Original subtitles

We're going to be starting this particular lesson,

shooting with intention, and shooting with intention for

my branding words.

Now, I understand that I could go through

the same ideas with all of your branding

words, but because we don't have time for

that, we're going to focus on what my

branding words are.

You guys are going to learn the efforts

that I had put towards that, and then

you will apply it to your branding words.

Now, one of the greatest things to happen

to me as a photographer was the notion

that I didn't have to know and or

do everything perfectly.

I came in thinking, I'm going to be

a photographer, and I'm going to learn posing,

and learn posing with air quotes around it,

because I now know you can't learn posing.

You can learn how to do it, but

the only way you actually learn how to

be effective at it is by actually doing

it, because what happens is I would go

to workshops, and I would go to conferences

and summits, and I would take copious amounts

of notes, and I would be like, I

got this posing thing down, and I would

make little note cards about poses, and I

would feel great, and I would arrive to

this session, and I would be like, so,

how about you guys kiss?

It's like I knew the poses, and I

would get back in the car, and I

was like, why did you do that?

You know all of them, and I just

couldn't bring them to mind.

So what would happen was if I took

a step back, and I thought to myself,

what is the type of photo I want

to take?

Because we often get into this, and we're

thinking, okay, we're going to go, and it's

going to be awesome, but it's like, if

you take a step back, and you ask

yourself, truly, and I don't want to get

this to be too theoretical, but I want

this to be theoretical, what kind of photographs

do I want to take?

How then can I bring them to life?

Once I knew the types of photos I

wanted to take, I found freedom.

I found freedom to say, I cannot be

the master of all, but I can try

to be the master of a few.

When I first started my business, I felt

overwhelmed completely and totally, because of everything I

had to learn.

I had just left law school, and I

made the decision to pursue photography, but what

I didn't realize in pursuing this career was

that I would be actually doing photography 20

% of the time, and I would be

running a business 80% of the time,

and oftentimes we get into this, and I

see a lot of nods, because we got

into this thinking, oh, it's going to be

a life of unicorns, and fields, and people

in love, and everything's going to be amazing,

and what you realize is that the thing

that you wanted to do, which was shoot,

is the thing that you do the less

of, because I was buried under all these

other things I had to learn.

In addition to learning posing, I had to

understand how to navigate email.

I had to get a business license.

I had to understand how to file taxes.

I had to learn Photoshop.

I had to learn post-processing.

I had to figure out what my business

costs were.

I mean, the list went on and on,

so the time that I did have time

to dedicate to photography, I would leave my

job, and I'm like, okay, so today I

have two hours, and I'm going to go

home, and I'm going to read more about

posing, and then I would get home, and

then I would realize, oh, I should probably

learn how to do QuickBooks, so then it's

me getting diverted, and so I couldn't devote

the time that I needed to actually become

better at it.

Now, the thing that I thought of was

I felt like the pressure of me thinking

of poses was a bit much.

The minute I changed the idea from I

need to think of 1,000 poses was

freeing when I said, I just need to

think of poses on how to be fun.

I need to think of poses of how

I want my clients to look like they

can grace the pages of a magazine.

That really shifted my perspective and how I

also calibrated the way that I shoot, so

when I focused more on words, my branding

words, the less I had to think about

poses.

Now, early on, I have said this before,

and I will say it again, that my

branding words were broken into three things, fun,

fresh, and by fresh, it has an idea

of naturalism.

I want to photograph the couple in their

natural space and make it look like their

own, and furthermore, fresh in a way that

if I have shot at their venue before,

if I had shot at the same engagement

session location, I need to shoot it in

a way that doesn't look like, ho-hum,

I've been here, done that.

It belongs entirely to them, and also editorial.

Now, when I go to shoots, when I

go to weddings, I think distinctively in these

terms.

I don't get caught up with everything else.

Now, the lesson, this particular lesson, will outline

my approach, it will showcase how I effectively

move in this direction, and hopefully act as

the foundation as you choose your words.

Now, there isn't a clear definition of what

editorial photography is.

Like when I say one of my branding

words is editorial, it's really hard to define

what that is, but I'm talking about the

process of how I've defined it, and if

it applies to what you want to do,

fantastic, but the idea is to follow the

steps.

Now, when I think of editorial, I think

of it as the things that I have

seen in magazines that has the ability to

resonate with people.

Great, so we have the foundation of that.

Now, I have been very fortunate to have

the distinct honor of having my weddings featured

in various magazines, so that has been great

too.

But what I've learned along the way, by

way of lots of mistakes, that there are

things that I have done the way that

I have shot that precluded me from actually

getting a feature, because of the mistakes that

I made on the back end.

So I want to talk a little bit

more about what that looks like.

If in the case you want to submit

your photos for publication on a blog, on

a website, on a magazine, let's talk a

little bit about what it means to talk

to an editor from one of the world's

largest wedding magazines.

Now, because we're in conjunction with The Knot,

I had the lovely conversation of working hand

-in-hand with The Knot's photo editor.

Her name is Rebecca Crumley.

We have worked together in the past, and

we will be working together as we head

into The Knot Dream Wedding.

Now, because we've had conversations, I said, hey,

I'm going to CreativeLive, and I want to

ask you a few questions, and we have

engaged with this topic before in the past.

So to save you lots of time, if

the goal is for you to get published,

and I think getting published is not only

an honor, it's also a great way to

actually leverage free validation and marketing.

So the first question is, what is the

biggest challenge you face as a photo editor?

And Rebecca responds by saying, photographers take photos

that are beautiful, but an editor needs a

photo that can be used on a full

-bleed page.

A full-bleed page is either a vertical

picture on one side or a full-bleed

horizontal, which is one photo over two pages.

She needs to know that the photo that

they choose can be reproduced over two pages,

and it doesn't have a distracting element in

the background.

She says that there's a lot of photos

that really work well, but there'll be a

guest in the background making a weird face

unintentionally, and they can't use that photo.

So as you're shooting, you might have a

fantastic photo, but you cannot look solely at

the bride and groom.

You must be looking at what's going on

in the frame, in the background.

So the thing that you want to do

is not to have distracting elements.

This could be people, it could be bushes,

it could be graffiti, it could be things

that are gonna take away from the photo.

And sometimes she might have a photo that

she absolutely loves, but the photographer has cropped

it too tight.

When thinking about how it works in submissions

is that editors are always looking for space

to put text over a photo.

If the photo does not have text, it

cannot be used.

So basically, leave room around photos for maximum

usage opportunities.

Second question, what is something you wish more

photographers considered when shooting a wedding?

What I'd love to see are more horizontal

photos, which is a surprise to me because

I have a tendency to shoot vertical because

I think vertical does better in online submissions

because when they compare two photos, instead of

just putting one, you actually can get more

traction from those photos.

So I realized I need to start shooting

a little bit more of a balance between

horizontal and vertical after having this conversation with

her.

Now, she wants to make sure, again, to

reiterate that she would love to use those

in full bleed.

But she has a very hard time using

a horizontal in full bleed because whenever somebody

shoots a really wide photo, they have a

tendency of putting the bride and the groom

in the middle.

And it's fantastic and it's beautiful, but when

they go to publish, the couple ends up

in the gutter of the magazine and they

can't use that.

So shoot the photo the way that you

want it.

Shoot the photo that you think is really

great, but then also try to shoot it

using the rule of thirds so that the

couple is in either one, the right side

or the left side.

And she also says that the photo will

have to be, the largest size photo that

they will need to be reproduced in a

magazine would be 13 by 20 at 300

dpi.

That's a pretty big photo.

So if you have a tendency or you

have a proclivity to shoot at small raw,

if you think that you're going to be

shooting a wedding that has potential for a

feature, it would behoove you to shoot large

raw in that capacity.

Thirdly, there's a total of four questions that

I asked her.

We're now on to the third one.

What's something you wish more photographers did?

Rebecca responds, by every year there seems to

be a trendy photo in the photo world.

And when this photo becomes trendy, every photographer

feels like they have to reproduce it.

