Original subtitles

Okay, welcome.

The next two-man tool we are going

to dissect is throwing shadows, which Lani likes

to refer to as shadow propulsion.

Lani likes to do everything dramatically.

Anyways, shadows propulsion or throwing shadows is something

that we've just sort of recently started playing

with, and it's really fun.

It adds this extra element and this extra

layer to your photos, and it can solve

compositional problems, and usually, to be quite honest,

it's an accident.

It's an accident.

At least the first time, the first frame

we make of it is an accident, and

then we notice the accident, and then we'll

start to work with it a little bit

more.

Okay?

Yeah, but I wouldn't say recently.

We've been accidentally stumbling our way into shadows

for a while, but we're starting to learn

how to recognize its potential more recently.

Okay.

Anyways, sorry.

Just whatever.

Listen to what Lani says.

Okay, so we'll start with natural light as

always, and as always, we're combining tools here,

right?

So this is in Lake Louise.

We've got this beautiful rim light that we're

using on this couple, and they're rim lit

on a dark background, which is wonderful, but

we've got this big, ugly cement sidewalk in

the foreground, but the sun is nice and

low in the sky, and so the shadow

is giving this whole part of the image

real estate, which is a large part of

the image real estate, probably about 60%, it's

giving it purpose, right?

It's giving us an extra layer, and it's

giving us leading lines.

I remember this as we were walking with

them.

We're just walking along, and all we noticed

was the shadows.

Wow, look at these long, cool shadows.

So one of us just dropped back, and

as we were making our way, just kind

of got that camera down close to the

shadows and tried to essentially fill the frame

with those shadows as we were walking and

having them up at the top.

And again, we're often asking ourselves, where's the

brightest spot?

Lani and I really, really struggle in flat

cities like Amsterdam, where it's really hard to

get couples in the bright spot in the

sky, and so we really struggle, and we've

realized that often we can use the bright

spots on the ground in the same way,

right?

We're essentially silhouetting our couple, but instead of

silhouetting their actual bodies, we're silhouetting their, well,

it's their shadows that are creating the silhouette,

right, so where's the brightest spot?

It's the ground, so we just had them

walk through the brightest spot, holding hands, and

shot through that entire thing.

Nice, long shadows during a ceremony, and again,

this aisleway is just sand, right?

But if we wanna include the people on

both sides, we've got this whole bit of

image real estate, which is like 50%

of the image that has no purpose, but

if we frame it in a way that

we're including the shadows, it gives that extra

layer, it gives it depth, and it gives

it those leading lines.

Same thing here, same ceremony.

This is Chad and Beth Winstead.

They're out of North Carolina.

Amazing wedding photographers.

Go check out their work.

Same wedding again.

We did a lot of shadows at this

wedding.

It's all about the shadows.

Well, maybe because they're wedding photographers, they planned

a lot of things to happen when the

sun was nice and low for us.

But they're basically playing beach football, I guess.

And then you just turned this one upside

down in post to give it a little

bit more of a...

No, no, no, I was actually standing on

my hands, framing it upside down.

But this is a great example of how

we can use shadows to tell the same

story in a less literal way.

We've told the same story as if Lanny

had framed this photo right side up, including

the entirety of Chad's body with the horizon.

It would tell the same story, but this

is a less literal way of telling that

same story.

It's a little bit more interesting and engages

the viewers more.

It just has Chad's feet in it.

But by including a shadow, it tells the

same story.

This is our local skate park in Canmore.

This is our daughter, Malin.

She's a rad skateboarder.

She can drop into the bowl and everything.

She's an inspiration at the skate park.

And there's Timmy on the scooter.

And I love the low light here in

the evening when I take them to the

skate park.

But I was trying to layer them together

in the same frame, Timmy in the highlight,

and Malin just sort of sitting on the

edge here.

But this highlight here was problematic.

So I was framing most of my images

excluding that highlight because it had no purpose.

But I realized that if I went wide

and I waited, eventually a cyclist or a

skateboarder or a scooter would ride by there.

