Original subtitles

Okay, we're diving into our first tool in

the Toolman toolbox, which is silhouettes.

And we're really getting into the fun stuff

now, guys, so enjoy.

So silhouettes is probably the most simple of

all the tools that we use, and we

love silhouettes.

And silhouettes are actually really easy to do,

but they're really hard to do well.

You can pull them off, but anybody can

pull them off.

All we're doing is exposing for the highlights,

right?

We're exposing for the highlights with our subjects

or our humans in the shade.

But they're really, really hard to do well.

They're really hard to get motion in.

They're really hard to get emotion in.

So let's just take you through some examples.

And I'm going to give you some a

little behind the scenes tidbits for each photo

as well.

So this is 20 minutes from where we

live in Banff National Park, freezing cold day.

What was it?

Minus 40.

Minus 40.

I was going to say minus 38, but

whatever.

Whatever.

It was...

Which is...

Actually, that's the point at which Fahrenheit and

Celsius are the same, minus 40.

It's just cold as fuck.

It was cold.

It was cold.

It lasted 20 minutes.

And this couple had come from Ontario, and

we couldn't reschedule, so we went out.

And I mean, the great thing about when

it's minus 40 outside is that your photo

shoots only last about 20 minutes, and you

just got to make it work.

So we went out to this beautiful meadow,

and right away, we saw this opening between

these two trees.

And it's the bright spot right now.

And that's often what Lani and I will

be asking ourselves.

We'll be asking ourselves, where's the bright spot,

and can I place my couple there?

So here, the bright spot was very obvious.

Now, if I had been taking this picture

from a standing position, the couple would not

have as high contrast in area.

The simple difference from having my camera here

to having my camera down, laying on the

ground, which is what I was doing here,

meant that I could put them in this

bright spot right here.

You can see if they had been on

this lower part that's a different shade, they

wouldn't be as high contrast as they are

now.

So just...

They wouldn't pop as much.

They wouldn't pop as much.

Having that ability to move your camera up

and down can really give you these micro

adjustments in your frame that make all the

difference.

Especially with a wide angle lens like this.

I think it was 24.

24.

Like literally just a couple inches in the

position of your camera can totally change the

backdrop, right?

Yeah.

Now, the tricky thing with this silhouette is,

as I mentioned, it was minus 40, minus

38 degrees Celsius.

It's very hard to get a sleek and

sexy silhouette when people are wearing 16 layers

of clothing.

So...

And what's really important in a silhouette, what's

really, really important is not the positive space,

but the negative space.

Okay?

The negative space.

All the space in between the silhouettes.

That is what...

That's the key to a good silhouette, is

all the negative space.

So the space in between their feet.

The space in between their bodies.

The space in between their hands and their

torsos, right?

So basically what we had them do is

we had to keep them moving because it

was so cold.

We had them walk towards that opening and

just hold hands and literally run back and

forth along this opening, probably about 20 times.

And I just shot the shit out of

it, hoping that I got one that had

all these...

The separation that I was looking for.

Yeah, you guys will see in the field

that Eric and I will demonstrate that for

them.

Like this, guys.

Yeah.

Back and forth, frolicking, right?

But hopefully when we do the infield demonstration,

it's not minus 40, because that would suck.

Yes, it would.

Okay, let's go to the next example.

Okay?

Here, again, exposing for those highlights, right?

The highlight in this case is the reflection

of the sky on the water and the

beach, right?

And it's all about that negative space.

You know, it's not very often that there's

a use to use 20 frames per second,

which is what we can do on the

Sony camera, 20 frames per second.

But this is an example of a great

time to use 20 frames per second.

When your subject is moving and you're not

directing the scene, you're using that 20 frames

per second to get those negative spaces and

to get that tension that you're looking for.

You know, the fact that her heel is,

you know, I don't know, two centimeters from

touching the ground gives us that little bit

of tension and that little bit of movement

that's really, really hard to achieve in a

silhouette, right?

Silhouettes are often very static looking and stiff

looking because we have our subjects stand there

to make a shape.

If we can get our subjects moving, organically

moving, or just in this case, more of

a documentary setting, you know, hitting that moment

right before impact gives a lot of impact

in your photo, right?

And again, the negative space between her hair

blades, the negative space under her chin, negative

space between her legs, and most importantly, right

under that heel there.

And did you mention you were probably like

this to clear her head from the horizon

line behind her, right?

Probably from here, we would have had that

intersecting line right through her.

If I'd been shooting this at eye level,

her head would have been right up against

that tree, right?

And we wanted her on this beautiful canvas

right here.

Okay, this is my creative attempt at a

family formal, or not a family formal.

