Original subtitles

All right, so we are going to try

and do a backlit shot and you can

really find great spots for doing backlit shits,

shits, shots, shots, anywhere.

It's, it's kind of fitting that I said

shit because we're right by an outhouse.

You got some, you got some toilet paper

coming out.

Okay, uh, so yeah, we're right by an

outhouse, but we've got this nice little stand

of trees here.

It's in the fall.

I really like these yellow trees.

I want to feature them.

Now, when we were talking about silhouettes, we

were always chatting about where's the brightest spot,

right?

Where's the brightest spot and can I put

my couple there?

Now we're kind of doing the opposite here.

Now I'm asking myself, where's the darkest spot?

And the reason I'm looking for the darkest

spot now is because I'm looking for the

area of highest contrast, right?

So where's darkest spot and can I light

my couple in there?

So I found a dark spot right in

there.

The reason I'm drawn to it is because

A, it's dark.

B, it's framed by all these yellow trees

and green trees.

So we got green, we got yellow, we

got this nice dark spot.

And within that dark spot, I'm going to

try and backflash Satchian Florian.

We'll see how it goes.

All right, I'm going to send Satchian Florian

into this dark spot here and you guys

can keep all your layers on until I'm

ready to take the shot so you can

stay nice and warm.

Lani's going to head in with them too.

He's going to hold the flash.

This could easily be done with a light

stand.

Our light stands in the car right now.

I didn't want to run and get it.

And plus Lani makes a really good light

stand.

So he's going to be my light stand

for this one.

But literally he's going to be standing holding

the light.

So nothing fancy.

Okay, so head on in guys.

And I've chosen the 50 millimeter lens in

this case because as much as possible I'm

trying to fill the frame with what I

find interesting.

So I find the yellow trees interesting.

I find the green trees interesting.

The sky I'm thinking is going to take

away from the shot more than it's going

to add to the shot.

The reason being is I'm going to very

intentionally place my highlight as a rim light

around the couple.

And if I have the sky in the

photo that's going to be a competing highlight.

And so the people that are looking at

the photo their eyes are going to, you

know, they will see the backlight but they'll

be distracted by the sky whether they realize

it or not.

So I'm choosing a 50 so that I

can sort of really just zero in and

eliminate the sky.

You guys can come in front of the

stump I think.

I think so.

Okay.

No, just where they were.

Yeah.

And so when you're ready you can take

your layers off.

I know I'm using a backflash so I'm

going to go 1 200th of a second.

Right now I'm at f4 and I'm quite

liking that ambient exposure.

I've got f4 1 200th of a second

iso 100.

We're going to see if Linus just got

one speed light 1a1.

We're going to see if that's strong enough

to get the light wrapped around our couple

to give them that nice rim light.

So basically I set my exposure for these

yellow trees which of course the yellow trees

have the natural light on them.

Right where they are in the darkness has

a very different lighting scenario.

So that's why I'm using the flash to

make them pop.

Okay so together at the hips guys and

this will just be a test shot this

first one.

Okay Lani will probably be about four to

five feet behind the couple with the flash

aimed right at them and we're going to

see what that looks like.

This is just basically trial and error here.

I'm looking at each other.

Okay so already I'm seeing the couple really

don't pop that much because my exposure is

just a bit too bright on the yellow

leaves out here.

So I'm going to darken my exposure and

I'm going to do that by upping my

f-stop.

So I'm going to go from f4 to

f5 and let's see that.

Is that flash at full power?

Yeah or we could just try the b10

but I think the flash is powerful enough.

Just try and keep it off the branches.

No I don't want a grid.

No okay so looking at each other there

and together at the hips.

Okay let's see what that looks like.

I'm just zooming in because they're quite small

in the frame so I'm just zooming in

to see.

Okay that's that's not bad.

The backlight is wrapping around satchie really well.

It's not wrapping around florian really well.

So I'm going to have Lani maybe take

a step back and I'm going to have

him just slightly point the flash a little

bit more towards Florian than then satchie.

Just these tiny little micro adjustments can make

all the difference.

Okay perfect looking at each other there.

Awesome.

Okay let's see here.

Oh Florian could you take off your hat

for one?

The reason I'm doing that is he's got

this great rim light around his face and

I noticed the rim light ceased to exist

around where his hat was.

He's got nice blonde hair so I think

his hair is going to pick up the

rim light more than his hat is.

Satchie's tooth picks up the rim light really

well because it's quite fibrous.

It's a it's a wool toque.

Okay okay okay oh that's

way better.

Okay perfect and now what I'm going to

do is I'm just going to try one

with the 85 because you guys are really

small in this one and I just want

to just want to see what it looks

like really.

They're very very small in the 50 frame

and I want them small because it's more

of an environmental picture as opposed to one

that's about them.

It's them in the environment but I'm just

thinking they might be a bit too small.

So I just want to keep my options

open for later on.

But everything else is staying the same.

I'm still at f5.

I'm still at 1 200th of a second.

I'm centering them right in the frame.

Let me zoom in.

I'm just going to try I'm just going

to try one where I go really really

dark with my ambient because I'm still even

though I've got this backlight around them I

was hoping they'd be more of a silhouette

in the front with a backlight whereas I

still see quite a bit of detail on

their front.

So I'm just gonna kill my ambient even

more.

I'm gonna go up to like f7 point

maybe I'll even try f8 which means my

flash probably won't be strong enough but I

might bring out something stronger.

Oh yeah this is way better this is

way better the darker because then they're really

in a dark spot and they just pop

a lot more with that rim light.

You're at full power with that flash though

right?

Actually it's fine it's it's it's fine even

though that even though I've lost quite a

bit of power with my flash going from

f5 to f8 they actually pop more just

because I've darkened my ambient so much so

my ambient's really dark now and they they

just pop it's just because there's it's more

contrasty.

Okay so one more and then we're good.

Okay we're good and so I just want

you to notice the number of steps and

little problems that I was trying to solve

along that way right?

So I started with a 50 I started

way too bright then I darkened it then

I went to the 85 then I realized

that maybe I should go a little darker

so then it went a little darker and

then it took you know that whole process

to get to the result that I'm somewhat

happy with so although I'm never really totally

happy but that's just the life of a

photographer.

This seems to be about the sweet spot

when we're backlighting about six feet but again

it's like tasting the soup do we need

to adjust closer further back but this seems

to be the sweet spot and generally I'm

I'm holding the flash I want to shoot

straight line of fire straight through the couple

towards Erica's camera and so I generally want

to go as high as I can before

her camera sees it in between them because

then she gets a big flare right and

that tends to give us the best full

wraparound rim light results.

Communication so Eric and I basically just communicate

back and forth with each other if you're

by yourself obviously you look at the shot

you go and you make your adjustments on

the light stand but if you've got a

voice activated light stand like we do in

this case Erica can just tell me higher

lower left right.

I can kind of eyeball it by looking

at the at the at the couple and

seeing how the light falls but really it's

kind of a shot in the dark Erica's

can be the best judge of it because

she can see it on her camera.

Often we think as photographers we have to

move quick right we have to move super

fast our clients are waiting waiting for us

to tell them what to do next but

you can slow it down especially in these

portrait shoots especially on these engagement shoots right

you can you can just slow it down

slow it down take your time look at

your photo analyze the adjustments that you need

to make and make them right and that's

how you get better and that's how you

make an image that you're happy with at

the end as opposed to getting back to

the studio and wishing you'd done something else.

So that is backlight with a flash outdoors.