Original subtitles

How are things going?

How's it going, friends?

There we go, right?

I'm glad.

I'm glad to see you smile and I'm

glad to see you there.

So let's start talking about the second part

of Off Camera, which we left halfway through.

I'm talking about the session of Joana and

my friend Nicolás, which I photographed in the

workshop I did in Colombia, in the first

workshop exactly.

So let's finish talking about that session, okay?

And in the previous chapter, I just finished

saying that I had photographed the image I'm

showing you now, but I told you that

there was no video recording.

I was wrong, there is.

And allow me to start this video by

simply showing you a few seconds of what

the session was, the photo, sorry, okay?

And just so you can understand it better,

because there have been a couple of colleagues

who have written to me saying that they

hadn't explained it very well.

So I've finally found the video and I'll

show it to you, as you can see.

And you can see, right?

The couple, as I told you, were in

the same background, at the parking door, and

the photo was taken from an exterior glass.

You see, right?

It's very simple.

What is perhaps the strangest effect is produced

because it was taken with the 45mm focal

length and it was taken through a glass,

trying to make the reflections stick to the

photograph itself, thus creating a slightly strange effect,

a little weird, right?

But you see how, well, the result, as

I told you, seemed really interesting to me.

And, well, I wanted to share this video

with you because, well, I liked it, right?

So, well, I mean, changing all that register,

because I thought it was interesting that you

saw it, in this video I want to

talk about a couple of images, the best

images for my liking that I took, or

some of the best images that I took

in that session.

And we're going to start first of all

with the photo you're seeing now.

Well, it's a photograph that apparently may seem

like it was taken in a very gloomy

place, very, very dark, but nothing further from

reality.

Notice where we were, it was just a

kind of little park or something similar.

But it's what I always say, and I

think that soon you're going to get tired

of me, right?

Because you don't have to look at it

in a way that we see a big

park and try to find a postcard photo

in which everything is incredible, but what I

always ask you to do is to look

at small spaces in which, by visually cutting

out, we can keep a part that fits

us, as was the case in which I

saw that by closing the plane to the

maximum, that by getting very close to the

couple, placing the couple between those two palm

trees or between those two plants, the light

was going to decrease clearly and I would

only look at the couple with the little

branches that were surrounding the couple.

Why did I want to take out the

whole environment?

The environment, as you have already seen, was

not really attractive, right?

Why throw it away?

Well, we reduced everything to the maximum and

we stayed only with the minimum, that is,

less is more, okay?

Remember.

And I just started working with the couple.

One of the important things is that by

getting so close, by cutting out the image

so much, what happened is that the light,

remember, as I had explained to you, was

up because the session was done at noon,

so the sun was up and so for

the light to have a little interest and

work perfectly with the couple, what I had

to ask them is to raise their chin

up a little so that that light would

work perfectly.

As I already told you, Bogotá or that

part of Colombia, I don't know Colombia perfectly,

but that part specifically, yes, because I spent

more than 20 days there.

As I told you, there were times when

there were clouds, there were times when it

rained, there were times when the sun came

out, so this photo was taken on one

of those occasions when the sky was completely

covered, with which that light, so interesting, or

I worked with that type of light, so

interesting.

You see what I always say?

It's the same as working with hard lights

as with soft lights.

The important thing is to understand that light

and where it comes from.

If we were clear that that light was

coming from top to bottom, we raised it

a little, we closed the frame so that

everything was fine, so that everything was square

and everything was fine and nothing came out

that bothered us like the rest of the

park, that there were areas, like in all

parks, that didn't work.

The next photo I took with the same

pattern, with the same formula, was this one,

but I don't think we should waste so

much time on this because given the first

example, I think the second example is still

more or less the same, just that I

asked for, well, the cut, for example, of

Johanna, it just comes here, because I thought

it was a little more interesting to break

the rhythm a little with the previous photo

and create something that wasn't similar or less

obvious in this case.

So that's the story.

As a last photo, although in this photo

I do want to invest a little more

time, because you will see that there is

a lot of trial and error until we

finally arrive.

As always, both in the workshops and at

weddings, the day before or the days before,

I like to take a walk to see

what I find.

In the workshops also, for the simple fact

that the clients are the same photographers.

I mean, at weddings, my clients are always

couples, in the workshops they are photographers, and

I don't like to get to a place

and not have it prepared.

I mean, at least take a walk to

have control, to say, okay, there I have

a corner, there I have another corner, there

I have another corner, and on the day

of the workshop, more or less, I'm improvising,

but I have a script so as not

to be completely blank and that the students

say, this guy has not prepared the workshop,

he does not know what he is doing.

That's why, near the hotel, there was a

kind of parking lot, as they call it

in Colombia, parqueadero, in which it was all

blue.

Well, you know, for me, for neutral backgrounds,

clean backgrounds, such dense colors always end up

attracting me.

I also saw that throughout the parking lot

there was a kind of, well, the separators

of the cars were made by yellow lines,

with which this yellow worked perfectly with the

blue.

So then I started to think about that,

right?

I said, well, here may be a place

where I can attract the couple, I can

come with all the students and we can

work, well, moderately well in a place like

this, right?

So we got there and I would just

like to explain to you a little what

the whole visual tour was like, because I

think it is very, very interesting for you

to understand the creative process, right?

The first idea was not to ask the

couple to jump and just capture that.

No, no, no, no.

The first idea was, as always, to find

a neutral background, an attractive light and then

tell the couple to stand in the background.

And the initial idea was simply to touch,

right?

That is, to try to get those hands

to end up almost touching.

And the yellow line, that yellow line, would

start in the middle, separated on both sides,

and try to connect the couple with their

hands, only with their hands, not with their

body.

