Original subtitles

Okay, so what I'm going to demonstrate here

is off-camera flash indoors with a reflection.

And actually, I'm going to take advantage of

this opportunity here to use this pretty typical

bathroom scene to kind of demonstrate how I

would shoot that in a groom prep scenario,

for example.

So with groom prep, one of the things

I'm often doing is shooting natural ambient light

because nothing happens in one place for more

than about 10 seconds at a time with

usually with guys getting ready.

But one of the more predictable things, you

know, everything's out of my control, but I

can usually predict when and where the groom

or the guys are going to do stuff

in front of mirrors in the bathroom, for

example.

So if my groom hasn't shaved yet, I

pretty much know this is where he's going

to do that.

So I realize he's going to be in

this position for maybe more than one or

two minutes, and I might have a chance

to actually set up a light and make

something a little more dramatic.

Plus, when it's something like shaving, it's not

a deal.

It's not a make or break shot, right?

It's not that super important.

So I can sort of swing for the

fence and try something creative that may or

may not work out, but it's worth a

shot, especially in this bathroom, because typically it's

really crappy light.

Like this is mixed white balances.

It's dark.

If I shoot natural ambient light in here,

it's not going to be that interesting and

dramatic.

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

going off-camera flash.

I'm going to set myself up for success

so that when he comes in, I've got

a flash in position already.

And normally I would use a nano clamp

on here, like we've talked about, and I

could clamp it maybe up on this towel

rack.

It would clamp there perfectly, maybe here, because

it's going to be tricky for me to

balance my light standing between the toilet and

the tub there, which you can do.

But actually, because I don't have my nano

clamp, I can actually position my flash and

I can just rest it in here.

And I realize by eyeballing it, it feels

about this tall.

This is where he's going to shave.

That's oriented about where I want it.

So there's my flash.

Make sure I'm on here.

Yeah, I'm on channel B position.

And I know I'm going to want to

gel it so that the temperature matches this

kind of warm ambient light.

And I'm going to grid it with at

least one grid, probably just one grid.

I'm going to use the thin one.

So this is just a single thin grid.

And that's to keep the light off of

the walls here.

And that's going to allow me to go

dark and kill all this ugly ambient light

and then make my own dramatic edgy light

coming in with the flash there.

So before he's even in position, I want

to kind of dial my settings in already.

So with the flash transmitter turned off, I'm

going to figure out how to underexpose, essentially

expose for these highlights in the room and

kill all the all the ambient midtones into

darkness.

And so if I go 100 ISO and

1 200th of a second shutter speed, so

I can trigger my flash.

And if I go, I'm going to F

it all the way up to about F5.

And what that gives me some test shots

is really dark, dramatic, moody light.

Okay, these are nice and properly exposed highlights

nice and warm and all the ugly midtones

are falling into darkness.

Okay, now I'm going to turn on my

transmitter.

Okay, fire the flash.

And I'm going to position my fist about

where Phil's face will be and focus on

that in the reflection.

Check that.

Okay, and the flash is actually about right

where I want it.

I could either turn it up or down.

Okay, so now I'm ready.

So that when things happen, and Phil comes

in here to do his thing, I've already

got my flash and all I have to

do is turn my transmitter back on, get

my settings dialed in and I can shoot

him with dramatic light.

What I'm going to do for for this

demo is essentially pretend that Phil is actually

shaving.

Okay, but he's clean shaven.

So this is just just for show.

So you guys can see you're going to

see me behind the scenes in an actual

bathroom, I hope at the actual wedding.

But I have no idea what that's going

to look like what's going to happen.

But in this case, Phil's just going to

pretend to shave in front of the mirror

as he would.

And I'm going to show you what I

would do.

And this is probably what I'd have on

my camera.

I've got the 28 lens, maybe 16 to

35.

But I need something really wide, because it's

a tight, small space.

So I'm going to be close to Phil.

And right away, I'm seeing potential in here.

Because obviously, there's always reflection potential, he's in

front of a mirror.

So I'm going to use that.

I've also got this mirror here.

So I'm thinking I might use that as

well.

And often I'll have another little either my

phone, or a little pop up makeup mirror,

or something that I found laying around, I

can bring that in as another potential reflective

surface to make interesting compositions.

Okay, so I'll kind of show you what

I would do if I had, let's say,

three minutes of Phil shaving in this bathroom.

So Phil, all right, so come on in.

And we're going to pretend just like you

did at your actual wedding that that you're

shaving here.

Okay.

I'm gonna start making some compositions here.

Just checking to make sure that yes, dialed

in where I want it.

I often come down here and frame his

reflection.

That's what he's doing.

Okay.

And, and initially, I'm going to try a

few things.

And because I'm shooting off kind of flash,

I kind of have to keep checking to

see, see if I like what I'm getting.

Okay, then I might try bringing this in,

eyeballing it to see if, yeah, I can,

I can reflect Phil there.

So compositionally, this might be interesting.

Focusing on the circular reflection, and I'm also

bouncing focus back over to the main reflection.

I'm not sure what I'm going to prefer.

Okay, I got about two minutes left before

he's done.

And once I kind of grab, once I

kind of find the composition that I'm most

excited about, I kind of gravitate to that

and stick with that.

It looks like I can get two Phils

here.

Two Phils and a video crew, which is

cool.

There we go.

Use this mirror to block me out.

Reflection is pretty tricky.

Might be able to use this mirror.

To block out the video crew and triple

reflect Phil.

That's cool.

Okay, okay, he's almost done shooting.

Running out of time here.

Yeah, when I'm eyeballing the shot, I want

to see dramatic, interesting light.

I basically want to see, you know, image

I'm excited about, but I'm also keeping in

mind, yeah, the potential, knowing what, you know,

what things I can and can't do in

the post-production to get it right.

There we go.

Okay, now I've got three sharp Phils.

Of course, Phil would be moving around a

bit more in real.

Pretend you're like actually wet the blade.

Okay, let's try to make it more realistic

here.

Yeah, so there's a lot of moving parts.

And I don't want to intervene in this

scene at all in a real scenario, right?

I just want Phil to do his thing

and hopefully I'm able to make interesting composition

of whatever actually happens for real.

And so now I'm getting better shots than

I was before because he's no longer as

staged and posy for me.

He's actually doing, this is closer to reality

now, right?

The compositions are that much more interesting and

believable because they're less predictable.

And Phil's done.

All right.

Yeah, so the main thing here is just

keep in mind that, you know, with off

-camera flash for preparation, particularly for me with

grooms and the guys getting ready is mostly

natural because that allows me to take a

documentary approach and not miss things, not miss

important moments.

This is kind of one of those predictable

spaces where something happens on almost every wedding

in front of the mirror and the light

is almost always shitty.

So one of the things that I'll scout,

the first things I'll do once I get

to the room that the area where the

groom is going to get ready is go

into the bathroom, figure out where he's going

to shave.

He's going to do that and then try

to set myself up for interesting light by

positioning a flash and having an idea of

kind of what I might try to do.

But there's always a reflection involved because there's

always a mirror, right?