Sorry, this is my creative attempt at a

family portrait.

Often, there's only a part of my body

in the family portrait.

In this case, it's my feet, right?

But 20 frames per second, layering different things

into the frame, getting my camera nice and

low, like really low to the ground.

And if I get it low, I can

make sure Timmy's up on this canvas here,

which is exactly where I want him.

And by shooting 20 frames per second, I

can get all this negative space here, right?

This negative space, which makes the photo, right?

If his legs were, you know, stacked on

top of each other, or if his hands

were stacked on top of each other, it

wouldn't be as impactful.

Why didn't you separate your fingers then?

That would have been better.

Okay, and like I said earlier, it's really

hard to get that movement, that sort of

authentic movement and emotion that we're looking for

out of a silhouette.

So often, what we'll do is we'll trick

our couples.

We'll say, guys, head up on to that

rock over there, and we're going to do

a picture of you up on top of

the rock.

But really what we're doing is we're getting

their journey to the rock, and we're getting

their journey away from the rock, right?

So we're shooting those moments before the formal

portrait and those moments after the formal portrait

where there's something more real and authentic.

And it drives me nuts when I see

photographers helping the bride with her dress and

the groom just standing there.

Because really, it's the other partner's job to

help the bride with her dress.

That's what he's there for, right?

He can help her with a dress.

He can help her off the rock.

And then you can capture that.

You can capture that emotion.

These are tourists, and they were scrambling to

get out of our frame.

But again, it's all about this negative space,

right?

The negative.

I wish her toe wasn't touching the rock,

but I love this triangle here.

That little bit of negative space under her

chin gives her a nice sleek silhouette.

Not crazy about the groom's silhouette, but it's

all about the bride in this picture anyways.

I put this one in here because it's

an example of a not good silhouette.

Not good silhouette.

Because you can't tell where the groom's nose

ends and the bride nose begins, right?

You always need that negative space and that

separation between your subjects, okay?

So just not a good example.

Okay, so the next two photos are from

the exact same position.

One Lani shot, one I shot.

I can't remember who shot what.

One was with a 35.

One was with an 85.

This was in St. Lucia.

And I put this in because it's a

really good example of, which is really hard

to get, of getting that emotion in a

silhouette, right?

The fact that you have that negative space

in between her mouth really communicates the emotion

in this picture.

And you can see that they're canvassed right

on top of the brightest part of the

sky.

You know, if we'd been shooting a little

left or shooting a little right, they wouldn't

be on that highest contrast part of the

sky, which is what we're looking for.

And again, negative space under the chins.

And even this little bit of negative space

right in the nape of her neck here

makes it really sleek.

Because you can see if that were black,

she wouldn't have as much shape as she

does when you have that little bit of

highlight there.

Yeah, and that's not something, I mean, that

laugh and all that, that stuff isn't stuff

that we can really sculpt, right?

Or direct.

Or direct, okay?

So, I mean, what we were doing basically

is just having them dunk under the water

and then come up, right?

And then check in the back.

Okay, let's do it again.

But more of this.

Well, they do it continuously.

They're like, we'd be like, just dunk up

and come up, dunk up and come up.

And they did it like 10 times.

And then we check.

And then, and that gives you all these,

that gives you the magic, right?

It gives you the stuff you can't predict,

the stuff you can't hope for, like in

this next photo.

So this is the same beach, same session,

same movement.

But, you know, we can't, we can't say,

okay, I really want a silhouette where there's

a silhouetted water droplet coming off his chin.

You know, we're not creative enough to direct

something like that.

But by, by allowing them to move through

different scenarios, it gives us this sort of

unexpected magic.

Again, the negative space, right?

So we got the nice negative space here.

We got the negative space under the chins.

Often when you have a couple and one

of them is putting their arm up over

the other's shoulder, it cuts off one of

their chins.

So, especially if there's a big height differential

between the two of them, if she had

her front arm up, it would be a

completely different look versus her back arm up,

right?

The negative space in between their mouths, that

little bit of negative space in between her

neck and her hair.

And then look at her hand.

That's really important as well.

Because this little bit of negative space, just

right there, makes that a recognizable shape.

If that weren't there, it wouldn't be recognizable

as a hand.

I mean, we'd all know it was a

hand, but it wouldn't have that sort of

sleek, sexy look to it.

So we'll often give our couples cues about

how to relax their hands to get that

shape, right?

As opposed to like this, we want separation

between the fingers.

Sometimes they'll just say, shake out your hand

and drape it over.

Relax your fingers.

Sometimes that works.

