Hey guys my name is Francisco Hernandez and today I'm doing another episode in
my building shot series which is a series that I started to basically break
down everything I could think of about how a single photo of mine was created
and explain to you guys here in this video series today I'm gonna go over
this image on the screen right here of Monique who's not just a great model but
also a good friend of mine before I continue I do want you guys know that I
do have an Instagram account at fgh photo where I pretty much do my best to
make every single post as educational as possible I actually share my photos on
Instagram first so in case you guys want to get a heads up on my photos you can
check me out there and every single post I share the behind the scenes are
labeled behind the scenes and I also chair extra stuff like straight up
camera shots which is just unedited and even chance where I don't have the light
on at all so you guys can see exactly how the a me it looked like by itself I
also share a lot of exclusive content and my Instagram stories including
behind-the-scenes looks into the photoshoots ahead of time as well as
going live every now and then to answer you guys's questions so once again check
me out at fgh photo and i'm pretty sure you guys won't grit it and if you do my
bad you can leave me feedback on how to improve in my Instagram comments so yeah
check me out there but enough about that let's actually start talking about the
reason why we're here which is this image on the screen right here of
Monique the camera and lenses are used for the shot was the sony a7r 3 and the
Tamron F the ten one thirty five-millimeter F 2.8 lens I actually
got this lens sent to me from Tamara and for review as well as their 24
millimeter F 2.8 and the whole reason why I actually set up this photo shoot
was Monique was to test out those two lenses so that's the reason why I use
that lens and I use the Sony g7 or three because I like the resolution that it
offers I actually have the a7 or four but I just left at home or actually
might have not even remembered to bring that lens or camera so I use a e7 or
three I just remembered that I used the a7 are for to record behind the scenes
of video that's why I did use it as a main camera the lighting is actually
much more important though so let's start talking about that the main light
that we used was the good acts 8400 Pro and the rim light that we used was the
Codex 8600 Pro and the reason why I want to be used both for the pro lines of the
Galax lights for those for those lights was because they offer bright money lap
which is gonna be very beneficial to us when
we shot at towards the night because we did start in the evening but we stopped
towards the night which those my lamps could be just perfectly fine used as a
light source and not even using flash at all to light set up still that's
actually the 400 pro with the 34 inch British and the flash button ceased and
this is 600 Pro with the I don't think it's a 24 inch / you just purchased an
and we have Monique widening right there by the tree the 400 Pro was the weaker
light so I wanted to use that one as a main light just in case the 600 Pro
being at the lowest output of 256 sometimes it's a little too strong so
the having the weaker light as the main light in low light conditions could be
very beneficial to have so the 400 Pro being weaker was the main light because
just in case the 600 Pro was too strong that's all I'm trying to say the
modifiers that we use were the Glo ez lock 34 inch BRE dish which is my
favorite modifier of all time I use that one on the 400 Pro it has a silver
interior and I don't use a reflector dish those are two questions to get
asked a lot reason why I don't use the reflector dish is because it's to reduce
hot spots and for me I tend to feather the light which is lighting indirectly
and that does the same job so I don't really use the dish and also the dish
prevents it from being closed fully so that's why I don't use that dish the rim
lights modifier was the cheese stand 20 inch PDI believe it is I can't remember
the exact name of it but I'll put that on the bottom screen so when I'm editing
you guys couldn't know exactly what it
is plus I'll leave links to everything in
that I used in this video in the description area below like I said
before I did setup this photo shoot to test the 35 and the 24 millimeter 2.8
lenses by Tamron and we shot with money because using a great model and a friend
of mine but my friend Omar was actually part of the shoot as well you can see
him right now in a second in the behind the scenes and Monique's friend Sam
who's also a model was helping us with one of the lights and I want to just
give a shout out to everybody who helped that's why I'm mentioning them right now
because I could have done this taking this shot without you but let's go ahead
and actually show you guys some of the photos that I took so I did my start
with this shot here the very first shot I took which was Monique sitting next to
the tree in the ground a little bit of context about this photo shoot we wanted
it a shoot in this park that was right by us but there
a lot of Christmas lights that I did not anticipate being there so what drew us
