefer and kind of what's your well now's an area I'm going to go for skin tone ok right so think about this though look at everyone's skin tone your skin tone is brighter than eighteen percent gray so right so if I'm gonna photograph you I know that if I evaluate for just your face you're going to end up being muddy and under exposed because you have a really fair skin you're brighter than eighteen percent great there's some skin tones that are darker than eighteen percent gray so in that case I always go for skin tones if it's a portrait say it's more of a candid image and their bride and groom or walking away I'll always go for detail in the dress want details in the whites right so if we lose a little detail in the blacks I'm not too concerned but a bride's really not gonna want to see a blown out dress the dress cost way more than tuxedo saying so is that is that answer your question yeah okay here we go oh costume white balance okay I'm really proud of that right now let's just move on so if you use a costume while you're white balancing huh life is good so I'm saying okay cousin white balance again is a big deal for me to custom white balance why do impose what you can do in the camera so again you know sade cloud all the different settings on your camera kind of get you in the ballpark but I really want to know because the temperature of the light is it is always different and it's always changing so out always white balance multiple times during a shoot just because I wanted to be correct for that light as we're shooting late out outside and like the twilight as that like goes down the temperature of that light changes so there's a lot of different tools that you can use you can use a plain white card you can use a break hard you can use an expo disk I use um the spider cube and I just hold it right up to my lens and it gives me the grays and the whites I shoot it out of focus and then I click on that go into my my manual white balance I choose that image and I'm good to go so whatever method you choose to use to white balance and expo disc has a warm filter and a cool neutral filter if you like your skin tones warmer used the warmer filter if you like to just use a white card whatever you can do I know some people who use like the covered like the cap of aa cup like a plastic that you get in a store you know what I'm saying like you go get a slurpee and there was that met like plastic opaque looking cup so as long as you feel like you're getting a proper white balance I like to use that right now because so far I have seen amazing results with it so but again so now I've I've handled the issue of exposure got my exposure is close to excellent as possible we talked a little bit about cropping and now custom costume white balance uh bad okay so looking for locations we talked a little bit about this as well which I think is pretty important so the first thing I'm gonna look for ever ever ever is white and open shade so any location I go to I'm looking for the direction of light in an open shade area so usually from me this best time of day is late evening if you like you know early morning sun that's great if you're going to shoot during the day you can use building size of buildings will create shade for you you can use miranda's overhangs anywhere you're going to get soft light but it's directional and it's out of the direct sun mei mei my least favorite thing to see as I drive through my neighborhood and I'm you know I drive to the park where I shoot out quite a bit and I see photographer there at noon with an on camera flash and the subject is like in no shape to first of all there's not a whole lot of shade in arizona cactus is do not provide cactus did not provide a great amount of shade I'm drying around here like look at all those beautiful directional light because of these trees and I am so excited because there's so much direction alight here where I live rare to find great directional light but anyway open shade directional light the main source of light is coming from are you looking for directional light is the scene backlit oftentimes we'll look for a scene that slightly backlit so I get hair light on my subjects and then I can use a reflector to pop in the rest of the light that I need so sometimes at the direction of light I'm looking for is actually from behind my subjects as opposed to in front or to the side of my subjects where is the main source of light coming from it's a really important thing so for this particular example this is the side of a church in my neighborhood and I look at the directional light coming from here it should and and it's it's not the greatest location if you were just to look like immediately we're like all kinds of crap here it's maybe not the best spot but I think that was a ruled up carpet all the way there in the back but the direction of light is perfect so I placed my subjects here using the arches and I pop in a reflector to put the light back in their face but look at the beautiful side light that you see on the faces of my subjects and that creates depth in the portrait that creates interesting lighting and then with a little bit of a reflector we pop it all back kid good guys writing notes you have a question actually the internet has lots and lots of questions is now a good time to like yeah cool all right uh regarding a couple people have the similar question a pro photographer if the background is very bright or dim do you spot metering and similar question from tea and photo man who says have you ever used spot metering to set the exposure with compensation for the most important area of the subject I don't because that takes me more time than actually evaluated me tearing I've become so quick in my mind that for me to like spot meter and then recompose for me and that's a great way to do it there was nothing wrong with that but for me personally evaluative meet oring knowing my cameras looking for eighteen percent gray knowing okay I'm focused on the bride she's in white or mom is wearing a white t shirt that's gonna give me great greater than eighteen percent graham gonna pop it up one third two thirds I'm going to go it happened I like seriously like have exposure compensation from because I'm like this all the time like just that little doll about my cameras up and down up and down up and down up and down and it's it's actually faster for me some people love to spot meter and it's faster for them as long as you're getting the right exposure in the camera cool with that yes another question you had mentioned for brides and grooms to hack to focus on the skin tone what do you do when there is contrast ing skin tone with digital you want to go for the brighter so you have detail in your in your highlights with film we used teo meter for the shadow areas so we get detail in the shadow but with digital we actually want to meet her for the highlights or the brightest spots we have detailed there and then we can always bring in the shadow areas later that makes sense yeah and sometimes in cases like that there's a little post involved knew okay so this is one of the locations I used quite a bit it doesn't look like anything special you know and we have a beautiful park and there's water fountains and there's trees and like and so I walk up to this location and save my clients is where we're shooting and they're kind of like great but what do I see here I see texture I see depths and I see a direction of light see the light on top of the the trees and the bushes that's going to be backlit directional light so using my aperture using my camera hi using the light coming in and using a little bit of a reflector it's actually perfect location for you know I love the sidelight coming in on dad gives him a little bit more of a direction of light you know something that could be created in the studio the hair light on mom is awesome so it helps give depth to the image because not flat so you don't always have to look for that flat light that's on the subject or that's just coming from the side okay so we're looking for open light and open shade texture do I want to place my subjects