She said, for example, a few years ago

it was really popular to take a photo

of the bride holding up her dress with

her shoes and having the groom next to

her holding up his pants, showing his socks

and shoes.

She's like, this was an extraordinarily trendy photo.

She's like, and while the photo itself could

be lovely, if the photographer is going to

shoot that very trendy photo, it has to

be done right.

Too many people have done it the wrong

way that photo editors start just passing it

over because it's like, wow, you really missed

the point.

She said to think about what you are

doing, to truly be cognizant and not just

say, I'm going through the motions, I got

the photo, okay, let's move on.

She said, don't be afraid to style the

photo in a way that shows professionalism.

For example, address the straps.

She says, we have gotten these pictures where

the bride's strap was undone because it looks

like she had just put the shoes on

or that it looks like the groom had

walked through a field of mud and then

they just did the photo for the sake

of doing the photo, but it just does

not look pretty.

She's like, the thing is, what she wants

you to do is to take pride in

what you do because editors have to sift

through so many photos that were there but

not really there.

It's like, you entirely missed the point.

So, by taking the time to clean up

the photo, it enhances its viability.

Now, when you submit photos to The Knot,

you might not have an entire wedding be

considered, but they might actually select a few

of the photos.

So, if you may not have the wedding

of your dreams quite yet, that's okay, still

submit, and if you take a really beautiful

photo and it ends up getting featured, that's

amazing.

They give photo credits to where every photo

is listed.

That's another opportunity for you to move in

the direction of your dreams.

So, any other insights when it comes to

an editorial wedding photography?

Rebecca writes that she wants a consistent story.

To be sure that you're capturing photos from

the day as a whole because sometimes there

might be a really great wedding reception, but

if it's not tethered to a really great

ceremony or really great portraits, individual parts of

the day don't usually stand up on their

own when they're considering the wedding as a

whole.

What you're trying to do is include environmental

elements that help connect the story.

She's like, it's also very important by shooting,

let's say, if you're shooting in a church

and it's dark lighting, and then all of

a sudden you're gonna shoot an outdoor wedding

reception, you need to have photos in the

middle that take the viewer visually throughout the

day, and this is especially important because she

wants to make sure that you're paying attention

to light and making sure that it feels

consistent.

If you're shooting in a dark church, then

to go to an outdoor wedding reception, she's

like, it probably doesn't work unless there's a

way for you to say, shoot the bride

and groom exiting the church, running along some

sunset hills, and then the hills, you take

pictures of trees and hills, and then the

hills will put them right in the wedding

reception as where it should be.

That's telling the whole story because what she

wants to say is we want the images

to drive cohesive stories.

The more that the photos naturally go together,

when you look at, when you take a

step back and say, I see the narrative,

not without details, not with all of this

stuff, just a lighting narrative, a story narrative,

a color narrative, it has a stronger capability

of getting picked up for a feature.

So, now that we have heard from an

editor about what she's talking about, I feel

like Rebecca has done most of the defining

of what editorial photography really is, so that's

great.

But I want to add a few more

things from a photographer's perspective for tips.

What it comes like for posing editorial couple,

posing a couple editorially.

One, refrain from full smiles.

Most brides are extremely and excited on their

wedding day, as they should be, and on

a second note, most brides are very accustomed

to smiling the same way that they would

smile for Facebook or their profile pictures.

It's kind of like a single moment, but

that moment happening again and again and again

on their wedding day can be very tiresome

and look very inauthentic.

Now, full smiles, they convey like a posed

or like a staged look.

And if you go through magazines, what you

see online, rarely you're getting that full smile

pose look.

Movement makes this easy.

A look to the side makes this easy.

Have somebody tell her something funny makes it

easy.

Have her look off in a very distinct

and specific point off to the side.

Bring her eyes down to her feet and

bring her up to you.

You have one, two, three opportunities to shoot

a bride in a way that could be

potentially traditional, but kind of creating a natural

movement to it.

Two, don't overly pose.

It's easy to fall into the trap of

over posing because when you think editorial, you

think, oh, I got to go vogue.

And so you have like these big, strong

like angles.

And so if a bride is like here,

here, here, it makes it look like you're

losing that natural appeal to a wedding day.

And if that is reflective of your style

of photography, you rock that, but balance it

also with what works for magazine editors.

And you want to remind your clients they're

not auditioning to be the next America's Next

Top Model.

They're just a really pretty version of themselves

naturally.

Three, keep the movement small.

What we see a lot of is these

big arm angles, girls hanging against a wall

like this and looking back with her bouquet.

That doesn't work so well because it doesn't

sell the idea of reality.

We want a carefully curated version.

So by keeping your appendages close to the

body that helps sell the idea, you want

to ensure that the couple is not standing

more than an arm's length distance from each

other.

Now I love and I can appreciate photos

where the bride and groom are standing, maybe

she has her bouquet here and the guy

is like adjusting his tie or suit over

here and that distance between them is cool.

It can make for an interesting photograph.

But the farther that couple gets from each

other, it looks more like they're at odds

with each other.

So a general rule of thumb, if you're

going to place your subjects away from each

other, about an arm to an arm and

a half.

Also, you want to remind your clients to

not lock their appendages.

The easiest way to make it look like

a very uneditorial or unromantic photo is if

you have a bride and groom and they're

both standing with their knees and they're kind

of like, like the whole, every appendage, every

joint has to sell the idea that it's

a photo.

So having said that, we're going to walk

into me shooting a photo shoot with intention

as part of this course.

Hi and welcome to today's lesson.

I'm really excited because I want to talk

about shooting with intention.

Every time I approach a photo shoot on

a wedding day or even outside for today,

like a sample bride and groom, I want

to make sure that I'm shooting specifically for

four words.

These four words I have chosen to represent

my brand.

They might not be your words, but the

goal is to actually see these are the

words I'm shooting for, this is how I

execute it, and my clients know what they're

going to get from beginning, middle, and end.

So the four words I have chosen are

romantic, editorial, fun, and natural.

These are going to be the things that

I focus on over two lessons.

Today's lesson will be focusing on romantic and

editorial.

If you tune in tomorrow, we'll be talking

about fun and natural.

So come with me as I kind of

dissect what I do, but my goal is

for you to see both days to kind

of see the full gamut of what I

do.

I'm excited for you to join.

This morning we are in San Juan Capistrano,

California.

This is traditional Orange County.

This is an older part of Orange County.

We're going to be going to the left,

and we're going to be shooting.

It's just before sunrise, so we're going to

be getting an entirely different type of light,

which I think is important.

So if you tune in throughout the course

of the 30 days, you're going to notice

that our shoots have taken place on overcast

days.

They've taken place at sunset with great light.

They've taken place in a wide field, and

now we're going to be shooting in the

morning.

We're going to get a wide variety of

light, light settings, and the things that I

will do to try to manipulate soft light

like we have now, and then as the

sun breaks through the clouds in the morning,

we're going to talk about how I can

quickly change my settings, so that the light

does not overpower what's going on.

So how are we going to be starting

off the shoot?

In every location, I try to hit all

four of my branding words, words that I

want to be associated to reflect the type

of photography that I'm shooting on a wedding

day.

So we're going to focus on editorial and

romantic, and then in lesson two, we're going

to be focusing on fun and natural, but

whenever I move from location to location, I

will be shooting for all four elements, but

over these two lessons, I'll be breaking up

into two separate words on two different days.

So right now, we're going to be focusing

on romantic and editorial.

Now, I'm going to start any session the

way I start all my sessions.

I'm going to put my clients close together.

I'm going to bring their torsos together.

I'm going to bring their stomachs together.

You guys are going to be facing each

other.

I'm going to be more focused on your

profiles, so you're not going to, you're totally

going to ignore me.

Av, can I have your left arm?

Beautiful.

What I want you to do is I

want you to hold the bouquet right here.

Now, I want to make sure that the

head of the bouquet doesn't compete.

Right here, this is looking beautiful, and part

of the reason why I'm choosing to have

the bride on this way is that the

bangs are dissecting her face here.

