Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’ve been teaching here in the photography department for 22 years. I’m also the staff photographer for a public media company here in New York.

I’ve got the greatest job in the world. I take beautiful pictures for money. I think the only way I could be living the dream better was if I was an astronaut, and since I’m kind of not okay with heights, I think that I’ve settled pretty nicely.

It’s kind of funny, originally when I was younger I actually kind of did want to grow up to be an astronaut and I was studying aerospace engineering in college. And I was working in a camera store at the time to pay my tuition, and I was doing less and less and less well at school as I became increasingly resentful of the time my studies were taking away from the photography thing that I was doing and that was consuming so much of my life at that time.

You know, I had to talk my parents into staking out a corner of the basement and setting up an enlarger and making a mess on the washing machine with the developer chemical and all of that stuff.

And as my grades were slipping lower and lower and lower at the college that I was at, my best friend at the time took me out and dropped the gear in front of me and said “what are you thinking?” And I went “ahhhh, I could have my cake and eat it too.”

And I applied to art school and actually graduated from the School of Visual Arts. Came to SVA and spent four years working harder than I ever had at anything before in my life and had more fun doing it than anything I had ever done previously.

I’ve been taking pictures for money for 25 years now and I’m still loving it. I’ll tell you, I don’t want to say anything bad about any other art school but it’s amazing how many of my peers that I graduated with are still doing this. It’s a really competitive field.
Being a photographer is a very competitive field. A lot of people want to do it, and I’m always amazed at how many of my students move on to really, really amazing careers. Careers that are marked by accomplishment and recognition and progress and advancement. I’ve got to believe that a lot of that has to do with where they got their education. I’ve very much drunk the Kool-Aid here.

I’m a photographer. I’ve got to do it. It’s not an easy thing to get into. And a lot of that is because of where I went, and the education I got, and the quality of the education I got, and my amazing teachers.

In order to teach here I have to be a working professional in my field. That’s one of things about this school that’s pretty amazing.

And now I’d like to show you a series of tips that you can use for shooting better portraits.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I want to talk a little bit about how you control exposure.

You control exposure in your camera three ways, f-stop, shutter speed, and ISO.

F-stop is how big is my hole. Shutter speed is how long is my hole open for. And ISO is how sensitive is my hole.

I know exactly what it sounds like. I’m saying it this way for a reason. You won’t forget.

F-stop is the size of the hole in your lens. It’s also called the aperture. And it has an impact on the sharpness in your pictures as a function of focus through something called depth of field. The smaller the hole, the less light it lets in, but the more depth of field you get.

Depth of field is the amount of distance in front of and behind your point of focus that’s just as sharp as your point of focus. And the smaller your aperture with the higher your f-stop number, the greater your depth of field is going to be. The lower the number, the bigger the hole, the less your depth of field is going to be.

Shutter speed controls sharpness as a function of motion. If you’ve got a very fast moving subject, you need a higher shutter speed to eliminate the appearance of motion blur in your picture.

And there’s really two kinds of motion that you concern yourself with in the entire world. There’s the motion of your subject, but there’s also your motion.

You also have to pick a shutter speed that’s going to eliminate the motion of your own hands and your breathing and your heartbeat from your pictures, and usually the longer the focal length of your lens, the more telephoto it is, the higher the shutter speed you need to use to eliminate your own hand motion from your own picture.

ISO controlled sharpness is a function of something called resolving power through signal noise or graininess. The higher your ISO, the more little random flecks of color are generated in your image that really shouldn’t be there, that don’t have anything in common with the tones around it and that has a tendency to make your image appear grainier and grainier and grainier, or fuzzier and fuzzier and fuzzier. And that eliminates the overall ability of your camera to capture and hold fine detail.

The way you choose which one to favor kind of depends on what you’re doing. If you’re photographing a car race or kids playing in the park, your number one issue is going to be motion and you’re going to pick a higher shutter speed to arrest the motion, and then you’re going to choose f-stop and ISO that allow you to use that shutter speed.

If you’re photographing a still life, like an object on the table, you could put your camera on a tripod and in that case, your issue is probably going to be depth of field. You want enough depth of field for your object and the things around it to all be sharp all the way through and to make that happen, you’re going to have to choose a smaller aperture, a smaller f-stop to increase your depth of field. And you’re probably going to wind up using a longer shutter speed so that you can still let in enough light with that smaller hole.

If you’re photographing like a work of art or a painting or something like that, your painting is probably not moving that fast. It’s flat, so you don’t need a lot of depth of field. In that case, your issue is going to be resolving power, graininess. You don’t want to add a lot of camera grain to somebody’s original work of art on the wall. You’re going to want to choose a low ISO so that you’re not adding anything to the painting that wasn’t there in the first place. And in that case, while you’re using a low ISO, the object’s flat, you can probably use a large aperture. The object’s not moving, so you can use a lower shutter speed.

