Original subtitles

Good morning, everyone.

Hey, Jody.

What the hell is this?

No idea.

All right, here we go.

Group three.

Let's do this.

Well, let's give them a few minutes to

get in.

We still got one minute.

Jody's here.

Jody's here.

Allie's here.

Hey, Allie.

Hey, how are you two guys?

Hi, guys.

Oh, great.

How are you?

I'm fine.

Doing well, thanks.

Loving this.

Oh, that's great.

Brilliant.

We're actually quite enjoying it, too.

It's given us a task every morning.

I'm going to miss this when it's over.

Oh, well, hopefully you'll do something else.

Yeah.

We just...

Put that over there.

I'm going to switch my video off now.

That's good.

Okay.

Bye.

Everybody muted.

Is your shirt on backwards?

Probably.

I think there's one underneath it.

This one.

Backwards?

Yeah.

I don't know.

I get reversible shirts.

This one's reversible.

So let's start recording.

Oh, it is recording.

Yeah.

It automatically records now.

And then share screen.

Keynote.

Share.

And...

That.

And everyone's muted.

I think so.

All right.

I don't hear any residual sounds.

Welcome back, everybody.

Thanks for being here with us.

Here we go.

Episode four.

All about...

Reflections.

Yes, fun times.

And you guys are going to be stuck

with Lani most of today.

You were stuck with me last time.

Let me turn that off.

Turn that off.

But it's stinging at me.

So just before we get into the content

today and the tools, let's just look at

some of the homework you guys did.

I've just pulled this from the group.

And there's some really great stuff coming up

in here.

I loved this one by Miss John.

Just showing how exposing for highlight and shadow

and looking for highlight and shadow and eliminating

all the unnecessary highlights can create such a

dramatic image out of a fence of all

things.

A fence when you're in isolation.

And really good timing getting that bird right

in that bit of negative spot there as

well.

That's the basics of everything we're doing.

Light and shadow.

Yeah.

This one just really caught our eye.

We don't even know what's going on here.

It's a three light setup.

Is it?

Yeah.

Oh, you actually got the details on it?

Yeah.

Alyssa described it in the group.

Oh, okay.

But it's awesome.

It's awesome.

So practicing the off-camera flash and that

three-step process, right?

That really simplified three-step process.

And then, of course, the toolbox.

We've got some great silhouettes showing up in

there.

This one by Sask is awesome.

I really love the monochromatic feel of it

with the blue sky and choosing to use

a blue gel behind whoever that is reading.

And, of course, the backlight.

And Payal, who I think is here this

morning, loved this shot because you backlit something

that was in the air, right?

You tried to make some suspended particles in

the air to backlight.

So I love that huge.

Incense or something.

Incense or something.

It's beautiful.

Really cool.

And then here's another great backlight one, or

rim light.

So Mark Willis obviously lives in a nice

dark area where he can shoot the night

sky.

Awesome.

Carrie Kazuka's shadow propulsion ones are awesome.

I love this one of the poor little

Amazon man who's making $11,000 a second

right now, so he's really not that poor.

And this one she did of her daughter.

And then shoot throughs, shooting through wine glasses

and lighting that foreground and the background.

And I think we've got one more example

of that.

The Amazon man.

Again, the Amazon man.

He looks a little perkier here.

That one was shot through those little sparkly

light things.

Oh, was it?

Were those fairy lights?

Fairy lights, I think.

Yeah, and then the Boca Panos.

That wasn't actually an assignment or an exercise.

Arthur's an overachiever.

Arthur went for it.

Arthur went for it.

So he took this with 24-70.

Which is a tough lens to make a

good open trail.

It is.

So it's impressive that you were able to

do this.

This would be obviously even stronger if it

were like with an 85-12 or 70

-200 at 200 wide open.

And then just, Arthur, if you'd moved slightly

to the right, just slightly, you could have

cleaned up the tree growing out of your

wife's head here.

So just putting them on that sort of

blank canvas right there.

And perhaps eliminating the sky even.

But great job.

And I love that you tried it.

So before we get into the content, any

lingering questions that you guys had about the

content from last week's session that you wanted

to chat with us now about?

There aren't any questions yet.

Okay.

Are we coming through loud and clear there,

Jodi?

Technically, it's all working.

Everything's working great.

People are here with us.

People are nodding.

The challenge of this is, it's like talking

to this black hole.

We're so used to just having a small

group of friends cozied up on couches.

And you get that confirmation, you get that

feedback.

We can see their eyes.

We can see them nodding.

And so this is like this wall of

internet.

You just got to use your imagination.

They're all like writing down the notes.

They're like, I have my notebook.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we had a fun little idea, guys.

And it came as a result of seeing

this photo that cannot pronounce this guy's name.

I have it here.

You did have it here.

I have it here.

And if you're here, I am so sorry.

This is an awesome capture.

But I love this capture.

And they gave us this fun little idea

that maybe we could do a little contest

with screen captures.

Either screen capture or a photo.

This is a photo, obviously.

But a screen capture would work, too.

Actually, we are doing the contest.

Because we've already introduced it to the other

two groups.

So they're already, they got a head start

on it.

Yeah, they got a head start.

So you got to work your asses off.

But basically, to take a screenshot or a

photo that features the course.

Or you in the environment.

Or you in the environment.

Wherever you are experiencing the course.

The sky's the limit.

Do whatever you want.

But basically, just tag us in it.

Post it on Facebook or Instagram.

And you'll be, whoever wins.

We'll pick the best.

Well, we'll find a third party to choose

the best, most interesting, most creative one.

And then, what do they win?

They win a collection of my favorite books.

Cool.

So that's a pretty good prize.

Just a fun one.

And here's the bonus points.

Because you're stuck with Lanny for the next

two sections of the workshop.

Well, I am going to come in at

the end of today's section.

And so, of course, the world will be

flooded with photos of Lanny teaching and me

in the background.

Which I'm used to, to be quite honest.

Because we live in a very sexist world.

And everybody just idolizes Lanny.

And I'm his little sidekick assistant.

Anyways, so bonus points if you're able to

include me in the picture.

Even though I'm not really the main teacher

in these.

Today.

Today or tomorrow.

Yeah, today or tomorrow.

Today or Tuesday.

Yep.

Okay.

So I'm going to leave you to it.

All right.

And I've got fresh sourdough baking in the

oven.

And I'm going to come and show you

guys what it looks like when it comes

out in half an hour.

And make you all jealous.

All right.

Are we good, Jodi?

Here we go.

I was going to say, Erica, good job.

You found a recipe.

I found several.

Nice.

I tried a new recipe this morning.

So we'll see how it goes.

Awesome.

Good job.

Yeah.

All right.

Here we go, guys.

Where were we?

We were in the toolbox.

Backlight, rim light, shadow propulsion, shoot throughs, layers,

bokeh panels, and next up, reflections.

Okay.

So as with all of the tools, we've

kind of been following this progression with you.

Starting with really simple examples and getting kind

of more and more complicated.

More and more involved, I guess.

And kind of divvying it up.

Natural light first and then off-camera flash.

And portrait examples, documentary examples.

For reflections, I'm going to deviate from that.

And I'm just going to do this.

Because I realize that in trying to understand

some of these examples and deconstruct them in

a way that makes sense, and for me

to be able to explain them, it's kind

of like math.

You have to understand addition before you can

understand multiplication.

And you need to understand multiplication before you

can understand division.

So it's sort of like it builds upon

each other.

So I'm going to just start with very

simple, straightforward examples and move into more and

more trippy, complicated examples of the tool.

And so the photos that I've chosen to

deconstruct are with that in mind.

Okay.

They're not necessarily the greatest reflections we've ever

done or the best examples.

But they're the best ones to help as

many of us as possible understand it.

Right?

So that it makes sense and I can

break it down for you.

And also keep in mind, this is really

important, especially now that we're kind of getting

into the not the more complex tools, but,

you know, like it's not going to be

the first time that many of you have

ever made a reflection.

Okay?

But once we get into the more complicated

examples is to just keep in mind that,

you know, because some of the things for

some of you today that we're looking at

are probably something that possibly you haven't experimented

with yet.

Shooting through glass or multiple layers of glass,

for example.

And so that learning progression is important to

keep that in mind so that you can

commit yourself to getting through that learning curve

and not getting frustrated.

Because you kind of have to fail your

way forward in order to become competent at

this.

It's not like you just go out and

one click, boom, I got it.

I know how to do it.

You have to fail your way through it.

You have to come up against problems where

it's not working.

And in solving those problems and figuring out,

oh, I have to do it this way.

Oh, I have to make this change in

my settings and in my positioning.

And, oh, I have to put the camera

here in order for it to work.

That learning process, that troubleshooting gets you to

the point where when you are in a

situation where you can use that tool with

good purpose, you've already figured out the mechanics

of how to make it work.

And in practicing, you're probably going to end

up making not good photos, not award-winning

photos.

Because you're trying to make, you know, in

practicing a lot of these tools, often you're

trying to make a round peg fit in

a square hole.

It's like, okay, I'm going to try to

execute a reflection here and now using this

window or this glass.

But it's very challenging to do so because

it doesn't actually make sense to do it

here.

The light's not quite right.

You know, it's not a great location to

be able to do it.

But in trying to make it work in

that environment, in that situation, you might not

get a great photo out of it.

But you've problem solved your way through learning

the mechanics so that when you are in

the place in time, in the future, where

it's just screaming out for you like, oh,

wow, this reflection potential, this is incredible.

If only I'd figured out how to do

it.

Oh, yes, I do.

I already know how to do it.

Right?

One click, boom.

Okay, so that's the learning progression.

Keep that in mind.

I was just about to delete this deconstruction

that we did in the big workshop group.

But I thought because we're doing reflections, I'm

going to leave it up there for a

couple more days.

So in case you haven't had a chance

to go tune into that one, go watch

it before we take it down.

But what we're going to do, we're not

going to jump into this yet, is we're

going to take you through the whole kind

of progression of reflections and start with really

basic examples.

This is not a very basic example.

But this is what I want to focus

on right now before we dive in.

As always, with all the tools, yes, I'm

going to be explaining the how.

Right?

But keep in mind that I'm going to

try to keep the emphasis on the why.

There's always a reason or a purpose.

Or hopefully there is.

There isn't always.

But in a reflection image, any photograph, that's

compelling.

There's been a good answer to the question

of why.

Why the photographer did what they did.

Or why the photographer made the choices they

chose.

And so if the photographer has made a

choice to include a reflection or to use

the tool of reflections in the photo, it's

only going to be a good photo that

speaks to an audience if it was done

with intent and purpose.

With good reason.

Like Erica explained with shoot throughs, there are

many good reasons to shoot through something, right?

Framing the subject, telling the stories, layering, filling

the frame.

But there's also many examples of photographers shooting

through things just for the sake of shooting

through things.

And the same thing happens with reflections.

We see it so often.

Photographers just reflecting something for the sake of

reflecting it.

It's like the interest is in that technique

versus the actual subject matter that they're photographing.

The subject matter.

So when a reflection is used, it has

to reflect something interesting.

Or it has to ‑‑ there has to

be some reason behind it.

It's helping you show your interest in what

you're photographing versus showing your interest in photography.

And photography was invented as a means to

express an interest in something else.

So keep that in mind.

Reflections are a powerful way for us to

solve compositional problems, right?

For us to layer in stories from different

locations into the same frame, right?

Or what's happening in front of us and

what's happening behind us, right?

A way to ‑‑ I'm going to show

you lots of examples of where reflections can

be used to help us make more powerful,

more compelling photographs.

So keep that in mind.

Now, so for example, I want to start

on this one.

Because it's a good example of ‑‑ it's

a reflection photo that works.

And the reason it works is because there's

been a good reason to do so.

It wasn't just a matter of, oh, there's

a puddle.

Let's go and shoot a reflection in the

puddle.

In doing so, in this case, it allowed

Erica to layer in multiple stories from different

locations into her frame.

In a much less literal way than just

backing up until she's got the entire scene

and all the distractions, right?

She was able to simplify the scene down

to this frame.

So here's Timmy's feet, right?

So Timmy's sitting by the puddle.

And Erica realized that when she got down

close to the puddle, she could actually see

the reflection of these silhouettes.

Okay?

So these are two local boys from the

Hadza tribe in Tanzania.

And they're playing up on the rock.

Okay?

Quite a ways away from Timmy.

So this allowed her to ‑‑ and again,

with all the tools now where they never

exist in isolation.

You know, we started with silhouettes because silhouettes

are often used in conjunction with shoot throughs

or reflections or whatever, right?

So just basic silhouettes, exposing for the highlights

in the sky.

But compositionally, she's included Timmy's feet here to

pull these stories into her frame.

And so let's just start with straightforward mirrored

reflections.

Okay?

So the scene flipped.

Okay?

Whenever you've got some sort of a smooth

surface, you have the potential for reflection.

And really for us anyways, we can't really

see and imagine the reflection potential until we

physically go and put our eyeballs there and

see it.

So in this case, I can't remember who,

Erica or I, would have gone down onto

the puddle and looked at because the kids

happened to be playing in front of this

puddle.

This is like on the streets of Greece

somewhere.

And we saw an interesting reflection.

So anywhere, any place you can put your

eyeballs, you can put your lens.

Okay?

So we just got the lens right on

the surface of the puddle.

Okay?

This is just natural light, straightforward reflection.

Okay?

But the thing is reflective surfaces are everywhere.

Any smooth-ish surface will reflect.

