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Shoot: One Light High Key

Lesson 29 from: Pose It, Light It, Love It

Clay Blackmore

Shoot: One Light High Key

Lesson 29 from: Pose It, Light It, Love It

Clay Blackmore

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Lesson Info

29. Shoot: One Light High Key

Next Lesson: Shoot: Speed Lights

Lesson Info

Shoot: One Light High Key

I want it and I'm going to speak to some fun ideas that I've had over the years and this one is called a one line high key now we had a high key cooking up over there a minute ago way lost one pro photo light and when that one light went out and made the background if he at best I could have moved the light right behind the bride and done a high key but I probably would've had a spot effect wouldn't I like a hot spot so when I'm doing the high key I like the lights to come from the side but I'm going to share with your technique right here that's really pretty clever um I've just got amanda sitting here and look she's not gonna be comfortable unless you scoot to the edge and put your toes on the floor these little things help you teo tell your models what to do because I've done it enough you know to know now it's almost like cheating because the window is just magnificent here you know and this light is better than I've ever seen it since I've been here for four days so I could just t...

ake a picture by window light and it's going to look good but there is a highlight side and a shadow side we could use a civil reflector and that would help but what I'm going to do is just take a bear ball clash and I've got the quantum flash here at half power did I meet her it no I didn't even take the time because what I'm going to do I'm going to expose for the light that hits the paper comes back and hits the panel I can't believe I was just testing this out and I had it backwards come on jerry you're supposed to tell me the white goes inside there we go so now what do we have we have like this cool little set up here and you could do this with kids to they love it you know you just get a light in there behind him and I'm gonna lower you down justin and you stay right there stand up for one second I'm sorry that's it again okay so I can put her right where I want her now let me just take a picture like it might get f eight okay, let me just show you kind of where we're at you know it f ten f ate e got to bring this a little bit like this just came out bart I'm kidding the cable came out were good means focus and smiling it's going to be a little dark I hope because I would think it looks pretty good actually I'm looking at the back of my camera that's the light that's bouncing off the back wall bouncing off the card and lighting the face let's do that again it's probably just loading up I'm going to brighten it up a little is usually comes in a little dark the first time because you should be around at four to do this effectively good right there let's see that that's a little hot I mean just bring them everything down getting closer beautiful tip your head to the right a little bit good and how about fold your arms a little bit good tip your head to the right good chin down a little bit all right all right now let me take a look and see now I know what some of you guys at home are saying well he's got a big bank of windows and he's cheating so let me take a few more of these there looking so good and then we're going to darken the room up a little bit and show you that this technique can work in a dark room and it is pretty cool I've done maternity this way where we totally stripped down the mother that maternal mother really well I didn't even touch it you do that in the back that's cool here we go and she just stood in there with some items around her and it was a tummy shot inside here that's really beautiful good good right there and see what that looks like looks a little bleached out there on the monitor let me see what I'm getting here there we go. So let me dark and a little bit. We'll just take the iso from four hundred to two hundred that's one stop, let's. See what that looks like? A beautiful portrait. We're going high key. Is that amazing? That's one light now I think let me get about ten pictures and then you guys dark in the room here we got one, two, three and turn this way. Yes, and look over your shoulder at me. Beautiful, beautiful. Chin down. Beautiful it's great. That turned the other way. I turned right into the window and pull your hair back a little good. There's a fan right here. Don, why don't you just kick this fan on for me? Maybe just blow the hair up a little bit. Someone turn on from delirium music let's get this place rockin, you know, it really does help it home when you do this kind of stuff just to have patricia costs in the backs and little you know, I feel like that's what's missing right now. But so, jerry, can you hum a tune for me? Here we go. Love it, love it. Yeah pose that's. Good that's. Good right there, yes, beautiful that's, great. The high key is gorgeous look at that I could just shoot I love it I love it I love it pose a lighted lovett there we go take a break to see those things load up and while they're loading up can you guys pull the drapes down I'll get one up here and we're going to darken up the room a little bit I think we did find some music that is okay to play didn't we I hear mike coming up with something cool nice good job mike first round's on may here we go right here I'm going to go right now let's look how much that window was affecting the shot I bet it was affecting in a lot it's coming in dark right that's what I expected to see the first time so I'm going to take my eyes so teo sixteen hundred and that's gonna open us up four stops and that's a little too much I bet it's close though when they go I s o eight hundred this is actually I saw a thousand it's a little bright I s o four hundred uh come