close or far from the background is the background offer texture depth and color one of the most frequent mistake sissy people make is they see a location and they put the subject right up on the background and so there is no death no texture what you really want to do is move the subject's away from the background so this is that dead fountain grass we talked about it's not dead found whereas actually living found grass but it's it's that area now this is not again the prettiest part of the park and and there's a sign there and it's actually a pathway that goes up to the railroad and most attire was passed by this spot because they want to go over to the waterfall because the waterfalls pretty or they want to go over to the big tree or whatever but I see this like look at that texture look at the direction of light check it out on my my clients are like you want me to get and where you because you want to step into that so again using uh the foreground my subjects of the middle ground and then we have that great depth in the back beautiful direction of light there's actually no reflector here because the light was really right in front of my subjects late afternoon light just coming down this is also a great way to hide bodies right you've got a mom who's you know okay what's mom's number one complaint about having her portrait taken say loud yeah I don't wanna look fat I'm too fat to have my portrait done I'm going to get there and it's good stuff right but this is a great way to hide bodies you know using something like this in front of your subjects to focus and bring the attention to their faces this is using the front side of that now since they were putting people in the fountain grass I've actually used the front of it and that little green sign is you know right off to the left of the frame but we're still getting that same texture color depth this is one of my fair families because no matter what what I tell them about you wearing like earth tones and subdued colors she always comes with the brightest colors and like uh and it always works and you seem like one year we did uh orange and yellow and oh it's so funny and I showed it to the session I'm like can we discuss clothing at the consultation she guessed but I like bright colors everything in my house is bright color so we're doing bright colors well it works doesn't it it's pretty funny yeah so looking for location leading lines another great element one of my favorite things checked out it's like the perfect spot this is where that image was created it was a slight tilt in the camera to kind of match thie to match the area of her hat and her eyes you know r really brought into attention by that leading line of the railroad the railing and all that open spite space and then this little guy so cute so there's just a million waist use those leading minds is a point of interest in your images like the leading line pulls you into a little happy face and then you leave the image out the back through the leading lines right out in the back end so uh depths all right we're talking about perhaps this is I'm telling you from now on you're all gonna be driving around like look at that light look at the direction look at that depth color texture look at the light dancing off those daffodils oh late afternoon this would be perfect well look at that foreground you know I drive around my family thinks I'm nuts because I'm like you see the direction of light to see that that's a beautiful location and it's like a bunch of dead wood in there like what it's funny so this is literally across the street from my house and att leads out to a pathway and you can see the desert outback there it doesn't look like anything interesting does it so it's but I looked I looked at the er the whatever you call the curbing like that's a great leading line we've got and in the late afternoon in the direction of light this stunning it's literally coming across her and so I just went over to the other side of those really nasty but you can see where you look at this and you're like yeah that's nothing special when that's what we get from it same location just moving back a little further and using some of that foliage wide open aperture throwing that background out of focus another favor location of mine if this is what I should just you should see the look on your face she just went what like seriously that's a good location yeah it's a great location and it's a skate rink and it's again my love because all this is great all of the tigers in my area now if you're watching now you know all my secrets locations were stopped on all the pretty places but anyway this is the side of a skate rink but what I love about this is the color and first the direction of light so I see I see sit her on the floor I used the blue as the background the direction of light is stunning and that blue now just becomes background so direction of light color texture depth you can make I swear to you any location look amazing if you look for the right things and that's fun so this is another view from uh across the street from my house doesn't look like much you know it's bright son but this is what it looks like so because I say let them sit on the ground up in a higher camera angle I've got all that beautiful gold foliage behind them and then the next image I move them back a little bit further into the wash and we still have more of that gold light and it's the direction of light that makes us so good if that background was dark and flat it would be a boring image but we've got this gorgeous late afternoon light coming across the background their shape to the body there's texture directional light means it's really cool to see ugly locations in a new light where if a few of a cool direction of white that's all that matters direction of light oh there's another one of my faves check this out right no bikes in this area it's a good wall mostly because of white the direction of light and the the right time of the day the direction of light is stunning you can actually see it in that far left image coming across the grass and so here's what we were able to do with it what's eating her now we have repeating lines in the wall right and this is this wall is the back of the bleachers for the skating rink she's cool cool spot now the need thing is we started with allie and then I placed her sister in and then I place mommy so here I am getting three portrait's in one it's a great location easy to set up and it's all because of the direction of light built imposing props all right so I'm always looking for a spot that has a built in posing prop I'm looking around the location for this the house that we're here at I was like instantly noticing great locations because of the props so for example this location right here I picked this spot because of that rock because it's a great place to have people sit and lean um also because it has what great texture and the trees in the background at the right time of day the light is perfect and well look we have some more dead found grass to create foreground so I'm in this how my brain works so this is that spot and I've got mom seated I've got her son leaning on both his knees overhear her daughter's on her lap and dad is leaning over her with one knee up on that same rock a question from c j k photography but if a client doesn't like the final result for example you as a photographer you know what works and what doesn't but your client might not would you do another free session with amore what are your solutions so clients unhappy with the final result of their portrait ce write him a check just I'm really sorry that you're not happy with what we did you know I guarantee everything we do so if you're really not happy with your session and there's nothing you want to buy from it I'm just gonna return your session fee because that's the right thing to do but honestly really never had that happen but that's a good question but it is written into sort of my policies if you're not completely satisfied with the work that we do in the session that we created for you you know it's risk free we'll give