Like a marble countertop, for example.

Okay?

That's all this is.

Doesn't have to be a mirror in order

to reflect like a mirror.

Once you get your eyes right down on

the surface or your lens right down on

the surface, it becomes a reflective surface.

And even if it's water, for example, even

if it's not flat like a pancake, if

there's ripples in it, it still reflects highlights.

Even a hardwood floor will still reflect highlights.

Okay?

So that's all this is.

Just natural light.

Natural window light.

The groom's writing his speech, I assume.

And so I would have been shooting some

of this, some of that.

And at some point I just got my

lens.

This is probably the 35.

35 or 28.

And I just put the lens right on

the surface of the marble countertop that he's

writing his vows on.

Focused right here.

And just shooting through his hand movements.

Okay?

Straightforward mirrored reflections.

Okay?

Here's a natural light portrait example.

Back to the basics of silhouettes.

Getting good separation.

Having them walk back and forth to have

movement.

And getting the camera low to bring them

up onto the brightest part of the sunset

behind them.

You can see the sun is just set.

This is in Jamaica.

This is Kimmy and Dwayne.

Dwayne's an alumni.

Dwayne's an awesome photographer in Jamaica.

And this infinity pool that they're walking back

and forth on, when we put the lens

right on the surface of the water, we

can bring that silhouette down here beneath them

as well.

Okay?

Now, we don't always have an infinity pool,

right?

We don't always have a reflective natural body

of water, a natural reflective part of the

environment to use.

But there's reflective surfaces everywhere.

We almost always can find one nearby.

In this case, it's an iPhone.

Okay?

So, your smartphone.

This is why we always buy black rather

than the white because this is kind of

our little, whenever we want to play around

with a little reflection, we just pull this

out.

I don't know why I can't turn Eric's

phone off.

It keeps coming on.

Okay?

So, it's black.

Now, this is something that everybody's doing, guys.

Okay?

So, if you're going to do it, try

to do it well.

In order to do it well, you have

to be doing it in a place and

time that makes sense to do it.

Okay?

Often people are just doing this for the

sake of doing it.

But if you've never tried putting your eyes

right up on your iPhone, check it out.

And this is how you learn where your

lens needs to go is put your eye

there and see the difference between holding it

here and holding it here.

And what happens if I angle it like

this and like this?

And just pay attention to the reflection and

what happens.

You can reflect an entire scene in a

smartphone.

Okay?

35 mil or 35 to 50 mil-ish.

Anything wider than 35 and you start to

see the outline of the phone.

So, that's all that's happening down here beneath

them.

You can just see the outline of it

here.

Right?

Usually when we're doing this sort of thing,

like a portrait outdoors in the environment, you

know, almost everything we're doing is in an

attempt to make our subjects pop within that

scene, within the landscape.

Right?

So, that's why we're getting them on the

bright spots, et cetera.

And that's why we'll often choose a wide

aperture in those situations.

You know, we'll often go 2 point something

or even 1 point something if we can

get away with it.

If they're moving, if they're not coming any

closer or farther away from the camera, we

can get that focus and not worry about

it.

Because it's just one more thing to help

them pop in the environment.

So, they're sharpening focus relative to everything else.

Okay?

Now, we're doing what we often do.

You know, have them running back and forth

in front of the bright spot.

You know, hoping to get really lucky for

that magic thing there.

But if you think about it, everything beneath

them, before we tried playing around with the

reflection, was just black.

Right?

Because we're exposed to the sunset.

So, all the foreground, all those midtones just

disappeared.

So, there really wasn't any reason to include

the ground beneath them.

And so, we weren't.

We had lots of frames where we had

them running along the bottom edge of the

frame.

And we were tilted up to fill the

frame with what was interesting, which was the

sunset and the silhouetted shapes of these trees.

So, the reflection allowed us to bring the

subjects up into the middle and fill that

darkness with those interesting highlights above them.

Right?

And bring that symmetry into the image.

Okay?

Same thing here.

Exact same thing.

And the exact same reason.

Because what was interesting here, this is a

portrait.

So, we're making portraits.

We're doing the basics.

Right?

They're in the sun.

So, we're highlight on shadow.

We're having them walk back and forth here.

Just natural light.

Highlights on the shadow.

And having them right down along this bottom

edge in all our frames.

Because everything below them was just blown out,

overexposed concrete steps.

Okay?

What was interesting was this colorful sea palace

and the blue sky.

So, we're trying to simplify the frame down

to just that.

A couple.

Highlight on shadow.

And the colorful palace in the sky.

The reflection, again, allowed us to bring them

up into the center and pull that interesting

information above them down below them.

Okay?

Now we have symmetry.

And it's occluding those blown out steps.

You can see this one is...

And we've used all kinds of things.

This is all we ever really have with

us.

You know, our smartphone.

And maybe sometimes one of us will have

a small little makeup mirror in our camera

bag.

But we don't bring prisms.

We don't bring iPads.

We don't bring anything with the purpose of

reflecting.

Anything in our camera bag hopefully has multiple

purposes.

And when we do bring things, it just

pigeon holes us into trying to use it

in a time and place where it probably

doesn't make sense.

And it would be better to just use

organically, work with whatever we've got to work

with, whatever makes sense.

So, sometimes we'll pick up, like, a piece

of glass.

Sometimes we'll use a UV filter from one

of our lenses if we're drawn to use

a reflection.

In this case, at this time, we had

a small little rectangular piece of glass.

It was actually a sample from a mirror.

It was like a mirror sample from a

construction site.

And so, it's actually, when you look at

it at a certain angle, it's semi-transparent.

Like, you can see through it a little

bit.

So, that's why you see this.

You can see through.

It's a little bit translucent through the edges

of it.

Okay?

Exact same thing here.

And the exact same reason.

Okay, they're frolicking up on the hillside.

The sky's amazing.

The clouds are amazing.

But the brown grass was kind of just

boring and not adding anything.

So, the reflection allowed us to put the

interesting information above them, below them as well.

Okay?

And, you know, when we have them up

on the hillside, often what we'll do is

we'll fill the frame.

Like, we'll angle it way up to feature

the sky.

We'll just have them down along the bottom

edge, okay, if whatever's below them is not

interesting.

And that's what we were doing in this

next example.

Okay?

You know, we were so I can see.

We were like this, shooting.

But then what we did is we brought

in our reflective surface and panned all the

way down like this.

So, we moved them from the bottom edge

up to the top edge here.

Okay?

And then used the reflective surface to reflect

what's above them.

And we're just eyeballing it.

Like, literally playing around with how close the

surface is to the lens and the angle

to get it compositionally the way that looks

good in the viewfinder.

Okay?

There's no formulas.

It's just visual.

You just have to eyeball it and play

around with the angle to get it to

work out for you.

And the nice thing about using a smartphone

to reflect is that it holds back about

a stop or a stop and a half

of light.

So, that's close enough that you can pull

it back up.

Right?

If it's too dark, you can pull that

up in post.

But if you're reflecting the sky, like in

this case, it actually works to your advantage

because it's holding back the light in those

clouds about a stop or so.

So, it makes it much more interesting.

Right?

You can see how much darker the exposure.

So, we're exposed for the highlights up here,

silhouetting them on the bright clouds behind them.

And then they kind of look smoky down

beneath because it's a darker exposure in the

reflection.

Okay?

Exact same thing.

And you get all kinds of trippy, unpredictable

results depending on the location, depending on whatever

you're reflecting in.

Okay?

Here's another example.

But this is a little trippier.

They're standing on the side of a gravel

road and we're down in the ditch.

So, down beneath them.

They're obviously surrounded by some trees with nice

leaves.

So, we're using those to kind of frame

them up there.

But everything beneath them is just a dirty,

filthy, boring ditch.

Okay?

So, by bringing in the reflection, it allowed

us to take what was interesting and wrap

it around them.

Okay?

And this one, you can see there's actually

two reflective surfaces.

There's one here and there's one there.

And what it is, it was just a

little pop-up mirror.

Like this.

It's broken now.

But it used to be hinged together like

that.

And so, we just kind of opened it

up into this V shape and had it

right underneath the lens like this.

Okay?

Playing around with the angle.

The angle of the angle.

Basically trying to surround them with the leaves

reflected in the glass.

Exact same thing here.

You can see the shape, right, of the

makeup mirror.

There's one and there's the other.

It's right underneath the lens.

Okay?

This would have been probably a 28 mil,

35.

Most of these are 35 millimeter focal length.

Okay?

So, this one, there they are.

They're up on the ditch.

Right?

And we're down in the ditch.

And this is right after their rainy kind

of elopement ceremony in the riverside in Golden,

Jodi.

And so, they only had like two guests

for this ceremony.

And each of them had one of these

blue colorful umbrellas.

So, we just laid the two umbrellas down

on the ground and stacked them in a

way that it left a bit of a

triangle open.

Okay?

So, we're laying down on the ground with

the camera shooting through the umbrellas, through that

little triangular opening, focusing on the couple.

Right?

And then that little pop-up mirror underneath.

Okay?

So, this might be a good spot now,

Jodi, to just check in with people and

see how we're doing.

See if this is making sense, these straightforward

mirrored reflections.

There are no questions yet, but there's a

few funny jokes saying everybody goes online to

buy a pop-up mirror.

Yeah.

Well, you can find them in any kind

of like makeup store.

Next time you're at the mall, who knows

when that's going to be?

Maybe next year.

But, you know, pop in and just, yeah.

But they're literally everywhere.

I mean, we've reflected in bottle caps, little

pieces of broken bottles that we found on

the ground.

And yet, you get more unpredictable, unique results

than using, you know, what everybody else is

using.

I have one question.

Okay.

It's for slide number 36.

How did you get mountains?

How did you get mountains through the reflection?

Oh, 35.

Sorry, you said image 35.

How did you get mountains through the reflection?

The hillside here, it happens to be the

same season that we did this one.

And that season, I happened to have that

little piece of glass that was semi-transparent.

So that's why there's a bit of a

transition where the reflection comes in.

Okay.

One of the interesting things to keep in

mind, I think I mentioned it up here,

is we're often shooting at wide apertures for

this.

And that helps to make these more interesting

and more mysterious.

Because if you shoot them up at like

F8, then the, you know, if you're reflecting

in a phone, for example, the phone then

becomes in focus and identifiable as a phone.

You can see the shape.

Whereas if you're shooting, you know, wide open,

it's the reflection is much more, or the

reflection will be sharp.

But the phone itself, the surface of what

you're reflecting in, is blurry and out of

focus.

Okay.

So it makes it more mysterious.

And you'll notice that, you know, we, I

mean, here we are reflecting the subjects in

the water.

But often we choose not to because we

could easily angle the reflection to reflect the

subjects.

Sometimes that's interesting, but often it's not.

Often it's more interesting to just reflect what's

way up above them.

And, right.

But if we are reflecting them, keep in

mind that even if you're at a wide

aperture, you're focusing on them.

So we focus on them usually, not in

the reflection.

But then they happen to be in focus

in the reflection too.

Because that focus distance is the same, right?

You're not focusing on the phone.

In order for them to be sharp in

the reflection, you don't focus on the surface

of the phone.

You're focusing on that distance to them.

So the phone itself is blurry and out

of focus, but the subject matter is still

in focus.

If that makes sense.

Yep.

Yeah, just do a couple more mirrored examples.

And if you guys have any questions on

this for Jodi, fire them her way.

And we'll break again after these next two

shots.

Okay.

So this is, now those were all portraits,

natural light.

This is obviously not a portrait.

This is the ceremony.

Bride and dad coming down the aisle.

And I was obviously shooting the processional.

So I was parked where I normally am,

which is right up at the front.

Between the top front, the front two rows.

Down on my knees.

Shooting everybody as they come down, obviously exposed

for their skin tones for the most part.

But I had this idea to try this

for when bride and dad came through the

doors.

I actually asked the church lady to leave

the doors open for me.

To just give me 10 seconds before you

close the doors.

She was cool with that, which was cool.

So that allowed me to be exposed for

the highlights outside.

And the highlights in the church.

And the highlights in the stained glass.

And get that before those doors closed.

Right?

And so I was just basically playing around

with the iPhone.

The iPhone is right underneath the lens.

I'm down on my knees, kind of right

down by the ground.

Like this.

And then, of course, the doors closed.

And then exposure back up.

And shoot skin tones as they come down.

Here's another just mirrored image.

We've used the infinity pool in this case.

Their dance floor in Thailand happened to be

outdoors beside the infinity pool.

So what Eric and I decided to do,

because we were working together, was let's just

go safe.

And do a good job of getting the

first dance photos.

And if we feel like we're good, we've

got some good ones, halfway through the dance,

we'll go and try this.

And so that's what we did.

One of us stayed there with the light

on the dance floor.

And the other one walked around to the

other side of the infinity pool.

Put the lens right down on the surface

of the water.

All our settings were already dialed in for

what we were doing.

But basically it's the basics.

Exposed for the highlights.

The highlights up here.

The highlights here.

All the rest of the midtones fall away.

And then making our own highlights with a

back flash.

Eric is holding the flash behind him and

trying to hide it from my camera.

Moving with the action.

No grid.

Okay.

And then that backlight is also bouncing up

off his white shirt and her white dress

to give them some fill light there.

But the lens itself, this would have been

35, is right on the surface of the

water.

And that's what's bringing.

And you can see it's not like pancake

-flat water.

There's ripples in it.

But it still reflects the highlights.

Okay.