And those are a few tips for choosing your f-stop and your shutter speed and your ISO when controlling exposure.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’m going to talk a little bit about choosing a camera for taking portraits.

I have a point and shoot camera. I like it lot. It’s a ton of fun. It’s not a great choice for shooting portraits because the camera doesn’t have very good latency. Latency is the interval between pushing the button on the camera and having the picture actually happen.

With a little camera like this, a little under-powered camera like this, when you push the button, you’ve got time to go use the bathroom, paint a room, and retype the phone book before the picture actually happens and that’s not a great way to shoot a portrait. When you’re shooting a portrait, you want to hit the button and have the picture actually happen right away when you see whatever it is in the view finder.

A DSLR is usually a much better choice for shooting portraits in part because they have much better latency characteristics. When you push the button, the interval between pushing the button and having the picture happen is actually very, very short. And one of the things you’re paying for when you get into more and more expensive DSLRs are performance characteristics. Basically, pushing the button and having the camera happen much, much faster.

One of the things that you can do even with a DSLR that’s a little on the slow side is when you frame up your subject and you get them in the position that you want, if you push the shutter reliefs half way, the camera will lock exposure and focus so long as you don’t take your finger off the button, it will hold that. And then you just push the button the rest of the way and the picture will happen right away and it won’t have to keep hunting focus frames to frame.

And those are a few tips for choosing a camera for better portraits.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’m going to talk to you a little bit about choosing a good portrait lens.

The normal lens for your camera, whatever is the normal focal length, the focal length that shows things in a size perspective that’s approximate to human vision is actually equal to the diagonal measure of the film plane of the size of your sensor in the camera. And usually a good portrait lens is somewhere between 1-1/2 to 2 times whatever is normal for your camera.

For a full frame camera, that normal dimension, that diagonal dimension, is about 43 millimeters and most people sell you a 50 millimeter lens as normal.

So if you’ve got a full frame camera, really anything from about 75 millimeters to 105 or 110 millimeters is a good focal length for a portrait lens.

Portrait lenses are different than wide angle lenses. Wide angle lenses, they tend to distort things a bit and make things curvier and you don’t want to use that for somebody’s portrait or you end up with a really, really big nose and a smaller head and lots of extra sort of weight and fatness that people don’t really thank you for.

Longer lenses give you the opposite of distortion. They give you something called compression. And most people look good with a little bit of compression on their features.

Most digital cameras aren’t full frame cameras and unless you’re spending a lot of money on a camera, your DSLR is probably using something called an APS sensor. An APS sensor conforms to the size dimensions of something called APS film which doesn’t really exist too much anymore. But APS film is smaller than the full frame sensor and the diagonal of that sensor is about 29 millimeters.

A good portrait lens for your APS sensored camera is going to be somewhere between 42 and 56 millimeters. Somewhere around there.

A lot of the zoom lenses that come with the camera actually rack from about 18 millimeters to 55 millimeters so if you just use that zoom lens all the way at the 55 millimeter end, you’ve got a pretty decent portrait lens right there.

If you’re using a zoom lens with a camera for a full frame camera, you just need a zoom lens that goes, you know, beyond 75 millimeters and you can take it anywhere between 75 and 105 and 110 and that will be a good place for taking portraits.

With your APS camera, it’s very often the case that the kit lens that comes with the camera which ranges somewhere between 18 and 55 millimeters, if you just rack that lens all the way out to 55 millimeters, you’re in a good place to shoot portraits and you should just leave it there.

If you find that you’re not close enough or you’re too close, instead adjusting the zoom on your camera, walk back and forth so that you leave the focal length at the right place to give you that portrait lens compression without changing the focal length and take your chance on bringing it back to the wide end of the spectrum, which is going to make your subject distort and give them the big clown nose, and otherwise do all sorts of unflattering things.

And those are a few tips for choosing a good portrait lens.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the Visual School of Photography in New York. We’re going to talk about shooting portraits at night.

The way I usually do this is to use a flash and whatever the ambient light is, whatever is there when you show up. The street lights, whatever they happen to be. And I use a technique called driving the shutter or slow sync.

And the idea is for your flash to be your main light, your brightest light, and that’s what exposes your subject, and then the ambient light, whatever happens to be there when you show up, that’s going to be your fill light.

And you’re going to drag the shutter. You’re going to use a long shutter speed so that those background lights have a chance to fill in your background and prevent it from being black which is what usually happens when you use a flash.

So what you do. You set whatever F-stop you want to shoot at, 4 or 5.6, something that’s appropriate to a portrait, and you set up your flash to deliver a correct exposure for that F-stop. Different cameras are going to do that different ways. But if you’re using the pop-up flash on your camera, pretty much all you have to do is set your F-stop.