By me showing her open side of the

face, I'm going to get her beautiful profile,

but specifically, I'm also going to be getting

her beautiful wedding ring, something small, little highlights

that I like to pay attention to.

I'm going to just make sure that their

bodies are relaxed, and right now, you guys

don't have to pay any attention to me.

So this is how I would start any

photo shoot, and it could be just a

simple nice pose.

I want to make my clients comfortable first

and foremost.

Now, the best part of this situation is

that the bride and groom are roughly the

same height, so it's going to give me

a lot more latitude in how I can

shoot with wider apertures as opposed to my

clients being two separate sizes.

So because it's slightly overcast, the sun has

not broken through our morning quite yet.

I'm going to be shooting it at ISO

of 200.

I'm going to be checking what my shutter

speed will be in one second.

I'm going to test the light.

I'm going to adjust the dress.

So I kind of like where I'm at

right now.

I'm at 2.5, 640th of a second,

200 ISO.

I'm going to adjust the dress.

I'm going to start my shoot with just

my favorite lens, which is the 50.

We'll keep it nice and simple.

Beautiful.

So can I have you guys bring your

foreheads in nice and close?

Gorgeous.

Now, I'm going to start in a location

that I think is pretty, but not like

my most favorite, and that's fine because I

just want my clients to warm up, get

comfortable, and feel natural.

Beautiful.

Avie and Zach, peel your foreheads away from

each other.

I switched my position, so I'm going to

compensate for the light just ever so slightly

because I don't have that white wall in

the back anymore.

So I went from 640th of a second

to 500 so I can pick up the

nice, natural background.

And what was going on in that first

frame was that I had a motorhome or

a window of a car in the background.

So I simply switched my position because I

want to crop out and avoid things that

I think are going to be distractions later

on.

Avie and Zach, you guys are doing great.

Beautiful.

Now, Avie, can you look towards this camera

right over there?

Gorgeous.

Relax that front shoulder.

Give her a slight smile.

And Zach, can you lean in lightly and

give her a light kiss?

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm

going to adjust Avie's hair so that Zach

isn't in competition with it.

I was going to say it.

It's hard to get that.

Okay.

Cool, cool, cool.

Well, don't do the cute stuff quite yet.

Let me get that.

That was really, really...

I know.

That's true.

That is true.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Relax that left shoulder.

Good girl.

Good.

Now, hang out there.

Pause for one second.

Good.

So, what's happening in this particular situation is

that just from the get-go, I can

already tell I haven't worked with this couple

before.

We've just met this morning, and I can

already tell that the dynamic that they share

is very warm, it's cuddly, and it's confident.

So when I'm executing photos for an editorial

and romantic style in nature, working with a

couple like this is going to make it

easy, but I need to make sure that

I stay up to the cadence that they're

setting.

They walk into those romantic photos.

They walk into those editorial photos easier.

Now I need to slowly pull them back

because I need to make sure that it's

going to fall into a natural type of

flow.

I'm going to stick with my 50, and

then I'm going to switch to the 85

to kind of get a different type of

feel.

So naturally, this couple falls into that romantic

category easily, so I'm just going to peel

them back to be a little bit more

paced with the way that I shoot.

I'm going to drop to a 2.0.

I'm going to compensate and go to 800th

of a second.

I'm going to test my light.

I'm going to go to 640th of a

second.

Avie, can you bring your face?

Beautiful.

And then Zach, can you just lightly?

Yes.

Avie, you looking down the way that you

were.

Gorgeous.

Relax that front left shoulder.

Atta girl.

And then Zach, can you come in and

lightly kiss?

Or actually, sorry, her face.

My bad.

Good.

Beautiful.

Good.

Can I get the 85?

So romantic can kind of be, romantic photos

can have a voyeuristic appeal.

So whenever I want to get a photo

that doesn't really look like, doesn't convey the

fact that there's a photographer in the room,

I want to look like it's a candid

photo that I just happened to be capturing

at the moment of them just being nice

and close.

I'm going to shoot with my 85.

I'm going to stand at slight of a

distance, and I'm going to be shooting the

couple individually on each side.

So I'm going to shoot this right now

at a 1.2. I really want that

distortion background.

I really love the bokeh that it can

produce.

1.2. Let me get my settings.

Evie, you're doing great.

You're doing great.

Right now my settings are at 1250th of

a second, 1.2, 200 ISO.

And I'm just not, I'm just going to

test the light so you guys can just

relax.

Because Evie is giving me these really strong,

really confident looks, I'm not getting the softer

side of her.

So I'm going to tell her, hey, I'm

just shooting, but what's really happening is that

I'm, I say I'm testing the light, but

what's really happening is that I'm shooting.

See?

This is great.

So she just looks a lot more relaxed

right now.

She looks like she's herself, and she doesn't

look like she's even conscious or aware of

the camera, which is perfect.

Beautiful.

Okay guys, I think I'm ready now to

start shooting.

I got the light where I want it.

So Zach, can you put your arms just

lightly around Evie's waist?

Yes, yes.

Now Evie, can you relax the bokeh slightly

behind?

Yeah, that's it, that's it.

And then Zach, I'm going to fix your

collar.

I'm just going to bring the jacket.

Beautiful.

Now Evie, can you look at the ground

right in front of you?

Yes.

Now relax that shoulder.

Atta girl.

And then look back up at Zach.

Oh, look, it's beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Can you look here?

Oh, that was cute.

That was adorable.

Can you look here at me, Evie?

Good.

And then Zach, bring her in nice and

close, and then Evie, eyes here.

Beautiful.

Chin towards me.

Good.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

You guys can stay there.

I'm going to peel it this way.

I'm going to have to compensate and get

the light right.

Yeah, I'm going to keep it.

I'm still shooting at 1.2, 1250th of

a second, 200 ISO.

Good.

Now Evie, can you soften your knees for

me?

There we go.

Beautiful.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Good.

And Zach, can you look out?

JD, can you pop over here, please?

Awesome.

Yes, yes, yes.

Zach, you're just doing your thing.

This is great.

This is great.

Beautiful.

Now, Evie, can you come up on your

tippy toes?

Oh, you can just look hot like that.

That's good.

That's really good.

And then can you get up on your

tippy toes and lightly kiss Zach on the

cheek?

Lightly.

There you go.

Good.

Chin down a tiny bit, Zach.

There you go.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Okay, so in this particular situation, when it

comes to shooting editorial and romantic photos, I

feel like I no longer like this editorial

that looks very strong, like two really strong,

angular people.

What I want editorial is to feel like

I'm photographing a bride and groom that looks

like it can grace the pages of a

magazine without it feeling like it's going to

grace the pages of a fashion magazine.

Those are two different styles of posing, and

in this particular situation, I think that the

editorial simply looked strong, yet natural, yet a

connection between two people.

When it comes to romantic photos, they kind

of fell into that super naturally.

They like to be cuddly.

They like to be kissy, and so I

didn't have to kind of hone in too

much on that.

Now, Evie, I want your hand on the

inside.

Zach, can I have your hand?

Here.

There we go.

Beautiful.

So you're just going to be creating a

cradle with your arms around her.

So come in this way.

We're going to do something just nice.

Evie, open up your legs.

All this is doing is lowering your body

so that, Zach, don't lower in the knees.

One thing I want to point out is

that I asked Evie to open her legs,

and then she, like I said, because I

want to have Zach a tiny bit taller

than she did.

And then what Evie did is she said,

oh, okay.

So she opened her legs, which is great,

but then she also softened her knees, which

means her body fall this way.

That's never a good look.

The only time I'm going to have my

clients lower or get shorter or taller is

by spreading their legs, because it still keeps

the upper part of the torso intact and

natural.

Any time this happens, it's just not a

good look.

So, Evie, now, Evie, I don't want you

falling backwards.

Good.

You relax either side to side, side hip

or side hip, not front or back.

The person who I'm going to be moving,

Evie, would be Zach.

So you get comfortable.

And then, Zach, tall.

Bring the shoulders back.

Exactly.

Rad.

