Original subtitles

Okay.

So welcome to reflections.

This is probably one of the more trippy

tools that we use.

And it's a big section.

We've got lots of examples.

And just before we get started, I don't

want you to get too hung up on

how these photos were necessarily achieved, because we're

going to show you some examples today that

we can't even explain ourselves.

Like we actually technically don't know what's happening

in the photo.

Like here, for example, yeah, exactly.

I can't tell you actually what's reflecting on

what what's what's lined up.

And we're not going to start with this

one.

We're going to start very straightforward, basic mirrored

reflections and get kind of more and more

complicated, more and more trippy.

Not necessarily complicated, just trippy.

Trippier.

But as you'll see, it's not about being

able to understand what's happening to be able

to actually pull it off.

Okay.

Because we don't understand.

Yeah.

So it's just about the curiosity of going

and looking for them.

Yeah, basically.

Okay.

So let's start not with this.

This one is basically it's, it's reflected in

the beveled corner of a mirror.

Okay.

So, you know, in a lot of those

bathroom mirrors, the edge, the corner is has

this beveled angular thing.

And if you put your eyeball up into

one of those beveled corners, try it sometime,

you'll get all kinds of trippy overlaid reflections.

And as you move your eye, they overlap

and change in weird and interesting ways in

any place that you can put your eyeball,

you can put your camera lens.

Okay.

And that's often how we explore reflections, explore

any composition.

Really.

It's just, we go and get our eyes

there first.

Right.

And then if we like it, we're still

curious.

We'll replace the eyes with a camera lens.

And then this one's been flipped horizontally to

make it even trippier, but let's start super

basic and just straightforward.

And just know that reflective surfaces are everywhere.

Okay.

We don't need mirrors, anything smooth reflects.

Okay.

So hardwood floors, marble countertops, surfaces of water.

Yeah.

And even if it's not like, even if

it's not smooth and mirror like glass, it

will at least reflect the highlights.

Okay.

And really the only way to explore it

is to get down there with your eyes

and see what's going on.

So by having the camera right down on

the surface of this marble countertop, it allowed

us to make this a more interesting composition.

Right.

A mirrored composition brings in the symmetry puddles

is just the kids playing on the streets

in where we'll be Greece, Croatia, Croatia.

Okay.

Getting down, get that lens right down onto

the water surface.

This is just natural light puddles, all kinds

of reflective potential in puddles.

So much.

Okay.

These are, you know, up on, up on

the slope here, these boys in Tanzania are

playing, and this is Timmy just sitting right

beside the water.

So reflections more than anything, they can be

a very powerful way to help us solve

compositional puzzles and include still stories that are

happening in different places that we couldn't, that

we couldn't include within the same composition without

bringing in some sort of a reflection.

And it lets us tell a less literal

view of the story, right?

Like I easily could have taken this photo

looking up at the boys playing with the,

with the, the dragonflies, but this is a

less literal view of the scene.

It tells the same story, but in a

much more interesting way.

And engages the viewer.

Right.

Okay.

So let's just get into basically something that

everybody's doing.

Okay.

This is something that everyone's doing.

Now we're reflecting in something like a smartphone.

Okay.

And if you've never, you know, if you've

never taken your eyes and put them right

up on the surface of your phone, try

it sometime, try it right now at home.

Okay.

You can basically mirror the entire scene.

Okay.

So I've got the entire crew, everyone out

there behind the cameras, they're all double headed

monsters here in my phone right now.

Okay.

Again, anywhere you can put your eye, anywhere

you can put your eye, you can put

your phone.

Okay.

So then we bring in the phone and

we angle it.

You play around if it's basically kind of

right there like that and you can play

around.

That's all we've done here.

Okay.

This is why you never go white.

You always buy the black if you want

to be able to play around with this

sort of thing, but you can reflect on

a, on a 35 millimeter.

You can reflect the entire scene within, within

the phone.

And when you're, when you're doing it, something

like this, even though we're shooting this, you

know, probably a wide open aperture, one point

something or two point something.

What happens is you see how the branches

they're sharpened in focus up here and they're

relatively in focus down here, but the phone

itself isn't in focus.

Okay.

Because the phone is right up in front

of the lens, but the reflective image itself,

the focal length of that is actually to

the thing that's being reflected.

Okay.

So keeping that, you don't need to understand,

but to just know that keeping the aperture

up higher allows the phone, like the perimeter,

the outline of the phone to be out

of focus.

So it's a little trippier and less obvious

that it's, Oh, that's an actual phone in

the foreground.

Right.

Wider open aperture.

Yes.

Lower here.

This is adding symmetry to the image, right?

It's making a little more interesting than all

the other frames that we were doing, which

was essentially featuring them and the trees here.

What we were doing is we're again, trying

to simplify the frame down to what was

interesting and what we found interesting was the

sky and the clouds and our couple, but

everything from here down was kind of boring.

It was just this, this Brown, um, Brown

grass slope essentially.

So we were making a whole bunch of

comp a whole bunch of frames with the

couple right down along the bottom edge of

our frame.

So that allowed us to fill the frame

with what was interesting, the sky and the

clouds.

Then when we brought in the reflective surface,

that allowed us to move our subject up

into the center of the frame.

So we have symmetry.

We're still filling the frame with what's interesting,

but we don't have to have them down

here.

Okay.

So it helped us solve a compositional, um,

problem that we were coming up against.

This one actually wasn't reflected in the phone.

It was reflected in a little piece of,

um, a little piece of, uh, glass, like

a sample from a mirror.

Yeah.

A small little rectangular thing.

That's why the transition point there is a

little bit, because it was semi-transparent.

Exactly.

Like that one set one way glass that

you can see through.

Sometimes there's very good reason to do something

like this.

Often there's not who one of our friends

said, reflections are like chocolate sauce.

So good, but not on everything.

Okay.

In this case, there was, there was a

problem we were trying to solve that led

us into playing around with this.

Okay.

Often we see this doing is just for

the sake of a reflection that's not adding

anything.

Same thing here.

Oh yeah.