to this location was the nice sunset a nice colorful sunset looked really nice
and it kind of matched her clothes pinkish tones with blue stones so I was
like let's shoot over there where that sunset is that and let's tried to
incorporate something so she can be in the scene and the best thing I can think
of in short short amount of time because the light was gonna go down every second
was that tree so this is actually a parking lot but we shot at that parking
light because it look nice so yeah this is the first that I took in this photo
here though the main light is too weak and the rim light is too bright so two
opposite things I don't want happening because our attention is going to her
arm because of how bright it is ideally what you should do in this scenario is
lower the output of the rim light and increase the output of the main light
but in the next shot I took which is this one right
but this shot here what I did first is I move the light closer in a different
position the way that the light was hitting her in this previous shot I know
that it's lighting her up but what I usually aim for with my photos is
printing the light as close as possible not for the softest light possible which
is something I always love having which is soft light but the way that the light
hits the skin is just much nicer in my opinion when it's closer so that's the
main thing I want to want you guys to focus on in these two different shots
here this shot and this shot obviously you don't see the catch lights in her
eyes yet right now so I do need to just that the angle in case I do want them
but one thing I did before doing that was had her look down to the side which
ended up in this shot here which actually looks really nice so I actually
do like the shot a lot but I didn't edit it because I edited this next shot here
which is pretty much the same shot but just buried a little bit with her arm
being a little bit more forward I want to show you guys the straight camera
though which is this one so yeah I do tend to under expose my images a little
bit too much I would say I do under expose a tad bit to preserve the
highlights but the reason why I go a little bit extra is because on my camera
on the LCD screen I have the brightness way too bright so it looks fine to me
and my opinion on the screen but then I
bring it into Lightroom and it's too dark I don't mind that because it's just
like extra protection against the highlights not being blown out so I
don't mind that at all but if I wanted to fix that what I would do is lower the
brightness of the LCD so I can see the actual representation of the exposure so
in case you guys are wondering about that but let's go ahead and continue I
did take a couple more shots next to the tree but I was varying the timing of the
hair was actually something that was really important because it was windy
that day and I didn't want it to be too unflattering the hair but the main
things that I wasn't really liking in these shots was her arm position so we
removed the jacket I believe but I felt like she was too hunched so after I took
this shot here I did adjust her pose to be a little bit more like not hunched
but more open and I changed my position a little bit as well I was liking her
leg positions but her arm position is something that I wasn't really liking so
we varied that quite a bit this next shot here is just me getting a different
composition and trying to get a better timing of the hair I actually do like
the shot but it's not something that I would say is something that would edit
and deliver so I did take it behind the scenes though so you guys can see that
on the screen right now you can see Sam pulling the main light the 400 pro with
the 34 inch dish and Omar giving peace sign with the 600 Pro and the cheetah
stand 20 inch dish and both of the stands are the flashpoint si stance
which is my favorite stand my cousin Edgar did take a little bit of
behind-the-scenes video so you guys can check that out right now
and after it's finished I will go ahead and continue
I wanted you guys to see that behind-the-scenes footage so you guys
can see a little bit of how the a me looked like and pretty much how the
lights were positioned because I felt like videos a lot more dynamic than just
showing you guys a picture you guys can see where the place we don't necessarily
see like how far they are and stuff like that it's much more dynamic in video in
other words but let's go ahead and continue because after we got off the
floor we got up and next to the tree I just felt like that was better position
because you can position the legs differently in the arms and the body but
one thing that was tricking me here in this photo was I did want her next to
that tree but I didn't want her too close to that tree I didn't want the
palm tree behind her to show up and I didn't want the leaves to be kind of
just very peeking in like in this shot but more framing the shot so after I
took this shot I started to think about that obviously it's still too bright so
I reduced the output in the next shot here which is exactly what you see so I
feel like the output of the light is exactly where I needed to be but now I
need to focus on her pose and focus on the composition so that pumpkin next to
her hair I did like it but I feel like it's distracting so I wanted to hide