Any questions, Jodi?

No questions right now.

Okay.

So I wanted to start there because that's

easy for me to explain.

Easy to understand.

It's just having our lens right on the

surface of something reflective and bringing in a

mirrored effect.

So now let's get into shooting reflections in

mirrors.

Right?

And Eric has already talked about, you know,

when people do things in front of mirrors,

which is often because they're getting ready and

they want to see how they look.

So they go in front of a mirror

and do their ties, do their hair, do

their cufflinks, do their whatever.

And so that gives us an opportunity to

photograph them, their reflection, you know, framed through

their body.

So one of the things we'll often do

is go right behind them and focus on

their reflection.

And if we get lucky, it'll line up

where we can, you know, frame them through

a body part.

So that's one of the things we'll often

do.

But the other thing that we've talked about

is how limitations, how creativity comes from having

limitations imposed upon us.

So it's from that constraint we end up

getting guided into making unique images or doing

something that we've never really done before in

a little bit of a different way.

Because reality is just unfolding however it's going

to unfold.

Right?

We're not trying to make it fit into

any preconceived ideas of how, what should happen

and where it should happen.

Okay.

Like in this case, the guys are doing,

they're putting on their ties and the mirror

happened to be in the worst spot.

Like it was, there was maybe like less

than two feet between the bed, the hotel

bed and the mirror.

So we've got these, these two guys in

that tight little space trying to figure out

how to do their ties in front of

the mirror.

And so I don't have many options.

One was to hop up on the bed

and to try to shoot the reflection.

And I tried that for a little bit.

When I was up there, I looked down

and I realized there was just enough space

for me to kind of wiggle in between

their feet and the wall.

And I think Erica also mentioned when we

go down to shoot up, often it's to

include the whites of eyes if they're looking

down, but it also cleans up our backgrounds.

So as soon as I do that, often

I no longer have to worry about picture

frames and exit signs and light switches and

things that are in the background of the

walls.

Ceiling is often a nice blank canvas.

So I just decided to go down and

see what it looks like.

I went down with a wide lens, probably

like 16 to 35.

And I got, so I'm literally laying on

my back like this, shooting up, focusing on

their hands.

And I realized if I hold the camera

in the right spot, I can include their

hands coming in, and that's all I need

to tell the story.

And I can also include their hands reflected

in the mirror.

But it was interesting, but the problem was,

is their hands, the light on their arms

was the same exposure as the ceiling behind

them.

And I'm usually working by myself in these

situations, but once in a while, we'll have

the luxury of having an alumni with us.

And so we had, my friend Sean was

there with me that morning.

So I just said, hey, Sean, point my

light at the roof, at the ceiling.

So he hopped up on the bed, aimed

the flash at the ceiling right up there,

and that gave me the bright background on

which to kind of silhouette their hands.

And then I'm shooting, this would have been

Canon, so I would have been shooting six

frames per second through all that action.

Same thing.

This is just reflected in a mirror.

It happens to be a cool ornamental mirror.

This is just the bride and the groom

rehearsing for their dance in the morning.

So I was doing all kinds of things

in there.

But one of the things that I kept

my eye on was to see if things

would line up for me to get them,

part of them reflected in this little mirror.

So that's all this is.

And playing around with different apertures to see

how in focus or out of focus I

wanted this part of the mirror to be.

So the mirror itself is out of focus,

right, because I'm focused on their reflection in

the mirror.

Okay, so using mirrors now to help us

bring stories that are happening in various locations

into the same composition.

And these next two examples I'm going to

show you are literally just straight problem solving

and experimentation.

It's no preconceived idea or I'm going to

do this.

It's being in this situation, trying to solve

some compositional problems.

So the bread's coming.

I can smell it.

So this is at a Telugu wedding in

Hyderabad in India.

And any Indian wedding photographers will understand what's

going on here and some of the challenges

that you're up against.

But basically for this ceremony, for this section

of it is the bride and the groom

are seated facing each other and they're surrounded

by family.

And they're separated by this big sheet so

they can't see each other.

Okay.

And so Eric and I are both kind

of we're standing.

We're like we can't move.

We're literally we're surrounded by family and friends

and other photographers and videographers and everywhere.

So we've got nowhere to go.

And what I'm trying to do from my

perspective is I'm trying to figure out how

to tell the story and include the bride

and the groom.

We're separated by this this sheet and where

I am with the lens I had on

my camera.

I just couldn't figure out a way to

do it in a way that was interesting.

Okay.

And so so basically the space is like

if here's the sheet.

I can see the bride.

The bride's right there.

And the groom is kind of just off

my shoulder back there.

Sheets in between us.

So the first thing I was doing is

actually holding my camera up.

I think I had the 28.

So this would be 28 millimeter lens.

As I realized I needed to like get

my camera further away.

So I'm actually lifting it up.

Yes.

Using the flip screen to see.

So I'm holding it up like that.

Focusing on the bride and back pocket was

a tiny little tiny little piece of glass.

Pop up maker.

And so I just in trying to figure

out how to get them into the same

frame.

I just decided to experiment and play around

with that mirror.

So it's up like this.

And I'm eyeballing it to see if I

can get bring the groom into the same

composition.

It kind of worked.

Yes.

It's not a great photo but it came

from that experimentation.

So it allowed me to bring those two

elements into the same frame.

Same thing here.

This is just experimentation.

And boredom.

OK.

This is at.

This is in.

In Lake Louise.

Anyways.

Doesn't matter.

It's a small small little hotel room with

shitty light which is par for the course.

And the guys as also often par for

the course spent like two hours doing nothing.

A whole lot of nothing.

And then they got ready in like seven

minutes flat.

So that for that two or three hours

of them just hanging out sitting around shooting

the shit sharing stories having laughs sharing sharing

wine.

I'm doing a couple of things.

One is I'm strategizing and strategizing means eliminating

possibilities.

So I'm looking around and seeing what I

can do and crossing off like OK well

this isn't going to work.

That's not going to work.

That's not interesting.

That's not going to line up.

Narrowing my focus into where should I be.

Right.

And also trying to set myself up for

when they do get ready in seven minutes

flat.

I know where the mirrors are.

I know where things are going to happen.

I know if I'm going to have any

chance of lighting and I've got my lights

in position.

OK.

And then for those two hours I'm focusing

my attention on those few areas that I've

identified.

So this was one spot I realized that

I could sit.

So they're sitting I'm sitting.

We're just kind of hanging out and I'm

trying to make interesting compositions through it all.

So I'm playing around with my camera.

I'm trying to you know shoot through the

moments of laughter and hand movements.

And when the glasses of wine come up.

OK.

Just playing around.

And then at some point I decided to

bring in this and see if I could

use that to make a more interesting composition.

OK.

So it's just right beside the lens here.

OK.

And I realized that in doing that I

could include the groom over there in this

corner and bring those elements together and then

shoot through the action as it happens.

It's just natural light.

You know turned to black and white because

it was puky puky white balance.

Jodi any questions before I go on.

We don't have any questions yet but maybe

if we just give it a sec to

see if anyone pops in.

I know that like Louise room all too

well.

Are those rooms.

Actually I think it's the post hotel.

OK.

Yeah.

Yeah it's the post hotel.

Jodi.

Even smaller and darker.

Yeah it's just going to say.

Not the nice big chalets like the tiny

little rooms.

Yeah totally.

Oh here we go.

Question.

Is it challenging to use flash with reflections.

Depends.

Yes and no.

No more challenging than it normally is.

So yeah reflection doesn't for these kind of.

So for these kind of reflections that we've

looked at so far the reflection itself doesn't

make the flash work any easier or more

difficult.

It's just back to the basics of what

it is.

You know here for example this is the

only flash example we've looked at so far

actually.

Yeah.

All the others have been natural like better

move me.

Right.

So the challenges of lighting it are no

more complicated with with having the camera on

the surface of the pool.

It's the same thing.

But but off camera flash is is going

to be critical in order to do some

of the reflections that we're going to start

to look at now.

Perfect question.

Do you always shoot wide open when using

reflections into mirrors.

Not always.

It depends what we're doing.

OK.

So this wouldn't have been wide open.

This would have been probably 2.8 because

we're shooting action and movement that they've obviously

got like a dynamic dance.

But in a portrait I would say in

an outdoor environmental portrait where we're just doing

a straightforward mirrored reflection like like this.

We're usually wide open or close because we've

got the time to get the focus right.

And it allows us to have them pop

within the landscape easier than if we shoot

at a high aperture.

Plus those high apertures make the reflection too

too sharp that the surface of the reflection

itself becomes in focus and it's not as

interesting.

But you're going to see a lot of

examples we're going to start to get into

where we're reflecting and we're intentionally having to

shoot up at like F8, F9, F11 in

order to make it work.

OK.

The next two questions are more on a

little bit on the editing side of things.

So might have to wait for editing.

Yeah we'll wait for editing.

Because we're doing we're doing a full session

on that.

There's one that there's one that kind of

crosses over.

It's like not mirror related but in those

rooms with awful lighting.

Do you even bother trying to make it

look nice in color or except that it's

except that it's a turd.

Go black and white flash.

It depends.

So it depends what's happening.

You know if it's something if it's something

that's happening in one spot for longer than

30 seconds.

Like there's like you know if a bride

sitting in if a bride sitting getting her

hair done for 45 minutes or her makeup.

Five minutes.

Yeah for sure.

We're going to be lighting it making it

look interesting.

Right.

But if it's you know if it's the

guys and they're not they're not doing anything

in one place for more than 20 seconds

and they're literally getting ready in seven minutes

flat.

I probably am just trying to react as

best I can to what's happening and probably

shooting mostly natural light and just dealing with

it.

Right.

Not trying to polish those turds.

But if it if the light is really

bad and I've got more than 30 seconds.

You know if they're if they're shaving for

example in the bathroom that usually lasts at

least a couple of minutes.

So I do have time to like those

those situations you know.

Well you are you're going to do something

like it with the shaving at some point

I saw a pretty wild looking image that

you started out with where it was like

reflections over here and reflections.

Oh yeah we're just starting.

I mean we're going to start to get

really trippy.

That's the shot I'm very curious.

Not just shaving.

But I wanted to start with these straightforward

examples because it makes it easier for me

to explain what's happening in those ones.

I really love that guy's shirt.

Funkle.

Giggling and imagining he's got a great personality.

Okay I think we're good for now.

Let's get in guys.

It's going to start to get a little

bit a little bit trippier.

But we are still.

Let me get rid of this.

There we go.

We are still natural light here.

Okay now now we're shooting going to start

to get into examples where we're shooting through

glass.

And the thing with glass windows for example

is glass allows us to see through and

so shoot through what's on the other side

of the glass.

Glass also reflects.

Okay so it's like an opportunity to superimpose

what's on each side of the glass.

And in this example I want to start

with this one because this is probably something

a lot of us have seen something like

this.

We saw this.

This is the way it looked.

All we've done is just we just exposed

for it.

Okay literally this is what we saw.

So this is in in Leamington National Park

in Australia.

We're staying in this hotel and the hotel

room the windows in the master bedroom overlook

the rainforest.

So where you look out the window and

you see the canopy of the rainforest which

was amazing.

And when we went into the bedroom obviously

this is like in the evening dusk light

that nice blue hour.

We look out and we obviously we see

the trees but we also see Madeline and

Timmy reflected in the glass there in the

hallway behind us.

Okay the lights are on in the hallway.

The lights in the master bedroom are all

off.

So in order for in order to see

and photograph what's on both sides of the

glass they have their exposures have to match.

Okay this was that magical time of day

doesn't last long when these exposures matched.

Not not the exposure in the bedroom itself

because the lights were off.

So the bedroom is much darker than the

outdoor scene.

But in the hallway where the lights are

on that exposure matches the exposure outside.

So you see them superimposed like this.

If I were to turn in the lamp

on the bedside lamp you'd see that highlight

reflected in the glass because it would come

up to match the same exposure.

But you can barely see anything in the

master bedroom.

If you look closely you can just see

the outline of the bed right here.

So that's the bed.

You can't see I can't remember who made

the shot.

You can't see me or Erica because we're

in that dark bedroom.

There's no light on us.

We're kind of shooting on an angle a

little bit too so we're not blocking the

reflection of the kids.

Okay so that's a key thing to remember.

Keep in mind when we get into the

more complicated examples of doing this.

Essentially this is what we're doing.

We're having to balance those exposures to make

it work.

This works now.

It wouldn't have worked one hour earlier because

one hour earlier it would have been so

much brighter outside.

We wouldn't have seen anything reflected inside because

it would have been way darker inside.

One hour later we would still see the

kids reflected in the glass but we wouldn't

see the trees outside because they'd be in

darkness.

Right.

So it's that short period of time where

it works naturally works.

But we can make those exposures match when

we use our off camera light.

Right.

That's essentially what we're trying to do when

we're shooting through glass is make those exposures

match so that we can layer those two

stories together.

And in terms of which side of the

window reflects is that's a consequence of what

time of day it is it flips it

flips at dawn and dusk.

Okay.

So we know that midday during the day

if we're outside we can't see inside people's

windows.

Right.

Unless we go up like this because the

exposures don't match.

It's so much brighter outside than it is

inside their houses.

So we can't see into their houses.

Right.

At night it's the opposite.

At night we can see inside people's houses.

It's like looking in a fishbowl.

You can see inside everybody's houses because the

exposure inside their homes is brighter than it

is outside at night.

But then if you were to go inside

at night you can't see outside.