A lot, especially, especially me here.

We have the same thing.

We were making a whole bunch of compositions

with our couple highlight on the shadow, moving

back and forth across that dark background.

But we had them along the bottom edge

of our composition, because what we found interesting

was this beautiful Sikh temple and the blue

sky above it.

Right?

So we're trying to fill our frame with

that and exclude all of this below, below

the building was just basically blown out concrete

steps.

Okay.

But then when we brought in the reflective

surface beneath the lens, that allowed us to

move the subject matter up into the middle,

have that symmetry and fill, basically fill that

blown out steps with what was interesting above.

Okay.

In this next example, exact same thing with

the phone, but now it basically panned down

the composition and made it even trip here

by bringing them up onto the top edge

instead of the bottom edge.

Okay.

So they're up on the slope and we

were making, you know, the straightforward composition with

them on the bottom and all the clouds

above them.

But then with the reflective surface underneath the

lens and panning down and playing around with

that angle, we were able to basically take

what was above them and put it beneath

them.

So it's like they're walking up on cloud

nine there and we're just exposed to the

highlights in the sky.

But the other thing is, is when you

reflect in an iPhone, especially a black iPhone,

it's a stop or two lower in exposure.

It's about one stop.

About one stop lower in exposure.

So if you're reflecting the sky, that can

work really well, right?

Because if we were including the sky in

this frame with the same exposure, the sky

would be blown out.

Exactly.

Reflected in the dark iPhone, it brings it

down a stop.

Yeah, exactly.

And other times that's, we need to bring

that back up in post.

Okay.

Just a few more examples of the same

thing.

Finding smooth.

This one was just a smooth glass part

of a statue at the back of the

ceremony site that allowed us to mirror, mirror

the scene.

So moving in, you know, those were all

portrait examples and now kind of moving into

some storytelling documentary examples.

Okay.

Oh, you left that in.

Same thing.

Ceremony, crouched down, shooting the processional.

Okay.

As they, as they coming down the aisle.

And I had the, you know, the phone

in my pocket.

I knew I wanted to try this exposed

for the highlights outside and the highlights in

the stained glass.

But in order to pull this one off,

I knew those doors to be left open

long enough, like 10 seconds.

So I just asked the church lady, can

you leave the doors open when they come

through?

Like give me 10 seconds before you close

them.

Cause I was going to have my exposure

set for the outdoor light.

Okay.

And then just basically brought in the, brought

in the phone like this and play around

the angle of the reflection, except for those

highlights, except I'm right down on the ground.

Right.

And, and if you were to take the

same shot without the phone, you'd still have

those reflected highlights in that cement floor.

They just wouldn't be sharp, but it would

still be an interesting effect.

Yeah.

Okay.

So just a few examples of where we've

done this.

This is a pool.

Yeah.

Infinity pool.

And we've basically, I think what we did

is we committed to, let's shoot the first

half of the first dance with something a

little safer.

And Eric and I were working together.

Like you're going to see, one of us

was shooting, one of us was lighting.

And then once we were happy with the

shots we got for the second half of

the song, one of us ran around with

the camera to the other side of the

infinity pool, put the lens right down on

the surface of the water, which you can

see isn't smooth.

There was a little wind ripple, but it

still reflects the highlights.

We've exposed for just the highlights in the

scene up here.

Right.

And then made our own highlights behind just

hiding that flash in behind the couple.

Rim light.

Rim light as they dance.

Okay.

And, and that's it for light.

The rest of that, that fill light is

basically just ambient light and some probably some

dodging.

Exact same thing for during a speech.

Okay.

Just recognizing the potential for these, all these

cool repeating, lights to be putting that beneath

them as well.

Okay.

This one's just a little bit different spin

on that.

It's a little pocket makeup mirror.

You can kind of see the outline of

it here is one and two.

So it's basically this, this is just natural

light.

Okay.

Under like this and playing around with the

angle of the reflection because they're standing on

the, this is like right beside the roadway.

And so they're basically standing at the edge

of the ditch.

So they had, you know, they had trees

surrounding them, like going down to the bottom

of the ditch.

We were able to frame them in the

trees, but beneath them was just as boring

ditch.

And so the reflection allowed us to sort

of surround them with what we were finding

interesting.

All right.

So those were basically mirrored reflections.

Okay.

Playing around with that.

Now we're going to move into mirrors on

the wall or basically reflective potential that we

can use in, you know, indoors in various

scenarios that we encounter in this case, what

led me here?

I'm basically lying down on the ground.

Okay.

I'm basically like leaning down on my back,

shooting straight up.

And there was very limited space between the

bed and the wall, but all the guys,

you know, if that's the mirror on the

wall, the beds right here behind me, they're

all standing in this limited space there because

they need to see what's going on to

do their ties.

And so I didn't have many options.

One thing I could do is I could

hop up onto the bed and try to

shoot their reflection from behind them.

I can't remember if I tried that, but

there was just enough space for me to

sneak down below, shoot up onto a clean

backdrop.

And because there there's a mirror there, I

was able to include the reflection within the

composition, but while I'm down there, I'm realizing

that they're not popping on the background at

all, right?

Because the ceiling is in the exact same

exposure as, as their hands.

This was a, one of a few weddings

where once in a while we will have

somebody with us, an extra set of hands.

So Sean was there with me.

So I just said, Hey, Sean, hop up

on the bed and point a flash right

at the ceiling for me.

And that's all he had to do.

And linking to that flash, that allowed me

to blow out the ceiling onto which I

could have these silhouettes.

Okay.

And then just like shooting right through the

moment, right through the action, hoping to get

something interesting.

Underneath the glass top, the coffee table.

Okay.

Just trippy things happen when you go down

there and look up.

I don't know why this lines up like

that, but from beneath the table, it just

flipped the world in this weird way.

Okay.

Okay.

In the bathroom.

This is this one.

I still don't know.

I can't really figure out what's going on,

but this is literally what it looked like

to my eyes.

It's just natural light in the bathroom.

He's shaving.

Basically imagine, imagine if right here, let's see.

