Hey this is Daniel Norton, I'm here in my studio in New York City with Marissa, and
today I want to talk about contrast -so when we're creating images, you know a
lot of times we'll shoot it as kind of flat, with big open soft lights, because
that's kind of safe and creates a beautiful image, and then we end up
sitting down, let's say in post-processing software, and we're like
darkening our blacks, or doing dodging and burning, to add some depth to it, but
in this video, we're talking about kind of, going to show you how to kind of do it while
you're shooting.
So I'm gonna create different, there's that different
zones of light, and we're gonna light Marisa up and we're gonna create kind
of a more, kind of a higher contrast shot, right in camera, and maybe we'll do a
little tweak in Capture One, we'll see, we'll see if we need to right, and we're
gonna go through and just do that simple enough, so one thing that's really
popular and you see a lot is, I see a lot of you know, people actually, people
ask me this question.
I've been asked at workshops I teach, "Daniel I see a lot of
people lighting from above, can we do that cause I think it looks cool" and then
when I put the light above, and I go okay, it doesn't look good right, because the
light just above just, it doesn't really work, I mean you can make it work whether
using an umbrella or bouncing it off the ceiling, or the way we're gonna do it
which I'll show you, it's a cool way to light but it's not in and of itself a
finished thing, you need if you're gonna do that you're either gonna be very
restricted as to the models position, like chin up or whatever, or you really
work the shadows you know, you can't really just do that, you need to add more
oftentimes, some kind of fill right, well, or in my case I'm actually gonna use a
separate light, is the key, which is this little softbox here, so we're gonna go
through everything as we go, I'll kind of explain to you why I'm using different
pieces of equipment, and we'll build a kind of a fun shot.
So first of all let's talk about the light above her right?
we've got above her, I have my four foot
Chimira frame, with the full diffusion on it, so that's going to create super
super soft light from above, and actually when I did the very first shot, the
light through it kind of was kind of dull and boring and flat, it actually
didn't look terrible except for this, she had dark circles under eyes, I mean if
she had looked up what would've been fine, but it was kind of like the boring,
blah, blah, and I'm in this kind of interesting corner that we built, there is a
whole story behind that, that maybe someday I'll tell, but anyways I have
this corner, so I decided I want to make it a little more interesting, and the way
that I did that I've got a Profoto B1X up there, I put a beauty dish on it, I
mean why not.
I got beauty dishes, now the reason why I
put a beauty dish on is, because the thing that I had that had a tight grid,
you know the tightest grid of anything I had, so I don't have a small grid
reflector, uh handy, right now, I do have them, but I don't have one handy, so I put
that on there, because what I want to do is actually drop kind of a almost like a
like I said cone, a column, will say a column of light, we're trying to make up
new phrases and use them as a thing, that's gonna be a new thing, but we just
want a column of light down on it, but the thing is - if I just shot a column of
light straight down, it would just either, it would hit her, and be kind of hard ish
light above her creating terrible shadows, or it would miss her completely
just like the background, by dropping it down, and having to hit this diffusion, I
get kind of a hot spot on the diffusion, and then it spreads out, so we're getting
a little bit of light kind of on the top, of her head, giving her a little bit of
kind of glow there, and we're also hitting like on the background, creating
kind of a fade, which is what I was going for. The above light in my case is really
just a little bit of kind of fill-ish, you know to kind of bring it on her and
it's mostly lighting my background, that's what it's there for, once I did that I
brought in a big soft light, this is gonna give her a nice sweeping light
across, it's gonna look pretty, a big soft light always looks good- right?
Nice and easy, and let's start there, I'm just gonna show you this stuff and then we'll
build it up to create a little bit more of a dynamic shot.
So let's do it, I got my Nikon here, this is Z6. I am tethered in to Capture One as always.
I've set the camera so that none of the light in the studio is affecting the shot as
always, so I'm at f/5.6, I'm at f/5.6, and not f/8 where I normally shoot.
I know people are probably like 'Daniel you shoot at f/8 usually'.
It's because I want a little bit more shallow depth of field here, because that background is textured.
Now I care right, if I'm shooting against a plain white wall, I don't care, now I care.
Let's start with the top light, so that's actually in my C group, so I've got three
groups here A, B and C setup, I'm gonna turn off A and B, and let's just start
with C. I'm just gonna start in TTL and let's just take a shot of what that
looks like, that's just the background light, we want to establish again you can
see that she's got a little bit of light touching her hair, right.