Use the camera in manual mode so you can control your F-stop and your shutter speed and set them yourself.

And while you’re looking through the view finder, you’re going to start dropping your shutter speed. You’re going to start adjusting your shutter speed while you’re watching the light speed indicator in your view finder. And you’re going to drop that shutter speed until it gets down to about -1. -1 is what you want it to be. You don’t want your ambient light to be giving you the same amount of light as your flash where you’re going to get an overexposure.

If you’re doing it at night, you’re using street lights or something, you’re probably going to wind up at a pretty long shutter speed. It could be 1/15, 1/8, or 1/4 or even a full second long.

And normally a shutter speed like that isn’t one what you’d be able to hand-hold your camera at. Just the motion of your hands and your heartbeat and your breathing would be enough to create a lot of blur.

But fortunately the flash is going to solve part of that problem for you. The flash duration is so fast, and it winks on and off so quickly, that it’s going to freeze your subject and if there’s any motion blur, most of that motion blur is going to be in the background of that picture which is still better than a black background.

You’re going to shoot a couple of frames and check the back of your camera and make sure that you’ve got a good balance and that your subject looks right and that your background is filling in nicely. And then once you do that, just keep shooting and shooting and shooting. Give your flash enough time to recycle between frames.

And that is a very, very simple way to shoot portraits at night.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Today, we’re going to talk about photographing somebody against the sunset. The problem with photographing somebody against the setting sun is that all of the very, very bright light is coming from behind them which makes this side of their body a shadow and you get a silhouette. One really easy way to deal with that is just open up.

Whatever the light meter on the camera is telling you to do, force it to over expose by one or two stops, that will open up the shadow and make your subject more visible. The background’s going to get bright, but at least your subject will be correctly exposed, so because I’m in a studio today I’ve set up a light behind my subject to simulate the setting sun when it’s low in the sky and I’ve got it coming right behind my subject.

If I just use the camera settings right now, I’d get a silhouette with a big sort of white highlight around them. So, at the moment the camera’s set to F4 and what I’m going to do is I’m going to open it up to F2. Your mileage may vary depending on the amount of light that’s coming from behind, but the point is that whatever the meter indicates is a correct exposure open up two so that the meter indicates two stops over exposed.

Then just bring it to bare on your subject. Convince them to smile a little bit and shoot your little heart out. Another thing that you can do especially if you want to preserve some of the colors in the feeling of the sunset is instead of just opening up and allowing the background to become over exposed, use some of that sunlight. Reflect it back into your subject using a reflector. You could have somebody hold this.

You don’t have to have a light stand or something like that although I’m using a store board reflector which is not particularly expensive. Pretty much anything will do, a piece of white poster board or like the silver reflector that you put on the dashboard in your car to keep the inside of the car from getting to hot. Either one of those are fine and all you got to do is sort of wiggle it around into place until you see the light bounce back into your subject’s face and you see that shadow open up. Then figure out what a correct exposure is for that. Just use whatever the meter tells you and once again, shoot your little heart out.

Lastly, if you don’t have a reflector with you or your don’t want to carry something like that around, a lot of cameras have one of these little built in pop up flash units. So, you’re carrying a light with you and since this is all a shadow one way to deal with a shadow is to fill it in with light. It’s kind of the same thing I did with the reflector, but I’m just using a light that’s built into the camera.

In order to do this and have it work, you can’t have the flash put out the same amount of light as the sun is putting out. So, you need the flash to be putting out one stop less light than you’re getting from the sun and the way to deal with that with the pop up flash means you have to kind of RTFM. RTFM means, read the freaking manual. Somewhere in the directions for your camera there are instructions about how to force the flash to under expose by one stop or two stops or whatever you want.

In this case, we’re going to force it to under expose by one stop. On my camera, I push a button over here and I turn this dial until it says negative one. That’s going to make sure that the flash, whatever the camera thinks is a correct exposure, the flash is going to do one stop less than that. That’s going to be enough to fill in the shadow without causing my subject and my background to over expose.

Don’t forget to give the flash enough time to recycle between exposures. You won’t be able to shoot as quickly when you’re using the built in flash as you want when you’re using the reflector or something like that. Those are a few simple tips for photographing a subject against the setting sun.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the school of visual arts in New York. Today, we’re going to talk about how to deal with a back lit subject. The problem with a back lit subject is that all of your light is coming from behind which makes this side of your subject a shadow and what you normally get for that is a silhouette. That’s where your camera’s going to kind of inclined to give you and the first and easiest way to deal with that is to just take your camera’s exposure reading and open up one or two stops from what it says to do, so that the camera’s going to indicate that you’re over exposed by one or stops, but that over exposure is what’s going to open up the shadow and all you to see what’s in the shadow.