Imagine if right here where the main bathroom

mirror and I'm the groom shaving in front

of the mirror.

So what I've done is I've come in

beside.

Okay.

So I'm shooting now with the camera up

beside this mirror.

Does this work?

Okay.

And he's shaving here.

Now beside the mirror on the wall is

one of those pivoting, swivel, circular mirrors that

you can swivel and pivot and re re

-angle it.

Usually one side is like magnified, and one

side is like a normal reflection.

And I realized if I swivel it out,

pivot it a bit, I could go and

I could put my eyes in between the

main bathroom mirror and the circular mirror.

And it looked really cool.

It looked like this.

It's like, ah, that's funky.

So then camera comes in, replaces the eyes

and try to orient things, shift the angle,

get three grooms all within my frame and

just shoot through it in terms of who's,

who what's reflected.

I think they're all reflections.

This is the groom, the main reflection, exactly.

In the main bathroom mirror off the bathroom

mirror into my lens.

And then over here, that's that reflection reflected

then off of this circular mirror.

And then this one, I think is that

reflection reflected back again in the main, which

makes no sense at all.

And that's totally okay.

Yeah.

Don't worry about it.

You don't have to understand it.

It's just the curiosity or recognizing we've got

reflective surfaces right within the vicinity of each

other.

Let's go and put my eye up beside

them, move them around.

And literally this is what I saw.

Okay.

Oh, and then I tried to get fancy

bringing the off camera flash.

It didn't line up so well.

What's going on here?

Well, yeah, again, don't really know.

Uh, this is the bride in her suite

getting ready.

She was standing there talking.

Um, and if I put my, there's, I

think that's the shower wall.

And if I put my, my eye right

against that shower wall, uh, I'd, I'd get,

this is the real her.

And then the, the profile on the left

is her reflected in the, in the glass

shower.

It's just mirroring the scene.

It's kind of like one of those trippy

mirrors.

What are those?

Those fun houses, fun houses.

That's the word.

Yeah.

Okay.

This was again, trying to solve, uh, a

compositional problem that we were up against.

This is, um, during a ceremony in India

where, do you know what it's called?

The ceremony where they basically, they have the

bride, the bride seated on one side of

this big sheet that they hold up to

block the bride from seeing the groom and

the groom from seeing the bride.

So they're on opposite sides of this curtain

and there's people everywhere.

Like these, these ceremonies are just like compact

people everywhere, all crowded around 12 of which

are photographers.

True.

Um, we'll show you some behind the scenes

photos.

It's, it's awesome.

But so we're, kind of like wherever we

can be.

And I think Erica was, you were crouched

over on the bride side somewhere.

And I was, I was, I was right

on the precipice.

So I was right where the curtain was.

So was I get both sides.

You could get both sides.

Okay.

You're on the groom side.

Yeah.

I thought you were on the bride side.

No, I was right on the precipice.

Yeah.

So was I, but I'm on the groom

side.

So I'm up, I'm standing up.

Like I can see, you can't be on

the precipice and on the groom side at

the same time.

You can't be on the bride side and

on the precipice at the same time.

I didn't say, I said, I'm not on

the bride side.

I'm on the precipice.

You're standing on the sheet.

Yes.

I'm standing right in the middle of the

sheet at the end of it.

Okay.

So if the sheet is coming here, I'm

like, right.

You're beside the sheet.

You're on the precipice.

You're on the groom side.

But you could get them both within frame.

Yes.

I couldn't.

Okay.

I could, I could see the bride.

Okay.

And so I'm photographing the bride, but the

groom is like, he's behind me there.

And I couldn't compositionally, I couldn't figure out

from where I was a way to include

them both the way you were in your

compositions.

Okay.

And I had something like this in my

pocket, a small little reflective piece of glass,

sorry, small little reflective mirror.

And it was with the Sony.

So I was standing up.

Okay.

And I'm shooting down.

And actually I was probably shooting like I

was shooting like this.

Okay.

So I'm focusing on the bride and then

I just started experimenting with bringing up this

mirror and like, let me see if I

can reflect Erica right now.

There you are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Then you have to play around with.

Yeah.

Okay.

But that's essentially what's happening.

Okay.

So using the mirror to reflect the scene

behind me and get them within the same

composition.

Does that make sense?

Okay.

So it's the groom behind me reflected in

this little mirror.

Same thing here.

I'm a, it's a makeup mirror.

I think that was just lying around.

Yeah.

Yeah.

About this size.

A little bit bigger, bigger than this.

It was like a circular mirror about this

big off the makeup table.

And then I'm standing behind them.

So they're both, they're writing their thank you

speech for the night in the morning.

And so I'm kind of like standing behind

them, holding this up over their shoulders, focusing

on their fingers on the keyboard.

No.

Yeah.

No, their fingers are out of focus.

You're focusing on their faces.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm aiming at their fingers on the, on

the keyboard.

I'm up from behind them up over their

shoulders.

And then by bringing that circular mirror in,

I was able to get their face and

their reactions and focus and do something trippy

here right now.

I'm going to focus on me.

Okay.

Okay.

So anyways, does that make sense?

It doesn't have to, that's the whole point,

right?

Like, no, it doesn't make sense at all,

but it's just, you know, but the problem,

I mean, right.

That's like, okay, I can't quite get this.

You know, there's no point of just their

fingers is one thing, but could I have

their fingers and their smiles?

That's the mirror.

That's the same mirror.

I played around with this, this, uh, this

mirror, um, you know, for a while.

So you just photoshopped out the handle there.

Yeah.

I cloned out the handle.

So I'm basically just I'm standing out of

the front porch and I'm shooting out through

their front yard.

Okay.

Obviously exposed for the scene outside.

Everything inside of course is really dark.

So just holding the mirror up, in front

is just reflecting the darkness behind me.

But by triggering the flash behind me coming

in from the brides, brides left side there,

um, later up and matched her brought her

exposure up to match the exposure outside.

Right.

That makes sense.

This is the only time you've ever got

to shoot a bride prep.

That's true.

Yeah.