Right.

You can't see through the glass because it's

so much darker outside than it is inside.

All you see are the highlights inside reflected

in the glass.

And you don't need to know that.

You just have to go and look.

Oh this window is now essentially a mirror.

I can't see through it because the exposures

don't match.

Okay.

So here is the exact same thing.

That's what's happening here.

This is a natural light portrait obviously post

portrait.

Okay.

Jody you'll know this place.

This is at the Post Hotel.

It's a small little restaurant that they have.

And one of the walls in the restaurant

is like floor to ceiling wall to wall

wine rack.

Okay.

It's basically like world famous wine collection.

And this couple were wine lovers and they

wanted to go down into that little restaurant

space and make some portraits before their guests

came.

Their family had a reception dinner was in

this little restaurant.

And so this is the first time we'd

ever done anything like this.

This is quite a few years ago.

And we were doing a little bit of

this and a little bit of that trying

to figure out what should we do down

here that's interesting.

And what we noticed was, you know, when

we looked towards that wine rack, you see

the wine rack, right?

These little white things are the labels on

the wine bottles.

Okay.

So these are all wine bottles in the

rack.

And you can see that that whole wall

is lit up.

See these pot lights up in the ceiling.

So they're lighting up all the wine bottles

behind the glass.

Okay.

So we're looking towards the wall.

We're seeing through the glass.

We're seeing the lit up wine bottles.

We also see what's reflected in that glass.

And the only thing that shows up are

the things that are the same exposure or

brighter than the wine bottles in the room.

Okay.

Everything in the room was a lot darker

than the lights they had on those wine

bottles.

Except right here.

See that highlight there?

That's like they've got some sort of a

pot light on this centerpiece on this table.

And obviously there's this big bright highlight reflected

in the glass.

Okay.

That's the window behind us on the opposite

wall reflected in the glass.

Because this is like midday.

So it's bright outside.

So behind those sheer curtains is full bright

day.

So it's highlight.

It's reflected in the glass.

And, you know, this is what we saw.

Like we saw it.

Literally we're standing there.

When we got in there first, there's actually

three windows on that wall.

And all of them were open.

And a waiter walked through the restaurant.

We were looking towards the wine bottles.

And we saw the silhouette of the waiter.

We saw him walk in front of those

three windows reflected in the glass.

So that's when we were like, oh, that's

cool.

Let's close two of them.

So we closed two of them and left

one highlight open.

Had the couple go and stand in a

boring penguin pose in front of there.

This is the first time we're seeing this.

We're excited.

But all we're doing is exposing for the

highlights.

And so from here up in the ceiling,

they had it decorated with sticks and all

these like little pin lights.

Okay?

And then down here you can see all

those pin lights reflected in the glass.

Okay?

But that's all we've done.

We just saw it, lined it up, exposed

for the highlights.

Okay?

And the reason you can't see Erica is

because she's standing.

I think at some point I figured out

where she is.

But she's obviously not blocking that highlight, the

reflection of the highlight.

And she's standing in an area.

She doesn't have a pot light on her.

There's no lights on Erica in the room.

So she doesn't show up.

She's not a highlight.

She doesn't get reflected in the glass.

Okay?

This is probably 50 millimeter.

Okay?

How are we doing, guys?

Does this make sense?

What's happening here?

I think so.

Cause there's no questions.

Okay, cool.

So this is natural light, but of course.

This is sort of a gateway drug into

figuring out how to do this.

When it doesn't like.

When we don't have a bright window like

that, we can make our own highlights, right?

We've already looked at examples of that.

And you'll see some examples of where we've

done that in a reflection.

Scenario.

Okay.

We've got one question.

Any tips on.

Any tips on ensuring focus on the subjects.

When shooting into mirrors and windows.

Yes.

So, yes.

It's shooting into mirrors.

It's the same as always.

We use our back button, usually center point

focus and then recompose.

And we're trying to focus on the reflection

itself.

So it's the same as always, right?

You come up against the same challenges.

You know, if it's really dark, it might

be a little challenging to get it.

Or if you're shooting through moving body parts,

you know, it's.

You need to get it.

Back button focus makes that easier.

Shooting through windows is another story that often

is the crux.

How do you get focus through glass?

When, when those exposures don't match and you

can barely see through the glass yourself, let

alone focus.

And I'll talk about that when we get

to some examples in this case, this is

natural light, right?

So the camera had no problems focusing.

But yes, I do have some tips and

I'll share those once we get to some

examples of that.

Oh, we have more.

What about the photographer's clothes reflecting?

There's no light on the photographer.

Okay.

Yeah.

If we, if we had lit Erica up

with, if we'd aimed a flash at Erica

or if Erica was standing under a big

spotlight, you would see her in this where

you would see part of her, right?

She's shooting a slightly on an angle.

But because she's where she's standing in the

restaurant, she's exposed for the highlights.

So only the highlights are being reflected in

that glass.

She's too dark to show up.

She's, she's essentially just underexposed.

Her clothes are underexposed.

I know you're going to get to it,

but I'll just ask this maybe to like

lay a foundation.

Do you manually focus at times when it's

unable to focus when you're shooting through glass?

You don't, you certainly can.

That's one, that's one method.

That's one of the tricks you can use.

We've got some better tricks that, that work

better for us.

I, I just, I don't trust my eyes

enough to get focused to work.

Yeah.

I mean, not, yeah.

In addition to the manual focus question, wondering

if you guys use the focus magnifier either

for manual or AF.

That's another tip.

Another trick you can try if you're struggling

is you can, you know, depending on what

camera you're using.

A lot of them have some, some option

where you can zoom in, right.

And see live view and check your focus.

We've never, we've never done that though.

Okay.

I think we're good.

And I will address focusing.

I'll share you the way the tricks that

we've learned.

Yeah.

Situations where it's challenging.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

Shooting through glass, glass becomes a mirror, right?

The only time that really the only time

when the glass is both a mirror and

a transparent piece of glass is dawn and

dusk when those exposures on both sides match.

And that's when you can naturally see with

your naked eye, cool, overlaid stuff from both

sides of the glass throughout the day.

And in the middle of the night, it's

either one or the other, you can see

through it or you can't.

So at this time of day, in this

example, when I'm inside the room, I could

see the kids outside, right?

If I back up, I can see through.

So the glass, these are sliding glass doors

from, from inside where I am.

It's a, it's a window outside where Erica

is with the camera here.

It's a big mirror.

She can't see through it.

Okay.

That's because it's so much brighter outside than

it is inside.

Okay.

So I wanted to start with this one

because we've left the door open here, right?

Sliding glass doors.

You can see what's happening.

Plus it's natural light because I'm right up.

I'm peeking through the door.

So I've come into the outdoor exposure, right?

The sunlight is hitting me.

So Erica has been able to match us.

What she's done is she's just, she's just

done a natural light photograph of the kids

reflected in the mirror, the glass doors, which

are essentially a mirror, right?

So she's exposed for the highlights in the

sky behind her, right?

Silhouetting the kids reflected in the glass.

Okay.

And then I just happened to be in

that same exposure there.

Cause I'm in the sun.

So that makes sense.

What's happening there, guys.

Thumbs up Jody.

Yep.

We're good for right now, Lanny.

Cool.

Okay.

Same thing here, but Erica's had to make

those exposures match with her light because here

I've got the sun on me.

If I were to take a step back

into the darkness of the room, I would

disappear, right?

In that case, Erica would have to light

me to bring me up to match the

exposure.

And so that's what she did at Kimmy's

wedding here in Jamaica.

Okay.

She's shooting outside.

These doors obviously have glass windows here.

And this time of day, they're basically mirrors

for Erica.

Okay.

So she's exposed for the reflection.

So her ambient canvas is essentially set for

the highlights in this reflection, the sky and

the palm trees behind her.

The reason she decided to do this is

because she realized that the reflection was interesting.

There were palm trees.

It added the story of location, right?

If it was something ugly, if it was,

you know, which it often is, usually when

we go outside onto a porch and look

through windows to see if there's reflection potential

nine times out of 10, it's to cross

that list off the list of possibilities.

Okay.

Once in a while you'll realize, Oh, actually

this is interesting.

So if it lines up, I'm going to

keep this in mind.

And so the makeup artist is obviously set

up near the window because she's using the

window light.

And Erica realized that one of the things

she could do, this isn't all she does,

right?

You know, for these 45 minutes that Kimmy's

getting her makeup done, Erica's inside, outside doing

all kinds of things.

But one of the things she's trying to

do is get this to line up for

her.

Okay.

So what she's done, and once she figures

out the settings, every time she goes out,

she just dials in those settings.

Right.

And tries again, hoping it's going to line

up for her.

Okay.

So probably 100 ISO one 200th of a

second.

Cause she's going to, she's going to have

to light like Kimmy.

Right.

And then effing it up to expose for

the reflection.

So she's probably up at like F nine

F 11.

Right.

And then she's got her flash mounted on

a light stand coming in.

It's probably over here somewhere behind the doors

inside with a grid.

Okay.

So it doesn't light up the whole room

aimed at Kimmy coming in from the side.

Okay.

Probably at full power is tasting the soup,

but probably at full power.

Cause keep in mind, she's up at like

F nine.

Right.

So she has to time, time her shots

because at full power, you need, you need

to, you can't just shoot rapid fire.

Right.

There's a little bit of refresh time for

that flash.

So she's timing it for when the makeup

artists hands come in.

Right.

And she's waiting and hoping for something interesting

in the reflection.

Okay.

So she, I mean, she made hundreds of

frames like this, but this is one of

the most interesting ones because it was the

one when the videographer walked through her frame.

So it added another human element in the

composition.

So, and in terms of focusing, this is

obviously easy for Erica to focus.

Right.

Because she's left the doors open.

So her eyes, she can see Kimmy.

Right.

It's so if her eyes can see Kimmy,

the camera can see Kimmy, the camera can

focus.

Okay.

The focusing challenges come when we close the

door and now we're trying to go through

the glass.

Right.

Because now her, I can't see Kimmy, the

camera can't see it.

Give me and that's when we're going to

start to use some tricks.

But one of the tricks is to open

the door.

Okay.

So if it happens to be a glass

doors, you can open the door, get your

focus and then close it and shoot through

the glass.

Okay.

And Jody.

So before I, before I go into the

next example in each case, just cut in

at that point, if there's a question because

I want to make sure everybody understands each

piece of the progression here before we get

more complicated.

Okay.

I'll just keep going.

Oh, do you have a question now?

I have two questions right now.

The exposition of the highlights can't change that

change to get it is the flash power.

Can you read it one more time?

Yeah.

I'm trying to think if maybe there was

a mistake on the word and it maybe

was probably.

Yeah.

The, I think it, yeah.

So to get, I think, I think what

they're asking if it's in reference to this

photo is yes, to get the exposure right

on Kimmy at that point, the only thing

that is changing is her flash power.

Okay.

Because remember she always follows that same three

-step process.

So she gets her ambient, her ambient exposure

dialed in first, which is the reflection.

Then she does with her life.

So then she turns on her transmitter, taste

the soup eyeballs it.

And if Kimmy's too bright, she turns the

flash down.

If Kimmy's too dark, she turns the flash

up.

If she can't turn the flash up any

higher, she'll move the flash closer.

Perfect.

And then the next question is, do you

use color gels with off-camera flash to

match the light of the flash to the

light outside?

We use the, we, we gel it basically

the same way.

We always gel when we're flashing skin, we

start with that quarter cut CTO and then

we just eyeball it.

And if they look too orange, we take

it off.

If they still look like Smurfs, there's still

blue skin.

We'll switch to like a, like a warmer

gel.

So like a half cut.

So we're just eyeballing it.

But remember, we're shooting auto auto white balance

almost always.

So we're just eyeballing it.

Okay.

We're good for now.

All right.

Another example, the exact same thing.

Okay.

What I've done here is first of all,

I mounted, clamped one of my flashes onto

a towel rack in the bathroom.

Okay.

With a grid and tried my best to

aim it in the direction of the surface.

And then I put it in the sink

where I knew that the groom would go

after his shower because I knew he was

going to shave after his shower.

Okay.

So position the light.

Then I'm going outside because one of the

things that I realized when I went outside

to look through this glass was that the

reflection potential was interesting.

I had mountains and trees behind me.

So it told that story.

And so this is a sliding door, right?

And so it slid the door open.

And I haven't closed it entirely here.

And I've just got this one in here

to show you the progression because these aren't

my favorite shots from this, but this is

what I did first because it allowed me

to get focus.

As long as that door was open, I

could see straight through straight line of fire

into the bathroom.

I could see the groom there so I

can get my focus.

Okay.

And then this is a 35 millimeter lens.

So with a 35 millimeter lens you're going

to, you're going to have something like this

where unless you put the lens right on

the window, if you're backed up at all,

like I'm probably a meter or two meters

back, you're going to see context.

You're going to see the window panes, for

example.

Right.

And so that's what's happening here with a

35 millimeter lens.

The only way to fill the frame with

the reflection is to physically go.

That's good.

Sourdough.

Sorry.

With a 35 millimeter lens to fill the

frame with the reflection, you have to physically

put the lens right up on the window,

right up on the glass.

Okay.

And then in doing so, the only way

to get you and your camera out of

the reflection is to shoot on a, at

an angle like that, like a big extreme

angle like this.

But even then you're still going to see

the shadow of your camera down in the

corner.

Okay.

So I'm going to flip to the next

image next.