Now I want you looking down, Evie.

Beautiful.

This beautiful light behind my gorgeous bride.

Now, Zach, you come in and you kiss

your beautiful wife wherever your lips land.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, we're going to move to a new

location.

What I was shooting in was nice, safe,

pretty, diffused light.

Just before the sun gets too hot and

too crazy, I'm going to put them in

this kind of light patch.

But I'm going to shoot Evie, and I'm

going to look for light around her head.

But what's in front of her right now

is a natural reflector.

If you tune in a few lessons from

now, the thing that you're going to actually

see is me talking and dissecting what natural

reflectors are.

So be sure to tune into that.

We'll get more into that with specificity.

The CliffsNotes version is that a natural reflector

is anything in nature that reflects light back

onto my subjects so that I can shoot

in rather kind of tough light.

So now we're getting full sun, but the

light in front of my subjects are going

to bounce light back into them.

We're going to talk more about that in

a future lesson, but for right now, Evie,

I'm going to take you here.

And I'm going to position Evie so that

I can see.

Thank you so much, Zach.

Now come out.

Come back.

Go back.

Go back.

Go back.

Go back.

Go back.

Boom.

Now I'm looking for specifics within her hair.

I kind of want halo lighting.

But if I did not have a reflector,

a natural reflector in front of my beautiful

bride, thank you, if I did not have

a natural reflector in front of her, we

would have muddled lighting.

So now that we have a natural reflector,

we can really focus on some beautiful light.

And the best part of this is that

this dirt is kind of like reddish in

color, in tonality, orange.

But it's just dirt.

But right now with the sun hitting it,

it's going to help me balance the light

that's going on.

We have a lot of green tones in

the background.

So when it comes to shooting editorial, when

it comes to shooting romantic-style photos, I

need to find a way.

I don't want the tree directly behind my

beautiful bride.

I'm going to shoot this at a 1

.2. Avie, can I have the bouquet up?

Can I have your body?

Beautiful.

Now I want you to shift your weight

from one hip to the other.

Thank you.

Now, Avie, when you shifted your hip, you

brought your shoulders back.

I want your shoulders not – don't bring

your shoulders forward.

Bring your chest forward like I have a

string.

I'm pulling your chest towards me.

Good.

Bring the core in.

Anytime you're going to relax, it's going to

be in your hips and booty.

So hips to the side, booty back, and

there you go.

Beautiful.

That was gorgeous.

I'm going to shoot this at a 1

.2. I'm going to shoot this at 160

ISO.

I'm going to get a test frame.

So I'm going to be shooting this at

1250, at 1250th of a second, 1.2,

160 ISO.

Eyes up a bit here, Avie.

Chin up a tiny bit.

Beautiful.

Look over at Zach, wherever Zach is.

Good.

Atta girl.

Okay, there's a person passing in the background.

I'm going to pause for one second.

I have a full shot here.

Beautiful.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm

going to incorporate a romantic photo in this

gorgeous light.

Zach, I'm going to call you over.

Look over at Zach, Avie.

Good.

Zach, I want you to come into the

frame.

I want you to be perpendicular to your

beautiful wife.

You're just simply going to pick up her

dress.

You're going to come in this way.

Your chest is going to be in her

arm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

You're going to get it nice and close,

but it's going to be this way.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Avie, what I want you to do, watch.

Coming back.

Rest.

Bring out your...

Beautiful.

Good.

Come on.

Bring your bodies in.

Oh, okay.

So I'm not walking into the shot?

Oh, no, no, no.

Okay.

Well, I meant you're walking into the shot.

Literally, I need you to walk over here.

That's beautiful.

That's beautiful.

I'm just going to tuck this small little

hair because we have sunlight behind Avie.

Whenever we have sunlight behind Avie, I need

to watch for very particular stray hairs because

it becomes a distraction.

Come in nice and close.

I'm going to shoot this at a 1

.2. Anytime I'm going to be focusing on

a romantic photo, I feel at full liberty

to crop out certain aspects.

So the camera shoots at an aspect ratio

of 4 by 6.

A lot of times what I like to

do is when I shoot my pictures, I

like to give space around my photos for

cropping at a later point.

But sometimes for a romantic photo, you just

want to shoot the photo in the camera

exactly how you want it.

And if a client wants it at a

different size, you can encourage them to get

it matte or you can encourage them to

get it on 4 by 6.

We can talk about all different types of

printing options, but for right now, I just

want to shoot the photo for exactly what

I want.

So you come in nice and close to

Avie.

Avie, relax into one hip.

Beautiful.

Hang out.

And then Zach, I would just need you

to keep your face nice and soft as

you look at Avie.

Avie, take a deep breath.

Relax the shoulders.

Beautiful.

And then, Zach, I want you to come

in.

Maybe you have to get on your tippy

toes.

There we go.

There we go.

Yes.

Good.

And then, Avie, can I have your eyes

here?

Beautiful.

Chin up slightly.

Turn towards me.

Attagirl.

And then eyes down at the bouquet.

Slight smile.

Zach, come in for a light kiss.

Avie, eyes here.

Avie, eyes here.

Beautiful.

Sweat.

Good girl.

Good.

Good.

Hang out one sec.

One more time.

That's beautiful.

Relax that shoulder.

Bring that right shoulder towards me.

Right shoulder towards me.

Yeah.

Good girl.

Good.

Hang out here.

Hang out here.

And sometimes when we think about romantic photos,

we think about romantic photos in every sense

of the word, which is lots of kissing,

but sometimes a romantic photo can simply be

their hands.

Relax your fingers.

You can put your hands around your bouquet.

Avie.

Beautiful.

And then we're just going to...

Beautiful.

Come in this way.

And we're just going to shoot a small

little detail.

And the detail is actually of the bouquet,

but now what we're going to see are

the rings in the frame.

Good.

Good.

I'm seeing just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit

of them at occasion with this beautiful mesh

reflector popping in light for their gorgeous bouquets

and details.

We have church bells ringing, friends.

We have church bells ringing.

Beautiful.

So we just finished shooting romantic and editorial

photos in this particular location.

We're going to try shooting an entirely different

location to ensure that the portfolio is diverse

for the clients and to see if we

can challenge ourselves a little bit more.

So let's get started.

So we just walked probably 10, 15 feet

from where we were, but right now I

have a tree diffusing the actual nucleus of

the sun, but I'm just getting this nice

light.

I'm going to be getting a profile shot

as we start now here for romantic and

editorial photos.

This is a highly densely populated area.

We might be moving for cars and bikes

and people, and this is how it would

happen on a wedding day.

So I'm just going to shoot right on

through it.

So now what I have positioned the bride

to be facing the sun.

I want the sun right behind her face

and I want Zach's body to be perpendicular.

Now she has this beautiful kind of like

a low back dress that I want to

highlight in this particular frame, but I don't

want to span the dress too far out

because portions of the dress might be too

highlighted.

So in light of that, I'm placing it

right behind her as much as possible so

that it falls in her shadow and I

can expose from head to toe as best

as possible.

So um, Avie, can you look towards, yes,

so I'm going to be getting a distinct

profile shot.

I'm going to be adjusting her hair because

what we see here is a patch of

skin and a patch of skin and a

middle hair.

I either need all the hair here or

all her hair to the side.

I'm going to shoot, aim for getting all

her hair to the side.

Good.

So, uh, Zach, can I have your hand

right here at the crest of her back

or just like relaxing it just across.

Nice.

Just any way that you can get your

body in nice and close to her.

Nice, nice, nice and close.

Nice, nice, nice and close.

Beautiful.

And good.

Now I'm going to make the editorial decision

right now to keep Avie's arm here.

I might have it crisscross her body, but

not yet.

Not yet.

I'm going to see what it's going because

right now I can get her gorgeous figure.

Zach, I want you to peel her into

you.

Peel her in.

Anytime I'm going to have my subject for

a romantic photo, I want their bodies nice

and tight.

But what I see here is a gap

between Avie's arm and Zach, there we go.

I just want to connect appendages.