And you're going to see how we divide

and conquer.

But anyways, yeah, that was, that was awesome.

Two brides.

So we both got to, got to be

there.

They got ready together.

Okay.

Uh, this was, you know, often what I,

what I'm up against with the guys getting

ready.

It's a whole lot of nothing, like three

hours, I think of basically just hanging out,

shooting the shit, drinking fine wine.

Um, not a lot to do.

So I was trying to tell that story

is in an, as interesting a way as

possible.

I'm just basically chilling out there with them,

making compositions, trying to include all of them.

And really, regardless of where I went in

this room, I could only get one or

two or three of them in any one

composition at a time.

But I found this little spot to sit

for a while and just play around with

this little, little piece of glut, this little

mirror.

And it allowed me to bring, you know,

the groom who's over here, him into the

same frame with the others.

And you know, I did, I was there

for probably an hour.

And you know, this was the composition where

move on, moving on, moving on, or they're

hanging out playing video games.

Okay.

And so I had lots of frames of

just, obviously I've got my light coming in

from the side.

You can see the angle, it's throwing the

shadow up there.

And eventually I realized I could take this

one mirror off the wall and bring it

in and put it basically position it right

beneath the big flat screen TV so that

I could shoot in one direction and complete

the story, right?

Have their reactions playing the game with what

they're actually reacting to.

You do this one.

Okay.

Well it's just what it looks like, right?

We've got the bride in a nice highlight.

Uh, that's just window light coming in off

onto her face there, uh, with a nice

dark background.

So we're using all those concepts we've already

talked about, right?

The highlight on shadow.

And in this case, she's reflected, reflected in

the groom's sunglasses, aviator glasses.

Yeah.

Nothing more to say about that really.

Um, straight mirror reflection.

That's all.

Yeah.

I mean these, these led lights, um, bordering

the mirror were a total gift for us

because it allowed us to, to, you know,

expose for the highlights in the room and

the rest of the room just fell away

into darkness.

And just noticing, you know, there's two stories

going on here and, and to layer them.

And, um, if I were to do this

again, I would have definitely chosen a higher

F-stop and a way higher F-stop.

This was back in the days when we

photographed everything wide open.

One point shit.

One point shit.

All day long.

All day long.

This one's a little bit more.

I'll intro it and then you can explain

it cause obviously you were shot.

Um, but another, uh, cool opportunity for reflections

is in glass covered artwork.

Okay.

Obviously it doesn't work in a lot of

art pieces, but if, if it's some sort

of a painting or a photograph that's glass

covered, then we've got reflective potential.

Okay.

So yes, this is just glass covered artwork.

And I will say, I do want to

say like, this is not stuff that we're

pulling out at every wedding.

This is, you know, we're showing you a

lot of examples here, but for example, I

maybe do something like this once every few

weddings and it really depends on what's going

on and what's not going on.

If there's lots of moments going on and

there's lots of laughter and there's lots of

emotion, I'm not going to be doing things

like this at all.

Usually when you see more trippy, so what

will you be doing?

You will be filling the frame with the

emotion.

I would just be focusing on good photojournalism

and filling the frame, squaring up, getting good

compositions, layering in the story, layering in the

stories, problem solving my way through that.

Usually when we do a reflection shot like

this, especially during bride prep or groom prep,

it comes from a place of boredom, to

be honest, like just to be a hundred

percent honest, right?

If we're bored, I've been there for three

hours.

It was just her and her bridesmaid and

it was lovely.

I mean, it's, it's the way I'd want

my wedding morning, just really quiet, not a

lot going on, but you know, three to

four hours of that it gets a little

bit boring.

So I decided to do something a little

bit more creative just to to entertain myself

basically.

So in this case I'm just filling the

frame with an artwork.

It's just a framed painting and I've completely

eliminated the mat and the frame so that

you can't tell.

And the frame has this piece of artwork

has window light coming in on it.

And the window light coming in on it

is important.

It's key because I wouldn't be able to

tell it were a picture if it didn't

have that window light coming in on it.

It'd be too dark compared to it'd be

too dark.

Yeah.

So I've set my exposure one 200th of

a second for that painting.

And then I've turned my flash on and

just put my flash on the bride with

a grid to bring her up to the

same exposure.

And I've really intentionally, I just, I just

want to add one thing to that.

I'm not done yet.

I know, but you're moving on to another

idea.

The reason, not only does there need to

be a light source on the artwork itself

to make it work and be able to

appreciate the painting, the aperture itself has to

be high.

Yeah.

Right.

Not too high.

No, no, this is an FA.

It depends what lens you're using.

Right.

Right.

And I'm actually in this reflection, but you

can't see, you can't see me if you

look really hard, but here's her hand.

Oh yeah.

There's my hand, but you can't see me

cause I'm not lit.

Right.

And I've intentionally tried to put her in

a dark spot.

Right.

If I had her up here, she wouldn't

pop nearly as much as being down here.

Right.

So I always, when I light someone in

a reflection, I always try and put them

in a dark spot of the canvas just

so that we have that contrast pop and

that takes playing around with the angle and

position of your camera.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If it's in a portrait, obviously you can

work it to line up in a scenario

like that.

You're hoping for a possibility for it to

work and it often doesn't.

So, but this is, this is a similar

thing.

So now we're reflecting again in a glass

and a glass surface.

Okay.

In this case, it's actually a floor to

ceiling, glass covered wine rack.

Okay.

These are all wine bottles.

You can see the labels on them.

Okay.

And we went down there with the couple.

They wanted to do some portraits in this,

in this, what basically this wine cellar area

and we weren't sure what to do, but

then we noticed we were just looking towards

the wine bottles.

We noticed this waiter walk through the room

behind us because when the waiter walked through,

we could see his silhouette in the reflection

because he walked in front of those windows

that had sheer curtains on them.

And it was like, ah, this is how

we, cause they had really wanted a picture

down here because they're wine lovers.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So basically I'll just paint the scene in

the room is if that wall is this

floor to ceiling glass covered wine rack on

the opposite wall back there, there's three windows

and it's bright daylight outside.

