The picture above was the scene last night. Couple of things – I’m not used to so many Interns showing up for the group shoots. Usually it’s around 5 or 6. So when 10 showed up – I had to adjust a little. I also need to work on getting setup a little quicker, or you know, teaching them how to set (imagine that, yeah, I should get to teaching them that).
I suppose that’s what our Lighting 101 class will be about in a few weeks.
Here’s the thing I’ve come to realize over the past week. I’m having to learn a lot of stuff that I wouldn’t ever need to learn if I was only working with one or two other people. Managing (trying) 10 other photographers, rotating them, giving some direction, answering questions, adjusting lights, throwing ideas at them – it’s all kind of hectic in my head but there’s usually a point in the night where things just… flow. Bounce from here to there, say this, ask that, suggest this – and then setup a shot again.
I’m working on scheduling smaller groups (6 instead of 10) and that should take care of most of the timing issues.
This week we’re just re-working a few ideas so that everyone gets a chance to play with the lights a little more and also start shooting differently than they have been before. (how’s that for a run on sentence?)
You may have noticed – I’m a big fan of shooting wide and getting a shot of the entire Scene. Most beginning photographers prefer to only take pictures of their subjects up close, and capturing faces, or body positions. That’s fine but we’re trying to really get away from what’s comfortable.
Hey! Check out this video.
Another thing I’ve noticed is how much we don’t use props in our photos. Of course – I also rarely use hair/makeup people – but I realized last night that I just… don’t care about those things. I mean, I do care about them when they’re really needed, but in general – no.
I’ve spent most of the past year just using Light as a prop, or the main focus other than the subjects.
For us, it’s a formula of Light + People = Photos we like.
But you only really notice light when you can see the darkness – so we try to have varying degrees of darkness in our photos – to give them some depth. Because like we’ve said before, we don’t want our subjects to carry all of the weight in making a photograph interesting to look at.
See you tomorrow.
As usual, I love it. And man, that guy can jump!
I absolutely Love all of your pictures!
“Light illuminates, shadows define” -Rick Sammon
I’m not a prop photographer either. I want the focus of my photography to be the subject, rather than what’s around the subject. Unless a prop is needed for a scene, I prefer to leave it out and let the light do the work. 🙂
I do need to work on shooting wide, but when the backdrop is as big as that muslin, its a bit hard; I’m having some trouble working with a tiny person dwarfed by a sheet for the sake of getting a wide shot. I did have it in one of my shots though, so it’s a start. lol