Sometimes it doesn't because people hold their tension

in their hands and you can really see

that in silhouettes.

So if they happen to be one of

those people that really holds their tension in

their hands, I'll literally have them sort of

pretend it's rubber and do this before they

drape it over.

If they still look really stiff, I'll say,

almost touch your thumb and your pointer finger.

And I'll go like that and it'll give

me the shape I'm looking for.

This girl was a dancer.

She just did it naturally.

I was going to say, so this is

35 wide open.

Yeah.

1.4, 85, 1.2 probably.

Yeah.

And yeah, Eric and I are just side

by side.

A lot of people ask, like, are you

using underwater housings or whatever?

Like how are we protecting our lens?

It's just nothing.

I mean, there's no waves.

We're just out there, you know, up to

about here with our cameras.

And this was the day after the wedding.

It was not on the actual wedding day.

That's right.

Yeah.

But if we're going to St. Lucia, we're

going to do it after session.

Okay, so we often think that the silhouettes

have to be the main subject of our

frame.

It's just, it's the way my brain thinks

all the time.

I'm always like, where can I silhouette the

couple?

Where can I silhouette the couple?

But when I, when I really think about

it, I feel like silhouettes are best used

when they tell an additional story in a

frame or when they add additional context.

So in this case, this was also in

St. Lucia, different wedding.

Uh, you know, there was some locals here

playing out in the beach and Lani wanted

to have the couple go over out of

frame where you can't see up on a

stump for a different portrait.

But I didn't want any of these people

knowing I was taking this photo because I

wanted this authentic movement and I didn't want

them to scramble to get out of my

way, which is usually what happens.

So I just said to the, to James

and Joanne, I just said, okay, Lani's taking

a picture over there.

Can you walk in front of me?

James, just help Joanne with her dress and

walk up in front of me between these

two pine, between these two palm trees up

to that stump where Lani is.

And then I shot 20 frames per second

because I'm not Henri Cartier-Bresson.

Henri Cartier-Bresson can get this kind of

separation and this kind of tension in one

shot.

I can't do that.

Um, that's what 20 frames per second exists.

That's why it exists.

So yeah, I just shot the entire, the

entire journey where they walked from this tree

to this tree.

And then it was very lucky that we

got this moment where the ball wasn't touching

the foot and that where she was turned

sideways so you could see her profile as

well.

I think we were only six frames per

second.

This was before Sony's.

Oh, was it?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Same sort of thing here.

Um, you know, the kids in the frame,

this is Madeline and Timmy, add context to

this photo, right?

It was in Thailand with our friends Ray.

Probably some of you know Ray.

Ray Propp from St. Louis.

He's a wedding photographer.

He's a wedding photographer from St. Louis.

Not St. Louis.

St. Louis, right?

Yeah, from St. Louis.

Okay.

And this is in Thailand.

Ray and Momo.

Ray and Momo.

And, uh, they wanted to do a portrait

shoot in Thailand and we had to bring

the kids along and the kids were getting

in our way and it was frustrating.

And this is literally in a parking lot.

A parking lot that's full of litter and

full of garbage and construction.

But we saw these cinders, these cement cylinders,

and it was so ugly that we wanted

to block out the parking lot.

And so these cylinders, if we got really

low, allowed us to block out all of

the ugliness.

And then the kids were getting in our

way.

But then I realized that they were actually

adding some interest to the frame as well.

So I just told them to keep on

playing.

Ray and Momo set themselves up in this

negative spot here.

And that's that.

Okay, so this is in India.

This is what pollution looks like.

It's really beautiful to photograph, especially at sunset.

This is at a beach.

And that's Lani.

And that's Madeline.

And that's Timmy.

And sometimes it really helps having a partner

who's a photographer.

Because Lani saw me back here composing this

frame and he knew exactly what I was

trying to do.

And I was trying to get the kids

silhouetted on the sky with the soccer game

going on in the foreground.

And there's quite a big gap between where

the soccer game is and where the kids

are running.

And so Lani was literally...

The kids would never do this for me

if they knew I was taking a photo.

Because they don't like posing for photos at

all.

So Lani literally just had the kids race

back and forth along the beach for me.

Maybe, I don't know, 15 times.

He kept on looking to see if I

got it.

15 times.

And then this is the one that lined

up with this.

Which is what I was trying to get

the whole time.

I was trying to get this, the action

of the ball being kicked and having that

separation of the ball from the foot or

the head or the hand.

And the separation of all the players.

Having those bubbles around everyone.

That's also what's really, really important with the

silhouette.

And I think the next picture...

Yes, this is a perfect example of the

importance of those bubbles.

Right?

Bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble.