together now this this is truly a one line high key were in a dark space and we're just taking care of business here here we go just kind of play with the camera now good yes yeah I love it I love it you're great can you put your hands together like a diamond and just look through your hand like this hold him way out let me see both both eyes right there good good right there stay yeah do it a few times yes again chin down lower your thumb so I can see your face a little bit right there touch us make the diamond right there yes you're great you're great tip your head yeah that's good look at that oh another great wood that's a great photograph and that's one light I mean what do you say to that now I'm not done yet I wanna keep going this there you go don't you love that look I can see amanda's just happiest could be over there it's beautiful super flat though isn't it chin down a little I got an idea silver reflector on a stand bart here's the reflector bring me a stand or even a better idea jerry I'm going to take the black background never done this and I'm not afraid to fall on national tv I want you to take half the light go vertical away all right now what I'm doing now is I'm gonna have portrait lining I hope I hope let's see what happens beautiful right there beautiful see oh all right thanks guys for all that out of boys here we go one, two three laughing and spin around a little bit turned to the right somebody worked that wind machine a little bit beautiful one life photography right there. Yes. Beautiful. Beautiful. Yes, your great. Yes, yes, I want a bunch of these. Relax. Now, I think I made my point. They're just lay that over there, dear. I hate to work you guys too hard, but can you jump up and go ahead and open the windows again? I had not planned to do what I'm about to do, but bart, bring me that two hundred one eight in here. Here's another one of those ideas we picked up somewhere. What I'm going to do here is I'm just going to make a little video of amanda. I'm going to back up here a little bit gone, I'm gonna need someone on the fan and go to manual focus. I never mentioned that, but in video everything's manual and when you go manual, what are you thinking? About? Twenty four frames a second is what I'm shooting, so I double that number, so I'm shooting sixty frames a second. I'm locked into sixty, maybe fifty, so I don't want to go to one twenty five to fifty and get shutter role. I'm in sixty, so then I've got to think white balance I could should just jump in here and do a real white balance, but it's on auto, I never do auto I'm going daylight I mean there it is we've got this beautiful daylight in there all right good now I'm gonna darken the image a little bit let me back up just an inch all right now yeah I am rolling some video for you right there I love it I love the hair blowing you just kind of move slowly mike could you get the music a little bit louder for me just kind of really let her do her thing yes wow tip your head to the right yep yeah even come put your camera right here can you I mean does that man want macro that's good you got it love it love it yes you're just so pretty you just can't miss how about a little silver reflector bart where is it just kicked the light back in her eyes this is really just all day like yeah go ahead on the other side just light her up give me some beautiful light in the eyes bart underneath there you go get it closer to her I'm real close with the two hundred one eight good right there I'm gonna darken that image a little bit all right beautiful beautiful, beautiful good good good I love it yes really slow really slow yes look down look up, turn your back to me and look over your shoulder not if we just had a pretty girl this would work great look at that smile you see that that's teasing and having fun so now I've got I've got some footage to work with so I'm going to stop the video all right now guys I need you to black out the room again all right can you put the projector right up here and you keep the fan in place let's put it on opposing still barred or one more how about sean that stool you're sitting on that store you're sitting I need that story. Thank you all right, now set it right there can you move right up against the paper yeah keep going keep going right there. Good. Okay, now this is again one light what's the light is my projector hang on I'm going to kick my ass up a little bit now we're going to play back so this is what I just filmed right here now I'm going to start playing it you know what my options are? I can play it in slow motion turned the projector a little bit so they could see just rotate it a little bit just turning bart take a knee take a knee now show him on the left go there there you go. I can go slow motion right there so now I'm going slow and bart, you light amanda with that now amanda you look at me and nowhere else and do the same thing over again no flash we're just using that light is the light right there good beautiful little more fan yeah turn that music up love it yes get her face on her face but you know how to do it right there right there beautiful this is where we don't pose that we just let it happen show me her face off to the left a little bit over here right there good good good right there come on camera keep up with the camera come on there we go go slow you know I didn't I never even looked at my first picture I'm a little dark over here let me get it up get the exposure brighter I'll goto a thousand I s so beautiful all right go slow let's make sure we get this little lower bart cassie and then move this way a little can you scoot back a little bit here's what you can do just stand up and bart you're gonna come up a little higher to there we go right there uh don't move can you move the stool and back up to the paper now I know this is crazy but I would add light to this I would add a little this is daylight so you