behind her head so that's why I moved my position so that it's hiding behind her
head so it's not really messing up the attention of her kind of competing you
in other words so I did take a couple of different poses here they're all pretty
much the same but I did want to go ahead and just show you them because of the
way that the hair fall is because the way that the hair falls in this shot is
way different than this shot I actually like it when the hair is like this much
more because it's just there and kind of just framing her shot better or framing
her head better very some other poses here I actually did like this shot here
and it edited this shot but I want to show you guys the straight
camera as well because the things that I did to this shot was just increased the
exposure 10-bit increased the saturation increased the shadows for one and
increased the exposure in the eyes because I didn't want the brown in her
eyes to show up more the main thing in Bob this shot here is that it's just one
light at this point I think the rim light did have the mine up on there so
you can kind of see it a little bit showing up like you have to look squint
like really hard to see that the lights doing anything and then I started to add
a secondary light after I took these shots I was happy with this shot here
but sometimes I take a little bit of extra shots in case I like those shots
better that's why I took that one shot those things though I'm happy with that
previous shot so I took a shot without the light on so you guys can see exactly
how that looks like without any of the lights on and then I started to add a
secondary light so for some reason I did take a couple shots with the rim light
too bright I'm not sure exactly what was going through my mind there but this is
the shot right here with the rim light starting off oh yeah I started to think
about the different position the compositions and the way that the strap
was showing up in the shot so I'm not sure exactly why this shots blurry maybe
maybe it's the lens maybe it's just me messing up but I do
continue with that rim light still being a little bit hot then I also adjust her
pose and I'm trying to get the timing right on her hair but then I do reduce
the output of the rim light finally this is exactly weird one I would want it to
be but now we just have to think about the timing of her hair and all that
because I do like her pose as well so we do take a couple more shots here
they're all very similar shots you know I'm gonna skip through these a little
bit too much because the main thing about this shot is just getting that
composition right with a palm tree to the side with the leaves on top and the
tree next to her eye and they end up with this shot here which is the shot
that we're gonna go ahead and talk about for the rest of this video
so for this shot and do want to show you guys this tree at night camera as well
which is the shot here much less colorful less shadows you guys can see
on the side there I did boost the shadows quite a bit bump the highlights
a little bit because I felt like they could be a little bit brighter and
increase the exposure just a tad bit I did increase the vibrance one thing I do
all the time when my photos is make the colors a lot more saturated which is I
do by going into the developed module going
to the calibration area and increasing the saturation slider on the blue
primary section all the way to sixty to eighty and of course I put it to eighty
here I probably added some sharpness yeah I think it's by default forty and I
put it to sixty and I did adjust the colors the hues of the colors in the hue
saturation luminance section you guys can see how the different adjustments
are made there this is how it looks like before I did the adjustments and this is
after before after so I made those adjustments specifically because I felt
like the Blues could be less and I wanted them to be less I felt the skin
tones had a little bit of green so I wanted to correct that so you got a feel
around for every image in regards to the adjustments that you make another thing
that I did to this photo was bring up the exposure in the eyes to make the
color just show up a little bit more beside from that I ended up like in the
photo as it is after those adjustments and then I brought this photo into
Photoshop which is exactly what I'm gonna show you right now about how I
edited that shot in Photoshop so here's the photo in Photoshop before I continue
I do want to go over some of the things that were going through my mind as I
took the shot because as I was showing you before a lot of the pictures were
very similar like this shot and next to this tree was very similar to the other
ones that I was showing you and the main reason why I had took those multiple
shots which is something I normally don't do is because the wind was kind of
a bit of a challenge in terms of her hair going in different
areas you know places it was going up going down this shot here I actually
liked it a lot because of the way that the hair kind of framed her head if the
hair was just wild and you know all up and everything it wouldn't be as good so
I did like how the hair was framing her face I liked her expression