And instead of including the entire cyclist or

the entire skateboarder, I could just include their

shadow.

And it would add an extra layer to

the image.

It would give me that nice triangle that

we're always looking for in compositions as well.

And it would solve the problem of having

this highlight there that is otherwise unnecessary.

Just made a family portrait.

You did?

Yeah, all four of us.

I'll show it to you.

My hand, you're reflected?

And the kids, yeah.

Cool.

This is them practicing a line dance on

the dance floor in the middle of the

day, right?

That's it.

So that's just their shadows cast by the

sun.

Lonnie wanted to tell the story that they

were practicing this flash mob dance that they

were doing for the bride and groom later

on.

And he just included their feet.

It was just the most interesting thing, right?

Like it was high noon, bright, harsh light.

The most interesting thing in my opinion at

the time were the shadows, the shadows in

the floor.

And basically you were simplifying the frame down

to what was interesting and eliminating all the

other clutter, right?

The ocean, the building, the DJ's table, the

horizon line.

But you're telling the same story in a

simpler, more- Yeah, and it was that

- Visual way.

White, bright, blown out dance floor, right?

You put together like a puzzle.

And so relative to the beach, it was

like two full stops brighter.

So just going dark and exposing for those

highlights and nothing else.

And just starting to notice those shadows and

the potential of them that exist, especially when

we've got that hard light, right?

When we've got that hard light, we've got

these shadows and many photographers view these harsh

shadows as a threat, but they're also an

incredible opportunity if you can reframe your brain

into looking at them that way.

Okay, so now we're gonna get into some

off-camera flash examples of shadows.

And these are the ones that tend to

be accidental, at least with the first exposure.

All right, so this is in a venue

in BC and it's a big open dance

floor, as you can see.

Lani decided to go up on the balcony

and just get some shots from up high.

You can see exactly where his flash is,

right there, right?

And when he first took this frame, he

wasn't thinking, okay, I'm going to put the

flash behind these people so that they cast

these long shadows across the dance floor.

But when he saw the first frame, he

liked the effect that that gave.

I mean, this impromptu dance circle didn't form

until I'd already gone upstairs, I was already

starting to shoot, and then all of a

sudden it formed and these shadows were just.

Yeah, and the reason it works so well

is because if you think about it, if

Lani had been in this perspective and shot

this lit in a different way, this entire

part of the image real estate would have

no purpose, right?

Unless there was a focal point in the

middle of it, like maybe someone break dancing

or maybe it was a first dance and

people were, like if there was a focal

point in the middle of this circle, it

would make a sense to include this entire

real estate.

Dance circles are a.

They're a nightmare.

Compositionally, absolutely.

Compositionally, right?

But this shadow, these shadows, gives this whole

lima bean shape a purpose in the photo.

It gives it texture and it gives it

depth and it gives it lots of contrast.

Okay, so this was a bride that got

ready in her own apartment, pretty much very

quiet morning on her own for the most

part for the entire morning.

It was just her and her hairdresser.

And it was one of those mornings where

I was starting to get a little bit

antsy, a little bit bored, thinking I had

to do something creative because there wasn't a

lot of time and there wasn't a lot

of moments or emotion going on.

It was a really nice, quiet, subtle morning.

And I sort of wanted to show that

solitude that she was experiencing, but in a

more interesting way.

And so she was sitting in this chair

and I had this big blank canvas right

behind her because she was just sitting in

front of a white wall.

And so I just set my flash up

to the side here and tried to line

up a moment where the hands were coming

in to do her hair and I could

get a nice profile of her face on

the wall.

The wonderful thing, since we've switched to the

A1s compared to the Canon flashes, is that

they've got this modeling light feature.

So with the Canons, I used to have

to guess where the shadow would land.

I mean, I'd use an educated guess.

I'd be like, well, I want it right

about here if I want the shadow up

here.

But with the modeling light, you can actually

see where the shadow lines up.

You can set your flash exactly where you

need it.