And because what I did is I realized,

I think this will be more interesting without

the window frames.

Okay.

If I just shoot through this pane of

glass here and fill the frame with that,

it's gonna be much more mysterious.

Okay.

Now I've got the light figured out and

I'm able to focus, right?

Cause I can open the door focus and

then close the door.

So in the next shot, what I've done

actually, we'll come back to that.

I'll show you the next shot in a

second.

What I want to do is cut to

this one now and show you guys what's

going on because this is the same thing

as this, except now the door is closed.

Now there's glass in between the subject and

the camera.

Okay.

There wasn't here.

So now we've got focusing challenges, right?

So this Jodi, you'll know this location, this

suite where the bride's getting ready has like

an L shaped balcony that comes outside.

So when I went out onto the balcony

to make this photo, all I've done is

exposed for the natural, the ambient light outside

and it's bright, it's overcast.

But when there's snow, it's just like bright,

bright, bright, right?

Way brighter than inside the room.

Okay.

Don't worry.

These are hot springs.

Okay.

It's not, it's not the polar bear dip.

These guys are down in the pool and

now I can't, I can, I can't see

through the glass.

Okay.

I can barely see the bride through the

glass.

And when I exposed for the outdoor scene,

I certainly can't see the bride in the

exposure.

Okay.

So I'll explain the lighting in a second.

What I want to point out here, when

this is obvious in terms of what's reflected

and what's not reflected in a photo like

this, where we backed up to show context,

it's clear, right?

But often in some of the examples we're

going to start to look at, it's difficult

to figure out unless you've done this yourself,

what's reflected and what's on the other side

of the glass, or is it even a

reflection?

Is it a double exposure or is it

a reflection?

Okay.

So what you want to look for when

you're trying to reverse engineer this for yourself

is look for this doubling.

You see how this, this branch here is

doubled all the branches right there.

It's it's everything is doubled that doubling right

up here.

You see that it's everything is doubled.

And that's because when you shoot through glass

or when you look through glass, you can

see through the glass always, right?

There's no doubling as you can see clear,

clear path, clear path through the glass.

But when the glass reflects, it reflects on

the surface of the glass itself, the surface

and the backside of back surface of the

glass.

Okay.

So depending on how thick that glass is,

when you're looking at any, any degree of

an angle, which you have to in order

to not be blocking your reflection, you get

that doubling and Canada where we have like

double and triple painted glass, you get, it's

very clear.

So if you're looking at an image, whatever

is sharp is on the other side of

the glass.

Okay.

The bride is sharp.

She's on the other side of the glass.

Anything that's doubled like that is reflected.

So that can help you kind of reverse

engineer photos when you're trying to break them

down for yourself, figure out what's going on.

Okay.

So in order to match the exposure on

the bride with the ambient exposure outside, I've

had to use my own lighting, right?

So this is not great lighting.

It's broad lighting from the side, but I

positioned the light wherever I could, which was

inside the broom probably tucked back in the

corner here behind this, this post here.

Okay.

It's coming in from this direction with a

grid because I don't want to light up

the whole room, aiming it towards the bride.

Okay.

So let's get, let's get back to this.

Okay.

So here we go.

So now what I'm going to do is

I'm going to close the door.

I'm going to replace the 35 millimeter lens

with a 50 millimeter lens.

That seems to be the sweet spot.

50 to 85 allows you to fill the

frame with the glass window that you're shooting

through and get yourself out of the reflection.

Okay.

Without having to be right up on the

surface of the glass.

Okay.

So I've switched to a 50 millimeter lens

and shot through this piece of glass and

excluded all of the rest of the door

and left my light in the exact same

spot and open the door, get the focus

and then close the door.

Okay.

Wait for this to load.

I don't know why that's happening.

Okay.

So you can see what's behind me.

There's the mountains again and look for that.

Look at that doubling.

See the mountain range up there.

It's not that it's out of focus.

It's that it's actually doubled.

Okay.

It's not, it's not sharp.

All the trees are doubled because it's reflected

in glass.

The groom is tack sharp.

Okay.

Cause I got the focus and he's on

the other side of the glass.

So he doesn't get that doubling.

And in this situation now, once I've got

the focus and I closed the door is

I need to, again, it's back to the

highlights on shadows, right?

In order for him to pop, he's not

going to pop if he's up here on

the sky.

So it's often a matter of moving the

camera up or down or left or right,

trying to get my subject to pop on

a dark part of the reflection.

So the three-step process is low ISO

one 200th of a second F it up

until I'm exposed for the reflection.

That's my ambient canvas.

Then turn on the flash, right?

Line it up so that I'm lighting the

subject matter within the dark part of that

ambient reflection.

And then dialing the flash up and down

as needed, tasting the soup, repositioning the flash

as needed.

Okay.

Now getting it to line up is easier

when you have a pivoting door.

So if you have like a pivoting glass

door, then not only can you move your

camera up and down, left and right, get

things to line up.

You can also pivot the angle of the

door.

And in doing so that totally changes the

reflection for you.

So you can get things to line up

for you.

Okay.

How are we doing, Jody?

Does that make sense for everybody?

What's happening there?

We do have two questions.

Okay.

One of them is does the doubling thing

happen only because of off-camera flash?

No, no, nothing to do with flash.

Nothing to do with flash.

What's doubled?

See what these mountains are doubled.

There's no flash up there.

That's natural light.

This is the painted glass.

Yeah.

And all you have to do is go

and look at it.

Go and look at a reflection in the

window.

You'll see it.

It's not sharp.

Especially in Canada where you got triple triple

pane windows, but even a single pane, because

the front surface and the back surface of

the, of the window, both reflect.

So there's a little bit of an off

kilter.

There's nothing to do with off-camera flash

though.

Okay.

The next question is in frame in a

frame like 54, how are you setting focus

on bride through that glass?

So I'm getting there next.

Okay.

So let's get into that now because I've

already talked about if you can open the

window, that's, that's one way to do it.

Okay.

If you can't, right.

If you can't open the window like here,

okay.

Or like in this case, if I went

out there and I'm trying to shoot through

this glass, I can't open the door to

get focused.

How do I get focused?

Okay.

So a few tricks, if all those other

things fail, what you can do is it

was here.

My phone, you take your phone.

You can grab your phone and turn on.

So this, now this trick only works if

you have somebody there to help you.

Okay.

So if you have a bridesmaid or a

groomsman, who's willing to help you or maybe

you've got an assistant, okay.

Is you can turn on your flashlight.

Sorry guys, Erica's phone.

That's very different than mine.

There it is.

Okay.

So turn on the flashlight.

So somebody inside has the flashlight, but then

you don't want to aim it at the

subject matter and try to focus on that.

Cause it's not going to show up.

You're not going to be able to get

it.

But if you turn and aim that flashlight

straight towards the window, thanks buddy.

Okay.

So position it that distance from the right,

wherever your subject is and aim it towards

the window.

Now that point, the camera has something to

focus on.

Okay.

And then you can take it away.

So that's a trick that works if you've

got a set of hands inside.

And then what's the other trick I was

going to share.

It's another trick.

Oh yes.

Often the easiest way to get focused, if

failing all those things and you don't have

somebody to hold a flashlight for you is,

is to cast a shadow onto the, onto

the window.

Okay.

Like, you know, when we do this, Oh,

now I can see through.

Right.

That's essentially what you need to do.

And often you can use your own shadow,

right?

You cast a shadow onto the window.

Maybe you'll hold up a hand.

Right.

And throw a shadow.

Now you can see through that shadow.

You can get your focus and then you

could either leave the shadow and that gives

a dark area in which to light them.

Or once you've got your focus, you can

then take it away.

Okay.

And keep in mind that in these scenarios,

you're up in like F8, F9, F11.

Cause you're exposed for broad daylight reflection.

So your focus, you've got quite a bit

of forgiveness on that focus, right?

Up in F8, F9.

Does that make sense for focusing?

Sure.

There is a request for a bathroom break.

Okay.

Let's take three minutes guys.

Let's take three minute bathroom break.

We're doing a bathroom break.

Really?

Lots of butter.

Lots of butter please.

Okay.

We're doing a bathroom and a bread break.

Okay.

Three minutes guys.

I think you've answered the next question.

So I think we're, we're okay for right

now.

What is it?

Can you please explain how do you open,

get focus and close the door?

Can you please explain the process?

Open center point back button, focus on the

subject.

Close.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.

I don't have to do it again unless

the subject matter moves.

Right.

Because I've back button focused.

Okay.

Press.

Okay.

Two more, two more minutes guys.

Hey, you know, if you made sourdough bread,

you have to post it in the virtual

food group.

Virtual food group.

Yeah.

It's a, we're all part of a group.

She knows, Erica knows that.

I think you've popped it.

Highly exclusive Facebook group.

This is my fourth attempt.

This is like the best.

Yeah, I saw your loaf.

It looked good.

Nice work.

What's it like?

Pretty, pretty glue.

It's actually really pretty light.

It's like moody, moody light.

Some sun, some light coming through the clouds,

but definitely some dark, purpley, dark, dark blue

clouds right now.

It looks like it wants to rain, but.

Oh, it's snowing here.

Oh, it's.

Yeah.

On the ground anymore.

It's it's almost completely dry.

Lots of people are out mountain bike.

Oh yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yesterday was gourd.

Yesterday was pretty nice.

Yeah.

It was a beautiful day.

Or no, I'm lying.

Yesterday was not a nice day.

Yesterday was our day that it was gloomy.

The day before was yesterday was gloomy.

Two days ago was super sunny.

Oh yeah.

Beautiful.

I had a, I had a wedding at

a Island Lake lodge this past summer.

I thought about this shot so much because

I had the same room.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Yeah.

But I, I was like, wishing I, you

could just be like a bird on my

shoulder and then talk me through it.

This is good to hear you talk about

the shots.

Makes sense what's happening.

Totally makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And 50, we've kind of, we've discovered that

50 millimeters is the sweet spot.

Yeah.

50 to 85.

This, this one I'm going to deconstruct next

was, is 85.

Oh, wow.

Cool.

Yeah.

So is everybody back?

Oh, Hang on.

I think we have a private Eric.

Hang on, hang on.

There's a couple of questions.

Okay.

Can you please explain.

Get those mountains for my reflections.

Can you please explain.

The flashlight technique again to find focus that

was lost on me.

Okay.

So let's use this one as an example.

Let's say you're out on the porch.

You can't open the door.

And you can barely see the groom inside.

You can.

You look closely.

You can, once you cast a shadow.

Right.

If you have somebody inside him, give him

a phone and just say, shine the light.

For me.

But don't shine it on.

So if it's the groom that you want

to focus on, like in this, this scenario,

if you just shine it on the gloom

on the groom, it's not going to show

up.

Okay.

It's way too weak.

You know, if you had something stronger, like

a modeling light on your flash or video

light, you could try it that way.

But with, with the flash, if you have

a flashlight on your phone, Just hold it

by the groom.

And aim it towards the window.

Okay.

And then the camera can focus on that

light.

That's like a big bright spot for your

focus point to lock onto.

And then once the focus locks on, you

can take the light away.

Makes sense.

That makes sense.

Okay.

Okay.

Another example of limitations leading to creativity.

And figuring out new things to do.

With our cameras.

Not this photo, but a similar situation.

The first time we ever.

Shot through glass and had to figure out

how to do it is because we kind

of had to, there was no other option.

We had to figure out how to do

it.

And the makeup artist set herself up between

the bed.

And the window.

So she had good window light, but there

was literally no space for Erica to move.

There was literally no place that Erica could

photograph the bride's face from.

Unless she went outside and shot through the

window.

And so that was the first time that

she had to start solving problems and figuring

out.

Oh, I need to use my flash.

Oh, this right.

In order to make it work.

And so now often that's something that Eric

will often do like, like she did here

because she knows how to do it.

And.

And so we'll all, we'll always go and

look and see if it's potential and whoever

just said, you know, like I want the

mounts for my reflection.

Yeah.

Nine times out of 10.

When we go and we look through a

window.

I either a nope, it's not in the

right position and things aren't going to line

up.

Or, and, or B whatever's reflected is not

interesting.

It's power lines.

It's a brick wall.

It's, you know, it's not worth it.

So nine times out of 10 for us

as well, it's not worth it.

But this is, you know, this is in

a downtown.

Kind of suburbia area in, in Calgary.

And there's houses and stuff outside, but from

this angle, so Eric is actually shooting down

up a little bit.

That's how she's out of the reflection.

Plus it's an 85 millimeter lens.

So she's back up a little bit.

She can just, she can get just the

sky and the trees in her backyard in

the reflection.

Okay.

And so in this case, Eric has gone

outside.

She's used her 85 and she's done a

hundred ISO one, two hundredths of a second,

right?

Cause she needs all her flash power.

And then she's F'd it up until she's

exposed for the highlights in the reflection, the

sky and the trees behind her.

So she's probably up around F nine.

Okay.

And then she turns on her transmitter.

She's already positioned her flash inside, right?

So she's got it on a light stand

coming in from camera, right.

Right.

Coming into short, like the bride from the

side.

And in order to focus, I mean, because

without the flash, this is about how much

contrast she can see.

Right.

So she's just hovering that focus point over

that area of high contrast until it locks

on.

Okay.

And if it doesn't lock on, she's going

to try to cast a shadow through which

to get the focus.

Okay.

But that shadow is important.

Sometimes, sometimes we'll intentionally leave the shadow there

because that, that creates a dark area of

the reflection through which to light the subject.

