Hi everybody welcome to the studio come on in and welcome to another episode of
Exploring Photography right here on AdoramaTV. In this episode I'm going to
be talking to you about working in a professional studio for the very first
time. Now maybe you've worked in a home studio or friends studio but it's a
little bit different when you actually rent a professional studio, so I want to
walk you through the workflow. The steps that are involved from start to finish
including the shoot, everything about working in a professional studio. The
very first step before you do anything is to get into the studio and see what's
available and to make sure you understand the pricing structure. So we
are in SinFin studios in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It's a beautiful studio and when we
look around we can see that we have some Elinchrom lights. We've got some soft
boxes up here, we've got these guys right around here. We've got some background
paper right here some savage paper that is available to us, but the important
thing to understand and when you signed your contract for your rental studio is
to make sure that the rental price includes the gear and if not you'll
probably have to rent each one of these items individually. Now in some studios that
might not be clear and as soon as you grab a light and start working with it
they'll start adding charges and when you checkout at the end of the day you
might have a bill that you didn't expect. So it's very important that when you
look around and see all the stuff that you talked to the studio manager and
understand it that's included or if it's extra. It's very, very important. This is all
included. We're going to be using some of the stuff today, we'll get to that when we
actually do the shoot. Let's look at some other things in the studio.
We've got a whiteboard here which is really great for jotting down notes and
making sure that you keep track of crew and lunch times and shot lists, all that
kind of stuff. Over here we have an area for craft services. So it's important
that you feed and hydrate the crew and the models and stuff. So we'll have some
tea we've got some snacks here, water etc. So you want to have that, so make sure
that's all prepared before the day shoots. This is sort of a common area
here for people to hang out and sit so if they're not working if you've got
crew and assistance and they're not
actually helping it's a place, usually most studios have these for people to hang
out. The other thing that we have are wardrobe racks and so our model is going
to be showing up here in a little bit, but when they do their hair and makeup
and get everything ready we have an area for the model and that's really
important. So we have that and then the other thing that's really important to
make sure in a studio is where the changing area is and so we have these
changing areas for our model right here. Usually it's either a bathroom or a
dedicated changing area or someplace, but make sure you know where that is so that
there's a place that somebody can go in there safe and they can change
everything and come out and show you different looks and all that kind of
stuff. Speaking of models
that's the second thing we want to do is work with our model make sure that
everything is level set so we'll get to that next.
Well this is Belen and she is going to be our model for the day. Now one of the
things that's very important when you're shooting in the studio and you're doing
a photoshoot is to understand, is this for the model or is this for you, and so
if the model is paying you
she gets to call the shots and what you're shooting in the looks and all
that kind of stuff but if you're paying the model it's up to you to determine
all of that stuff and if you're not sure you're going to have disaster. So make
sure that you figure out what you're doing before you get into the studio or
else you're going to have missed expectations. So today this is for me for
a video so I get to call the shots. Now the next thing we want to do is to make
sure everything is aboveboard and legal and everybody understands who's paying
who and all of those things and so the model release is something that you
absolutely need to have. I'm using easy release on the ipad we've done an ipad
review of that a few years ago on AdoramaTV you can check that out. So
we're using this to make sure that we are both in sync about how much we're
paying how long the photo shoot is all of those things before we get started. At
the end of the shoot we will have Belen sign this. The reason that she's going to sign
it at the end is because in this model release it says things like she did
everything without coercion and it was all aboveboard etc and so do you do that
at the end because if you coerce the model or something goes wrong you don't
get a model release signed. So make sure you have that. Everything is agreed upon
beforehand
and then at the end of the shoot get your model release signed, so everything is
legal and above board. The other thing that we need to do is we've
already discussed some of the things that we're going be shooting today but
we need to look at wardrobe and so over here let's take a look at how we've set
this up. So Belen is actually set out all of her different options and so we can
go through here, I can look at the different shirts I can look at the
different outfits, the sweaters, the jackets, all of that kind of stuff.
Then once we have that decided then Belen is actually going to do her hair and
makeup and everything and make sure that is good to go. So maybe I want to have
darker eyes or curly hair or something like that. So we'll look at the wardrobe,
we’ll discuss all that. We’ll make sure it's all good
and then as she's doing that it's going to take a little while, sometimes it can
take up to an hour if you have a hair-and-makeup artist and so while
that's going on I need to go to the next step which is getting the studio set.