There's a little bit of clutter around here.

But for the most part, everybody in this

scene is separated from the other person.

And this isn't just sitting, waiting for this

to line up.

This is, you know, Lani mentioned it in

another tutorial, I think.

How when we're not photographing, we're often cleaning

up backgrounds.

Right?

I'm often, you know, if I'm sitting in

a crowd, I might just go like that.

Just to separate people's heads so that there's

negative spaces around them.

And so this is during cocktail hour at

a wedding in Thailand.

And probably the most boring part of the

day.

Like not a lot going on.

People are mingling.

People are mingling.

They're eating.

There's nothing to photograph.

So Lani sort of just set himself up

here.

Where's the camera?

Set himself up here.

And you probably, you were probably at this

for about 20 minutes, eh?

Do you want me to show what I

was doing?

Sure.

Yeah.

I was going to show what you were

doing.

Oh yeah, I can show what I was

doing.

Okay.

Yeah.

I mean, I was couched down right off

to the side, shooting into the sunset, exposed

to the highlights in the sky.

And literally kind of moving like this the

whole time.

Little micro adjustments.

Trying to, willing the people, the subjects to

line up for me.

So they're not stacked and intersecting.

And you know, I probably shot a couple

hundred frames of this-ish.

And this is the one where mostly we

had the separation.

Yes, mostly.

And I did promise you guys at the

beginning of this course that we would be

100% honest.

And this is 100% honest photo.

There's no composite in here.

But I think we did use the liquify

tool a little bit right there.

I did.

Right?

Just to get that braid separated from this

girl's shoulder.

Pucker tool.

Oh, the pucker tool.

Which is liquify.

Oh, which is liquify.

Okay.

All right.

This is in Thailand.

And this is, you know, the guys were

often out on the porch, shooting the shit

all morning long, getting ready, having the beers.

And so basically one of the, I had

two options.

But when they were in the shade, I

would essentially just park myself behind them and

shoot into the sky, expose for the highlights,

and just try to line things up to

get interesting silhouettes in the foreground.

And, you know, this is all the frames

I made that morning.

You know, they were in and out throughout

over the course of a couple hours.

So, you know, this is the one.

And a high f-stop, right?

Because you're layering these four things.

You know, the fact that he's sharp and

you can see his chest hair is recognizable.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think it's so high f-stop

that your shutter speed is actually a little

bit slow.

Because you can see a little bit of

movement.

Yeah, we'll get those settings up here on

the screen for you guys.

You should have framed it without these flowers

in it.

I know.

But I'm just joking.

I didn't want to lose the ocean.

Yeah.

Okay.

So we're always asking ourselves, where's that bright

spot?

Where's that bright spot?

And exposing for that bright spot.

And in this case, we were able to

line up a moment with that bright spot.

Right?

The bright spot was the wall.

That window was open behind her.

And she's putting her lipstick on there.

Silhouettes can fill bright spots that would otherwise

not have a good reason to be in

the photo.

Right?

So this triangle down here, this big highlight,

would be completely useless if that hand weren't

in it.

Right?

If that hand weren't in it, it would

be a useless highlight.

But because that hand is coming in and

giving us a silhouette, it's also giving us

context.

Right?

So using silhouettes can often solve these compositional

errors that exist.

Final exercise, count how many triangles.

We'll do a poll, I guess.

Have you counted?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, can I go down there?

Yeah, I'm not going to reveal it now.

But there's a lot of triangles in here.

Okay.

Pause the video.

Count.

Maybe we'll have a prize.

Okay.

So we're going to transition into off-camera

flash silhouettes now.

And I'm sure this isn't a great photo,

but it's a really good photo to show

the transition of how you can achieve this

look with an off-camera flash.

Okay?

So in this scenario, I've just asked myself,

where's the brightest spot?

This is from a balcony in Portugal.

The brightest spot is right here.

Right?

This is, I believe that's a pool that's

illuminated, that's reflecting its light up into that

wall.

It's dust light.

We've got that nice, those nice blue cool

tones contrasting with these warm tones in the

street.

The brightest spot is there.

I'm exposed for there.

And I probably hung out here, you know,

15 minutes waiting for someone to walk through

that bright spot.

So this is a natural light example.

Now, off-camera flash example.

So instead of asking ourselves, where's the brightest

spot?

We'll ask ourselves, where is the darkest spot?

Where's the darkest spot within this frame?

And can I make my own bright spot

on which to canvas the couple?

Okay.

So in this case, we've got the pool

in the foreground.

We've got the same warm and cool tones

from the last image.

Got the pool in the foreground.

Got a really dark spot back there.