You see how Erica was careful to position

her camera in a way that the, the,

the bride is lit up within the dark

part of the reflection, because you see how

much she pops here versus the same light

on the brush there on the highlights.

It's much, much more low contrast.

And again, that's a matter of moving the

camera up, down, left, right.

If you've got a pivoting glass, that's even

easier to get things to line up.

Highlights on shadows, right?

Another example of the exact same thing.

Okay.

This has been Hawaii.

So it was one of those situations where,

Oh, the reflection is interesting.

The palm trees tell a story.

And this window had this Chinese character on,

on the glass.

So it was another storytelling element, right?

The mechanics are the same exposed for the

highlights in the reflection, lining it up.

This would have been 50 millimeter lens, lining

it up in terms of how close she

goes to the, to the, to the window,

how high left and right to try to

light the bride within a dark part.

So Erica was careful to try to get

her within a palm tree because she's not

going to pop on the highlights in the

sky.

Okay.

And she's up at full flash power, right?

So she's got to time it, time it

for when those hands come in.

Okay.

Does that make sense guys?

Jody.

I'm sorry.

I didn't realize you were asking.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep.

Cool.

Okay.

So in the silhouette tool, we talked to,

we looked at lots of examples where we

created our own bright spot, right?

In which to silhouette our couples.

And that's what we've done here.

This, this is a portrait.

Okay.

All we've done was made a bright spot

behind them on the wall.

Okay.

We've looked at lots of examples of those,

but the only difference here is we're shooting

through glass.

Okay.

So, and again, if you're just looking at

this image for the first time and you

weren't there, you know nothing about how it

was created.

You're trying to figure out, is it a

double exposure or is it a reflection?

What's reflected?

What side of the glass are they on?

Who's where look for the doubling.

See these branches up there.

See how all these trees are.

There's that doubling.

That means that's reflected.

They're sharp.

That means they're on the other side of

the glass.

Okay.

So the cross cross section of this is

starting from the wall behind them.

So we've got the wall and then about

probably about two meters away from the wall.

We've got a flash on a light stand

pointed at the wall.

Okay.

Whether or not there's a grid on it

depends on what the soup looked like when

we tasted it.

If that cone of light was too small,

we've taken the grid off.

That cone of light was too big.

It would put a grid on.

Okay.

So that's how we decide kind of where

that light goes, whether or not it has

a grid.

Then about a meter behind that working, I'm

working my way towards the camera.

Now is the couple doing the posey pose.

Okay.

Then probably about five meters back from there

is the glass door.

Okay.

And then on the other side of the

glass outside is the glass door.

That's me with the camera.

And then behind me back there are snow

covered trees.

Okay.

So when I go outside and I look

at the glass, all I see are the

snow covered trees behind me reflected.

Can't see anything inside the room because it's

way darker.

Okay.

So I need to cast a shadow onto

the glass through which to focus on them

or Erica was there.

So she just turned on the flashlight on

the phone.

Okay.

And aimed it, held it beside the bride

and groom and aimed it towards the glass.

I got focus, gave her the thumbs up,

turned off the flashlight and then we started

making the shots.

Okay.

And tweaking the flash exposure up and down.

Makes sense.

We do have one question, Lanny.

Yeah.

On images 57 and 58, how far is

Erica from the window?

So this one's an 85 millimeter lens.

So she's probably, I would say like three

or four meters away.

It's a pretty big lens.

Generally when we're, this one is a 50

though.

So in that case, she's probably only one

or two meters away from the window.

There's no formulas there.

It's just figuring out where she wants, where

she needs to be given that lens in

order for the composition to be as clean

and simple as possible.

So in these cases, she's intentionally trying to

leave out the context, right?

So she's just the glass.

So she's trying to fill the frame with

that piece of glass.

So that kind of determines how close or

far she's able to go given whatever lens

she has.

And then the other thing is because she's

in these situations, she can't control where the

bride is in the portrait.

We can have the couple move closer or

farther from the glass for things to control

how big they are, et cetera.

But in these situations, she kind of has

to make the decision in order to have

the subject matter line up with her reflection.

Perfect.

And now we're all caught up.

Cool.

I should, I should just, there's some smoke

and mirrors going on here.

I know this one sometimes confuses people because

I've done a little bit of trickery in

the post.

It looks like I should be in the

reflection.

It looks like I should be blocking cause

it's like straight on.

I'm not actually shooting it straight on.

I'm actually angled up a little bit with

the 50 millimeter lens.

And that's why I'm out of the reflection.

I've used some perspective correction in Photoshop to

get those parallel lines to be parallel.

And so that's why it's a little bit

trippy and trying to understand that one.

Okay.

I'm going to put this one up here

and before I start to break it down

and explain it, I'm just going to kind

of leave it up for a little bit

for you guys to have a look and

try to basically reverse engineer it for yourselves.

Now you can probably figure this one out.

What's reflected?

What's on the other side of the glass?

Where's the light?

Where's the camera?

Look at the doubling.

See that?

Look at the doubling on his chin.

This is Marissa and Huntington.

Huntington's an actor in LA and Marissa is

a really good wedding photographer.

And this is a portrait.

Okay.

Just so you know, this is Erica saw

this though.

You know, they were out having beers on

the deck and Erica saw Huntington's silhouette reflected

in the glass.

And then we were like, Oh, that's cool.

Let's do a portrait guys.

So we lined this up.

Okay.

But you probably figured out what's going on

here, right?

This because Huntington's silhouette here is double.

That means it's reflected.

Okay.

And Marissa is sharp.

So she's on the other side of the

glass.

So the cross section here, if we're moving

let's, let's go from Marissa towards Erica's camera.

So Marissa is on the other side of

the glass.

We've got a flash coming in from camera

right short lighting her.

Okay.

And then a couple of meters in front

of that is the glass window.

Okay.

That glass window is reflecting everything this way.

And then if we move probably about three

meters back from that, that's where Huntington is

swinging the beer.

Okay.

And then right behind Huntington is Erica with

her probably 85 millimeter lens shooting through the

gap.

Okay.

Focusing on Marissa and she can, because we've

lined Marissa up within that dark part with

it within Huntington's silhouette.

So we can see her, we can get

the focus.

Okay.

So that's what's happening there.

And Huntington's, this is all, he's, he's kind

of out in the natural light.

Right.

And Erica's exposed for the reflection and the

reflection is reflecting everything.

So it's reflecting the sky, but it's also

reflecting, this isn't his shadow.

This is his silhouette.

Okay.

So the mirror, the window is basically a

giant mirror for everything this way, including Huntington's

silhouette.

That one makes sense guys.

It makes sense Lani.

Right now there aren't any questions.

Awesome.

Okay.

Before I go any farther and get into

trippier and trippier examples, I want to just

stress that you don't have to be able

to understand what's happening in terms of what's

reflected on what in many of these examples

to be able to do it, because I'm

going to show you some examples that I

can't even explain.

I don't know what's happening and why it

works, but I was able to do it.

It's more often.

It's just about having the curiosity to go

and look and see and try something.

Okay.

Like here, for example, this is what's reflected

on what and how is very hard for

me to visualize and explain, but this is

what I saw.

The only editing on this is I just

turned it black and white.

This is natural light.

Okay.

Natural light.

I saw this with my own two eyes.

Wow.

That's cool.

Expose for it, shoot it.

And obviously lots of shooting it right back

and forth all morning long.

And this spot, as these stories lined up

for me, okay.

What it is like, what's happening is I'm

shooting through a glass window.

Okay.

50 mil, I would say 50 mil.

Okay.

So I'm outside shooting in through this glass

window.

And in that room behind the glass window

is the groom and his dad.

So this is the groom obviously focused on

the groom and I could see him clear

his day.

So I have no problems focusing on him

because there's lots of light flying into this

room.

Okay.

There's lots of windows.

Okay.

So this is all natural light and that's

his dad.

And they were in that room for like

an hour or more that morning rehearsing for

their performance at the reception that night.

They did, they did this.

They performed this song together.

The group sang, dad played guitar.

It was awesome.

So they were practicing all morning long and

okay.

So that's straightforward.

All I'm doing is focusing on the groom

and shooting them natural lit with the natural

light behind the glass.

But the glass I'm shooting through is reflecting

the scene behind me and behind me is

another room.

So I'm kind of like in a, in

a alcove.

Basically it's like a, like a, like a

C shaped C shaped Villa where they're getting

ready.

Essentially there's a room here and then there's

a room here.

And in between there's like this, that's basically

the entrance way is where I am.

So I've got a window in front of

me and I've got a window behind me.

Okay.

And in the room behind me is where

all the groomsmen are and they're shooting the

shit, having beers, they're in and out of

the pool.

You know, they're writing, they're writing their speeches.

And so all the highlights in that room,

right?

So anything that happens in front of the

windows on the other side of that room

show up as silhouettes in the reflection in

this glass.

Okay.

I didn't have to pre, I didn't have

to visualize that or dream it up or

figure out how to execute it or have

it line or, you know, dream it up

in any way.

All I had to do was see it.

I just had to go inside, look into

the room and see, Oh, that's cool.

I can see the guys back there.

Okay.

So I would have stuck to this.

I would have committed to this quite tenaciously

all morning long.

That doesn't mean I park myself there for

the entire morning and put on the blinders

and don't do anything else.

But as I see things lining up for

me, like, Oh, okay.

That guy's in front of that window.

Now I go back out here and see

what it looks like.

Okay.

Something, something happens like, Oh, there's a lot

of emotion happening over there.

I'm going to abort, go inside, do that,

do this.

Once I get bored again, once things slow

down, maybe I come and take another look

at this.

Oh, that's cool how they're lining up now.

Okay.

So this is like, you know, this is

like discovering a jackpot lottery that's worth buying

tickets.

I'm going to buy lots of tickets for

something like this.

Any questions, Jody?

Uh, right now we don't have any questions

as of yet, but maybe we'll just give

it a sec to see if any come

in.

Yeah.

Cause what we're going to get into, just

a comment.

Comment.

Okay, go ahead.

Just, uh, go ahead.

These are your favorite.

These are their favorite shots.

Yeah.

No, just someone saying that.

Oh, there might be a leg.

Go ahead.

Money.

You go Jody.

I'll just.

Someone just saying that these are their favorite

shots of yours.

These are like your signature shots.

Well, this is, you know, when things line

up like this.

Yeah.

It's, you know, it's hard to go wrong

with that.

Um, yeah, I love, I love it when

reflections line up for us because it's, you

know, I like these photos too, because it's

more than just a trippy reflection.

Yeah.

It is trippy.

It's interesting.

And so the photographer in us gets, you

know, drawn in, but it's also storytelling, you

know, it's also real storytelling.

It's layering.

Yeah.

I do have a question.

For getting ready.

Do you usually go in with the same

lenses on your two cameras ready to go?

Yeah, I've, I've usually got, um, it's changed

throughout the years, depending on what we have

and what we're using.

But right now I usually have 35 on

one camera and 28 on the other.

And then I've, I've usually got a 50

in my bag that I'll use for something

like this.

Great.

Those are all the questions for right now.

Erica's usually a 35 on one camera and

a 16 to 35 on the other camera.

And then she'll have, she'll usually have like

an 85 as well for if she's doing

something like, you know, focusing on the bride's

eyelashes or something like that.

Okay.

Let's talk about reflecting an artwork.

Okay.

Um, again, there's often reasons to do so.

This is like the first time we ever

tried this and it was for a reason.

I mean, obviously because it tells a story,

the bride's getting ready in the, in the

home that she grew up in.

So there's a happens to be her high

school graduation photo on the wall.

And I realized that, Oh, it's actually lines

up from this angle.

It actually lines up that I can see

her reflection within there.

Okay.

This would have been 35 millimeter lens.

It's not a great shot.

I mean, we, you know, we, we made

a lot of mistakes in this shot because

we were literally figuring out how to do

it at the time.

But some of the things that we figured

out was that a, there has to be,

so first of all, this only works in

glass covered artwork.

It obviously doesn't work in canvas or something

like that.

But if you've got a painting or a

picture frame that's covered in glass, the glass

gives you the potential to reflect.

Okay.

So then you can feature the artwork itself

and the reflection, but the focal, so the

focal distance between the painting or the photograph

on the wall and what's when, what you're

reflecting in often is quite different.

And so you need to be at a

high enough aperture to see and appreciate what

you're reflecting in.

Otherwise it's just blobs.

You can't actually tell.

So you gotta be up around like F

eight kind of thing.

And so because of that, you need a

light source on the artwork.

Okay.

So this doesn't always work because that is

in this case, there happens to be a

window.

So there's window light coming onto this wall.

And so there's enough light for us to

shoot it up at F eight and make

it work.

Often there'll be like gallery lights, like museum

lighting coming down like pin lights on the

artwork.

And then that solves that problem for you

too.

But if you don't have that light source

in order, the only way to make it

work really is to create your own light.

So you have to light the artwork yourself.

But in this case, the ambient light is

just the window light coming in on the

artwork.

Okay.

And the, the, the focusing mechanics are the

same, right?

We just basically have to use the back

button, hover the focus point over the reflection,

right?

We can see.

So, so the bride is getting her hair

done in the kitchen and from this angle,

we can see it.

And we've, we've had to try our best

to get an angle so that when we

light the bride up there, she's lit up

within a dark part of the artwork of,

of the grad photo.

Like if we were reflecting here, we would

try to reflect in this area, have it

line up rather than trying to reflect on

the color.