Anytime you're shooting for a romantic photo, you

want to make sure that it actually looks

and feels romantic.

Avie, I need you to relax that left

shoulder.

I'm going to be shooting this.

J.D., can I get a card on

deck?

I'm going to be shooting this because it's

going to be profile and they're roughly the

same height.

I'm going to be shooting this first with

a 50.

Oh, Zach, you just continue to do what

you do.

Let me get my settings right.

I'm at 160 ISO, I'm at 2.0,

I'm at six.

I'm going to have, I'm going to guide

a car around my subjects because I don't

want them to move.

I'm going to have them come this way.

I'm going to pick up her dress.

Thank you.

So these people look pretty pissed that I'm

standing in their way.

And that's fine.

You just smile really big and you just

apologize.

You ask for forgiveness, not permission.

Good, Avie.

Good.

Zach, can you kiss Avie's forehead?

Good.

I'm going to do the same thing.

I'm going to peel it on in, but

peel away from each other.

Peel away from each other.

I'm having them peel away from each other

because it looks like Zach got stuck to

her forehead, which is the last thing I

want.

I want him to move into it naturally.

We're going to come in this way.

Not you, Zach.

It's totally, totally me.

Nice.

Beautiful.

Come in, Avie.

You have your head down.

Relax it.

Yes.

Beautiful.

Actually, bring it back to how you had

it.

Just relax your left shoulder.

Relax it.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

I want you just to relax that left

shoulder.

Now, Zach, bring your beautiful wife in close

to you.

And then kiss her forehead one more time.

Good.

Hang out one second.

I want to shoot this at a 1

.2, just because I really, really do.

Hang out one second.

I really want to distort everything around.

I want to adjust my lighting.

I'm going to be now shooting at a

1.2. I'm going to be at 800th

of a second.

I have beautiful light going on behind them.

Good.

Now, Avie, can you look down here at

my hand?

Gorgeous.

Actually, this way.

This way.

Eyes down a tiny bit.

Beautiful.

Now, Zach, come in for a light kiss

on the forehead.

Light kiss on the forehead.

Actually, I actually want you to kiss her

here on her forehead.

No, not yet.

So why I had Zach change the position

of his kiss was that he was tilting

his head too much.

I really want it to feel natural and

real.

So by changing the position of her hair,

he can then change the position of his

lips.

Slight smile, Av.

Good.

I just abbreviated your name.

Sorry, boo.

Nice.

Good.

Now what I'm going to do is shoot

with the 85.

So there's a car coming.

I'm going to pick up her dress.

I'm going to guide the car around my

bride and groom.

And because I'm shooting with the 85, I'm

not going to be so concerned with the

bottom of her dress at this point, because

I'm not going to be showing that.

Av, open up your body a little bit

more towards me.

Beautiful.

Come in, just like that.

Gorgeous.

Av, can you look?

JD, can I pop you in over here,

please?

ASAP.

So I'm just going to call it out

for what it is right now.

Right now, I am in go mode.

I'm not that warm and fuzzy kind of

fun girl right now.

I'm just like, get it done.

Because the light is burning in the back

of my mind.

So forgive me if I'm not like, hey,

guys, I'm in go mode.

So Av, can you look at JD?

Beautiful.

That's adorable.

That's so cute.

JD, pop over here a little bit more.

Now, the reason why I'm having JD move

is because Av's eyes got too much of

the whites of her eyes.

Beautiful.

Now, what I want you to do is

squeeze her in nice and close.

Good.

OK.

I got what I wanted for the romantic

and editorial photos in this particular location, so

now we're going to move on to the

next.

So what I kind of found by looking

around was just simply, I'm going to be

looking, again, for a natural reflector.

I kind of felt that when it comes

to shooting an editorial-style photo, I want

to make sure that I'm getting an editorial

-style bridal.

If that's a bridal portrait, if that's kind

of reflective of the bride.

I can tell that Av has that kind

of editorial flair naturally, so I want to

make sure that the portfolio would reflect who

she is as a bride.

What I did see is this area is

a little dark.

It's a lot dark.

But we have this, well, it's dark in

patches and bright in patches.

So we have this really mixed lighting, but

I think that we can kind of create

some dynamic light, as long as I had

some sort of natural fill.

The natural fill would be this little light

patch in front of me.

And I'm going to have to bring up

her skin tones and dress a bit in

post, but we're just going to kind of

see.

I'm going to see if it works.

And this is how it is.

Move your hand up slightly more towards, yeah,

beautiful.

Have the tip of the bouquet down towards

the ground.

Relax this elbow.

And hey, if this works, that's great.

And if it doesn't, it's not going to

make the edit.

So it's all good.

What I want to do is I don't

want to shoot from this angle directly because

I have a light source and an illuminated

field behind her, which is going to be

a distraction.

I'm going to shift this way so that

I can hopefully shoot it at an angle

where I'm still getting that fill light.

But the thing that's going to be behind

her is a fence.

The fence isn't ideal, but at least it's

not going to be as much of a

distraction, I don't think.

Heck, I might change my mind.

No, I absolutely won't.

Beautiful.

So since I've shifted my position, I've lost

Avie's right shoulder.

Beautiful.

Now, by placing Avie against a rock, I'm

naturally going to give her body more formation.

Pull away from the rock.

We have a beautiful silhouette of her.

Now lean against the rock.

Now lean into your...

Yes.

And so what Avie did naturally, she came

away, she fell against the rock, and then

distributed the weight unevenly in her hips, which

is what I prefer.

But I needed to see a bit of

both her shoulders.

Personal preference, but I like to see exactly

across the shoulders, thinned out torso, weight distributed

unevenly in her hips.

Bring your chest out like I have a

string from your chest, and I'm going to

be pulling you this way.

So come towards me.

Come towards me.

Come towards me.

Good.

Now take a deep breath in and relax

your shoulders.

Relax your arm.

Bring your arm down a little bit.

Beautiful.

Now look down at your bouquet.

Yes, feel free.

Whenever you adjust your hair, feel free to

make it a part of the photo.

We're totally okay.

I will shoot right on through that.

Now I've noticed that the hair adjusted in

a way.

Can you scoot your feet closer to the

rock?

No, no, no.

You don't have to get up on it.

Just shift your feet, the base of your

feet closer to the rock.

Mm-hmm.

So come away from it.

There we go.

This is right.

There we go.

Cool.

Good.

This is, I like her position of body

here a little bit more.

It looks a little less too like edgy,

like she's trying, like it's going to be

haute couture, and just a little bit more

natural editorial photo.

I want to make sure that my horizon

line is straight from behind my camera.

I'm going to shoot this vertical.

I'm going to shoot this horizontal.

Amy, look down at your bouquet again.

I want to make sure that I have,

looking down at the bouquet, that I'm going

to have her look at my camera.

Evie, can you look here at my camera?

Nice.

Can you bring your chin towards me?

Chin towards me.

Chin.

Beautiful.

Slight smile.

Hang out.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

Now, instead of coming back, come forward.

Just take a deep breath.

Shake out your shoulders.

Shake out your knees.

Shake out your shoulders.

Beautiful.

Good.

And I actually liked how you kind of,

yeah, actually, now the rock is not there.

Fall, fall.

Good.

Beautiful.

Now what I want you to do is

to pop the bouquet in the other hand.

Now with your right hand, can you pick

up a bit of your dress?

So that just that your fingers are holding

onto something.

Gorgeous.

Now wiggle out your ankles.

Don't come back in the hips.

Come forward in the hips.

Beautiful.

Now just shake it out.

Good.

Cute.

Can you look out maybe in that direction?

All right.

Beautiful.

Eyes here.

I'm going to pop right in.

Because I'm shooting closer, I'm going to have

to compensate for the light in a very

distinct way.

Because the closer I get to her, the

less light I'm going to be picking up

from its distance.

I'm going to be losing portions of her

dress and I'm going to have to be

okay with it given the drastic situations of

our lighting differences.

Gorgeous.

Beautiful.

I like how you're holding your dress.

Look down at the bouquet.