It's touching her, but it's most of it is in the background, and giving us this fade back
there, and she's getting a little bit of separation here, so it's adding a little
bit of three dimensionality. But in of itself it's kind of a
silhouette, but not looking good, so it, it's like a silhouette, that like is
terrible, like if you were like look at the silhouette, no you don't do that, just
bad, and that's cuz there''s a grid on it, if there was no grid on that light, and no
beauty dish, you would just light her more or less evenly, but with shadow in
her face, which is kind of terrible, so we could take our big soft light right,
because why not, it's like oh yeah that looks good, our background looks great,
let's put a soft light in there, let's add B, actually l'll just do B, let's do one
light at a time, this is now just B in TTL right.
Boom, right pretty soft light, you can see of course that the background is now of
course no longer moody, because my, my lights hitting it, and that's just the
one light right, that's because this light here is now my key light, so it's
gonna light my background. If I want to use a big soft light like this, and if I
didn't want to hit the background, I'd either have to have more space, use flags,
or maybe use a big soft box instead. So I'd have some control, but you know
since I'm using a silk, I'm not gonna be able to do that, or I don't want to do
that, that was my point, this is really going to be my fill light, what I want to
actually do though is, use a light to shape her and add contrast, and then kind
of come back in and fill, so I'm kind of doing this thing backwards, so that we can
show you what is going to be my key light.
If you notice more and more I point this out, because I think that
maybe people don't notice is the longer
I shoot, the more I start using smaller light sources.
Smaller light sources up close means, you have more control control, gives you the
ability to shape and contour, which I wouldn't want to do.
So I have a Chiomera extra extra, small right,
there, that's gonna be two head, again I'm just in TTL right now, I'm doing
everything in TTL, now she looked straight at me, it's gonna be a little
shadowy, probably because you know the lights above her, but not terrible but
look at the the contrast in the way it shapes her face versus this, right so
flat, whatever I say flat like that, I want to do flash.... don't tell me you've never
seen Flash Gordon. Oh Flashdance, no Flash Gordon, we'll get
it we're gonna go see Flash Gordon after this, if not uh the fact that it's kind
of not a great movie, I mean it's okay yeah, it has an amazing soundtrack by
Queen, I mean come on.
All right so we can see now we're shaping the light it's beautiful, but again even that
it's kind of like okay, so I hit her with a softbox -
Daniel you do that every single video? Yes I do - let's actually build this shot up to
be a little more interesting, let's put the C light back on you guys.
I'm just in TTL right now, once I get close to where I want to be, I will maybe switch
to manual and just adjusting but let's just do this - all right here we go, boom, sorry,
yeah you did
Bleak now, we have a little light in the background, that looks a little nicer, I'm
gonna actually, gonna tweak it up like let's say 3/10ths, I want a little brighter
you know, I'll wait til Marissa actually has a proper pose, assertive look, you see
there we go. Brought the background up a little bit,
got a little depth, and she does have you know again, you can barely see it, because
of the way everything's being lit, but she's got this little bit of light up
here around the side of her and stuff, is actually some of the see lights coming
in, it's a little duller than the other light, but it is giving you a little shape.
Now let's add some fill though, because it's, because like her body is
falling into shadow, which we want, but maybe we want a little bit of fill, so
the shadows aren't so deep, now I'm gonna kick on that B light so let's bring
that in this is again TTL, I'm just set at zero, I'm gonna readjust my
composition in a second, we can see now it filled it in, right, so now our shadows
are not so deep and dark. Instead of being that wash of boring
light, we still have shape to her face, right. It's not as shadowy as this, but we
have shape, and we can control what we like, so now let's start to bring this
thing in the way we want.
Number 1, since that's pretty much how you're
gonna be posing, I'm gonna raise my camera image, I don't want to totally cut
her hands off, readjust here slightly, let's see, oh you and your spot okay, good,
yeah, let me just see for a second, good, I'm on tripod, so I want to kind of set
this thing up, and I got to be a little careful, going too high, cuz I'm gonna get
the softbox in my shot.
So yeah, there we go maybe take half step back
or had you already done that, I feel like you're further back than you were before,
yeah okay, that's fine, okay there we are, stay where you are.
Only photographers and the police can say that, not the band The Police...
although they could probably say it as well, just thinking, to do what he wants all right.