Right.

So intentionally trying to get that lined up

and choosing an aperture.

That's high enough for us to, because when

we focus on the reflection, we want this

to be in focus enough to appreciate it

as a photograph.

And then, yeah, we just got the light

coming in from the side there.

This is probably even before we discovered grids,

which is why we were kind of lighting

up the whole kitchen wall.

Really know what we were doing yet.

Just playing around and experimenting.

Okay.

Now in the next example, Erica has done

the same thing, but she's chosen a bigger

lens and excluded the mat and frame from

the artwork that she's reflecting in.

Okay.

So this is a painting, glass covered painting

and there's window light on the painting.

Okay.

Now the only thing that shows up reflected

in the glass or the highlights in the

room.

Okay.

Because the window light on the painting is

brighter than everything else in the room other

than the highlights.

So this lamp, for example, that's a natural

highlight in the room that was reflected in

the glass.

Okay.

So there's mom there.

That's a reflection.

And the highlights that Erica created with her

flash.

So she's got a flash coming in from

the left.

It was right about here.

I had to clone out the little, it's

got a grid on it.

So it's just a little pop of light

right about there coming in from there.

Okay.

Clones that out and you can actually see

if the, I don't know if translates with

the resolution, but if you look closely, this

is Erica's hand.

That's Erica's hand holding the camera.

So Erica's kind of in this area.

You can barely see her though, because she

doesn't have light on her.

She's just in the normal ambient light, the

darkness of the room.

Okay.

So the only thing that's showing up as

bright as the artwork, which has a light

source on it or the highlights in the

room.

Okay.

So a gridded flash coming in from the

side, timing it with a hand coming in.

50 or 85.

Oh, she's not here.

It's either 50 or 85.

Does that make sense guys?

What's happening there?

It's there's no questions yet, but maybe if

we give it a sec, there might be

something to come in.

Holy slide.

64 is awesome.

That's awesome.

This one.

Yeah, this one that Erica took.

Ooh, that's good.

Yeah.

It's pretty, it's very mysterious.

Totally.

I do have a question.

Would you go to the extent of switching

off room lights to get a better exposure

or just stick to whatever it is?

Turning light switches on.

Yeah, we'll definitely, we'll turn light switches on

or off if it's not going to, if

it's not going to, you know, interfere with

their experience, you know, we're not going to

turn the lights off and so they don't

have any room to see or any light

to see what they're doing.

But yeah, we've got no issues, opening blinds,

curtains, putting lamps on and off.

And so, yeah, we'll do that all the

time.

Often if we're in like a really like

a dark hotel room or just really crappy

light, if we can have just one light

source, like if there's a window, for example,

if we've got the window wide open and

with all the lights out, if that's enough

light for everybody, we would rather have it

like that than to have all the lamps

and things on because then it's just one

light source to worry about one, one color

temperature essentially too.

But that's not always possible.

And so it depends.

Okay.

Another question is, and I, is the, the

pine, the trees that are overlay, is it,

is she outside?

Cause it's like the pine trees are a

reflection onto the painting in slide 64.

No, no, it's, it's all the mountains and

the trees are all part of the painting.

Wow.

What's lighting up the painting?

A window.

There's a window beside the wall.

So the wall on which this painting is,

there's a window.

It was window light coming in.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you know, if, if Erica really wanted

to make this work and there wasn't that

window she would have had to make her

own light on the artwork.

Okay.

Awesome.

Yeah.

I think we're good.

Lenny.

Okay.

Keep in mind, you don't have to understand

it to execute it.

Okay.

This one is, is trippy.

And this one is not a real moment.

Okay.

This is a stage set up, directed.

We're, we're literally filming a commercial for mag

mod.

Okay.

So, and we chose, you know, we chose

this hotel room in, in downtown Calgary because

we remember we shot there when, when for

a wedding and we, we remembered it being

really having lots of glass and mirrors in

the room.

So we intentionally went there and these are

our good friends.

This is Abby and Dave.

And so what it is, is basically Dave's

Dave's in the bathroom shading in front of

the mirror.

Okay.

And we're behind Dave, right?

You can see, so there's Dave's back and

we're focused on Dave's reflection in the mirror,

the bathroom mirror.

We've got a light coming in from the

side, right?

Short lighting from the side.

It's out of frame coming in this way.

You can see it's just catching him here.

There it is.

There.

Obviously it's got a grid on it because

it's a mag mod commercial.

So, but that, that grid is keeping the

light off of the rest of the bathroom

right now.

Then all this trippiness is because the bathroom

is separated from the master bedroom by a

glass partition, essentially a glass wall.

Okay.

Separating the bathroom from the master bedroom.

So we are in the master bedroom looking

through the glass partition.

Okay.

Into the bathroom in which Dave is shading.

Okay.

So we're focusing on his reflection in the

mirror, but we're also shooting through glass.

And so that glass partition is reflecting the

highlights behind us.

Okay.

So what Erica did is she, so obviously

we had Abby go and do her makeup

in front of the window back there.

Cause that was the highlight in the reflection.

That's the ambient exposure, right?

So Erica exposed for the highlight in the

reflection.

So all the ambient, all the rest of

the mid-tones in the hotel room fall

away into darkness.

It's just that highlight reflected in the glass.

Okay.

And then focused on Dave's reflection in the

mirror and then turned on the trigger, turned

on the off-camera flash, popped it, tasted

the soup, tried to balance the flash power

to match the exposure of the natural highlight

that's reflected in the glass.

Okay.

And this is not a preconceived idea that

we had.

This is not like, oh, okay.

Dave stands there.

Abby stands there.

We stand here and then we line it

all up.

And then it's just like one click.

Boom.

It's a whole bunch of like, okay, well

here's glass.

So what does it look like if we

go here?

And then Dave, if you go there and

then let's move Abby, let's know, let's try

a bigger lens.

Okay.

Let's get this, you know, it's problem solving

our way towards this.

Okay.

Here's so that's obviously a commercial.

It's totally staged and set up, but this

is a real moment.

This is, you know, unscripted.

Trippy is trippy as fuck.

I have no idea.

Erica shot this, but she can't explain what's

going on, but it's natural light.

Okay.

It's literally, she saw it.

This is at the, at the Chateau Lake

Louise Jody.

And it's obviously, you can see it's an

overcast day outside and the bride is standing

in like the foyer exit, getting ready to

come outside.

So she's in between, I think we think

we're trying to remember.

We think she's between.

I see it.

It's in between those two sets of doors

that when you make your way out into

like the courtyard area.

Exactly.

There's two sets of glass doors and we

can't remember if the bride's in between them

or if she's behind both of them, but

she ended up staying there for like 20

minutes because she was waiting for all the

guests to congregate before she came out for

the ceremony.

And so at that point, I would have

been at the ceremony with the groom and

the guys and, you know, shooting guests and

such.

And Erica always shadows the bride.

So she comes in when the bride comes

in.

So Erica's with her.

We'll never walk through a set of glass

doors without looking at the, at the reflection

potential.

And when she looked, this is what she

saw.

So the natural light, this wouldn't have worked

with natural light if it was a sunny

day, but because it's overcast outside, the natural

light that's coming into the foyer is basically

balancing the exposures for Erica.

So she can see this like literally, Oh,

that's cool.

I can see the mountains reflected behind me

and I can see the bride standing there.

Okay.

And the light.

And then, so she had 20 minutes to

basically just shoot through everything that was happening.

So as people were coming and going through

the doors, as the bride would laugh, Erica

was making lots of frames and getting these

weird, you know, I think this is her

uncle coming through.

I don't, we, and we can't figure out

we're not sure which door he's going through

and where the bride is, but it's reflections

on top of reflections within reflections.

So you don't have to be able to

understand it to see it.

That's natural light.

Okay.

Another one that you don't have to understand

to be able to see it and do

it.

This is natural light and I've never been

able to pull it off again in any

bathroom since this is like seven years ago.

But it just so happened to line up

like this for me when I went and

looked.

So the groom is standing in front of

the bathroom mirror shading.

Okay.

And so, you know, so I'm doing all

kinds of things on behind him, shooting his

reflection.

And then I go off to the side.

So I went off to the side and

put my my eyes right beside the mirror

and beside the, beside the bathroom mirror was

one of those pivoting circular mirrors and bathrooms

that you can tilt and angle and usually

one side's magnified and one side's not.

So that's all I've done is, is I

moved that, that mirror happened to be positioned

in a way that I could move it

and swivel it and angle it.

And I could put my eyes in between

a circular mirror and the bathroom mirror.

And when I did that first with my

eyes and then the lens, I saw three

groups and I could angle and tilt and

twist and pivot them to get them to

line up, you know, and fill them all

within the frame.

What's reflected what's I think they're all reflections.

But then it's like the groom's reflection reflected

in the magnified reflection reflected back on the

other side.

You don't have to be able to explain

it.

Don't have to understand it.

Just know that, you know, if you see

reflective surfaces, especially reflective surfaces beside reflective surfaces,

go have a look and a play and

see what it looks like.

Okay.

Cause it's literally what I saw with my

eyes naturally.

Then I tried to get fancy and go

off camera light and it wasn't, it wasn't

as interesting.

All right.

We're almost done.

We're into the trippy trip.

This is, this is some fancy dancy cropping

and from this one.

Okay.

What's happening here is this is what happens

when you put your, your eyes and then

your lens up into the beveled corner of

a mirror.

You know how some mirrors they've got that

angle, that bevel angle.

If you go and put your eyeball up

there, if you never tried it, try it.

You can like, it's like almost like looking

in a kaleidoscope.

You get these triple double quadruple reflections.

And as you move your eyes, you can

have them make all kinds of weird overlapping

reflections.

Okay.

And so this would have been like 24

millimeter lens up into that corner of a

beveled mirror and off camera flash, obviously.

So this is the groom and then this

is what's happening in that beveled corner.

Okay.

And it was, I have no idea what

it was going to look like.

I just went up there to see what

it would look like and then try to

get fancy.

So everything from down here is just bringing,

reflecting the whole, the whole scene in an

iPhone.

Last one, guys, no idea.

What is what here?

What's reflected.

What's real.

And this just came out of boredom.

It's just natural light.

Literally.

This is what we saw.

This is what it looked like.

They were just hanging out in the pool

and Eric and I waiting to go do

portraits with them the day before their wedding.

And the venue had these sliding glass doors.

So right beside the pool are these sliding

glass doors.

And so you could put your eye right

here.

And as you slid the glass doors, you'd

have reflections within reflections and you could line

them up in weird ways, like, like this.

And that's all that's happening here.

These girls I think are over on the

other side of the pool.

And literally this was just us playing around

and experimenting and trying some stuff.

Okay.

The only thing we know for sure in

this photo is that this woman is definitely,

she is peeing in the pool for sure.

That's reflections guys.

How are we doing Jody?

Good.

There aren't any questions yet, but maybe if

we just give it a sec, we'll see

if any come in.

Okay, cool.

Erica, come on up.

Okay.

So just while we give a couple of

minutes, if there's any final questions on reflections,

I'll kind of introduce the exercise and Erica

has been hosting these exercises in the group.

So if you forget and you want to

go and see the description, we're up to

exercise six now, I guess.

And this one's called self-reflection.

Okay.

And this is kind of like a double

entendre play on words here.

What we want you to do is practice

the mechanics of reflections and shooting through glass.

Find a window, find an area of glass

where there's some sort of a reflection.

And if this is new to you at

first, just, you know, make it about your

subject, pick an inanimate object, pick a friend,

pick a husband, pick a wife, pick a

son, pick a daughter, pick somebody, a guinea

pig to play around with.

And then to take it to the next

level, try to do it selfie style.

Yes.

And you're going to have all sorts of

problems that you have to figure out, like

ones that you can't anticipate, but that's what's

going to, that's what's going to get you

to the point where you can pull this

off in a scenario with a lot more

different, a lot of moving variables, like at

a wedding.

Yeah.

Like how do I get focus on the

lights not working?

Right.

Like you, you want to fail forward here.

You want to be coming up against mistakes

and problems, things not working and solving those

problems yourself.

Lots of times, like I've done a self

prep, a portrait project recently.

And you know, lots of times I figure

it, it takes me like a day to

figure out the problems and I'll figure, I'll

figure it out.

Like, just as I'm falling asleep, you know,

when your mind goes into that sort of

in between dream state and reality.

And then that's when I figure out the

problem.

So just, just allow that to be part

of the process.

Right.

And it's one thing to listen to me

say 50 millimeters seems to be the sweet

spot.

It's another thing for you to yourself learn

that by trial and error.

Like, Oh yeah, 35 is hard.

It doesn't work because of this and that.

Oh, 50 seems to work well because it

allows me to do this and that.

Right.

So, and figuring out which, which of those

focusing tricks is, is, easiest for you or

how to make them work.

Right.

Because that's where the real learning and ingraining

it, getting to the point where you can

do it in the right time and place

comes in.

Okay.

All right.

So that is the toolbox.

Any questions, Joey?

Joey was just going to give him a

couple minutes for questions.

If not, that's reflection.

There are two questions.

Oh, there's questions Lani.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Okay.

Perfect.

Okay.

Good.

Is it safe to say that when you

see it's an overcast day, you can immediately

think window reflections?

No, definitely not because it depends what's reflecting.

Like I'm not sure if we mentioned, but

nine times out of 10, we go out

onto the porch and we eliminate it as

a possibility because it's not worth it.