Okay.

So when the curtains were open, it's so

bright outside compared to the light inside that

it's these just blown out highlights that reflect

in the glass.

Yeah.

So up here on the ceiling, we've got

these pot lights that are illuminating all the

wine bottles behind the glass.

So the wine bottles are actually at a

brighter exposure than the rest of the contents

of the room.

So the glass only reflects anything that is

as bright or brighter than what's behind it.

So in this case, you can see only

this one little table that obviously has a

pot light on it.

It's reflecting in the glass.

The rest of the room is in darkness,

but the windows on the opposite wall are

way brighter than the rest of the room.

So they're like these glowing highlights that are

reflecting in the glass.

So when Erica saw the waiter walk through

the room, she basically saw his silhouette walk

in front of these three windows.

So we're like, ah, this could be cool.

Closed two of them, left one window open,

had the couple go into the boring penguin

pose in front of the glass.

This is quite a few years ago.

And then just basically exposed for the highlights

in the reflection.

Okay.

And Erica's shooting a little bit off center.

So she's not in there, but she's in

an area of the room that's not lit

up.

So she's in darkness.

I'm not, I'm not off center.

Actually I'm square to the glass, but not

block.

You're not obviously, no, I'm not in front

of them, but I'm shooting square right about

here because if I were off center, their

reflection would not be sharp.

So Erica's shooting it square on, obviously not.

So she's, she's part of the silhouette there,

but she doesn't show up in the image

because there's no light on her.

She's way darker than the, what she's chosen

to expose for, which are the highlights.

And then from here up, these are just

all of the pin lights up in the

ceiling.

And from this little section here are those

pin lights reflected in the glass.

Okay.

So it's starting to get a little bit

trippier and a little harder to conceptualize what's

actually happening.

But literally this is natural light.

This is what it looked like.

We saw this with our eyes.

Okay.

So now we're going to move into, um,

shooting through glass.

So shooting through windows, for example, and using

reflections in that way.

And they're shooting from the inside out or

the outside in, we're going to cover both

those.

That's right.

And it really gives us a lot of,

um, power and flexibility to, to be able

to layer the stories on both sides of

the glass into the same composition.

Okay.

So in this case, this is just natural

light.

We saw this, we're, we're staying in this

hotel in Australia that overlooks the, the rainforest

canopy.

Like we look out the window from the,

from the master bedroom onto the rainforest.

Okay.

And when at, this is obviously blue hour,

dusk light, we're standing in the room and

we look out the window over the rainforest

and we see Madeline and Timmy they're in

the hallway behind us.

And the lights are on in the hallway.

The lights are off in the master bedroom.

So the hallway is matching the same exposure

as what's outside.

And so, Oh, there they are.

Simple as that.

Just basically exposed for them.

They're basically superimposed on what's on the other

side of the glass.

So here we've got the bride and the

groom in the car waiting and they're waiting

in the car for about 10 minutes.

This is a lot of, a lot of

times this is when photographers will take a

break.

They'll put down their gear and they'll go

grab a snack or they'll go grab some

water, which you need to do throughout the

day.

But there's also incredible opportunities in these transition

times when they're sitting in the car for

10 minutes is the opportunity to try out

some of these methods.

And if it doesn't work, who cares?

Right?

You haven't really missed anything.

So Lani I believe is in the front

seat with the flash and I've, I've created

the exposure for the reflection of this red

umbrella, which is a very significant thing, uh,

with, with this Chinese ceremony because they have

to stand under the umbrella.

The bride has to stand under a red

umbrella.

She can't have sun on her or can't

be exposed to daylight until something happens.

I can't remember what.

So the commissioner there is holding the umbrella

to put over the bride's head when she

gets out of the car.

Um, and I've intentionally framed the bride's face

just by moving myself within the umbrella, um,

in order so that she pops.

So she has that contrast from the background.

Yeah.

One of the cruxes when shooting through glass

is achieving focus.

And I'm going to save some of the

tips on how to do that for a

couple of better examples.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

And actually we chatted about how limitations often

are result in new creative unexplored areas.

And honestly, the first time we figured out

how to shoot through glass, it was out

of necessity because the makeup artist had set

herself up with the bride between the, the,

the bed and the, the window, the wall,

essentially Erica had nowhere to go to basically

photograph the bride.

And our approach is not to intervene with

that or change it in any way.

So this basically was the first time that

Erica, not this, not this one, but that

was the first time that Erica had to

essentially go outside and figure out through how

to shoot through glass.

And that's sort of where we started to

figure out the mechanics of using reflections with,

with windows.

So in this case, Erica has done just

that.

She's gone outside, but she's first, she's positioned

a light, a speed light on a light

stand in front of the bride.

Okay.

You can see it's coming in from this

angle.

So then Erica's gone outside and this would

be 85.

85 lens.

She's elevated.

So she's, she's a floor above me.

Which is why I'm out of the reflection.

Cause I'm shooting up.

So I'm shooting up with a big lens.

Right.

I'm intentionally framing her within that dark spot.

It's okay.

You're still going to get your point.

But no, on, on that point with the

lens before you move off the lens on

the lens, that 50 to 85 millimeter seems

to be a sweet spot for shooting through

windows because when you go wider than that,

now you're, I mean, it's hard to get

yourself out of the frame.

Exactly.

You're going to have context.

And the only way to really get yourself

out of the frame is to move in

really close to the glass and shoot at

an extreme angle.

And I've got some examples of that, but

that 50 to 85 allows you to get

out of the frame, out of the reflection.

And sometimes we intentionally include ourselves in the

reflection and that's okay too.

Now we're shooting through windows.

Something happens around dusk where the side of

the side of the window that is the

reflective surface flips.

Okay.

This isn't something you need to know.

Cause you can just go and look, imagine

you're, you're indoors and you're looking out a

window.

Okay.

At night you can't see through the glass.

You can't see anything outside.

All you see is basically everything inside.

Okay.

So the glass is essentially a giant mirror

for everything inside the room because everything outside

is so much darker than the contents of

the room.