I liked her pose being at an angle so I liked everything about the shot and
that's why I ended up editing it yeah I just want to give you guys a little bit
more context because I typically don't take a lot of shots very repetitive in
the same spot and I try to keep it you know varied up a bit but here the way
the wind was an issue so timing the wind to frame her hair was kind of an issue
and I liked it how it is in this shot but nothing about that and start talking
about the editing part so the main thing that I was not liking about the shot was
the fact of the bra strap was showing I actually don't
showing but I have seen people in the past saying you know you shouldn't
remove the straps so I did want to I don't know
keep it remove the strap for the sake of you know Monique wanting it out as well
and other people you know complaining about that so I removed the strap the
way that I did that I'm gonna just show you guys before and after before after
the way that I did that was I took a small section of the let's see I took a
small section of the picture I made a copy of that and I did here in this shot
was I basically liquefied a little bit of error there i liquefied the shot so
that the bra strap was closer to the where the bra strap started so I pushed
it in other words so I just kind of pushed it and then masked off the area
where the bra stop was showing up in this section here and then after that I
added a little bit of color to the skin here so cuz the bra strap was showing up
still but I did lose some texture so I would probably add a little bit of noise
to that section there I'm here editing as I'm showing you guys the final image
so excuse me but to add a little bit of texture sometimes two areas that doesn't
that don't have texture sometimes you can add noise and when you start to zoom
out again it looks like it has texture so just keep that in mind
after that I removed some distractions in the image so you guys can see it I
guess this is a bird or a palm tree hanging the little book in the area in
the back the stop sign a little bit of stuff off of the tree I didn't really
like and stuff off the ground so I removed those things because I didn't
want them distracting the shot I felt like the grass here was too bright so I
darken it I also darken the tree because I wasn't liking the fact that it was so
bright and then I decided the grass just a little bit just because I felt like it
was too colorful and then I made the sky color a little bit more red tones so
that's what I did to the shot to edit it and actually as I was reviewing this
image I saw that by removing or going to the red section and lowering the cyan I
actually really like the the sky more so this is how it looks like right
now and then I like just pay attention in this reddish tones orange tones of
the sky I actually like it like this so I'm gonna edit it like that share in my
group after this videos done so yeah shout to everybody who's in my
group learn to lay off camera flash community the next thing I did it was
also saturate that sky a little bit more so I did that again by just selecting
that sky so everything but the skin tone really was gets affected so even her
jacket should be a little bit more saturated yeah so I was happy with that
and then after that I just brightened it up a little bit and added a little bit
of color toning so I do that color toning with color balance and I just did
multiple things here again all the different settings that I do in terms of
color balance and selective color those depend on the image so sometimes I want
more blues sometimes less blues sometimes more reds sometimes different
things going on into the photo so depending the colors I did feel like her
skin the highlights could be a little bit better so typically what I do by to
increase the highlights is I'll go and selectively color I'll go to whites and
I'll change these dramatically and what it does is bring up the highlights and
the skin a little bit more like makes them show up a little bit more more
sheen and I know some people out there would think of those are hot spots but I
actually like those added a little bit more virus to the photo by going to the
vibrant section the next thing I did was add a little bit of levels I had a
little bit blacks you guys can see that right here it went from 0 to 6 and
typically I do that because I added a little bit more color just had bit add a
little bit more contrast and whenever I Brian I use those two together I
brighten the image so I went from here to here I brighten it and then I add
levels to add that color that contrasts and bringing up bring down the Explorers
just a teeny bit and that's the last thing I did aside from that added a
little bit of noise but that was something that you can just skip
sometimes I do that for extra sharpening of the image but aside from that that's
pretty much everything they did I do usually do dodging burn if you could see
separation but I didn't for this photo because I was liking it how
was and I was a little bit lazy so so yeah that's pretty much everything about
this photo thank you guys for watching it was a little bit long long waited but
thank you guys for putting up with me and I'll rework it on more videos very
soon so stay tuned and I'll see you guys in the next video