We could see it with our eyes.

But by underexposing, we made it almost pitch

dark.

We had the couple stand in front of

a post about this wide.

And they're literally holding a flash with a

nice warm gel pointed at the post.

So we're creating our own bright spot on

which to silhouette the couple.

But...

Oh, just before you get into that, like

this might be a good quick refresher.

Because it's the first off-camera flash example.

Yeah.

To just pick up like on the technical

stuff that Erica was explaining.

This is a great example.

It's okay, highlights in the pool.

So we're gonna basically, you know, find the

composition.

And we're gonna put the shutter speed at

1 200th of a second, right?

And then we're gonna F it up to

expose for the highlights in the pool.

And the rest of the scene falls away

into darkness, right?

It didn't look this dark until we underexposed

it.

And then position the flash.

Turn the flash on.

Aim it towards that post.

Put a really warm gel on it.

Have the couple in front.

Pop it.

And then cheat that flash up or down

if that light's too hot or not enough

light.

More light or less light.

And this is eye candy.

We probably took this in 2015-ish.

It's eye candy.

We were really proud of it at the

time.

But when we look at this image now,

it's one of the LRIs, right?

It's a lifeless representation of an idea.

Like it's eye candy.

We got good leading lines.

We got good colors.

But there's no moment.

It's lacking in a moment.

It's lacking in emotion.

And it's lacking in motion.

It has to have one of those two

things.

Motion or emotion, okay?

But we worked out the mechanics of using

this tool here.

Which means we were able to pull it

off in this scenario.

Which is pretty much the exact same thing.

We got the pool in the foreground.

This wedding, they were...

This was a strange wedding.

Probably one of our strangest weddings.

They were all high on ecstasy, actually.

Which is the only wedding where we've had

people high on ecstasy.

And the girls were getting up on this

table to dance throughout the evening.

And so we...

And we were really quite bored, to be

quite honest.

Drunk people are kind of fun to shoot.

High people...

It was kind of boring.

They were just kind of lounging around.

Not really doing much.

So we came around to the other side

of the pool.

Except for the dancing.

Well, let me just...

I'll get to the dancing after this.

So we came around to the other side

of the pool.

We're exposed for the highlights and the reflections

in the pool.

And then there's a flash pointed at the

wall.

Right here.

It's just pointed at the wall.

Matching the exposure of this reflection.

And then we just shot through it, right?

And you can see the difference.

I'm not saying this is an amazing image.

But this looks very directed.

Directed by the photographer.

This looks way more organic, right?

Because we can't direct this.

We can't direct people to have their arms

up.

And his finger and his pinky to be

up.

And her to hold her dress that way.

And all that sort of stuff.

Ecstasy can direct that for us.

Oh yeah, the dancing.

The dancing at this wedding.

The dancing...

Oh man.

It was like...

I have not seen people dance like this

before.

It was like they were having sex with

the air around them.

It was like...

Oh, I shouldn't do this.

I got a shirt off that shows a

picture.

Okay, we're gonna move on.

Okay.

This is in the Oculus.

New York City.

The groom really wanted to come here to

do a portrait.

This is at like two in the morning.

Because he was one of the architects that

helped design this building.

And so we walk into this building.

And it's like a big subway station, isn't

it?

Yeah, train station.

A train station.

And it's big and white.

And it's like a mall.

So it's all lit up.

There's literally no light and shadow in the

whole thing.

It's all light.

It's all light.

Even light.

No shadow whatsoever.

Fluorescent lights.

It's two in the morning.

No one's there.

It's not very interesting.

So I stood up about two floors higher

than the bride and groom are here.

And just under...

That's where we were when we kind of

looked down and saw this big open space.

Yes.

So Erica stayed there and I headed down

there with Milo and Courtney.

Not knowing what we would do.

And all these shots, just so you guys

know, none of them are really preconceived ideas.

They're all sort of experimenting.

It's almost like climbing a ladder one step

at a time.

Problem solving.

Figuring out what to do.

First problem we had is that there was

no light and shadow at all.

It was all light.

So I bumped my exposure down so that

I was two stops underexposed.

Pretty much killing all the ambient light in

the scene.

Then I thought, well, maybe we'll cast their

shadows on the ground.

So I had Lani stand behind them with

the flash and it cast their shadows.

But I also realized that it created a

beautiful bright spot, which was a canvas that

we could silhouette them on.

So then I had Lani back up.

I bumped my f-stop quite high so

that I could get this nice starburst effect

with the flash.

And created this...

Lani created this great bright spot that they

silhouetted on.

We worked to get this negative space in

between all their limbs.

