Hey this is Daniel Norton, I'm here in my
studio in New York City with Emily and
for this video I wanted to do something
kind of different. I often look at other
photographers work. Especially I've
been looking a lot more at photographers
I've kind of studied when I was, you know
first starting, and people that I really
admire, and I was looking at a bunch of
work that Peter Lindbergh had done
mostly in the 90s, where he used like a
lot of kind of shadow. He was hanging,
looks like he was hanging flags and
things, or maybe just using natural
shadows that fell from from the windows
in his shots, and kind of working them
all in and out of these shadow areas. And
I thought that'd be kind of cool to
play with a little bit. Of course I want to
create it so I could be a little more in
control of it. Not just using natural light
which of course I could also do.
So what I've done here is I have Emily in the studio.
I set my white wall here, we're gonna play
around a little bit and I've got a couple
of pro photo strips set up and let me show
you kind of what I'm doing here.
I've got this black in white V flat here and
essentially this is gonna be my
shadow line.
So I've got it set up so it brings a shadow kind of,
in the middle. We'll play around a little bit
with where Emily stands in the shadow
and a Profoto B1X out there,
with a grid on there. It has the widest grid that
ocf grade on there. We try to without the grid at first,
but too much light was popping around.
I wasn't getting enough shadow, so I
decided to put the grid on there for control.
It's casting light this way creating almost
like a sunlight kind of feel.
Like kind of hard shadow sunlight and
then we've got this, which could be the
edge of a wall, you know you could imagine
whatever it could be. It was just whatever
we want to control. So let's see what that
looks like. I'm over here tethered into
capture one as always. I have my Canon Camera here, with Pro Photo
remote on top, and I'm set at an f/9 at 250
That's so I don't get any of the ambient
light in my shot. So right now she's
kind of half and half in the shadow.
We'll see what that looks like and
we can see actually overall it's a little
bit dark. So I'm actually gonna go to f/8.
I think I might have bumped it and bright to
to f/9. So I'm gonna add a little bit of
light to my A light. See what that looks like.
I'm not TTL right now. I'm in the manual
mode. So there you go, that's kind of got it,
Cool and even that by itself is kind of cool.
It's got some mood to it, got some feel
but most of your noise and digital is in the
shadows. So I'd like to be a little bit more
careful where my shadow's sit. So I'm
going to use a second light here.
I already have a V flat set up. It's white on
this side. So why not throw another head in there.
I have my, another head in there. I have
that on the B-Channel, and I just have
this one mostly turned down all the way,
It's a 2.4 out of 10, so it
should be pretty low, and that's going to
give us our range right? To kind of fill in a
little bit. Then we give it a little bit more
juice. What we want to do here is, I don't
want to balance out the shadow completely,
because if I do then, I won't have the mood
that I want alright? So I think my overall
shot is a little bit dark still.
So I'm actually going to you get a lot of options.
I could just turn the lights up, but I think
I'm going to go to f/5.6. I should still be fine if at f/5.6,
not picking up the ambient light.
This is a pretty wide shot. So yeah, well
yeah, that gives me exposure, back where
I wanted to be. So she's got decent skin
tone. My white is white there's detail in my shadow.
So I don't have to worry too much about it,
but it's there. So if I decide in post I want to
like crunch down the, the shadows more.
I have that option depending on the
individual frame.
I'll play around with that. I am gonna ensure
though right now by turning off my
flash, that the ambient light in the space,
is not affecting my shot. Yeah okay.
So you can see barely any detail here,
so it's not really affecting me, even at f/5.6.
So that's good, I try my flash back on.
So again I've got a ProFoto unit out there
giving me my shadow.
I've got this one here to give me fill,
and I'm gonna play around with this,
and kind of get a little bit of a fashion feel.
I'm using the 24-70mm. I am set at about
just a bit about 50mm, to kind of give
that normal light kind of feel. And
we've ...all right yeah.. that's it good.
I'm kind of working and Emily is working partially
in the shadow, partially out of the shadow.
That's nice good and another option
that we have here, yeah. This is pretty cool.
Another option we have here is
to have her come off the wall, but that will
actually change a little more. That'll
actually change up where the
shadow falls. Can you give me a little
bit more shoulder this way... yeah..
Perfect, right, and again. Now I can play
around that shadow more, maybe kind of
lean into the light more. So we get full facing.
Like there we go, and this is the reason,
why I didn't like completely
overexposed my, my A grip.. is because sometimes
I want to light her with it right?
It's.. not only is it my white wall, it's also
my main light on her. So we can see that,
you know she still has good skin tone, and
it's hard light. So we're working with that
kind of sunlight feel.. you know?
And you know she's got good bone
structure. So we can definitely... good
that's nice, I should do that again. I'm
going to get the hands on the shot.
Up, there we go, that's good, cool.
Again I'm playing around with the shadow,
different poses are gonna give us a
different feel. I'm gonna get a little lower.
So sometimes when you're shooting we're
yeah, you know, we can even come in
a few for some tighter ones, you know.
Cause again I have the zoom lens on there.
Yeah it's pretty cool, that should feel like
that. Little punchy, light to hard light,
on it you know hard light is not gonna
work on everybody. So you want to be careful.
I'm also being careful not to have my shadow
too much on her but nice and simple.
Good, alright, let's go back to the wall for
the last one, and again now I have
her here, and I'm watching that shadow on
the wall. Go back, back, back, back, stop perfect.
Now I've got her somewhat half and half.
See what that looks like, and again.
Now you have that more, work your
face this way slightly. Good, good, good
and now I've got this hard light, with a bit
of a kind of a rim going on. There we go.
More, I got nice and simple, getting the
feel for it, and I could also change
my position. Now I need to be careful not
to throw a shadow, you probably see my
shadow. I don't know if you can or not,
but I can even come over here, then work
your face towards me Emily. Good, and I
can work her so that the shadow goes
there. So again I can play around with
that. This gives me a lot of options, as
far as backgrounds are concerned, and I could
also come this way, and then turn towards
me. Right now I'm gonna make the, adjust my
exposure slightly here, because I know
that this is gonna be darker, because now
she's in the shadow. Right, and I can play
with this kind of naturalistic bounce.
Do a couple more like that. I'm gonna
raise my B group a little bit, right? And
that gives me like a flatter light. If I
want that look with some with some light
behind her. So I got a lot of options here.
Back to where I was... kind of end
with the with the start. We'll end where
we begin. It's always a good place to go,
right. So again I always say this. You want
to play around like with different styles.
Look at photographers that you respect.
You look at their work, see what they do.
Don't copy it per se, although sometimes
that's a good way to learn something, but
play around with their ideas, that they
use. Like what what's motivating them?
What might work, what could be a cool
thing to do, and incorporate into work
and see if you like it.. So you can
catch Emily on social media. I'll put the
links in the description. Check that out.
Be sure to follow me here on
Daniel Norton Photographer, and facebook
Be sure to subscribe to Adorama TV and
I'll see you next time OnSet