All language subtitles for 12.04 - Round #1 Culling

We're gonna tackle the culling now.

And this is a really important part of

the workflow because for me at least, it

really completes the learning curve, right?

I do the shooting, I do the problem

solving, and when I do the culling, I

can really see what works and what doesn't

work.

It's actually a pretty low time for me

usually when I call the wedding because I

see everything that we missed and all my

failed compositions and I don't usually feel very

good after the culling, just to ask Lani.

But in reality, it really helps me become

a better shooter.

So I never outsource the culling.

I also get the honor of culling Lani's

work.

You might've read a little bit of sarcasm

in there.

And I mean, it would be awesome if

Lani actually culled his own work because for

what I just mentioned, the learning that comes

through the culling.

But let's just say we've tried and Lani's

not good at making decisions and what takes

me about, and I'm not exaggerating here, what

takes me like 10 minutes to cull will

take Lani an hour and a half to

two hours to cull.

So we're playing to our strengths.

Lani stays out of the culling.

I'm good at making decisions.

I'm good at putting things in perspective as

well.

I mean, I'm sure I make a few

little errors with my culling, but overall I

go with my gut and just trust my

decision and realize that if I made a

little mistake and I should have picked the

other photo instead, it's not the end of

the world.

But don't tell Lani I said that.

So I actually divide the culling by card.

That's also one of the reasons why I

downloaded each card into separate root folder.

For this particular wedding, I think we took

around almost 14,000 frames.

So you can imagine sitting down to cull

14,000 frames, how daunting a task that

is.

Whereas if I cull one card at a

time, it actually breaks up the work and

just makes it a lot more easy to

digest what I have to do.

And I break it up into two rounds

of culling.

So this first round of culling that you're

about to see is really quick.

I can cull probably about 500 images in

five minutes.

But I go really, really quick.

I don't make any rash decisions and I

over cull.

That means I select more images than I

think.

I'm not comparing images side by side.

I'm not comparing the sharpness.

I'm just going with my gut.

And I usually get it down to around

2,000 to 3,000 images after this

first cull.

And I cull in.

So that means as I'm going through the

photos, I'm selecting which photos I think we

might deliver.

So I've got the shortcut set up in

Photo Mechanic so that I just press the

forward arrow, and I'm always at full screen

with this part of the culling.

I press the forward arrow and the one

key is set to give the image a

one star.

Okay, so it's very quick.

And you'll see that in the footage I'm

about to show you.

And as a side note, you will notice

this footage is sped up.

It took me two hours and 22 minutes

to do this first round of culling.

Split up into different culling sections.

I didn't sit down for two hours and

20 minutes.

I probably split that up into 20 minute

segments.

But you'll notice we've sped it up for

you so that you don't have to sit

through the entire two hours and 22 minutes.

The culling process here, and I'm gonna start

with card one and do one card at

a time.

So by doing one card at a time,

I'm able to break it up psychologically.

Doing, I can't, I haven't done the math

yet on how many photos we've taken at

this wedding, but it was probably close to

15,000.

And doing all those at once would be

an absolute nightmare.

So I break it up a card at

a time.

And I do a two step culling process.

So what I'm gonna demonstrate here is my

first cull.

Okay, and my first cull, I view the

images as full screen.

So using Photo Mechanic here, I just press

that little magnifying glass there.

So I view the images at full screen

there.

And I just go through them one at

a time, but very quickly, you will see

how quickly I go through them.

I can usually cull about 500 images in

this first round in about five minutes.

And I've got my keyboard shortcut set up

so that all I have to do is

press the one button on my keyboard and

that gives it a one star rating.

And that's all I'm doing in this step,

in this part of the process.

So I'm gonna get started on that.

This will be very boring for you guys

to watch.

So we're gonna quicken it up here so

that you don't have to watch the whole

process.

And as I'm going through this, I'm not

making any big decisions at this point, okay?

So I'm not zooming in to see which

image is sharper, which image is over sharp.

I'm actually overpicking photos at this point.

So after this first round, I'll probably have

anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 photos.

And then the second round of culling, as

you will see, is when I go in

and I look at the details and I

compare the photos and I make the much

bigger decisions.

So if in doubt in this round, I

am just including it.

Okay, but some of the stuff like I'm

looking for, for example, like, so these first

three images here, one of the things I

noticed right off the bat with these first

three images, this is the one I wanna

pick.

As you can see, I put a star

on it, right?

And what I'm noticing is that these two

people are perfectly framed through this moment here

or through these two photos, these two figures

here, right?

Whereas this one, there's overlapping layers.

It's not quite as good.

This one's great.

This one, again, there's a bit of overlapping

layers.

Okay, so those are sort of some of

the stuff I'm looking for, not making

any big decisions.

And you can see, I'm not even culling

them in order of the day here.

I'm just culling them in order of the

way I downloaded them.

So this one, here's another example.

So between these two, I'm gonna pick this

one because if you look at this guy

in behind, right?

He's still there a little bit, but he's

much more noticeable than that one.

Oh, and this one, he's completely gone.

So I'm gonna pick that one.

Oh, that's Brett.

That's the videographer.

You can see myself in that.

Got some nice hands here.

Got one of those.

So this is right about when they're going

into the ceremony here.

I'm also looking at expressions, mostly on the

bride's face, layering, if there's any overlapping layers,

whether there's a really strong moment.

I know some people cull backwards because they

tend to find their later shots are better

than their earlier shots of a scene.

I don't find that with our work so

much.

So I just cull forwards.

Awful lighting here, but it's actually an emotional

moment.

