- What's up everybody?
Peter McKinnon here, and today we're talking about
five ways to take photos of the same thing, differently.
It's a thinker right there, it's definitely a thinker.
Okay, a big challenge in photography is usually
trying to find the right angle that makes whatever you're
shooting look the best that it possibly can, and then beyond
that, a big challenge is trying to find different ways
to make the same thing look great over a series of
different photos, if you're hired to do product shots,
if you're hired to do a wedding or anything like that,
sometimes when you're taking photos of the same object,
it's hard to make it look different, but there's a couple
tips and tricks that I can teach you guys so that you can
start taking multiple shots of the same thing, making them
all look different but all equally phenomenal in their
own way, okay?
Now instead of just shooting the finished product,
you gotta think beyond that, you gotta think to yourself,
how was this made, how was it put together, what complements
it, what is it used for, who's using it,
what's the demographic?
All of these questions spawn different
types of images, okay.
So let's use food for an example, my wife and I run an
Instagram account, link below, go give that some love,
we just cook, well she cooks, let's be honest, and I take
photos of the food.
(dance music)
Let's say, for instance, we're making a salad, okay,
most people would just take pictures of the salad and
be done with it, but there's so many more photos to be
had from that item, like all of the ingredients that
go into making that salad, that's a photo in it's own.
The prep, the preparation of those items, that's a photo
on it's own, the salad actually being made in steps and
stages, that's a set of photos or footage, on it's own.
The finished salad of course, is a photo on it's own.
Maybe even the salad remnants, of the end of the bowl,
with the dressing and the forks empty, to show that this
salad is now gone.
Might be silly, but I mean, what we're trying to do here
is tell a story and get the widest range of imagery from
one subject, instead of just shooting the bowl, maybe
rotating it, shooting it again.
Maybe instead of putting it in a bowl, put it in a wine
glass, now you've got a completely different looking image
that looks super, super cool, and different and unique.
So there's different ways of presenting your shots,
there's different ways of packaging your own shots,
different ways of shooting them, different themes that you
can work in and out of to get the most out of whatever
it is that you're shooting, and that's what I'm trying to
teach you guys, I'm trying to teach you to look at things
from different angles, new perspectives, ways that you
wouldn't have before, maybe the opposite ways that are
taught, maybe instead of putting in lower thirds, just
forget lower thirds, who cares, do what you
think looks good, you might surprise yourself.
That's what I'm trying to do here.
And I'd like to take a quick minute to thank today's
sponsor for this episode, which are the fine folks over
at Squarespace, and I love working with these guys,
because it's a product and service that I believe in,
I've been using them myself for more than five years, so.
If you have no experience on the web or designing a
store or a blog or a website or a cover page, whatever
it is that you need, it's an all-in-one platform
that they have and it's all taken care of for you,
there's nothing to upgrade, install, patch.
Gone are the days, tons of beautiful award-winning
designer templates to choose from, you're up and running
in no time, you've got 24/7 award-winning customer
service, you're never left hanging, they make domains easy,
and if you want to save a big of money, head over to
squarespace.com/mckinnon, I can knock 10% off your first
purchase if you put McKinnon in the little code box there
at checkout, highly recommend that, link is in the
description below, I'll put it there for you guys,
so you guys don't have to type, you just, I'll make
it easy, just like they do, ho ho, see what I did there?
Thank you.
Now, where this kind of subject came to be and where
I started thinking about it more so, was the job that I
just left, for the past seven years, a little fun fact here,
it was a job that created magic tricks to sell to other
magicians, mind blown right?
Craziest, most random job, so yes, I know a thing or two
about a deck of cards.
But one of the biggest challenges of this job was,
you know, with the amount of cards we were pumping out
yearly, I was the one photographing them all, and making
trailers for them all, so the, the challenge was,
hey Pete, here's another one, make it better than the last,
or make it more unique than the last, or every bit as
unique as the last, over and over and over and over again,
for one, two, five, six, seven years.
So seven years photographing this same product, but trying
to make it different every single time.
It gets exhausting, it gets to the point where you're
trying everything, so as horrible as that sounds,
it actually wasn't, because man, did I explore so many
different avenues with that, and this is what I kinda
took away from it, if the deck of cards theme was water,
then I would obviously do more water-based photos,
so I would drop the cards in a tank of water,
and I would light it from both sides with external flashes
and try to get a nice shot of the cards dropping down
into the water, maybe the same if it was fire, or if it was
the Prohibition era, we would go to the antique shop and
buy a bunch of old school props to make them feel old
world, old wooden cases and handkerchiefs, and just a bunch
of, bunch of weird stuff, to throw into that photo to
change that mood, to match the theme of the deck of cards,
so in doing that, it really opened up the doors to,
how can I take so many photos of the same thing but make
them all different and feel unique?
