Hey guys! Thank you so much for joining
me here on AdoramaTV, with Breathe Your Passion, I
am here actually at the wedding school
here with Susan Stripling and Caroline Tran
and we are in LA, we're doing the
Lightning Summit right now. We are
doing it right now!' So if you haven't checked that out
and make sure you head to the Weddingschool.net
and do so. But the reason
why I'm interviewing these two lovely
ladies, they are wedding photographers and
they're complete opposites! So we're
gonna get some lighting
tips from light and airy, and dark and
ominous. Sure that's what even bride
dreams of ... dark and ominous. Ahh dark and
dramatic and sexy! We'll take that! Alright
that works for me. Alright perfect!
So let's start with you Susan, what are
some lighting things, things that you think of
lighting tips, that help you get the look
you're going for?
So the first thing I'm looking for is a
very dramatic light source, right? Whether
it is backlight, front light, side light
upside down light! I want the strongest
and most dramatic light source that I can
Then I want to put my clients in
that light source and meter for the
highlights on their face and what that
does is it gives me very strong
highlights in the image, very dark
shadows in the image, and if you're
looking at photo 101 this is not what
you want your histogram to look like, but
it's exactly what I want my histogram to
look like, because there's bright, and
there's dark and there's an amazing
juxtaposition in between. So what I
really need is a good strong background
a good strong source of light and a
really well-balanced exposure from the highlights.
Alright perfect I love that, now on the
opposite side, what are you looking for
when it comes to light? I could probably
say literally the opposite because my
histogram might be waiting on the other side
I like a light and airy and dreamy, so I
meter for the shadows, I am looking for
really bright, backlit and
if you're looking at my histogram
it's like... way bright, and so I think we
would both flunk photography class
that's what it comes down to
Yes, you would fail 101. And what I think is
fascinating, and it's something that we
were talking about earlier we actually
are looking for the same type of light
we just handle it and meter for it
differently which result in a completely
different type of image, I'm meeting for
the highlights, letting my shadows go
super-dark, your metering for your
shadows letting her highlights
super light! Yeah so the angle that you're
both taking is going to be different too.
So you're taking an angle where you know
like it's coming maybe left or right
where if you're in the same scenario you
would put the light behind, so you would
actually make good second shooters for
each other really giving your clients
quite a variety, and one other thing that
we were chatting about earlier is when
you're out in backlight like the golden
hour light, you are letting the light into
your lens, you're working with the flare,
you're letting it haze out, and I'm
blocking it, so there is no flare and
that is a very crisp light source so I
think if we shot together, we could just
dominate everything.
Yeah i think so too haha! So when you're
settings expectations for your clients,
obviously on your website you know you
have a brand that has a light win it and you have
a brand that's more dark and ominous!
What do... ha ha.. dramatic, i'm sorry we'll change that!
Right? dramatic!... I like ominous, it's okay
What do you do as far as the, you
know, normal stuff for the wedding day
like family photos? How do you try to
make that consistent with your brand?
I'll start with you! Oh that one is
very... that one would pass photo 101!
Yeah that when we go we're going for
neutral! Right? everything is like
symmetrical, they're all lined up
perfectly, even-light, and nothing too
extreme on the artistic side of it,
yeah, Perfect. But I mean it's consistent
with my brand in the sense that it's
still overall, a, like I'm still looking
for like a bright overall look, like
you're not going to get a studio photo
for example, it's not gonna be flash, and
awesome. And i'm also going for a nice
even well-exposed look, but what I do
differently is I have maybe a darker
background, and I will pull out a light
and I will light the family formals, so
while you're getting nice and even and
lit but also airy and lovely, I'm
getting nice and even lit, but a little
bit, with a little bit more of an
emphasis on bringing the background down
instead of your bringing the background
up a lot of the times and so they're
both clean and technically good, it's
just a completely different approach to
it. I love that! Thank you guys so much.
I will
sure we're going to put their web sites
here on the bottom so you can check out
both of their work and I'm sure well I
can grab some images from you guys and
have them rotating so you could really
see both beautiful work different
different ways to light and make sure
you hit that subscribe button down there
and i'll see you next time here on
AdoramaTV