Okay.

During daytime that flips, right?

Because during the day, you can see plain

as day through your window, but you can't

really see anything reflected.

The only thing you would see reflected are

the extreme highlights in the room, anything as

bright as what's outside.

But if you go outside and look in

like Erica's done here during the day, you

can't see through the glass, right?

At night we can at night.

It's like looking in a fishbowl at night.

Okay.

But during the day, you can't really see

what's going on inside because the glass window

is essentially a giant mirror for what's behind

you because everything outside is way brighter than

everything inside.

And so the only thing that you can

see through the glass are the, are the

highlights, right?

The extreme highlights inside that are almost as

bright as what's outside.

So when Erica's gone outside, she tries to

look through the glass.

She basically just sees everything that's behind her

reflected.

Okay.

So she has to look really closely to

see what's inside.

And if she looks through the shadows, she

can kind of see the contents.

But if you're trying to look through the

highlights, you really can't see anything.

Okay.

And so Erica's intentionally tried to find a

position for her camera that allowed her to

position the subject within a dark part of

that reflection, because you can see how it

doesn't, doesn't pop.

Just like when we're, you know, looking for

those backlit on dark backgrounds.

In this case, the highlights, they don't pop

on the highlights, but they really do on

the dark parts of the reflection.

So essentially you can kind of think of

the reflection as, as the canvas, right?

And then when she turns on her flash,

now she's painting onto that canvas with the

light, which is on the other side of

the glass.

So it layers what she's lighting inside by

bringing it up to match the exposure of

the reflection, which is the scene behind her.

So it basically looked like in her mind,

it was basically like find the position one

200th of a second, F it up to

expose for the drama in the reflection, right?

And then turn on the transmitter.

And the flash is going to be with

a speed light.

It's going to be almost full power here,

right?

Because she's essentially having to match the exposure

of the broad daylight outside.

So focus is the crux because it's hard

to see through the glass, let alone get

your camera autofocus to lock on.

One trick is you can try to find

an area of high contrast.

Like here's an area that's not catching the

light.

So you can see by dragging the focus

point over that shoulder, she might be able

to achieve focus that way.

If that doesn't work.

One of the things you can do is

you can, you can get a light.

So somebody inside could use the flashlight on

your phone, for example.

Okay.

But rather than trying to light the subject

from the side, that's not going to show

up enough.

It's just have them hold the, hold the

flashlight at the, that distance from the camera

and aim it straight towards the camera.

That gives, that gives the photographer something to

lock onto with the autofocus.

Okay.

And then you can kill that light and

go from there.

And you kind of have to, if you're

at full flash power, you kind of have

to time it right when that brush comes

in, because you're going to have to wait

for the recycled lapse time on the flash.

Anything else on this one?

Well, the only other thing I was going

to say with regards to focus is the,

the last way to achieve focus is if

you're on the same plane as level as

the window, you can literally use a part

of your body to cast a shadow on

the glass, block the reflection, grab your focus,

and then get back into position.

And because with these photos, we're often up

about F seven or F nine, you get

a little bit more forgiveness with, yeah, with

the exact focus point.

Exactly.

And so I'll often do that is like,

even sometimes just hold your hand up, cast

a shadow on the wall.

That allows you to see what's inside.

So sorry, cast a shadow on the glass

that allows you to see through, get focus.

Then you can leave that shadow to be

a dark part of the reflection, or you

can take it away.

And this will make a hell of a

lot more sense when we, when we actually

demonstrate it in field after this.

We're going to go out in the field

together and you're going to see these techniques

at play.

If you're ever wondering, you're trying to deconstruct

an image and figure out what's reflected and

what's not like what's reflected in the glass

and what's on the other side of the

glass, or is it a reflection or is

it a double exposure is to just look

for this doubling.

If you look at the, this, the, the

ridgeline there on the mountains, you see how

it's doubled.

Okay.

And these trees too are doubled, but he's

sharp.

Okay.

In this case, he's obviously not through glass,

but anything that's doubled is reflected.

Okay.

Because the glass, the window itself has two

reflective surfaces, the front of the glass that

you're shooting through and the backside of the

glass.

So if you're shooting at any sort of

an angle, the reflections don't line up.

And in Canada, we have like double and

triple pane glass.

So we'll sometimes get like triple reflections.

Okay.

So that's your dead giveaway.

What's reflected and what's sharp.

So if you're making a portrait, just keep

that in mind because if anything you want

sharp, if you want your subjects to be

sharp, they have to be on the other

side of the glass because we can see

through glass nice and clear and sharp, but

what's reflected in the sharp is never crisp

and sharp.

It's always got that doubling.

So in this case, I'm out on the

porch and I opened the door.

The reason I opened the door was because

it was hard to get focused by opening

the door.

I could focus on the groom easily.

And in this case, I just left the

door open.

Okay.

I've got a flash mounted onto the towel

rack in the bathroom.

And what's behind me is what you see

up here.

So I've got mountains behind me and I'm

shooting the groom through the door.

Then what I did is then I closed

the door.

Okay.

I kept the focus, closed the door.

This is 35 mil.

So you see 35 millimeter allows you to

have some of the context around the glass,

but it's hard to get out of the

frame and you kind of have to shoot

on an angle.

So I took that off, put a 50

millimeter lens on so that I could fill

the frame with just this panel of glass.

So we'll go to that one next.

I closed the door, right?

There's the doubling.

So there's the scene behind me.

He's sharp.

Okay.

The light hasn't moved.

He's just a little further along in his

shaving process.

Go back.

So from there, close the door, 50 millimeter,

fill the frame here.

Okay.

And again, trying to find an area of

darkness in which to light him.

He won't pop it all up here on

the sky.

And anytime you've got, I mean, it's great

if you can open this as a sliding

glass door is great for getting focus.

If you've got a pivoting glass door, even

better because that allows you to, if you're

just shooting through a window, really all you

can do is either move your subject, which

isn't an option in a documentary setting or

move your camera up or down to try

to get the subject matter on the dark

part.