Nice.

Look over to that direction.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can hold your hair.

That was cute.

That was really good.

Beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Bring your bouquet up to your chest.

Relax your arms.

Look down at the bouquet.

Again, I'm still shooting at a 1.2.

I want to distort everything that's going on

in the background.

Beautiful.

Eyes here.

Chin up towards me.

This way.

Chin down a tiny bit.

Beautiful.

Can you just relax your elbows a tiny

bit?

Take a deep breath.

Shake out the hips.

Nice.

Now look down at the bouquet and then

bring your eyes here.

Beautiful.

Chin towards me.

So this is what's happening.

Every time I ask for her chin towards

me, I'm getting these hot spots and this

is just the nature of fighting against the

sun.

I'm going to have Avie step towards me.

Beautiful.

Step towards me.

There we go.

Nice.

No, it's still too spotted and that's okay.

I'm going to be able to just say

I got the best that I could given

the lighting situation.

I liked the pulled back shots a lot

more but this is how I would approach

a situation in kind of like really harsh

mixed lighting.

As long as I have a natural reflector

in front of her, as long as I'm

metering for her skin, I use spot metering

and I focus in between every single frame.

I don't use evaluative and how I gauge

whether or not my exposure is where I

want it, I simply look at the back

of my camera and see what are the

hot spots.

I might be losing portions of the dress.

I might be losing portions of the sky

and I'm just going to deal with it

but I think at the end of it

what I can save and post get a

beautiful bridal portrait and the bride, her mom

and her grandmother will all be really happy.

I'm going to be focusing on shooting some

romantic photos in light that I'm hopefully picking

up from a natural reflector.

I have the sun behind her and then

I'm going to be shooting at a direction

that the light in the back field isn't

going to overpower her.

I'm going to hopefully be shooting in a

direction where there's shade from between myself, the

back gate and the bride.

I'm adjusting her hair because the curls have

fallen slightly.

So now my objective is just to kind

of make sure that her hair stays together

from top area the best I possibly can.

Because I'm having the sun behind her it's

going to be picking up on just like

the smaller hairs up top and I'm okay

with that but anything I could do just

to kind of minimize what it would be

in post is going to be super helpful.

Good.

Beautiful.

So when it comes to my style of

her music photos again everybody has their own

their own flair.

I'm going to have Zach I'm going to

have, excuse you, over A.B. Good.

And then Zach come up right over here.

And then A.B. I want you putting

your hand up right about here.

So, yeah, can you scoot in a little

bit more?

A little bit more, a little bit more.

Beautiful.

Now I'm going to reposition A.B.'s hand

because it does look like it's a floating

hand.

Zach, can you bring A.B. in?

Beautiful.

So what Zach just did is he brought

her in such a way that it actually

cinched her waist gave her this beautiful nice

curve the dress is laying exactly where it

is and from here Zach's body is open

which seems like there's going to be a

disconnect between the two so I'm going to

roll his shoulder in a little tiny bit.

Actually, bring your hips towards me.

Nice.

So simply changing the position of his hips

he just brought his body back but without

bringing his hips so it still looked a

little a little disjointed.

I will take the bouquet because I don't

think it works in this particular frame.

Zach, you just put your left hand right

about there.

Beautiful.

And you're not going to pay any attention

to me.

J.D., I'm going to be shooting this

at a 2.0 I'm going to be

shooting this at 160 ISO.

I'm going to see what my I'm going

to have to use my ghetto fab lens

hood.

And I talk about why I don't use

a lens hood in a future lesson.

I'm going to get into the reasons behind

that for right now because I'm fighting the

light.

I'm not going to get too into it.

I'm simply going to adjust the lighting and

kind of move on from there.

Beautiful.

Now A.B.'s face got lost as she

turned in towards me because she had her

hair in her face so I'm going to

coach her and have her just shift can

you shift your chin out towards J.D.?

Chin down a tiny bit.

Beautiful.

Good.

Good, Zach.

Good.

Beautiful.

I'm going to switch to Good.

There it is.

Nice, A.B. Beautiful.

I'm going to switch to shooting at a

1.2 because I can.

And because I'm not getting the type of

light that I normally like to get I'm

going to shoot with a really wide aperture

and see what we kind of get from

there.

Hang out one sec.

Let me just adjust the lighting.

I'm at 1.2. Two thousandth of a

second.

160 ISO.

Relax that front shoulder, love.

Beautiful.

Beautiful.

Zach, I love your hand there.

That's great.

That is great.

Lean in, leaning in nice.

Beautiful.

There we go, guys.

Beautiful.

Thank you.

Hang out there for one second.

I'm going to take one step in.

I'm going to slightly shift my focal point

and my camera.

Slight smile, A.B. Nice.

Good.

Girl, relax that front shoulder.

Beautiful.

That's great.

Good.

So we're kind of just cruising through this

particular section of this day.

But I feel like what I've captured so

far for as far as romantic and editorial

poses go is where I'm going to call

the shoot for the day.

I feel like my clients will have a

wide variety for these type of photos.

So just as a recap, the four words

that I focus on in general are natural,

fun, editorial, and romantic.

What we saw today were editorial and romantic.

And I feel as a photographer, I executed

on that particular portion and will be able

to put it together.

You guys will see photos as they come

straight on my camera and then what I'm

going to do with them in post and

how I'm going to connect both of those

lessons into those four words and the type

of portfolio my clients would get from a

day like this.

acoustic guitar plays What

is a bird without its wings?

What is a kite without its string?

What is a city with no people?

What is a hand without a hold?

What is the world with no love?

Love, love, love keeps us all connected.

Love, love, love when you least expect it.

Love, love, love everybody sing cause love, love,

love makes a beautiful thing.

What is a bus without a street?

What is a heart without a beat?

What is a church without a steeple?

What is the sky without the sea?

What would we be with no love?

Love, love, love keeps us all connected.

Love, love, love when you least expect it.

Love, love, love everybody sing cause love, love,

love it's a beautiful thing to give and

take and make mistakes and know they'll love

you.

So before we move in to Q&A,

what I want to do is state the

obvious.

Editorial posing came easy for Avie, which is

good in some respects, but it's not so

good in other respects in that it could

make you, it made it difficult to peel

her back to find a balance.

So what you saw her a lot of

is she came in with this intention of

just like here, here, here, here, and she's

a beautiful girl.

If there's anybody who could rock that look,

it was Avie.

She did a fantastic job, but it was

my job to really try to bring her

back and say I know what you want,

I got your back, but you gotta give

me a little bit because the thing is

is that people come in to shoot thinking

they know what they want and then if

they have, they see a portfolio full of

100% angle, angle, angle, angle, softness, look,

soft look, like you're not giving them the

entire experience and that entire experience from my

brand is to include fun and natural photos

as a result.

Now in the next lesson, we're gonna talk

about shooting with intention to get fun and

natural photos, but you're going to see the

things that I have to do to actually

bring it out of her and I'm gonna

tell you, this girl gave me a run

for my money.

I am not gonna lie.

Now as a quick wrap up, just to

kind of close it all, what you saw

was my goals for my posing tips.

Then you saw me go through the shoot

and the tips that I applied were that

their smiles were not overly big.

You heard me again and again to say,

and actually it was the opposite for Avie.

I didn't have to say calm your smile,

I had to say give me a smile,

like make me happy.

Sell it with your eyes.

And now, I didn't want their moves to

be too haute couture or avant garde or

angular, right?

I had to just kind of soften what

that looked and I love that type of

posing, but I don't think that it's gonna

round out my portfolio the way that I

needed to.

I keep the movements light, I move them

into the pose and I avoided bringing their

bodies too close together to smush.

Uh, smush?

Smish?

What?

Um, smash.

Smash.

It's not smush or mish, smish, it's smash.

I didn't want their bodies to smash each

other, so I just had to kind of

create ways to kind of create angles in

her body without losing the bodice of her

dress.

Now, um, in the next lesson we're gonna

talk about the things that we have to

do to add on, to expand our repertoire,

but are there any questions right now in

regards to shooting with intention?

