Hey this is Daniel Norton,
I'm here in my studio in New York City
with Marissa who
came out..
So today, okay so today, I'm
going to talk about creating just a
really simple high-key shot.
You may notice in previous videos, that
I'm in the studio, that has these beautiful
windows. I put shades in front of it, and
it's such a great place to shoot because
you can just get this nice big open
light, but not everybody has that, and
it's not always bright in here, and
what's it is I like that look.. so I've
developed this kind of really simple
technique, that you could easily do, I'm
going to use one single ProFoto light.
This is a B1X, and I'm going to shoot it
through my 6ft ScrimJim. Now you
could in theory use just about anything
for this. You could use a bedsheet, the
only issue is if you're not using
something that is flat and stretched, and
you're not using something that's clean
in color, that it might affect your shot.
So just be wary of that, but if you've
got whatever, and you just want to test
this out, some shades or whatever.
You can try that first, so you put your flash
here.
I'm putting it far enough back so the
spread of it covers the entire six foot,
that's important when you want to make
your light source bigger, and you're
using the strobe like this. If I put it
right up against it. It's not gonna make
it that much bigger right? Because it's
only gonna light a part of it, and I'm
kind of angling it down. So we're getting
this wash of light and you'll see when
we on the other side. I'm not gonna use
any other reflectors or anything. Just
super, super simple, the lights gonna
bounce off the floor. Now if you were in
a place with dark floors, you'd just
throw another sheet on the ground
because the idea is just bouncing all
kinds of light around. So let's check it
on that side? Okay,
so we have our boxes here.
Welcome to my studio,
now I would say that this studio that I
built here, might be smaller than Gavin's,
but I'm not sure. I don't think so,
his studio is pretty small. Okay so.. the
first thing I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna
set myself up with no flash, because I
want to create an exposure where none of
the ambient light is gonna affect my
shot. So I'm gonna go to let's say f/8 at
250th of a second.
Let's see what that looks like
okay?
So we can see here.. I mean I see her
a little bit.. but for the most part the
ambient light's gone. If it was terrible.. like
harsh like coming in, I would get rid of
all of it, but I think it's fine there.
I'm going to now turn on my flash. I've
got the Profoto light in my group. And
I'm going to use TTL, to get my exposure.
So it's on. I'm in TTL 250th of a second f/8.
Oh there we go, all right so now, we're
gonna look at the exposure. It looks a
little flat to me,
and again this lighting is going to be
flat, that's kind of the point of it, so
this is great for when you want that
shadow, it's shadowless light that people
ask for. If someone's got a lot of
wrinkles or that kind stuff it's gonna
be nice for that. It's a little dark
though for me now, there's two ways you
can approach this. First I'm gonna bring
the light up a smidge. I'm gonna go 4/10ths
of a stop up. I'm gonna look here... nice
ok... see we had a little contrast there,
but the other thing that I want to do
here, because the light itself is so flat
is.. I'm actually going to come into my, I
mean Capture One here. I'm just gonna
come into my tools, and I'm gonna add a
little bit. I'm using my levels here. I'm
just gonna add a little contrast by
tweaking my levels. I think this is a
good way to do it, because if I keep
pushing the exposure up, we're eventually
gonna blow out highlights. This way I can
just add the contrast that I want. See we
had a little bit of contrast there, we
can look at the color of our eyes. It's
really nice, cool, all right.
So let's shoot a few like this, and notice by the
way the background is white.
Why is the background white? Because the white wall
and the distance to the.. between the
subject and the wall, between the subject and
the light, we did a whole video on this
which you guys can look back at, where I
take an umbrella, and we do this, and we
show the difference is there, but because
of this ratio, I'm basically getting a
white background, because one light is
lighting the whole thing. So the hand away
from your eye, and come a little closer.. you can
lean forward, that's kind of nice.
So she's got a lot of room. I'm staying a TTL
because if she moves around, that way
it'll stay nice and balanced there.
There, I'll shoot a few, there we go I smile,
second ..lean forward bring
your chin up a smidge.. again.. nice. I'm
just playing around, I really want to play
around, I really want to play with the color
of her eyes and everything. Marisa's got blue
eyes. I guess I do. Again I'm using kind of
reflector underneath that, cuz basically
the floor is white. Right I've got a lot
of options here, if you can move all
around. Now one thing you want to do
though is keep her, you may notice, she's a
little bit off the wall. She's a little
bit off the wall... yeah.
If I did put her right up against the wall,
we would get a little bit of shadow back there just
slide back. So I could show people. Yeah, I
mean it's not terrible, like do I even
like.. lean all the way back...
Yeah ..just for those, just for one. So if
you do this, and you keep them too close
to the wall, you're gonna get a little
bit of shadow back there.. right? So it's
not, it's not super intense, but you can
see a little bit behind her. See this is
a shadow area down there. So you want to
keep her a little bit off the wall, but
even just what she did there. If you lean
forward, just come forward like you did
before. That should eliminate it, we'll
just lose the hands. Oh I'm so close to
her that even with the depth of field
and stuff that I have at f/8 her hands
would be really out of focus. that's why
I'm not wanting them in the shot, and I
got the zoom lens on to give her some
room to move around this us a 24-70mm
Okay good, and I'll get the lights set to beep
when I'm ready that way I can just kind
of perfect.. a good way to get a lot of
variety, and this is really simple and
this is actually a really flattering
technique to use for almost anybody. So
if you kind of don't know what you're
getting into it you're shooting a lot of
people you know, kids, adults whatever. You want a lot, I think this is a good,
forgiving way to do it. It's forgiving,
she likes that, so we know that, we know
now what how to make Marisa laugh!
So it's forgiving, alright you can basically put
it up and if you've got wrinkles, if
you're shiny or you know whatever.
It's gonna kind of flatten all that out for
you, cause it's a low contrast lighting,
but we still have that nice high key
with the white and everything.
Looks really nice, so let me know if you
use this kind of lighting, do you like
white backgrounds? How do you normally do it?
You know? Leave some comments below.
Do you think Marissa looks good on white.
I think she does, we'll leave some of her
information in the description. So you
guys can follow her, and be sure to
follow me as well, and of course subscribe
to AdoramaTV.
I'll see you next time OnSet.