And this is the end result.

Sometimes the darkest spot is really obvious, right?

In this case, it was in this tunnel

here.

I'm lying in a frozen river for about

20 minutes, holding two flashes, two speed lights

at this point, because it's bright daylight outside.

So I needed two speed lights to match

the exposure of the sky.

And I'm lying down trying to get that

bright spot in the right position while Lani's

shooting this.

And often, you know, you have to pay

attention to where that bright spot falls when

you're holding the flash.

And often just a little micro adjustment like

that can mean the bright spot is behind

the couple's heads, which is exactly where you

want it.

We end up with lots of shots where

the bright spot is off-kilter a little

bit.

And it just doesn't have the same effect.

Okay, one of the things I've forgotten to

mention that I should probably mention is actually,

I think most of these, all of these

flash examples that we have showed you so

far, we didn't have a grid on the

flash, okay?

We had the grid off the flash simply

because we wanted that canvas, that bright spot

on which to silhouette them to be as

big as possible.

It's not to say you can't do it

with a grid on the flash, but your

cone of light is going to be that

much smaller.

So I'll try and remember to let you

know whether or not we had a grid

on or grid off for the rest of

the shots.

Right.

But generally, if we're making light outdoors, we

generally don't have the grid on because we

don't have those walls and ceilings to worry

about.

But indoors, that's where the grid comes in.

Yeah.

Okay, so continuing on.

This is in India.

And oh, man, the amount of money they

put into decor in India is insane.

So they had this huge grassy hillside that

was filled with thousands of these pin lights

going up and down.

And we knew we wanted to feature it.

We originally tried flashing the couple, you know,

filling the foreground with these lights and flashing

the couple coming in from the side for

their skin.

But they were so small, it doesn't make

sense.

So when the couple's really small in the

frame and you want people to be able

to notice them and recognize them as a

couple, the best thing to get is to

get that high contrast.

And so creating a bright spot allows you

to get that high contrast so that your

eyes go right there.

So we filled the foreground with the lights,

as you can see here.

And I'm standing back here holding just one

speed light with a blue gel and no

grid at the brick wall.

And then we're just having the couple walk

up and down the slope.

And obviously, the light is not hitting them.

It's only hitting the wall.

So I'm just standing in the shadow here,

holding that flash pointed right here at the

wall.

And then the couple are just walking up

and down.

Okay, few more examples.

Aurora Borealis up at Moraine Lake.

This is the one and only time we've

ever used a lighting umbrella.

And thankfully, we had it in our car.

We've just got the couple standing in front

of the lighting umbrella with a flash that

was actually behind the umbrella, wasn't it?

That's right.

It's behind the umbrella, creating a bright spot

on which to canvas the couple.

And that flash can happen at any point

within that long shutter speed, right?

And it just freezes them in that one

position where the flash goes off.

So we're going to put the actual shutter

speed up here.

But that night, I mean, we get Aurora

alerts on our phone.

So if there's like high probability of Northern

Lights, then our phone will get the red

alert.

And that couple at the time, I remember,

we were super excited to shoot under the

Northern Lights.

And they were super excited to go out

with us and try it.

And we hadn't done an engagement session with

them yet.

So that night, we called them at like

10 p.m. and said, hey, you guys

want to head out?

Yeah, at three in the morning.

Yeah, they were game.

So we drove out.

And at night, the thing with at night,

I mean, we were out there for about

an hour or so with them.

And we made three photos.

Like everything takes that much longer at night.

First of all, it's pitch dark.

You can't figure out what's in front of

you.

You got to figure out your compositions, set

the tripod up.

But in this case, just so you have

an idea of what it sounds like, essentially,

it's like, OK, they're in position.

OK, guys, you ready?

Ready with the umbrella?

Ready with the flash behind?

OK, here we go.

All right, shutters open.

OK, ready with the flash?

OK, tweak your position a little bit.

OK, here we go.

And pop the flash.

And we just pop it with our hand.

We don't use it.

We don't use our remote at that point.

Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

OK, shutters closed.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Ah, no, not quite, guys.

We got to change the light a bit.

We got to reposition this a little bit

and then repeat.

So we really have to, we'll get into

this more when we get into the star

shots, which we're going to do later on

in the workshop.

But you really have to set your expectations

with your couples when you go out for

these night shoots.

This nice window light coming in the wall

and using it to silhouette the violin player

and then put in the music in the

foreground.

And again, it starts with the scene.

It's noticing that highlight, noticing that she's in

shadow in front of it.

By exposing for it, you can get an

interesting shape.

OK, a few more examples.

You can talk about this one.

This is yours.

Sure.