If you can swivel the door, now you

can actually, now you can actually angle the

glass you're shooting through to basically swivel the

entire reflective scene behind you.

And you've got a lot more freedom to

try to get those things, those visual elements

to line up in silhouettes.

We talked about, you know, creating our own

bright spots in which to silhouette the couple.

That's all we've done here.

Okay.

So inside the hotel room where we were

all trying to just stay warm before the

ceremony we basically put a speed light on

a light stand right behind the couple and

aimed it at the wall.

Okay.

And if you look here, trying to figure

out what's sharp, what's on the other side

of the glass, they're sharp.

So they're on the other side of the

glass.

We're outside.

I'm outside with my camera.

So you see everything that's reflected is all

doubled.

You can see the doubling of all the

branches.

So that's the fourth scene behind me.

Okay.

So I've exposed for the highlights in the

reflection.

Then everything in the room falls away into

darkness.

We get focus, probably casted a shadow to

grab that focus on them, remove it away,

turn on the transmitter and fire the flash.

Okay.

Obviously we, we used a warm gel.

I'm wishing we used a cold gel, actually.

Monochromatic would have been interesting, but we chose

the warm gel to contrast with the cool

tones in the reflection.

And we really should have worked on our

hand position.

Hands not great, but, and this one's a

little bit, a little bit tricky.

It looks like I should be, I should

be blocking it because it looks like I'm

shooting straight on.

It's 50 mil.

I'm actually shooting up.

That's how I've excluded myself from the reflection.

And I've actually straightened for perspective in the

post, bring those lines parallel.

So that's why it looks a little tricky.

Here we are at this crazy venue in

Thailand.

And to understand what's happening here, I kind

of have to describe this, this venue, basically

what it is.

Imagine, imagine a room here.

Okay.

Where it's wall to wall.

All four walls are Florida ceiling glass windows

through basically a glass box.

Okay.

And if you look out the window, wrapping

around the entire room is an infinity pool.

Okay.

So what's happening here is I'm out in

the infinity pool.

Okay.

So I'm outside the room in the water.

Okay.

Looking back into the room.

Okay.

So I'm looking I'm in the water, looking

through the glass into the room.

Okay.

And I see the groom and his dad

right there in the room, rehearsing for their

performance that night.

Behind me though, I see the scene behind

me reflected.

Okay.

That's the sky, the ocean, the pool, and

the guys, the groomsmen behind me who are

right there.

Okay.

Leaning over the water.

And that's basically it.

This is basically what, what I saw.

I had a flash in the room.

There's a lot of natural light spilling into

that room because it's basically a glass box.

Right.

But I just kicked it up a little

bit with a speed light coming in from

the side to try to match the exposure

on them with these guys who are in

broad sunlight out on the infinity pool.

So that's what I saw like right there.

I've got dad and groom rehearsing and everything

behind me reflected.

That room was even crazier than that because

not only do we have this glass covered

room with the infinity pool, but right beside

this room was another room over here.

Also glass covered box.

You've got these two glass covered box and

the entry boxes, right?

And the entrance to the infinity pool was

down through the steps between these two rooms.

So literally like you walk down through the

steps into the water.

And as you walk down, so I've got

glass covered room over here, glass covered room

over here.

And when I look, looked into this room,

there's groom and dad through the glass, but

I can also see reflected in that glass.

Everything that's happening in the room behind me.

Okay.

So that's where this groomsman was.

Only the highlights, right?

Only the highlights that are reflected in the

glass.

Okay.

Here's, this guy's writing his speech over there.

When we get the post-production, I'll show

you, I'll show you this one straight out

of camera.

Literally this is what I saw.

I don't really know what's reflected on what,

but literally that's what it looked like.

Just exposed for the highlights.

Okay.

So during the first dance, um, now I

will, we'll address this here, uh, because this

is often a question that we get asked

at workshops is, you know, if you're doing

a shot like this, is one of you

taking the safe route and one of you

doing something more risky?

And the answer is yes, definitely.

Uh, and, but we also give ourselves the

creativity and, or sorry, the time to be

creative like this.

If we're working solo, right?

Cause he, he always does groom prep by

himself and I always do bride prep by

myself.

And we show up early enough that we

can, we can do this stuff.

If we feel so, if, if we're inspired

to do so.

Uh, but in this case, it's the first

dance.

Um, Lani's like, and we'll, we'll communicate with

each other.

Um, so that we know if one of

us is taking a risk.

So Lani comes up to me, he's like,

I'm going to shoot this entire first dance

from out in the porch.

Make sure you get some safe shots.

I'm like, great.

I got it handled.

Uh, and we had an assistant with us

that day.

The assistant was tracking money's light for him.

So Lani's out on the porch and he's

exposed for the desk light in the sky.

So anything that's as bright as the exposure

outside is going to show up, right?

So we've got the lanterns, the chandeliers, we've

got the flash on the couple and we've

got the ambient light on the, on the

crowd coming out here and that's all showing

up through the reflection.

So all that stuff, all those highlights that

you see other than the sky and the

mountain are inside.

The only thing that's outside is the sky,

the mountain, and then we've got some big

reflected legs over here and, and the ground

who are, they're outside having a smoke.

They're outside having a smoke.

The, the funny little backstory about this dance

is that right after this couple had taken

ballroom dancing lessons and they were really excited

about this coordinated dance they'd figured out for

their wedding.

And they came up to us after the

dance and this was the last dip in

their dance.

Lani had been taking photos the entire dance.

Most of them resulted in failure.

This was the last frame.

They were all misses.

This is the last frame we got.

So they come up to us after the

dance and they were feeling a little dejected.

They're like, we totally messed up our first

dance.

I'm like, what do you mean?

It looked great.

And they're like, well, we dipped the wrong

way.

We were supposed to dip towards the crowd

and we dipped towards the window.

And then we were like, darn it.

Anyways, they're glad they dipped the wrong way.

Their failure meant our success.

Yeah.

Okay.

So now I'll just say this might be

an okay time at home if you want

to pause the video and try to just

reverse engineer this one yourself before we give

it away.