And that's when I realized, it's not just shooting the
end product, most people will just get this in the mail,
they'll take a shot of this and be like, cool done,
and that's it, their photos are finished, they don't
actually think about, maybe someone needs to be wearing
those, or experiencing what those do for somebody.
And that's where really, really powerful,
thoughtful imagery comes from.
I know we're using food as an example, so some people might
be like, thoughtful imagery of a salad?
But yeah, it's not, if that's what you think, you're missing
the point, the point is that you don't have to just
shoot the salad, you can shoot everything that entails
around the salad.
Let's say you're a wedding photographer, right,
how many times have you just seen a standard shot
of the box and the two rings inside, and click, done,
shot is taken, here's your photos of the rings, peace.
But why not have someone actually polishing the rings,
or putting them into their pocket for safe keeping later?
If you want to go the extra mile, after you've booked that
wedding, obviously they already have an engagement ring,
but they need to get wedding bands done, so why not ask
one of them if they're getting the bands custom made,
and if they are, see if whomever's custom making them is
in the area and go shoot those rings being made.
That's badass!
And you might say to yourself, that's so much work that
I don't really have to do for the same, but that is the
wrong way of thinking, doing that extra work sets you
so far from the competition, that you went out to shoot
the rings being made, who doesn't want to book that guy?
I do.
I'm already married.
You think in groups of images instead of just the image
itself, you think of the before, the after, the during,
the experience, the packaging, what is it for, where is
it from, how does it work?
All those things are photo opportunities, and one of
the reasons I really love this topic is because so many
people get stuck with, where am I gonna shoot, I got nothing
to take pictures of, I've already shot that, but did you
really shoot it, fully?
Did you really shoot that to it's fullest potential?
And this bleeds across to portraits and landscapes and
everything, like, if you're shooting the beach, maybe
shoot a drone shot of the beach, get a normal shot of
the beach, get a macro shot of the sand of the beach,
shoot all the different elements of the same thing
to get the most out of everything you're shooting,
so you can see how this is just, this is photography as
a whole, this isn't just about food shots or product
shots, this is about shots in general, not these kinda
shots, do those later.
An important point of this as well, is if you're being
paid, if you're a photographer that takes money from
people, in exchange for photos, your clients will be far
happier if you're giving them a little more than they
asked for, or you're really just exploring their product,
or you're exploring their property, or you're exploring
their personality, be it that it's in portraits,
whatever you're delivering for that client, if you're really
going in and trying to open up and expose every aspect of
that item, they're gonna be happier for it, you're gonna
be happier for it, you're gonna get re-booked,
you're gonna get more bookings.
It's also better to go home with more photos than not
enough, or ten photos of that finished salad from a few
different angles, already in the bowl, versus going
home with the prep, the ingredients, it being made,
the salad itself from different angles, someone eating it,
people enjoying it, the plates it was used to be put on.
And you're gonna have more fun, there's just more stuff
to shoot, try out different lenses, that kind of thing.
Just a fun little reminder that, peeling back the layers
essentially of everything that you're shooting can yield
a whole bunch of new opportunities, new styles, new types
of shots, new angles, and by actively thinking about those
things, we're gonna get better photos, it's just,
we're gonna get a better, and we're gonna get a better
variety of photos, they're not all gonna be the photos
of the same thing, you're not gonna get home from a shoot
and say, I've got 80 pictures of this salad that all
kind of look the same, we're gonna have 80 pictures of
everything about that entire event.
Everything about that salad being made, who's making it,
who it's made for, all of those little things that,
a lot of us, myself included, usually forget to do.
So that is it for me today guys, I hope you guys enjoyed
that, just a fun little, kind of a, not necessarily
teaching you any skill set with the camera, or the software,
but more so, a new skill set to start thinking about the
things that you're shooting differently.
And by thinking about them differently, and asking
more questions, that generates a new way of shooting,
it generates a new style of shooting, a new way of thinking
about things that inherently, turns out more photos,
and hopefully some creative photos that you guys are
really, really proud of.
So, thank you so much for watching, I hope you guys loved
it, I hope you guys got something out of it, and we'll
continue to practice these things that I'm talking about.
And if you liked this, hit that like button,
show me some love, subscribe, if you aren't already,
just hit that button, and you can be notified every time
I upload a video, whoo hoo.
Isn't that just badass?
And, and, I will see you guys in the next video.
Shoop!