In this video
I shoot smoke on the water
in a secret portrait shoot.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey
and you're watching AdoramaTV
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the camera store
that's got everything
for us photographers
and today we're going
on a location shoot
but it's one with a difference
because this is a secret portrait shoot.
It's secret
because I know
absolutely nothing
about this shoot
Sam's organized everything.
She's organized the location,
the outfits, the model, the props,
all I know is I've got
to go to a mystery place
and take some great photographs
but I've been told to bring a few bits
of key equipment
and I've also just found out
that we're going to be working with Jade Lyon
that's great, she is a fantastic model
and we're going to somewhere
called Forest Garden
which means,
I guess we're either photographing
in a forest or in a garden.
It's going to be a forest
definitely a forest, definitely
or a garden.
Right well
I think this probably
answers the question
because it would appear
that I am by a pond
with a boat
and I guess
we're going to doing a shoot
in a boat?
I honestly wasn't expecting that,
that is very much the last thing
I was expecting.
So yeah we better get some kit out
and I'll just get the shoot going.
This is going to be great.
So Jade's in the boat
and the Sun is out
and it really is full on Sun today
and for that reason
I'm going to shoot straight into the Sun
which might sound ridiculous
but if you shoot straight
into the Sun
you have a natural backlight
that should,
I'm hoping
look pretty good in this shot
but there is only one way to find out.
Let's just take a few pictures.
I'm going to start without flash
if I can work without flash
that's the way I prefer to work,
so that's aperture priority mode,
wide open f 2.8 on this lens,
yeah let's just see what happens.
Okay Jade I'm going to try
not to fall in the water
so I'm going to come right as close
to the edge as I can.
Okay that's pretty good,
so I'm slightly adjusting my exposure
because I'm going to meter for the shadows.
I need Jade's face to be correctly exposed
so I'm over exposing the background
a little bit just a let it blow out
and give a nice ethereal look.
Now as I zoom my lens out
I'm actually catching
a little bit of that bright Sun
which is causing a bit of flare
but I actually quite like that,
that give us a little bit of a reduction
in contrast, again adds to that a nice sort of misty,
dreamy feel.
So this is working okay
but I think if we add a reflector in
then it might just help with the balance
of the exposure a little bit.
So natural light is my first choice,
reflector is my second choice,
so we got the reflector here.
Got to be careful with these things
because they are on a full sunny day like this
really intensely bright.
If I get it wrong
I can do some serious damage
to Jade with this
as it would be very bright,
very contrasty and very uncomfortable
for Jade to look at this.
Marvelous okay Sam
do you want to come
and hold this sort
of over here.
Jade if it gets uncomfortable
shout, close your eyes,
look away, that kind of thing.
Great stuff,
yeah I think that's as far as
I want to take the the natural light
because when I look at these shots,
if I'm zoomed in on Jade
that looks great but the minute
I go wider
and what I'm seeing is blowing out sky.
I think it's time to break out the flashes.
Right, okay so switch to flash
which means I'm going to switch to manual mode
and I want to go for high-speed sync
to try and get a shallower depth of field
I'm going to guess about 1/4000 second
shutter speed. It is a pure guess,
let's just take a shot
without any flash
just to see what I'm getting?
Here we go,
so now let's turn on the the flash itself
make sure that's turned
on to high-speed sync
and it should be just that simple
but as I'm looking at this,
I can see the back reeds
are in deep shadow
so I think I need to put another light
over that side.
So although they told me
absolutely nothing about
what we were doing
I was instructed to bring a few things
including bringing my trusty
CHAUVET smoke machine,
so I've got that
and I'm hoping that what we can do
is put some smoke across the water
and maybe just maybe
it'll stick to the water
because the water is cooler?
Damn it!
There you go,
that's better.
Very nice,
yeah, that is better
yeah there we go,
that's epic.
Oh my goodness,
yeah that's a lot of smoke.
Okay so there's no way
that the flashes
will reach out there anymore.
That's just never going to happen
with this softbox
and I've only got the one,
yeah I could try turning off
high-speed sync,
you'll get more power
if you turn off high-speed sync
you get more power
out of these lights,
okay so turn off high speed sync
I'll get little bit more power.
I lose the shallower depth of field,
I'd have to live with that
maybe we can make use of it
because I'm looking,
I'm trying to see the reflection
below it's kind of what I'm really interested in.
Go backwards.
Try and get yourself into the middle
which is really hard to do,
but really easy to say.
There you go!
Okay here comes the smoke.
I'm going to let that drift down
low hopefully.
That's it,
there it goes.
Okay.
Fantastic.
Oh yeah now you look more like a princess.
That is brilliant!
We need to do a different prop.
Shall we grab the birdcage?
Right so I've switched out lens
because it's very easy to get stuck
into a one lens thing,
so I've switched it to the 40-150mm lens.
On a full frame that would be the equivalent
of an 80-300mm lens
that should mean I have to shoot
in a different position
and that's got to be a good thing,
because otherwise
you just end up taking the same shot
over and over again
so let's see where I can go?
Now are you alright out there Jade?
Just drifting away,
that's fine
and Sam's on smoke
looking like,
I think we're kind of good to go
in a second smoke, yes, okay.
It turns out,
that this is actually much harder
than it looks,
so total respect for Jade
because she was in here
for absolutely ages
and she had to do this bit,
as well as the modeling
and huge thanks to the Forest Garden
here at Shovelstrode
for letting us use
both their pond
and their lovely boat.
Now if you've enjoyed this video,
don't forget to leave me a comment
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I'm Gavin Hoey,
thanks for watching.