know I have a daylight spider light that I could punch in there you know it's it's laying around here somewhere I took it out we put the snoot on it what do we do with that? Um I had a little snoot lights right there why did you come on in here jerry I wasn't I wasn't planning on using this light right now but what jerry could do just take it off the stand jerri could give me a little um loop shadow wow look at the shot on the screen cool he happy if you're happy I'm happy all right hang on to get you better where's that other store my arrest these stools on top of each other you can you get in closer is that all right good well alright alright video's still playing right there all right good well just started again just now move the projector a little I'm almost there set it down for one second I'm going to do one more thing zoom it's coming closer right there beautiful right there okay okay all right bart just like that and I'm gonna start the video again and then we're gonna pull out here and do some speed lights so the video's back here on playback I like the music you pick mike you did it all right here comes the video we're gonna hit this play I love it can you just move to the side for a second and let us watch the video I made of you? I'm kind of proud of my film making skills look at that I mean today we're going to see more and more of this video portfolios all right slide in front of it go ahead and light her up and let's take a few pictures right there yeah beautiful I love it right there yes you're great you're beautiful wow isn't she magnificent really just yeah that's it right there turn your nose to the right and you raise your light a little bit did who's got that flashlight right there can you just turn that on and full power right there that that's it pass it over to christina just see what we do that's aguila one tip in geo one light there's a switch on the back come help you out if anybody you know just get her fired up now that's a tungsten line I know that but we might shoot this in black and white you know why not let me see it come over here you can focus this in and out no one she right in here keeping an eye on her face focus it in right there beautiful see the color change color change big time okay, well what am I gonna do? I'm gonna goto stay there I'm going back to the black and white picture style black and white monochrome it start on this last little bit and we're gonna be out of this there we go let's take a picture let's go flashlight in place everyone's good right there beautiful go like this with your hands over your head yes yes yes yes yes yes lean back chin down that's good yes keep that picture where I can see her face in front of her bart moved her face to the left to the left right there more to the left part and higher I don't want to see the line can you glean closer to the paper I almost want you touching the paper now I'm black and white now jerry you come out of there good right there right there let me see her face next to her take the fan off over don her eyes water and just take it off right there right there that's it now show me her face barred out in front of her I want to face is on the other side right there right there beautiful now take your time I don't want that black line could get good let me get in closer good right there right there beautiful you okay just close your eyes and let them stop watering there we go right there that's good now looking at me right there no black line right there bart stay there stay there now your elbow down can you look up with yourself you're on the screen behind you laughing show your face in front of a bart right there that's it right there that's good right there yes that's it and look at me a little more fan now we're done! Come on, show it to me big fan big push everything well let's take a break all right there little bright hang on, hang on, hang on that flashlights harder than I thought I'm sorry guys at home I got to get this going again sorry. Here we go. Oh, it's playing it wasn't on slow motion last time I did it on regular speed that's good elbow down a little good let's look at one of the pictures look at that on screen there that's going to keep her face up. Hi, bart. Right there. Chin down a little. Come back a little bar so you can kind of fill the screen a little right there. I don't want the lines right there. No tip it down face near the face right there. Beautiful pushing into her right there right there. It's moving left to right turn sideways. Come on. Camera gets a little darker. Sorry, my exposure when we pulled that geo one light in, I didn't never, never checked it let me stay we're getting we're getting really beautiful there still darker minus two the paper is fooling the a v exposure no, no good little too dark beautiful beauty right there lower the lower the background a little bit right there laughing, laughing because you're laughing behind you come on cameras yet uh eleven all right, let me just get one gorgeous shot to end on come on, come on lower that stay stay stay I just I can't settle I'm almost there no all right we're in slow motion exposure is it cameras it's a red light mean and it's trying to load up see it but I think I'm okay but last one yeah that's good right there yes let me just check our exposure here come on, come on come on right there I think the cameras trying to load up right there and see it there we go I like this right there beautiful where that were done if you just give me one gorgeous is that really slow? Turn your back to me and look over your shoulder yeah right there go go go go go go go come on camera come on got it? Relax. Ok. Wu how about a hand for her? That was awesome now way could have been with this camera right here I was making photographs I could have just been re a videotaping her form or of ahh gorgeous film does that make sense? We could bring the music down. I must get you to come