I see you, boo.

We're gonna go one, and then we're gonna

go two, and then we're gonna go three.

This is fantastic.

I actually worried that there wasn't gonna be

questions about this.

I'm like, great, this is fantastic.

Okay, great.

So we're gonna start back there.

Hi, um, I would love to get published,

but I was wondering, do you have to

do the trend photos?

Like, I feel like it's one of those

things.

Okay.

I mean, the quick answer is no.

Like, I think it's really, I want you

to finish your question.

I don't want to cut you off, sorry.

Well, that was the whole question, is like,

do you have to do the trend photos,

or like, if I look at a lot

of my clients' Pinterest boards, like, do you

ever go through and like recreate photos that

they've like pinned, like, oh my gosh, I

love this?

Like, as far as like recreating photos, do

you ever do that, or is that not

your style, or?

No and no.

Because no matter how hard you try, you

will always underdeliver.

Because you weren't shooting that same bride in

the same dress, in the same location, same

time of year, same anything, and yet, you

have brides curating a highlight reel from 50

,000 photographers and say, can you please make

my day look this good with one third

of the budget, terrible light, on an indoor

wedding, and I'm wearing tennis shoes with my

wedding dress.

Like, you know, it's like, you can't.

As far as trendy photos go, I don't

think that Rebecca was saying, do the trendy

photos, but she was just cautioning photographers, if

you're going to do the trendy photos, please

do it right.

Like, respect my time so much that you'll

just dust off a shoe a little bit.

Take pride in what you do.

So, I have had one bride recently, most

of my brides I think are pretty cool.

They really respect the creative energy that I've

created, and I've legitimized that by way of

the engagement session.

I had a bride recently, she shared with

me about eight to ten photos that she

felt were really, things that she really wanted,

just the overall idea.

She did send me, now she was getting

married at a beautiful resort in Orange County,

but it's a resort, I mean, it's a

hotel by the water, and she had sent

me photos of 12 bridesmaids frolicking in the

woods.

Like, I mean, pine trees, and I'm just

like, tell me what specifically about this photo

you like, because I know there's no pine

trees in Laguna Beach, or there are, but

not in this capacity.

So, what it is, and then I come

to find out she really likes the backlighting,

she likes the natural movement, so I said,

great.

And I told her, I won't be able

to capture these photos exactly, but thank you

for giving a framework for me to work

in, I will consider it as I curate

your day.

So you kind of like, give yourself a

little bit of space, but find out the

root of what she's asking for.

Question there.

This is really similar to what she's going

with, but I mean, we live in a

pretty, I don't want to say, unoriginal world,

but I mean, there's been a lot that's

already been done.

So how do you find your inspiration?

Do you just take the environment, or the

people?

How do you get your engine going to

be inspired?

To be inspired in regards to creating a

submission for editorial publication?

Yeah.

In a different lesson, somebody had asked if

I take time for myself, and I think

I'm going to bring that back into what

this looks like.

If I'm constantly in the photo world, if

I find that my calibration and my worth

is comparing myself on social media to what

other people are producing on social media, from

a stylistic perspective, it's so easy to kind

of turn inside and be like, you're so

good at what you do.

You shoot the most amazing weddings.

There was this one wedding blogger who I

follow on Instagram, and she had said something

along the lines, and please don't search for

it, but she had said something along the

lines of just like, this wedding on a

hilltop was so picturesque, and they had a

mandolin player to perfect the day, and my

thought was, a mandolin player?

Who has a mandolin player?

I want to shoot weddings that have mandolin

players.

The thought was, why don't I have a

mandolin player?

Why don't I attract that bride?

And it took me a minute to kind

of parse myself back and say, people who

want a mandolin player in a forest wedding

will probably not hire you, because that is

not the portfolio that you would put out.

Once I give myself that level of grace,

when it comes to being inspired, it's watching

foreign films.

It's taking time to practice yoga.

It's walking through the beach, and then the

last thing that I would do that is

a real life application is you walk into

the wedding, and you have to understand the

story.

Now, it's easy for people to assume, oh,

well, you shoot in a really nice place.

Everything you shoot there looks great, but then

the counter to that is, yes, but myself

and hundreds of other photographers have shot here,

so this place that it's nice in and

of itself is not enough.

What you need to do is tell the

story.

Now, the story can be a series of

great details.

That's the best case scenario, but if you're

shooting a wedding that probably doesn't have the

best details, but you think that there's a

color story going on, start shooting the wedding

in a way that conveys a continuous stream

of color.

So, for instance, if we're using yellow, the

bridesmaids' dresses are yellow, shoot four bridesmaids in

a window, backlit.

Tell that story.

Get the bride holding her bouquet with yellow

-wrapped daisies, because that's not known, right?

Shoot things in a way that have not

been done before, because it's going to be

very difficult to get a white peony bouquet

wrapped in burlap of a bride holding it

here.

Very difficult, because it's been done a thousand

times.

I actually rally for the girls to do

the bright colors, to use the unused flowers,

to put fruit in your centerpieces, because that's

the stuff that inspires editors to produce it.

So, if you can control what people are

putting towards their details, you talk to them

about doing things that are totally different.

But I will say that quite often I

get the bride who's like, we're having blush

and cream tones with a beach feel that's

classic and relaxed.

And I'm like, okay, here we go.

And so then I need to shoot it

in a way that showcases more personality.

What can I do with the bridal party

that makes it an interesting photo?

What can I do with the paper goods?

Paper goods are a way to kind of

position yourself.

How can I shoot her shoes in a

way that has not been just the shoe

here, the shoe here, on some brick, right?

Shoe here, shoe here, backlit against a window.

How can I shoot things that are different,

that are still pretty, but entirely unique in

a way that would appeal to an editor?

Does that work?

Okay, cool.

There was another question.

Awesome.

So my question is, Avie was the name

of the bride?

Okay.

So she very naturally was very romantic and

fell into that very naturally.

My clientele is not very romantic at all.

We tend to have a lot more fun

and that is my personality.

Therefore, I understand why I'm getting that.

But my question would just be, very practically,

how would you pull out a romantic feel

from the session if that wasn't natural to

them?

That's absolutely fantastic.

Great question.

And in previous lessons and in future lessons,

you're going to see the dynamic that I

work with four different couples in addition to

the not couple.

So you're going to see the dynamics.

And I connect more, I resonate more with

the being, I want to be romantic.

I do.

I just want to look at, you know,

JD and be like, rah, you know, from

across the room.

That's not really me.

So I attract the clients who aren't really

like that.

So you're going to see me, so the

clients that we work with, I'm going to

get into this in the future lesson, but

the clients that we work with, I put

a call out on Facebook and they responded

and whether or not they truly understood my

vision and voice to the way I approach

a shoot, maybe I should have worked a

little bit more into getting them to that

point.

But you're going to see in other shoots

how I work couples into a romantic pose.

And for me, I am not traditionally romantic,

so romance in a form has taken soft

touch.

Fingers light to, the thing that I kind

of just kind of go back to, fingers

light to a chin, beautiful.

Keep these two fingers together, bring in his

chin down, or I have him grab her

waist, she looks down and he kisses the

top of her forehead.

That's kind of like a big one for

me.

Also, if she has her hair parted here,

I will say, oh, can you just bring

your hair behind your ear and I'm like,

can you bring your noses together?

Now, most times, grooms are taller than the

bride, so then she tilts her face up,

which is great for an angle.

He comes down and if he's too tall,

I have him bring out his legs a

little bit, lowers his body without having to

do this, which is not very complimentary.

He opens his leg, I crop from an

appendage, a joint, either a knee or the

thigh.

He comes down into her, she's lifting up,

she has her hands, now I've noticed that

hands on the outside of the arms don't

look good, hands on the inside of his

arms, connecting her two middle fingers, which is

what you'll hear me refer to in other

shoots as princess fingers.

Disney princesses are connected here.

So, the worst thing is it looks romantic

and then her hands are like this, then

it just feels fake, right?