B light, is my fill light, I'm gonna do a little less fill, let's make it a little
more shadowy, as a general fill, right well it's kind of blinked, kind of blinked,
kind of like that's the drink you serve me here... I got the soft box in that a
little bit, bummer because in an attempt to not cut off her fingers, I'm
actually just gonna leave a little bit of softbox in the shot, and that way I
don't have to keep readjusting, if I was hand-holding, I can just kind of move
around, but since I am on a tripod, I don't really care.
Good I have plenty of Pixels, yeah, that's pretty good,
alright, so you know, and again if you had a client here, and you were like oh my
god, if they see the softbox in the shot, they'll never hire me again, you can just
show them it in Capture One like that, and that crop will stay, that looks good.
I actually like it a lot, I think we might add a little bit more fill underneath
her with a reflector, though just to see if we get a little more snap in her face, I
think her body looks good, I want the dress to fall off in a little bit of
darkness, I don't want to be totally flat so I do have a reflector right?
Here this is basically just a silver reflector that we made, Seth made in Brooklyn,
actually he didn't make it in Brooklyn, He made it right here, what I'm gonna do
is I'm actually bringing in a kind of a funky ankle.
It's silver, I mean the reason why I'm using silver here is, because I want,
I remember that, I have a lot of her in my shot, so I want
to make sure that I get some up on her, some up on her, and that's gonna be harder
to do, because you know, obviously it''ll be in the film, the photo, so I got to
keep the reflector lower, so silver for the kick, there's like a little bit of
daylight creeping through on the wall, right there, and I'm okay with that
because it looks pretty cool. I actually did a pretty darn good job, see that, even
though with that distance, that's one reason again to use silver, it adds a
little specularity, but also you can put it further away, that looks pretty darn
good, I think if anything I'm gonna now they have that kick in there, to bring my
B light back down.
Let's do one more, and then once we get this, we'll start shooting, yeah there we go.
What do you think of that? That is rocking, do we care about that light on the
background - I don't think so, I kind of like it actually, you see it back there, yeah, you
could actually just see in the shot. That's how bright the Sun is guys, yeah,
it's like because you saw the black frame before, but the Sun is actually
coming through, and creeping, as long as It's not hitting her, I kind of like it, adds a
little dimensionality, if I didn't like that I would not change my settings, I
would literally just block where the light is coming from, I don't know what's going on,
where's it coming from Marissa, put your hand out, sorry there, okay, it's at the top,
some things up here, like this yep, yeah, that's that's what Apple boxes are for,
people always ask me.. 'Daniel what's that box for, well, just like that, all right
fix that, emergency on the set, all right now, that is perfect, I mean she can
move around and what's gonna happen to actually have it in TTL, and you can see
the background light actually got brighter, because it's adjusting to your,
let's just get a good solid exposure,
good, we'll get a better pose than that, ok go, don't let me go just my background light.
Do you see I'm adjusting it down a bit, cuz I feel like it's a smidge bright.
Yeah, that's good, doing some final adjustments here guys, I'm bringing the
fill down a little bit, I'll give you all my settings in a second, there we go.