have a seat amanda let's kind of spread out and jerry said to me at the break clay I can't afford pro photo lights I got a wedding this weekend it's a thousand bucks you're lighting was five thousand bucks over there you said twenty but you can get it for three or four I agree with you four thousand to do what I just did okay lights stand soft boxes everything one good wedding and it'll last year lifetime but you want speed light instruction and I want to give it to you. All right? So let's go for it where we're going to do let's bring in this little going to grab it here I know I'm jumping all over and you're gonna help me jerry you know I'm gonna teach you you get that little hair light and let's bring this in here don help me move these chairs out. You guys look way too comfortable move those chairs and stay standing. What do you guys think about those last series of pictures when I get going to hear a little I mean, look at that. That is really gorgeous right there. I'm seeing him finally come up there. I was to look at that one right there. Hold right there. Look, hold right there. Oh, don't hold there. Look at that. I mean, that is colossal and I mean just love and what we did there and you know what now you drop this into your photo shop and you can really kind of tucked down the corners you can uh you know what I mean this doesn't need photo shop but photoshopped could give you more elements to work with all right so clayton we just read off some of the comments that are coming in internet large farrah says I love it on black play some ready gonzalez I would love to shoot her she's doing such a great job and yes everybody loved how beautiful you are and how it looked um yeah people are agreeing bravo club cup clap awesome yeah clay do you notice that there are any like specific techniques to holding the projector on the model while you're actually photographing stills do you know how I got this idea and I'm gonna have to say out of all these rmds rip off in duplicate this is an original one I was in australia I was twenty years old and a fourteen year old photographers had here's one of my pictures and it looked amazing and I said how did you make that picture? I mean really and this is a fourteen year old little little guy I'm in his house having dinner in australian he says I took my month slide projected projected on my sister's face so he projected a slide on his sister's face and took a picture and it was gorgeous and you know it's tungsten balance for the old act a graphic projector so I used to carry three extra graphics around loaded up with vogue magazine covers george hurrell, benson abadan, all the iconic shots and I would start projecting iconic images on models and then somebody one time when a classist, what about copyright? You know you're showing one of avalon's famous shots and you're shot, so I just put it out of focus and said, take that and I didn't care, but then what we did with that tungsten, we would easily take tungsten many spots with barn doors, and we would put the loop shadow on the model, and then we would put the images on the white paper, and it was always a great thing. And you know what? I used to play madonna, vogue, and it would be, you know, strike the pose, and we would turn it just a cz loud as we could in the studio and the models once the music starts going there, just like, you know, strike the pose, they can't even hear my instruction, I'd say you're going to dance, you just do whatever, and we would just be shooting away, and I teach the classes the people would knock me over, there would be, like, thirteen cameras trying to get the shot, and I told cannon, hey, this is so cool I'm going to do in your trade show booth, and they said, we don't select a graphic projectors, that's, a kodak item, from nineteen sixty, so we really don't want you showing him. You know, I was just against slap my hand because I had the projectors. I flew him out there and I said, you know what? What if I use one of your cannon projectors? Fine. So this has become kind of a, uh, one of the things I finally came up with. I hope some people out and creative live land. We'll do some rnd on me for a change, as they definitely are excited to test that out. Yeah, I'm looking at the picture right here, and I think, that's, the best picture we made all week right there. Really cool, huh? Thanks a lot.

Class Materials

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Clay Blackmore Top 10.pdf

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

Clay Blackmore is the real deal in portrait photography. The guy is a bundle of creative energy and technical mastery. I took portraiture with Monte Zucker, and am glad to have Clay now as his successor. This concepts in this course are the rudiments. They'll never change, regardless of trends and fads. Clay is also very likable and fun to watch work. Keep your ears peeled for every word. When Clay points out those many little details, they all count. Love the course, and have a ton of respect for Clay. He's a portrait master, and a great guy. What else could any portrait student hope for?

Rosina Ortwein
 

This a wonderful class. Clay has worked w/Montey and brings a supreme knowledge to photographers who want to learn more. His skills are creative and insightful with a modest personality. This is an amazing class that comes with a great price.

Tom Lokos
 

Of all the courses I have purchased without exception this is the best. Clay is an excellent teacher. When he speaks he is saying something and not just talking. He explains his lighting techniques in great detail while demonstrating them . He is clear, concise and fun to listen to. You will learn how to pose individuals all the way to large groups, while learning the correct way to light them. All this while being entertained by one of America's great portrait photographers.

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