So when we get into the behind the

scenes and the full wedding breakdown, Eric and

I are going to explain our strategy for

each section of the date, right?

Bride prep, groom prep.

And groom prep, for example, we'll talk about

shower shots and gaining that trust and access.

And there's a lot of things that happen,

obviously, before the wedding and during the wedding

to, you know, allow us that sort of

trust and access.

So in this case, Manu is, he was

about to go have a shower and start

getting ready.

And so I'm there hanging out with him

and the guys.

And I realized that from outside by the

pool, if he left that curtain open, I'd

be able to get an interesting shot, possibly

from outside.

And actually it was closed.

So I just, obviously in this case, I

had to get his permission because I've obviously

set up a flash in the shower and

asked him to like lift up the blind

so I could get something cool from outside.

And it was honestly just kind of a

happy accident that the position of the flash

happened to kind of miss him mostly and

essentially just create a bright spot behind him

on which he's silhouetted kind of as he's

reaching in.

And honestly, all the rest of the frames

didn't really work that much because once the

hot water started going, the place fogged up

and that was it.

Yeah, but I really like the separation of

his fingers and in the arm there.

I wish his legs were a little bit

further apart so we could silhouette.

But so essentially...

I'm just joking.

I was going to say one other thing

about this.

What was it?

Well, while you think, I'll just kind of

break down the mechanics here.

This is just exposing for the highlights in

the outdoor scenes.

So exposing for the highlights in the sky

at one 200th of a second, right?

So then effing it up to drop it

down, expose for the highlights and then creating

my own highlights inside.

Of course, without the flash, everything inside was

pitch dark because it's so much darker than

the ambient light outside.

And that flash was clamped onto the shower

curtain, I believe, or the shower head itself,

I think.

And I just sort of aimed it down

as best I can where I thought he'd

be positioned.

I think it had a grid and obviously

a really warm gel.

Yeah.

I know what I was going to say.

This would have been a long shot with

our cannon flashes.

Yes.

And completely out of the question with our

pocket wizards because they wouldn't have linked this

far.

Through glass.

Through glass, through walls, up in the open

air.

It just would have been too many problems

but that's never an issue with the A1s,

the Profoto A1s.

Okay.

We're getting close to the end here, guys.

Okay.

So Bride was getting her dress on in

this room.

I was exposed for the highlights, right?

The nice sheer curtain behind her.

And I just stepped out of the room

because I wanted it to look like I

was peeking in on a private moment.

And when I stepped out of the room,

I realized that there was a cat at

the top of the stairs which was amazing

except that this was all in darkness.

This was complete darkness because she's casting this

beautiful light from this window but this is

a dark hallway.

And we happened to have an alumni at

the wedding with us.

So I just said to Krista, I said

really quickly, I'm like, grab the flash, point

it at the wall behind the cat before

the cat moves.

And so she grabbed the flash, pointed at

the wall and because she's not pointing the

flash at someone's skin, we've got a little

bit more forgiveness.

She's pointing it at a white wall.

If it's too bright, it's not that big

deal.

If it's not bright enough, it's not that

big a deal.

So we were able to get it within

range because this is a really quick moment.

There was probably 30 seconds where I had

to get this and it was at least

within range to get that silhouette of the

cat.

Here, it's just adding extra context, right?

We've decided, one of us was set up

to get, with speeches, one of us always

sets up to get the speaker and one

of us sets up to get the reaction

of the bride and groom.

So one of us is set up to

get the reaction of the bride and groom

and we just step back and included the

speaker.

So we've got a light on the bride

and groom coming in from over here and

we decided just not to put a light

on the speaker and just silhouette them and

then wait for that moment because she talked

out to the crowd.

We had to wait for that moment where

she turned so that we could get that

negative space in the profile that we were

looking for.

Yeah, this is another good example of like

all of these are, they're not these preconceived

visions that we have.

Okay, we're going to go and execute this

shot we have in mind, right?

Pull it off.

It's sort of just reacting to what's happening

and solving problems as we go.

So in this case, what sort of led

us into this, I was, you know, my

job was to photograph the bride and the

groom and their reaction during the speeches.

So I set myself up in front.

Obviously, I chose to position my flash coming

in from this side to try to short

light them from the side they're going to

look.

Obviously, they're going to be looking towards the

speaker and then I just realized that in

this composition, I could include the speaker, right?

So for all the speeches, I basically did

this stuff to this composition and then exposure

wise, all I've done is 1-200th of

a second, effing it up to expose for

the...

Basically right for this.

Exposing for the highlights there, bringing that brings

out the drama in the dusk light and

then we make our highlights on the subjects.