It's safe to say that your approach to

reflections in an overcast day versus a sunny

day are completely different.

That's safe to say, because matching the exposure

of a overcast day reflected versus a sunny

day reflected is a different ballgame.

And it depends of course also on how

much ambient light is in the room.

So A, is it sunny outside or is

it overcast?

Is it, you know, dawn or dusk or

midday?

And then the room, is it like a

dark room?

Is it a bright room?

How big is the window?

Is there lots of natural light coming into

the room or not?

So it's all case by case scenario.

Like every single reflection scenario is different.

So there's no safe to say or formulaic

approach to any of this.

It's dangerous to say that.

It's dangerous to say that.

Yeah.

Okay.

The next question is for slide, for slide

66.

How is it shot light on the girl's

back?

Is it off camera flash?

No, it's natural window light.

Well, behind her is a window.

Into the outdoors and behind that window is

a wall, is a big skyscraper that has

light on it.

Right.

Yeah.

But again, and I know Lenny mentioned this,

but do not get hung up on that.

Do not get hung up on the mechanics

of that at all, because this, this silhouette

of Abby, I could see.

I could see as I put my eye

up against the window, I didn't know have

to know what was reflected where I didn't

have to understand any of that in order

to shoot it.

It's having that curiosity to go and look.

Yeah.

I mean, that would have been next level

to imagine it, right.

To not be able to see it and

then to think, oh, okay, let's, let's make

a bright spot behind that.

You know, which would be an option.

Perfect.

Perfect.

I do have a question that jumps all

the way back to that painting that Erica

had photographed within.

If you live.

If you let the painting.

If there wasn't a natural light, How would

you light it up without the light spilling

on the artwork?

Yeah.

Good question.

Well, I just make sure that.

It wasn't reflecting off it.

I don't know.

I positioned in a way that it wasn't

reflecting off the glass.

But I don't know.

Play around.

Play around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Start with it coming in from the side,

kind of the same place.

Yeah.

Those come in from here, but then.

You'd be solving all kinds of problems.

Whoa, I get in glare there.

Yeah.

I got a grid or I got a

re angle.

Yeah.

One of the most interesting things that, and

this happens.

Every workshop we teach, like our participants get

kind of frustrated at this one point.

They they're like, I just want to know

how to do it.

And they'll like, bring us into a room.

And they'll be like, I just want to

know what you do in this room.

Like, what would you do in this room?

If the bride were getting ready.

And.

And that goes on to this question as

well is we don't know.

We have no.

I can clue what we're going to do

in the room.

Ever because we don't have these preconceived ideas.

And it's all about reacting and problem-solving

to what is happening.

Where is she getting her hair done?

Where's her mom getting her hair done?

How can we layer those two stories together?

How can I eliminate this problematic highlight?

How can I, oh, the, the artwork isn't

showing up.

Maybe, maybe if I turn the lights on

to the room, I'll have enough light to

light up the artwork.

Maybe that doesn't work.

Maybe they reflect in the wrong place.

So maybe I bring in a video light.

Oh, that doesn't work.

Maybe I use my flash.

Maybe I just opened the curtain.

Like there's so many endless potential that we

can't say what we would do because we

don't know what we would do.

We would start by problem-solving.

And trying, which is why we are working

on.

And this has now been delayed because of

everything.

But we have plans to go behind the

scenes.

Yes, we do.

We, we do have.

The only way we can answer those kinds

of questions is what would you do?

What does it look like when we're, we

had a wedding April 11th with a video

team that was going to follow us around

for the entire wedding.

Obviously that running has not happened.

And I feel like there's one more question

here that might lead in to kind of

where you're going and how you're describing this.

It's like, what techniques are they discovering that

are not perfected?

And that, I think he.

Secret weapon here, actually.

What are, what are we, what other tools

are we using that we haven't perfected yet?

And that we might add to our toolbox.

This curriculum.

I would say recently motion blur.

We've been experimenting with, especially, and again, it

started at home.

I've started using a lot of motion, doing

a lot of motion blur self portraits with

the video light, really sort of long shutter

speeds, like 30 seconds, shutter speeds at 22

aperture, you know, getting that motion blur and

freezing and combining it with a flash freeze.

Whether or not that's something that I'll ever

enter.

We use enough to enter into our toolbox.

I'm not sure.

But in terms of which tool are we

working the hardest to perfect or which one

have we, well, we haven't perfected any of

them, but what one we're going to perfect

any of the tools.

The one that we're, we care most about

is.

Yeah, which is the most advanced of tools.

And I do want to say too, like,

there's a big difference here between craft and

art, right?

So craft is the crafts.

I don't know if craftsmanship is a politically

correct term anymore, but you guys know what

I mean?

Crafts, personship, craftsmanship, craftsmanship.

I'm just going to say craftsmanship, right?

Craftsmanship is, is it all about perfection, right?

And photography is a lot about craftsmanship for

sure.

Like knowing how to use your cameras, figuring

out your composition, getting that light at the

angle, just where you want it.

I'm just going to mute everyone here.

Yeah, perfect.

I was going to say something.

Yeah, I might've muted you too there, Jody,

but that's okay.

Oh, I have to go back to share.

Anyways.

Yeah.

So there's this whole idea of craftsmanship, which

is very, very important for us as photographers,

but often what we forget about is the

art.

The artistry.

The artistry and the art is, is what's

really hard to define and the art is

never perfect.

The art is the thinking and the exploring

and the curiosity and.

The struggle.

The struggle.

Right.

And it doesn't have to be a tormented

struggle.

It could just be an acceptance of the

fact that it's.

It's a struggle.

It's the inner workings of your brain.

It's anyways.

I'm getting a little off topic here, but

let's go into.

I don't know if we have time to

do that.

The most advanced tool.

Actually, we kind of went over time.

So.

We're actually eight minutes over time.

It's not bad.

Okay.

You guys ready for the most advanced tool

in our, in our toolkit?

Okay.

This is the most advanced tool.

You're going to click, right?

Sure.

I'll click.

Okay.

So the most advanced tool is don't be

a tool.

Okay.

Don't be a fucking tool.

Don't let your craftsmanship or your excitement about

these tools and using these gimmicks, these techniques

and gimmicky ways, prevent you from doing what's

truly important at your wedding.

Right?

Like fill it.

All of our favorite photos don't have anything

to do with any of these tools.

So none of all of these photos we're

looking at now are, have used none of

the tools, no silhouettes, no shoot throughs, no

nothing.

Just getting back to the basics.

A scene and learning the unique way that

you see the world, you know, seeing movement,

seeing light, seeing shadow, seeing, turning something very

ordinary, looking at something very ordinary in a

new light.

Right.

And that's an incredible opportunity we have right

now, given the situation we're all currently in.

Right.

We've got the, we're, we're bored.

We're bored.

We're all stuck at home, but how much

can we use that to see the ordinary

in a new light?

Right.

And that's, that's what the art is.

That's the art.

And then once you pick up your camera,

it turns into the craft.

Okay.

And we all have to work so much

more on our art, the scene, the curiosity,

the finding interests.

And so all of these examples are, there's

no tools, right?

These are filling the frame, watching the backgrounds,

clean and simple edges, getting in there close,

right.

Exposing for highlights, right.

Feeling.

Feeling being there.

And, you know, a lot of people that,

that take our workshops, at least initially when,

when we go around the room and we

ask them why they decide to invest in

this many, many times, the answer is inspiration,

right?

I'm looking for something to be inspired by.

And you will be inspired and excited by

these new techniques.

You will be for sure, at least initially,

but they're going to get, once you've used

them a few times, they're going to get

just as boring as everything else.

I just noticed.

And here's the, here's the reason I've got

this bandaid on my, that's the mole.

It's not there anymore.

Now I've got a scar.

Where was I?

The interest right in these tools.

These tools will be exciting and different, but

eventually they're going to be ordinary and boring,

just like everything else that we get used

to.

Right.

So the real trick is looking to find

what you looking, becoming observant of the way

that you see the world and the way

that you experience the world.

And using the tools to help you achieve

that.

And letting that guide, letting that guide you

into what you decide to do with your

camera.

And this is so hard.

This is so hard because everything we all,

especially photographers, we're addicted to consuming social media

and media in general.

The first thing that we do in the

morning, well, some of us, I will say,

the first thing a lot of us do

in the morning is we log on to

Instagram or we log on to Facebook and

we get into that consumer state, right?

We're consuming the way other people see the

world.

So the whole way that we see the

world is completely clouded.

It's all fogged up.

It's completely fogged up in there because of

all this inspiration, this external inspiration that's coming

in from, from other photographers and their creative

process.

So my best advice is to take five

minutes each morning or 10 minutes or half

an hour or an hour, whatever, but start

with five minutes.

If it's a hard thing for you to

do and not plug in, not, not go

into Instagram, not go into Facebook, not go

to this workshop, right?

And actually look at the way you see

the world, observe it, observe the way you

see the world.

Don't try and force it.

Just observe the way you see the world.

And keep in mind that it's unique and

awesome.

And it's easy to forget that because that's

the, that's all we know, right?

We don't realize that nobody else sees the

world the way we do and how unique

it is because we're so used to it.

Yeah.

And maybe that's just, you know, watching.

The drips of, of your shower dripping down

the wall.

Maybe it's the way you cut a piece

of toast in a triangle.

Maybe it's, you know, the way you see

the light filtering in your windows, but just,

it can be all sorts of different things,

right?

Yeah.

And Eric and I, you know, we've, photographers

often, or artists often talk about creating from

the heart, shooting from the heart or from

the heart.

It's like, it's one of these things that's

easy to say, but hard to do or

what does that even mean?

But for us, when we started really paying

attention to the way that we photographed, when

we photographed our kids, then it started to

mean something for us.

That's what photographing from the heart is.

Exactly.

It's, it's, we're using our cameras and our

photography tools to show our genuine interest in

our subject matter.

We want to show our love for our

kids.

We want to show what we feel about

them, what they mean to us through our

photography.

And then, and then that opened up this

sort of like this paradigm shift for us

in our weddings.

Like, how can we tap into that at

our weddings?

Especially if, you know, we think weddings are

silly and the pageantry up on the surface

of these predictable cookie cutter weddings, it's so

boring.

Yeah.

But we realized that people aren't boring, right?

Relationships, family dramas, all the, all the cool

interesting subtle little things that happened down beneath

the pageantry of the weddings.

That is interesting.

That we, we can show our interest in

that.

If we can just like be there present

at the weddings and connect to them and

their stories and see that, and then use

our cameras and our camera techniques to to

show that rather than to show what we

can do with our cameras.

Yeah.

And of course it's going to be different,

right?

Like I love my kids way more than

I'm ever going to love any client I

have, but we can still transfer those same

concepts.

We can notice it.

You can notice how that interest in our

child, that genuine interest in mob and our

children guides our creative process.

And we can try and bring that, that

similar vein of interest to our weddings.

So, yes.

And that idea carries forward past the point

at which we click the shutter, which leads

into episode five, what was going to be

the final episode.

And it's going to be the big full

meal deal, the full Editopia experience, all three

groups together, strap in for three to four

hours.

Hey guys.

And because some of you will love it.

I'm just warning you.

Some of you guys will love this.

Like, it'll be like, you'll be eating it

like candy.

Like, you'll just be like, Oh my God,

I can't get enough of this.

And some of you will hate it.

Some people love post-production and some people

hate it.

And it's like that in our workshops too.

Like some people, it's like their highlight from

the entire workshop.

They're like, my God, that was the best.

And then other people were like, Oh, I

had a hard time staying awake during that.

So, but the intent of it is the

same as all the other goals that we've

talked about in lighting and composing and moments.

The post-production is an extension of those

goals.

It's, it's, we're, we're, we're striving to use

those tools of photography to achieve the same

function, which is to show our interest in

what, where the art we're creating.

Right.

And then we decided, and just so you

know, guys, that is taking place next Tuesday

morning.

So it's not next Wednesday.

Yeah.

It's, it's going to be Tuesday.

So groups.

Yeah.

So I'll send out an email.

At the time we normally do group two,

we're going to have group one and group

three all coming together for that.

Yeah.

And then we've got a little bonus episode,

which I mentioned in the email that I

sent out and we're going to do this.

We can't finish on editing.

No, we definitely cannot finish on editing.

So episode six, Wednesday night, Wednesday night.

So our, our evening, our evening, that was

so that instead of drinking coffees, we could

be drinking some cocktails together.

It's going to be a graduation party.

And we're going to have an open Q

and a and then we're going to leave

you guys with some final words and some

final stories.

And we don't want you to miss this

one guys, because we want to finish on

what we feel is, is the most important.

Yeah.

We're going to finish with some stories and

some ideas that have probably had a bigger

impact on us as photographers and the direction

we've taken that more than anything else we've

taught, taught, talked about in the last five

sessions.

So we feel this episode is really important.

And even if you just skip through the

whole Q and a, make sure you watch

those final words.

Yeah.

And I'm going to share my margarita recipe

in the group.

And so if anyone wants to join me

for a margarita that night, Well, you better

share it soon because you need to order

some of the stuff off Amazon.

Cause you can't get it at regular stores.

Like celery, celery bitters.

Yeah.

Actually I'll share it right here right now.

All right.

So we'll see you for Editopia on Tuesday,

Tuesday morning.

And then Wednesday night for the cocktail graduation,

final wrap up party.

All right.

See you guys.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jody.

Thanks guys.

No worries.

Take care.

You too.

Bye.