And I think we're gonna be able to

bring that lighting up on their face in

post.

So I'm still culling these in.

Okay, now we're into the ceremony.

Don't like any of those.

There we go, that's better.

Here, I'm mostly looking at the bride's expression.

Right, I wanna flatter an expression.

I'm shooting from a low angle here, so

that's really important.

We get a nice expression because that angle

isn't necessarily flattering on its own.

Here, I'm looking behind the groom's head here,

Will's head, right?

Like here, we've got intersecting lines.

It's not a very clean backdrop, whereas this

is a little bit better.

Oh, that's not great either with this thing

coming out of his chin.

I actually think this is better.

I'm gonna do that one.

Oh, and this one's even better, right?

Because now we've got a clean bubble around

his head there.

So those are the tiny little micro adjustments

that you would have seen Lani and I

making in the video coverage there.

Family looking on.

I like this one because they're all looking

towards the bride and groom here, Jen and

Will, whereas this one, they're more aware of

me.

So I'm trying to pick ones where it

looks like they're into the wedding.

I'm not camera aware.

I'm also thinking like, you know, as I'm

calling, it's really sort of closing the gap

of learning, right?

Because we're in the field, we're always making

these micro, tiny little micro adjustments as we're

shooting.

And this, you know, when we're calling, I'm

seeing, oh, I should have, you know, not

cut off his knuckle down here, you know,

adjusted a little bit on the side here,

all sorts of little things that I'm noticing.

And that really helps in the future because

I am thinking about cropping as well, the

crop potential.

And ideally, we don't want to crop at

all.

We want to get it right in camera,

right?

So culling your own work is of vital

importance to improving as a photographer.

This one I like because there's separation between

all the different layers there.

I like the expression there.

Oh, that's a great expression there.

Got my camera a little lower here, which

I like.

She liked that hand up there.

It gives some emotion to the scene.

That one, I like the bride's expression in

that one.

Detail shot of the hands there.

This sort of tells the story of how

everybody's spread out in this COVID wedding.

It's not a great shot, but I'm gonna

include it anyways.

And this was like the shortest first kiss

ever.

I think it lasted like half a second.

But I had it on rapid fire there.

I actually like this one, the way there's

a little bit of separation between their faces

there.

That's a good expression there.

And then I've switched around to the other

side.

Got the recessional here.

And I've got it on face detect focus,

and I'm just walking backwards, shooting as many

frames as possible here.

Awful lighting here, like really bad lighting, but

I can tell it's a strong moment, so

I'm gonna keep it in there.

This one's close.

I kind of like all the different layers

in here.

I'm gonna keep it in for now.

There's a little bit of clutter there with

a bunch of overlapping layers, but I'll keep

it in for now.

Probably take it out in the next round,

but I wish this groomsman were more in

between these two bridesmaids here, because I think

that would be a good layer.

I'm gonna keep it in for now anyways.

Mm, I'm liking that one.

Wish this kid wasn't looking at my camera,

but I just don't miss the focus on

that one.

So between these two, I'm gonna pick this

one just because the kid's eyes are open.

Maybe even that one as well, I'll stick

that in.

I like this one because there's a gesture,

the hand gesture there makes a big difference

in that one, so I'm gonna choose that

one.

You can see how fast I'm going through

a lot of these images.

I am tagging a lot of them.

All right, we're into the limo now.

It's hand sanitizer.

Can't decide if I like, and I know

there's shoes in the foreground here.

It's gonna be hard to see right now,

but there's tux shoes and then the bride's

dress, and I can't decide whether I like

it without the purple light or with the

purple light.

I'm gonna keep both of them for now.

This one, I like all the different heads

coming in.

Okay, bridal party here.

Like I said, I'm gonna just pick ones.

I'm gonna pick lots here because I know

in my second round of culling, I'm gonna

zoom in and take a closer look at

the facial expressions.

Oh God, missed the focus on those.

I like those expressions.

These guys were super fun.

Might need to do some face swapping in

these.

Oh, just the bouquet shot.

I'm gonna keep this one.

I like keeping little behind the scenes ones

of Lani and I just for fun.

Very often in these more portrait ones, I'm

looking at the bride mostly in her expressions.

Cause she tends to care a little bit

more.

Okay, okay, let's see here.

And as I'm culling these, I'm realizing Lani's

in these.

You can see them.

But I also know that Lani's completely capable

of Photoshopping himself out of those.

So a little bit hot with the flash

there.

So this is one I picked here cause

I really like the hand expression.

Actually between these two, I'm gonna pick this

one because this one I can see the

cigarette in the hand and I can see

the smoke coming out of her mouth.

This one I can't see the cigarette as

much because it's on a background that's the

same color as the cigarette.

So I'm gonna take that one out.

That one I like, adjusted

my settings a little there.

I like that one.

Okay, 1,000 more to go on this

card.

Okay, so that took me about 30 minutes.

Let's see how far I got it down

to.

So I swiddled 2,593 images.

Oh God, I didn't do very well.

I got it down to 515.

But once I get, do the second round

of culling on this card, I think I'll

probably get it to around 200.

But we'll see.

So I'm gonna take a break now.

I'm gonna go do some push-ups and

sit-ups.

That's often how I break up the culling

of my weddings is I do a card

and then I do a set of push

-ups and then I do 500 images and

then I do a set of abs and

then I do 500 images and I do

a set of squats and it keeps it

so that my body's moving and I'm not

sitting staring at a screen for eight hours

culling 20,000 images for my wedding day.

All right, so I'll see you in the

next video.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.

Peace.