you back your money so yeah cool quite a few people are asking about reflectors because you've mentioned him more than a few times zero asked when you talk about using reflectors with portrait do use the silver or whiteside and sometimes silver might blind people so if you could clarify that uh both right and sometimes we'll even use the black side and we'll do subtracted whiting so I have a whole bunch of different reflectors and we're gonna talk about that tomorrow we'll be shooting all day tomorrow but I have a five and one round reflector which I love because the center of it is translucent panel which I'll often use if there is strong overhead direct light and khun soften the light with a translucent panel if it's a really bright uh what like source of light I'll use the white side kick in just a little bit of light but say it's overcast and we need to kick in a lot of light then we'll go ahead and use the silver side so if we want to do something a little bit more uh dramatic I might flip it over and actually use the black side and take some light away the black side is great for bald men you know get that shine on their head all the time if you actually just hold the black over their head it will help reduce some of the shine on the top of their head so I used every every piece of my uh reflectors alcides depending on the situation and for some of your suggestions it sounds like you have an assistant people were asking if you shoot alone yes sometimes long sometimes within assistant about mostly with an assistant so that we have somebody to do the reflectors and you know run in and you fix hair and I kind of thought so yeah and you hit a really big topic in our chat rooms when you're talking about the history graham that's that's like a really tricky area for a lot of people they don't really completely understand it uh best photo for example is asking do you watch your history ram regularly to make sure your whites are white for example or making sure you're not blowing something out I love to use blink ese blinky to make sure I am not blowing out stuff that should not be right I almost never ever use the hist a gram honestly I just don't um the exposure compensation worked so well for me and there are times when I know something in the background is going to be blown out and it doesn't bother me if I'm doing it on purpose but it also depends on the location and the direction you're shooting it so if you're shooting into bright light and you know that something in the backgrounds gonna be blown out may add in a little bit more reflector to reduce the fact that the background going to be so blown out by adding a little bit more exposure to the subject's face or just let it go if it's not that important but no I almost never you know I find the blinky very irritating to me I look really at my back of my camera morpher expression make sure got the image and then we pretty much move on so I'm not that technical I'm not I'm not digitally technical because I was trained on film and so I treat my digital very much like I treat film and I work it in the camera and so it was really funny story because I've got lots of funny stories but uh most of you know dennis reggie hopefully you do he's famous photojournalist a wedding photographer and dennis reggie and I were speaking at a convention together in ohio way back when did you'll really first came out and at the time I was still shooting weddings and I was shooting all my weddings and j peg and dennis reggie spoke before me and he's like raw raw raw raw raw and this is back in the day when like it was a nightmare to process we're all files like it would take like three days to edit a wedding because you know it was it was just really hard to process raw files that you know systems just weren't up to speed with it yet and says well you know I have my assistant do my raw files and use it well because you know with raw you have four lanes on the highway right they'll be mad at me dennis you know a four lanes on the highway and I'm thinking in my head if you're a professional you need four lanes like do you need four lanes to drive on the highway you know by now you got to stay in your lane right same thing like don't you shouldn't you know how to just get it right in the camera and not think in terms of I'll fix it later and so I get up after him and I'm like I don't shoot j p j p j peg and everyone's like horrify me how can you shoot j peg you know don't any the bigger file and you need the backup plan like listen if you get it right in the camera j peg is just fine especially for weddings because in most cases I mean how many thirty by forties of wedding images are we make not many right okay so if you want to do your portrait's in raw are special things and raw great but ninety nine percent of what goes on the album is this big maybe by ten totally fine using a j peg now granted I do shoot my portrait's now and raw just because it's easy and I can and yes is there but back s o after dennis's program I thought ok that's it if dennis says raw I'm gonna listen maybe there's something to this I shot three weddings on raw and I thought I would hang myself from a cord it was it was the most painful editing process of my life and when I took it down to images that needed adjustment it wasn't enough to justify shooting raw so anyway that's my hole ross story rasta hissed a gram off topic I know but it's all right it's great he's entertaining uh c j k photography asif a client of yours is asking for a specific location that you don't know would you go there in advance to scout and if you do do you charge money for that no yes yes and no yes I would definitely go in advance and no I wouldn't charge money because I want to get it right and you don't want my images to be good I want my customer to be happy so no I definitely wouldn't charge and I'll often times go to a client's home to scout out the location in their home if there were going to do portrait's in their house just so I know if we're gonna use inside where the window is if I'm gonna need to move furniture where anymore furniture to what time of day is best in their house sometimes we can use the front of the other home sometimes it can use the back of their home morning might be better for the front after new might be better for the back so yeah in order to do my job right I'm absolutely going to go check out the location in advance and you have a specific radius that you stick within a specific miles most of my work is done in my community but I'm happy to outside my community um if you want me to travel to paris it's gonna cost rock and why I'll go anywhere for portrait's but yeah there was gonna be travel involved it's a different story but yeah um sedona is not far from us you're an hour south of sedona in arizona which is beautiful happy up there to do a shoot so it's what we do awesome questions from amanda marie she says that you say you really hate post processing and she says well I love post processing great that you want a job is it bad for your photography too want to do maurin processing because something you love or can you have amazing photos even if you do more in post processing yeah I mean you can have amazing photos and post processing and we have seen you know incredible work come out of post processing it's another art form it's like you know being in the dark room but for me personally my my bottom line is not made in post processing my bottom line is made in working with my client's meeting with people selling and actually shooting so when I'm sitting behind the the computer last thing I want to do is waste time post processing if I don't need teo I do retouching I absolutely do retouching on all my portrait ce s oh I have a minimum amount of post crossing I do but I don't want to correct mistakes and post processing that's the main part of what I what I say when I mean I hate post processing I don't want to fix mistakes imposed processing I want to enhance imposed that makes sense that might clarify I'll enhance and post but I'm not going to fix it in post that's a that's a good grandson post don't fix it in post