Of course, when I put them there, I

already understood that the photo did not work

as I wanted, because I wanted to keep

the yellow line from the ground, that is,

from the ground where I was, to the

bottom, okay?

That is, that line was the escape line

that directed the gaze until it finally reached

the couple.

Of course, I already realized that it did

not work, because the couple was always going

to take out both a body from her

and a body from him, so the idea

did not end up working or I did

not like it.

So I remember that there was a partner

who told me, why don't you try it

from behind?

I mean, why don't you try just the

same from behind?

And from behind I said, well, let's see

what happens, right?

We turned around and I quickly understood that

it was not going to work, but I

wanted to explain to all the students why

it was not going to work.

It did not work simply because the background

was not neutral.

As you can see, behind the couple, from

the middle of the trunk up or from

the middle of the body up, it looks

like the background of the city or the

background of different types of buildings, so it

is no longer the neutral background that I

expected.

And that's when I say, no, guys, here

I can't execute the idea that I have

in mind, so we go back to the

place that I had proposed at the beginning.

So then it was when I already told

the couple, for example, that the background would

be placed and to try, I mean, what

do I capture now?

What do I do?

What photo?

I had already told you that the original

idea of telling the couple to try to

touch each other with their hands did not

work, so now what I was going to

do was that they would stand in front

of me, that they would hold each other

by the hands, I mean, by the right

hand of each of them, well, left hand

and right hand, sorry, how are you watching,

guys?

And just to make them jump for me,

and I thought that could be very interesting,

but I wanted to maintain that connection, I

mean, I didn't want them to jump alone,

I wanted them to jump for me, but

at the same time that they both held

each other by one of their hands.

Why?

Because those hands were going to create a

connection.

And also, in this way, I could stick

the camera on the ground and I could

capture that escape line, that yellow line that

redirected me to what the couple was, jumping

at that precise moment, and at the same

time always with the hands held, I mean,

with one of those hands held.

Why the hands?

As I have already told you, right?

But why the jump?

Because I wanted to capture just the previous

moment in which the feet almost touched the

ground.

That was the original idea, for example.

Why that?

Because you know that in the previous moment

it is something that has not happened yet,

it is something that the action is unfinished,

and that creates a more interesting effect, or

something that I am always looking for in

my photos, something that has not finished yet,

it is an unfinished action.

So that was the mission.

Of course, simply because when I took the

camera, what I liked to start with was

not only that escape line that redirected me

to the couple, but also, by sticking the

lens so much right on the same ground,

what happened was that a virtual triangle was

created.

Of course, it is simply an optical effect,

that by sticking the camera so much makes

that yellow line not a straight line, but

a triangular line, and that was something that

attracted me a lot.

We continue with the story, we continue shooting.

The initial idea was to keep the body

of both, that is, both Joana's and Nicolas's,

in the same frame, that is, it was

not cut, for example, by the head of

neither Nicolas nor Joana, but in one of

those, in one of so much repeating, so

much repeating, so much repeating, jump, jump, jump,

jump, finally, in one of those jumps, the

head, or the part of here, for example,

of Nicolas, is cut, mutilated, but I like

it because it creates that non-obviousness, and

I find it very interesting how it looks,

for example, Joana's face with her hair floating,

and next to it, just Nicolas, cut, so

that it looks like a rocket that would

have gone up, and that really seemed to

me that it could be interesting, as it

was, and in fact it was the image

that was finally favorite for me, or the

result that seemed to me more attractive, okay?

The story did not end there alone, it

did not end there alone, but there was

a student who asked me, Hey, Victor, what

do you think if we threw water on

the floor and we came to see if

a reflection was created, that is, with a

sheet of water, to see if it was

going to work.

I told him, fuck, why not, let's try

it, let's see what happens.

So a kid came, he threw water on

the floor, and we started taking pictures.

Why didn't this work?

Because we didn't throw enough water.

When I say enough water, I think we

would have had to throw everything, to have

filled with water, spread the water all over

the surface, not just in front of the

camera, that is, for example, a bucket of

water was thrown just in front of the

camera, and it was not that ...

I mean, after seeing the result, I already

saw that it did not work, and for

my understanding, for my taste, we should have

thrown so much water that everything would have

gotten wet, but it was almost better to

have photographed that same idea on a rainy

day, right?

But hey, the day was not rainy, thank

God, and the story is that, as you

are seeing, it did not end up finally

working.

Just one last photo, it is not as

good as the previous ones, but I would

like, because it was taken in the same

park where I captured the photograph with the

two palm trees, that is, that I showed

you just at the beginning, and what I

would simply like to tell you how this

image was made, it is very, very fast,

you will understand everything quickly when you see

this, that I simply, as always, I was

worried about playing with two primary colors, ignoring

that shower, or ignoring that sculpture so big,

because I did not like it, just staying

with a primary color on the left, well,

primary, not so primary, and another color, that

is, so clean and so pure on the

right, that is, I was simply worried that

both Joana, for example, and Nicolás were there,

well, I just asked Joana to get on

top of the other, boom, boom, boom, and

ask them to start laughing, to start screaming,

to do the gañán, to enjoy the madness

that I was asking for, to finally capture

this one.

You see that it is very simple, it

does not keep anything strange, but I wanted

to share it and I wanted to finish

the video with this image.

So nothing else, friends, so far today's video.

I wanted to finish with this little second

part, because I left you half-way through,

and those two images, mainly the one of

the palm trees and, of course, this one

of the jump, for me they were, or

have been, the most attractive of the session,

and well, the truth is that it was

a very entertaining session, very curious, I did

not work with 15 colleagues for a long

time, and the truth is that it did

not go wrong at all.

So nothing else, friends, I do not steal

a second more, very soon more interesting videos.

Until next time!