Because we've kind of introduced all of the,

you know, kind of tricks and things that

are happening.

You could probably figure out what's going on

here yourself.

What's reflected, what's on the other side of

the glass, where's the light, what was kind

of the order of operations.

So feel free to pause now and then

we'll, we'll just deconstruct it right now for

them once they come back.

See if you got it right.

Okay.

So here I am shooting outside and I'm

shooting through the groom who's taking a swig

out of his beer in towards the window.

So the groom is in front of my

lens.

I'm doing a combined tools here.

I'm shooting through the groom.

I'm getting his silhouette, which is also his

shadow on the glass and the bride is

inside.

So my exposure is set for the reflection

of the sky in that glass.

Well, it's not his shadow on the glass.

It's a reflection of his silhouette.

Okay.

Yeah.

Right.

Because the, yeah, the, the light, he's not

casting a shadow onto the glass, but he's,

his silhouette is reflected in the glass, right?

Yes.

And then I just have a flash coming

in on the bride to match that exposure.

Probably pretty close to full power.

Yeah.

You can see the telltale doubling here, right?

All right.

This was during, okay, so this, this was

taken during a commercial that we shot for

mag mod a couple of years ago.

And it's the same thing pretty much.

We've got lots of glass surfaces in this

hotel room.

I can't really tell you what's happening, but

this is what it looked like with our

own eyes.

So I'm looking in the mirror.

This is our friend Dave.

He's shaving and there's a, there's a painted

glass between he's looking in the mirror and

then there's a pane of glass and then

there's the hotel room behind me.

So I decided to shoot from the other

pain behind the other painted glass, which is

reflecting Abby who's behind me doing her makeup.

It helps that these Abby and Dave happen

to be a two best friends.

Yes.

Right.

Yes.

And they volunteered to like be our, yeah.

Yeah.

You can actually just go and look at

the commercial for this one.

We'll put the link, um, in this, in

the, in the, yeah.

What would you call it in this, uh,

workshop page?

No, on the actual Kajabi page, we'll put

the link to this and you guys can

actually see this one.

Yeah.

Okay.

Oh gosh.

I have not been able to figure this

one out, but again, this is what it

looked like.

This is, this is a very much a

downtime as well.

This is, this is many of our more

trippy shots are taken during these times when

perhaps other photographers would be taking a break

or getting set up for the ceremony.

She's been, she was waiting in this vestibule

to go walk down the aisle for probably

half an hour.

They were behind schedule.

I could have just gone and set up

for the ceremony, but I decided just to

hang out with her.

I was down at the ceremony.

You were down at the ceremony and, uh,

yeah, she was standing in this vestibule.

I don't know what's going on here.

All I know is this is what I

saw.

And, uh, there was a probably about 50

or 60 images that I took before.

This is the one that lined up that

we liked.

I do know that this would not have

been possible had it not been a cloudy

day because it was a cloudy day.

The reflection of the mountains in the sky

is within range of the ambient light coming

in on her face through the window.

If it were a bright, there's no flash

here.

Yeah.

If it were a bright sunny day, those

mountains would be too bright in comparison to

her skin unless I had flashed her.

So, but this is all natural light.

Yeah.

And, and like, we'll never walk through a

set of glass doors without pausing and looking

over at the, at the reflective potential, because

often you just see these cool ways that

the reflections line up.

And then there's this one, this one, which

again, we have no idea what's going on.

There's only one thing that we know for

sure about this photo.

And that is that she's peeing in the

pool for sure.

Oh God.

I hope she doesn't watch this.

Okay.

Um, so this is this venue where it's

glass, right?

And there's, there's glass walls and a glass

door in the, it's a sliding glass door.

So when you slide the glass door, there's

a gap between the glass wall and the

glass door.

If you put your eye in between that

gap, this wall of glass would reflect everything

over there.

And this wall of glass would reflect everything

over there.

And then if you slid the glass doors,

you could line up the reflections so that

they were on top of each other.

So again, scientifically, we have no idea what's

happening here.

We don't know what's reflecting on what, but

it doesn't matter.

Are actually over here on this side of

the, yeah.

But, but the point is it doesn't matter

because it was having the curiosity to say

what happens when I put my eye up

against this glass?

What happens when I put my eye in

between these two planes planes of glass and,

and what happens when I move the glass?

So it's more about just exploring that curiosity.

And this probably came from a little bit

of boredom as well.

I mean, they were hanging out in that

pool for a couple of hours and we

were getting bored.

So we went and explored around.

I think that's it for our image deconstruction,

but we're going to demonstrate this now.

Yeah.

And with reflections, especially once we start to

get into these, you know, crazier shooting through

glass and windows and types of things is

just, just keep in mind that especially when

you're trying to practice them, practicing them, you're

rarely ever going to come up with something

awesome, like an awesome image and be okay

with that.

It's simply just about learning the mechanics of

how to pull it off.

Like there's so many problems that you start

learning how to solve.

It's like, okay, how do I get them

to line up with a dark part?

Oh, if I come up, if I go

down, how close do I need to go?

What lenses work?

How can I get focus?

Okay, so here are some tricks that I

can use to get focused.

There's a lot of problem solving steps that

you learn how to figure out so that

you can pull it off the mechanics of

it when there's a time and a place

because it's rare.

But when there is, it screams out to

you.

It's like, Oh man, the reflection potential here

is amazing.

I already know how to do it.

I know what I have to do mechanically

with the flash, how to get the focus,

how to set it up, how to dial

it in.

Practicing is about that not about creating these

amazing award-winning images and so that when

you do see that, that, that opportunity, you're

ready to do it technically.

And that's the only way to learn is

to get that muscle memory.

Like we can only do the first step

for you here.

Um, and then the rest, the more you

can problem solve on your own, the better

you're going to learn it.

Yeah.

And next we're going to take you guys

out into the field with us where we're

going to actually show you us basically executing

reflections like some of these ones that we've

just, yeah, we'll do a few different types

for you.

Okay.

All right.

So we'll see you there.