So princess fingers brings them in and softens

what that looks like.

So what I just talked through was five

or six romantic things without changing too many

positions, simply by selling the idea.

Soft fingers, chin up, chin down, hands in,

hands around his neck.

And we're going to talk more and show

more and if I don't, I want you

to repeat this question again because JD isn't

in the room at the moment but if

he comes back in, I'll be like, romance.

I'll show you romance.

Is there another question?

Yes.

What's the timeline usually for submitting to a

publication?

Like say, if I have a wedding from

last year, can I still submit it this

year?

There is a, traditionally, a 12 month cycle.

So they don't really want to showcase weddings

because styles change so quickly and print takes

so long to actually get it done.

So about a year, a year is good.

What you want to do is you don't

really want to submit, if you have a

traditionally summer wedding with bright colors, you don't

want to submit that wedding to the magazine

in say, December when they're really looking for

what like winter weddings would look like.

You want to submit it in about three

months prior to when they will go to

print.

So let's use the knot for example.

They are quarter of an inch quarterly submission.

So each season.

So if I shot a summer wedding, I

won't submit it until January of the next

year so that they can consider it for

their spring or summer edition of the following

year.

However, if I shoot, if I shoot like

a summer wedding early in the year but

it has deeper, deeper, richer colors, I can

consider submitting it at the end of summer

for a consideration for a fall publication.

So usually you'll see that as you pursue

magazine submissions, colors play a big deal.

Pastels, lights, brights, traditionally summer and spring.

Darker, richer tones, fall and winter.

So when you take those things into consideration,

you'll now kind of follow a submission calendar.

Each magazine has their own submission calendar and

their own qualifications but like I had shown

before in a previous lesson about a shot

list that they're looking for, as long as

you're getting those shots, curating them according to

color and story and uniqueness, then you follow

the submission guidelines and they'll list them widely

on their website.

Awesome.

We're going to pass the mic back.

What percentage of your weddings do you submit

and do you divert because I know a

lot of times when you try to submit,

you're only allowed to submit to one magazine

or another.

How do you choose which one to submit

to and what percentage do you submit?

That's great.

So that's a two part question and I

will answer the latter first.

How many weddings do I submit?

I'm at a point in my career where

I can submit the majority of them at

least to a blog.

Now, print features are very, very, very rare.

There are six or seven national wedding magazine

publications in the U.S. and the U

.S. dominates the market by far.

It used to be that there was almost

20 national magazines but because the advent of

the internet, people are no longer buying the

advent.

Because sharing your photos from your weddings have

become so popular, the demand for print magazines

has totally decreased.

In light of that, an average national magazine

will print about five or six weddings in

a magazine per season.

So if you have six magazines, six or

seven magazines, each showing six or seven weddings,

that amount of weddings that actually get to

print are like .002 of the photos of

weddings that are actually submitted.

It's super difficult.

However, if I feel like I will shoot

a wedding that I think is unique, that

the details work, that tells a color story

and that I nailed a few bride and

groom photos, then that becomes what I call

my unicorn submission.

If I feel like it's gonna be a

unicorn submission, I won't blog it because magazine

editors are so protective over the images.

They do not want to see one photo

on Pinterest or on Google before their magazine

goes to print.

So right now, I'm holding off on two

weddings that I think are really strong contenders

for print.

I will be blogging another wedding at the

same venue that was equally as beautiful but

it was done in that beautiful, traditional, pink

palette, peony way.

And that's not enough to make it a

competitive submission.

I will try for an online submission and

I think it'll do a very good job

in that capacity but I will absolutely blog

the images and then send it over to

a wedding blog editor and feel confident that

I think it will stand a good chance.

Yes?

So you said submission for blogs.

Do you still put the weddings that you

submit to print on your own personal blog?

Yes, when it has been accepted for print.

So if they say, Jasmine, we're gonna take

your wedding and we're gonna print it for

summer of 2016, I have to hold up

on those images for months until I can

get to that point.

And once the magazine hits the newsstands, what

I do first is I do my own

blog post and then I go through the

same thing.

I tag my clients.

Even though I'm late to the game, it's

all good.

I'll be like, oh, it's almost a one

-year anniversary post.

It's okay because I, and I convey it

to my clients, this is what's happening.

My clients now know for the weddings that

I'm trying to submit, I'm not blogging your

images because I think you have a really

strong chance for print.

And they're all of a sudden like, okay,

great, but we'll look forward to when you

blog it.

So I was like, okay.

So that's kind of where I stand right

now.

Awesome, yes?

I had a question about two bright lights.

I'm not sure if you're familiar with it,

but I recently just discovered this and I

had seen it all over the place.

I had no idea what it was.

I thought it was a blog, but I

found out it's actually like an avenue to

get on blogs and print.

And like, I'm not sure if that's even

100% what it is, but I saw

that they charge like a fee to be

able to submit to it.

So I was kind of wondering if you

had some input on that.

The input that I have is that I

respect what they do.

Now, I came into the industry and I

had created relationships with editors outside of two

bright lights even existing.

So it was great in that way that

you had to hustle in a very different

way and I was able to kind of

get my name out there just by merit

of submitting, learning, submitting, learning.

What two bright lights does is completely shortens

your learning curve.

And you do one submission.

So the way that two bright lights is,

it's a submission website.

So you get your photos that you think

would make a good submission.

You upload them to two bright lights and

then you can have editors look through them.

So you might make it exclusive.

Well, I only want to submit to the

not.

And then you select it and then someone

at the not is notified to look through

it and they can either accept it or

decline it.

If they decline it, you then have the

ability to put it out in the public

forum and have various editors look through that.

So it's a wonderful and viable, amazing option.

And I will be completely honest, it was

such a great option that the not purchased

two bright lights because they have so many

submissions.

So if you have a personal goal of

getting featured with the not, it would streamline

directly with what the not does.

And I know that the largest wedding bloggers

do use two bright lights in addition to

accepting submissions on their own.

So you would say that it would definitely

be a good avenue for somebody who's maybe

never submitted before, isn't familiar with the process

and maybe doesn't want to deal with the

lengthy learning curve?

I would.

Absolutely.

And it's best because it's a subscription.

So if you find that it's not benefiting

your business, great.

Go through the run and then you can

kind of move on from there.

Cool.

Awesome.

One last thing.

You mentioned things about not posting anything without

it if it hasn't been published yet.

But is Facebook included in that?

Yes.

It is?

Yes.

From your business page.

So my client, when I told her about

the wedding who I thought had a really

good opportunity, she's like, do you think that

I can post from my profile?

And I said, absolutely.

Because most of my client profiles are private.

And I don't want to say, because I

feel like if I were to say that

you can't share your images, it's going to

sully her experience.

And a print feature is not worth it.

I will get more from that client who's

really happy with her experience than I would

with a print submission.

And you have to understand that print submissions

are wonderful and they're amazing.

But do I book weddings as a result?

No.

It's a matter of legitimacy and it's an

honor and I do it to balance it.

But I get more inquiries by way of

online submissions on wedding blogs.

Cool.

Awesome.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Awesome.

So this is great.

We're going to go into homework.

I mean, am I just a nerd?

I'm just an own it.

Like, I love homework.

Like, let's stay on top of this.

Okay.

What I want you to do is I

want you to choose three words at minimum.

And then what I want you to do

once you have your three words is I

want you to start shooting with intention.

This will start changing the way you approach

a situation.

And these words may change in time, but

the thing is, instead of getting overwhelmed and

thinking of poses, if you think in your

words, it will help you then define your

poses and you don't feel like you have

100 poses in your mind and you can't

think of one.

If you like, if you guys would like

to see a completely edited gallery from what

this shoot looked like, if you purchase to

download the course, you will get access to

the gallery.

You will get access to see from beginning,

middle, and end how I shot for my

three words and then you will be able

to see the variety in which I would

give a client.

We're gonna come back in a future lesson

and we're gonna talk specifically about how I

captured fun and natural photos and you guys

will see how I worked with a client

who that didn't come so naturally for.

Thank you guys.

applause