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Michele Celentano.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

Beckie Sibley
 

Michele is a true artist in every sense of the word. While her photography skills are exceptional, it is her ability to work with families that absolutely had me mesmerized. She is a natural with people of all ages. Her teaching style is second to none. I especially appreciate that she had the CreativeLIve attendees jump in to pose the first family. With many of these courses, I find myself feeling completely inadequate because the instructors make it look super easy. When the student photographers worked with the family, they represented ME. This was such an encouragement. I also was thrilled that the second family was more of a challenge as it showcased Michele's talents perfectly. The business section was insightful and inspirational. I cannot say enough wonderful things about this course. It was a deal at $129. Thank you CreativeLive! And thank YOU, Michele. You are the best of the best.

Beckie Sibley
 

Michele is a true artist in every sense of the word. While her photography skills are exceptional, it is her ability to connect with families that absolutely had me mesmerized. She is a natural with people of all ages. Her teaching style is second to none. I especially appreciate that she had the CreativeLIve attendees the first family. With many of these courses, I find myself feeling completely inadequate because the instructors make it look super easy. When the student photographers worked with the family, they represented ME. This was such an encouragement. I also was thrilled that the second family was more of a challenge as it showcased Michele's talents perfectly. The business section was insightful and inspirational. I cannot say enough wonderful things about this course. It was a deal at $129. Thank you CreativeLive! And thank YOU, Michele. You are the best of the best.

Courtney Zito
 

I love this class! I am transitioning from film & television to photography, specifically children and families, and this class is wonderful! I am only on Day 1, class 6 (The art of posing) and I have learned so much that I have already applied to my own photography. If you're like me, you have come across other's photos and thought "meh", and then you come across some and you are like "wow!". What is the difference? Well there are many factors that make a great portrait, but one aspect I hadn't spent as much time thinking about was posing. You don't think about how important posing is until you see it in action here. I am looking forward to the rest of this series and soaking up all of her experience and knowledge. She's cute and quirky, and very organized in her teaching. Thank you Michele, great class!

Student Work

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