And then, what's that?

Sure, you can set your flash up exactly

where you need it, the exact size you

want, and then leave your flash there.

And then when your flash pops, it gives

the shadow that the modeling light gives you.

And the reason we use the flash over

the modeling light is it just gives us

a lot more versatility with our other settings.

Plus, the flash is just so much sharper

than the modeling light or a video light

because it freezes that action, especially with moving

things.

Okay, just a few more examples here.

Again, this was one of those happy accidents.

I had the flash set up over here.

I had my ambient light high enough so

that you could recognize this person here who

was her sister.

And I wanted to layer those two stories

together.

The flash is out of frame, Erica?

I can't remember if it's out of frame

or you Photoshopped it out.

It's over here somewhere.

And it's coming in this direction and it's

casting her shadow up on this wall.

So it's adding an extra layer to this

image.

So now we've got one, two, three, four

layers.

And again, I'm using this highlight.

I'm using this highlight to silhouette this other

bridesmaid.

Okay, this is the last example.

This is another one of those photos which

was like climbing a ladder, one step at

a time, problem solving.

And when I really think about this photo

and the end result, it's quite old.

When was it, 2014?

Or two?

It's from quite a long time ago.

And I probably wouldn't make this photo today.

I'm glad I made it back then, but

there's a whole host of reasons why I

wouldn't have problem solved my way to getting

this photo today that are far more important.

Because look, we've got a super expressive bride

here.

She's laughing her head off.

She's sitting in her chair, reading her vows.

Writing her vows.

Oh yeah, writing her vows.

And there's a whole group of bridesmaids right

here that are interacting with her.

And instead of me photographing that, which is

the important stuff, right?

The relationship with her friends and her family,

I'm getting distracted by gimmicky things.

But nonetheless, I made this, so I'm gonna

explain it to you.

So I was really concerned about the, can

you hold this for me?

I was really concerned about the ugly light

in the room, which at this point in

her career, I could care less about.

She, it was fluorescent lights, so flat light.

So I decided, well, first thing I'm gonna

do is I'm gonna kill all the ambient

light.

So I killed all the ambient light.

I went two steps underexposed, and I stuck

a flash right here on the bride just

to see what it looked like.

I'm broad lighting her, it's not great.

But I noticed with the first exposure that

it lit her up, but it also cast

a shadow on the wall, which I thought

was really interesting.

So then I looked around and I was

like, okay, what else can I incorporate into

this photo to make it trippier?

Because that's what I was concerned with at

this point.

And they had a- More visually interesting.

Yeah.

More engaging.

But not necessarily for a good reason is

what I'm saying.

Right.

Yeah.

But they had a Burning Man themed wedding,

which was awesome.

But this room was dedicated to all the

costumes that people were gonna change into after

the ceremony.

And so I found this box with the

set of costumes in it, and I found

this piece of red sheer fabric with gold

stars on it.

So I decided, oh, I'm gonna put this

red piece of fabric in front of my

lens and shoot through that.

So I put that in front of my

lens and took a shot, and I ended

up with the exact same picture as the

previous picture, because I'd forgotten that I was

two stops underexposed.

Right, so there was no light on the

fabric.

So it was just her and her shadow

again.

So then I took a second flash, and

so it looked something like this, if this

was the red scarf.

And I had the second flash pointed at

the scarf, just like that.

Click, click.

And then I looked at it, and then

all those gold stars were more like blurry

blobs, because my f-stop wasn't high enough.

So it was just another problem solved.

I just upped my f-stop to, I

think, around f9, upped my flash power to

accommodate for that, and then this is what

I ended up with.

And we got a whole bunch of unpredictable

things that happened, right?

Like these gold stars all picked up the

light.

The black stars are the stars that didn't

pick up the light, except for the one

in the middle of her head, which did

pick up the light.

So all sorts of unpredictable results.

So that's pretty much it for throwing shadows.

We're gonna go out into the field, and

we're gonna show you how we can do

this with a real tube.