Whilel Belen is getting her hair and makeup and everything all situated my
job is to set up the studio which I've already done. I already know that I want to
do a basic clamshell light to start with. So I've set that all up, now one of the
things that I discovered as I was setting up is we have this this
Elinchrom light that's available. It’s one of the rental pieces of equipment but this soft
box here for some reason the speeding is messed up and so I can't get it to go
horizontal. It won't rotate we've tried all kinds of things
this won't mount the way I wanted to, to get the catch lights that I want with a
clamshell light and so I'm not going to be using that instead I've used my
Profoto light and it's all set up here. That's one of the things that you
might run into when you have a rental studio is that the gear isn't exactly
what you expect
so you just have to sort of roll with the punches. The other thing that's very
important before you start shooting is a pre-flight checklist to make sure that
your camera is ready to go and so I always walk through my camera and check
several things. The first thing I checked to make sure my ISO is set to the base
ISO which is 200 on this camera. So if you’re out shooting maybe the night before or
something you forget. You might try shooting and your ISO is set to 3200 or
6400 and things aren't working.
That can be really confusing, so you make sure that's all set make sure that you
have a clean
card, that's ready to go make sure that your lens is clean it's all set to go
and that your battery is fully charged. Just walk through your camera start to
finish and make sure everything's ready to go so you don't have unexpected problems when
you start shooting. So I'm ready to go,
the lighting is ready to go. The next thing we need to do is bring our model
and actually do our shoot.
Ok the next step what we're doing here is, we've shot a little bit with our
first lighting setup and what I want to do is show Belen sort of the
post-production that I'm thinking through. So I'm not doing my post
production now but I've done some very, very quick adjustments. I've done some
white balance adjustments. I've added a radial filter, a little bit
of a vignette. I have changed some of the tonality of this in the color. Just so we
can get to have a feeling of what this is going to look like when I have all
that post production finished and so she can sort of understand what it's going
to look like and will help with her posing. So we're sort of going through
here we're looking at the poses that work that ones that don't work. The
things that I like and so it sort of helps us give a visual representation of
the end product because just right out of camera they don't look exactly the way I
want them to be looking. So I'm doing something really quick, showing the Belen
and she can go, oh now I understand what's in your head instead of me just trying to
explain it to her. So we're going to look through here we're going to choose a few
of the winners and then we'll go on and on and shoot a little bit more.
Right now that we've done some basic looks what I'm doing now is Belen and I
are going through one by one these photos and just have a really fast quick
pass if there's something that we like, like this shot I really like, I'm hitting
'p' to pick and in that way when I get to do all my post production I've already
sorted through the winners and I can go through and choose the ones from the
winners of the studio and then choose like the best two or three of the shots.
At least this way Belen get's look at them and say you know, that one I like,
that one absolutely no, don't choose that etc and so we're both sort of on the
same page as to which images we like and it's really fast and it's something I
like to do as much as possible in the studio with either the model or the
client.
Well our photo shoot went fantastic the last thing that we need to do is have a
signed model release. Now to do that
Belen has to read and sign a model release but we also need a witness so
Nicholas has been helping me behind the scenes all day and so he is going to be
our witness. So we’ll just go through here and Belen has already read this and so she's
going to sign that. I love easy release because you're allowed to just use a an
ipad like this and so no matter where you go you can have everything signed
and so then Nicholas is also going to sign this and then once it's finished
with easy release one of the things that I love it's automatically going to email
everybody that model release and so we are done. So the last thing I need to do
is thank Nicholas for helping behind-the-scenes thank you Belen for
being a fantastic model those are the steps involved in your very first studio
shoot make sure you get in there, check everything out, setup for the shoot, pick
out all the looks and everything with your model, have a fantastic shoot, make
sure you take care of all the legal requirements and then do your post
production after you're done. Send those out to your model or your client or
whoever you've been working for. That's it.
Repeat as many times as you possibly can and have a fantastic career.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of Exploring Photography.
Don't forget to subscribe to AdoramaTV, it's absolutely free so do it today.
Thanks again for joining me. I will see you again next time.