This light here is a videographer's light.

It's not our light.

So where was our flash?

It's photoshopped out.

I'm pretty sure.

I know we have this argument every time,

but it is because if it were back

here, it would be hitting her.

No, I think because it's just catching...

Whatever, it doesn't matter.

It's aimed at them.

She's closer.

So it's just catching this side of her

hair.

It's photoshopped out.

We don't agree on...

Right around here somewhere, but I can't remember

to be honest, but we could probably find

out.

I should because I'm going to win this

argument.

Let's go look.

Okay, same thing here, right?

Exact same thing, except here we're just choosing

to include part of the speaker, right?

We don't need to include the full literal

truth.

We can just include the hands and those

hands tell the same story, if not a

better story, than if we had included the

entire figure.

And I think we only included that...

What led us to only include the hands

in the first place was that we couldn't

silhouette the entire figure, right?

Because we only had this much canvas.

And also, it was a very tight space.

Like literally, we could barely move around, let

alone move our light stands.

And so this is one tiny little pocket

where we could kind of crouch in and

make a close, interesting composition without blocking people's

views.

And we've got a light coming in on

the two brides from over here.

And when we get to the reception section,

we start talking about speeches and our strategy

there, you'll see for us, if we can

line up speaker and reaction, the same frame,

which is not always possible, but when we

can, that's what we'll always try to shoot

for.

Okay, last one.

This is the last silhouette.

And this was probably one of the harder

ones to achieve that I've shown you, but

I had a lot of time to play

around here because this was the fourth time

this bride got her hair done.

The fourth time.

Okay, she was really, really picky.

So literally, I had been taking photos of

her getting her hair done for about three

hours.

So I didn't need to get any more

photos of it.

It was just a complete creative playground for

me at this point.

So what happened?

It was a series of steps.

First, she was getting her hair spray.

She was getting her hair shellacked and sprayed.

And so I stuck a flash in behind

her.

I'm like, I'll backlight the hairspray.

I'm bored.

But the first shot I noticed when she

lifted up her mirror, the light bounced off

the mirror and into her face.

And I was like, whoa, that's cool.

I'm gonna work with that.

So I kept the flash there and just

waited for those moments for her to lift

up the mirror.

But I had this problematic highlight in the

back of the frame, which I was having

a real hard time not including.

So I went and got my wider lens

and decided to include it.

And this was the window where the brides

maids were getting their makeup done.

And so I upped my f-stop, probably

f9, I believe, so that I could get

this sharp, but also have this as a

recognizable silhouette, right?

And then I shoot rapid fire as that

brush went into the lips and rapid fire

as that brush came away from the lips

so I could get that tension, right?

That tension so the brush wasn't quite touching

the lips.

Now I did, there was a little thing

I cheated with on this photo.

And that is the bridesmaids were sitting there

to get their makeup done, but their chair

was turned slightly away from me so that

I didn't have a clean profile of their

silhouette.

So when she went up to go use

the washroom, I inched her chair over to

the side so that I could have a

clean profile of her when she sat back

down.

And then I probably shot 250 shots, no

exaggeration, trying to get this to line up

with this.

And this is the one time it worked

out.

I mean, there's many times where I do

things like this and take risks like this

and it doesn't work out.

As I said, it was her fourth time

getting her hair done.

I didn't need this shot.

I lucked out in the end and I

got the two things to line up without

having to direct it.

Okay, so that's silhouettes.

This is something for you guys to practice

this week and practice finding that bright spot.

Ask yourself, where's the brightest spot right now?

Where's the brightest spot?

And can I put my couple there or

can I put my subject there?

And it doesn't have to be a high

up mountain or a high up ridgetop.

It can just be a little curvature in

the earth that allows you to get up

there.

Sometimes we have our couple stand on benches.

Or it's a window.

Or it's a window.

Like any sort of highlight.

So if you want to start playing around

with that and if you want to challenge

yourself, this would be a good time to

try having your silhouette as playing the supporting

role, right?

So not the main subject.

So maybe your silhouette is, you know, in

the window you've got something silhouetted and you're

exposed for those highlights but then you use

your off-camera flash to then illuminate another

subject in another part of your frame.

That'd be something to play around with.

Yeah, and then play around with creating your

own canvas.

Creating your own bright spot.

Right.

So the two questions to ask yourself again

is where's the brightest spot, right?

Can I wait for something to happen there

or can I place my subject there?

And then where's the darkest spot?

And can I create my own bright spot

within that dark spot?

All right.

So we'll see you in the next module

where we're going to go out in the

field and actually demonstrate silhouettes for you.