Alright, so I'm in TTL, my A light which is the small Chimera, extra small box, is set
on exposure, so TTL believes that's the correct exposure, my B light which is my
fill light, is set to 1.2 stops under.. exposure, and my C light is set at point
at point two over, so it's actually a little hot, that's good, it's behind her,
so you know I want to make sure it's that TTL is, you know you get some, I'll
balance the math. Now once we start actually shooting, now I'm just gonna hit
this button, here, boom, now I'm in manual. that way nothing changes on me,
because if she does start to move back and forth, the light will
change, I'd rather just keep it the same, and lets do it... cue the music,
and she can, because we gave her some reflector, she can't keep her chin down,
if she hadn't, if we hadn't given her that reflector, she would not be able to have
her chin down. So I mean, it'd just be way too much, I
kind of like that, to change your hand a little bit though, the hair down and has
that very, just kind of float your arms a bit though, she's like, I said this dress
looks kind of like some 70s sci-fi... you enter the ship, and you're, she's like I
am Queen Marissa, you have imported my vessel, and must now be subject to the
laws of Marissa which includes eating snacks, extra snacks for Marissa, I think
that's beautiful. Let's just do a more of a sideways with
the body, yeah, there we go, come a little closer to the reflector,
and right there, perfect, good, remember guys, I actually have the softbox in my
shot but Capture One is automatically chopping it off, I mean it's kind of like
right there, I actually have more stuff here, just in case you forgot I did that,
There is actually that much in the shot, if now that she's miraculously
backed up or something, when I'm not exactly sure what happened, I don't know,
say we are though now, as you moved, no it's cuz she, she went to one side, she
looks, she's slightly shorter, that's her real height, good good good, and
the light is actually kind of to the side of her, but it actually works, it
gives a good shape to the face, because we have enough fill, if I just was using
that softbox, it might be a little too shadowy on it, but because I have all
that fill coming, you know she looks great, you can move around, everything
looks pretty good right, just like that. It's perfect, yeah, there we go, ends up
it's nice, good. I know no down, just well, you had them
just kind of float them, cuz understand .... is people always
wonder where your fingers are in these shots, so I'm just gonna go a little
wider guys, so you can have her fingers, I know I'm giving you her fingers and her
head, no you're good dude, don't you get it, be yourself, I just gonna zoom, you be
you, you know, you can't have all the fingers, but yeah I'm gonna know that she has
some fingers, good good good, right there, oh yeah, I'm just leaving some space, I
can always crop in, good, go a little bit lower, so I'm just dropping the camera,
that's how I'm gonna get it what I want, more like that, good, good, last one, it's
never the last one, when you say it's the last one! We know that as photographers.
Now that... oh that's actually very nice, very nice Marissa, you should be a model,
so this looks pretty darn good, I was gonna do some stuff in Capture One too,
but I don't really know that I would do anything, I mean if you really wanted to,
we don't want to, I think you'd do it, but I don't want to do anything to it, you
know I was thinking.. man maybe we'll have to add a little contrast in there, and
Capture One... but to be honest I don't have to, because if I wanted more
contrast in her face, I would just remove the reflector, let's do a couple
more of that, let's show them the difference, let's show them the
difference just in case you forgot, from three minutes ago in the video, I don't
know if it's actually three minutes ago, but you see now she's more contrasting,
and it's also nice with and without the reflector, depending on what you like, I
actually like the reflector, in this case, and not just because it fills the shadow
in, because I kind of do like shadowy stuff, but it adds that little
specularity, which is giving her a little more 3D dimension, so I definitely think
it's better with the reflector, but let's say we shot it without the reflector, now
And now I might come in here with Capture One, and I'm gonna grab my levels, I'm
just gonna pull my highlights over, so I get a little bit more pop there, and
maybe a little bit like that, and the mids and I'm gonna move my blacks in, and
crunch them a bit now, we have a little bit more contrast, her face is what
matters, so I'm gonna zoom in, to make sure that's good, now that's there again,
Capture One, we'll keep the settings for all the thoughts, so that when we start
shooting, that's just gonna lock in, and stay, just like that. it's got two options
Eyes to me, beauteous Maximus, oh oh oh, look at that, I kind of like a little
hearing a little mysterious, you keep shooting until you get that shot, when
you have that shot, that's it, you're like that's it, that's shot right through, okay,
alright one more, we have to end with a good picture, I'm gonna zoom in close
because people like a picture of Marissa's grill.
Oh, Oh crossed arms is cool, all right, hold on, yeah me too, the sleeves are nice,
all right dude, little cross, cross, she's in, let's just check this, bring ya the
perfect, right there just like that, we brought her in with the sleeves, and that's
pretty nice too, yeah, this is definitely, we're gonna have to produce some kind of
like 70s sci-fi movie, where you will be the Princess or Queen, Queen....Snacks
space snacks, like that dehydrated ice cream, that is the best space ice cream.
If you want to send Marissa space ice cream....okay guys so
the whole point of this kind of exercise was to show that like a lot of times
people will stop when it's kind of good enough right.... like you get to a certain
point where you're just like okay, that looks good, nice, pretty, light, and then we
can always go in there and tweak it more, but if just a little bit more effort,
it's gonna allow us to create stuff that has the contrast level that we want, it's
gonna give us the depth that we want, right on the set, and then we have it and
I think that's important to do as photographers, it's a good way to learn,
and kind of play with light. Is to just set up the light the way you like it, and
then just add one more light to see what it does, so that's what I would do, what
you can do is follow Marissa - her information will be in the description,
be sure to follow me of course @DanieNortonPhotographer.
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