Your background’s going to get a bit bright. Usually you don’t care because your subject is the thing that you actually care about. So, I started out at a four in this case and what I’ve done is open up to F2 which is two stops more light which is exactly what I need to open up that shadow. Another thing that you can do is to just use a reflector to take some of that light that’s coming from behind and bounce it back into your subject to open up the shadow.

Usually I’d have a person hold the reflector, but I happen to have a light stand with me today, so that makes it a little easier and I’m not wasting man power. With the reflector in place, the light hits the reflector, bounces back into the shadow. You’re still going to wind up opening up a little bit, but it’s not going to be as much and your background is not going to be as over exposed as it would be if you just use the opening up method.

This will also gives you a nice sort of soft diffuse light sort of back into your subject’s face. It’s very attractive. It’s easy to do and you don’t have to use a store bought reflector. You can use a white sheet or a piece of poster board or something like that. I’m lucky because I have this stuff lying around, but really any white or silver surface will do. Even the reflector that you use to put on the windshield of your car, you know, to keep the car from getting hot. It’s a pretty good substitute for something like this. They’re almost the same thing.

Lastly, the thing that you could do. Most of your cameras have a little pop up flash like that and one way to deal with a big shadow is to shine some light into it. Oh, look. The camera comes with a light. Me, I find the flash to be a little bit harsh, so I have this inexpensive little diffuser [SP] thing that I hook over it. It’s not strictly necessary, but it’s a handy thing. If you’re going to use the flash that’s on your camera like this, at some point or another you’re going to have to RTFM to find out exactly how to work the flash.

RTFM meaning, read the freaking manual because somewhere in the directions there’s a button or a switch or something that allows you to force the flash under expose. You don’t want the flash to put out the same amount of light as your back light or you’re going to get a massive over exposure. You want the flash to be putting out one stop less than the back light and the easiest way to do that is to find the button or the switch or the or whatever it is on your camera you got to push, twist, whatever to make the flash, to set the flash to negative one.

If you set the flash to negative one, that should be pretty much all you need to do to have the right amount of light filling in the shadow without causing an over exposure in the entire scene. The only other thing you’ve got to keep in mind is make sure to give you flash enough time to recycle between frames where it’s going to get very frustrating because you’re going to push the button and nothing’s going to happen on the camera. Those are a few simple tips for dealing with a back lit subject.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

If you’re going to shoot a selfie, don’t use a big camera like this. You’re asking to use it as a gravity checker if you try to hold it up in the air with one hand like that. Even if you can hold it, you can’t hold it steady enough to keep the motion of your own hands from making your picture blurry.

You use your point and shoot camera and you hold it above your eye line a bit. Everybody looks better when you point it down on them a little bit. Get the lens lined up. Bring your chin down very slightly. And hit the button.

Don’t be afraid to take a lot of pictures because it’s very hard to line the camera up this way when you can’t look through the view finder.

Don’t be afraid to work through a few angles and even better, if you’re using a real camera, you can shoot verticals. People are vertical.

Don’t try to tip your chin up all the way where the camera is. The point is to keep it a little bit above your eye line.

Usually you set the lens a little bit on the wide side so if you’re off one way or another, you’re not cropping out half of your head or your ears or something like that.

If you’re using your phone to take your selfie and you’re looking the mirror, don’t look at the screen on the phone. Once you get the thing framed up, look at yourself in the mirror and then hit the button on the phone so that the picture happens then.

And those are some tips on taking selfies.

Transcript

Speaker 1: I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. We’re going to try to pose a family picture with a pet.

The trick to photographing with a pet. Try and get them in the morning. Keep a grip on the animal so that the animal doesn’t go walking away. And keep a lot of snacks handy so that you can reward the animal for being good and behaving nicely.

Don’t make a lot of loud noises. You don’t want to frighten the pet.

And you want the owners looking at you. And whenever the animal turns in your direction, shoot like crazy.

Patience is a virtue for this kind of picture. Don’t take your eye away from the view finder or you’re going to miss it.

And much like photographing kids, surrender the illusion of control.

Very nice. Look at me. Wow, there we go. Excellent. Happy, happy. Jagger.

And then just wait. Eventually the puppy will turn and look at you. Really, it will happen. I have faith. I have misplaced faith. Jagger. Am I pronouncing the name right?

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Jagger. The trick is to keep the humans smiling at you so that when the dog eventually turns and looks your way, you can use the camera like a jackhammer, Jagger, and take far more pictures than makes any sense.

Keep a lot of treats so you can reward the dog for doing a good job. Everybody that works gets paid.

That is one contrary model. Jagger. That’s good. Jagger. Everybody looking at me. Very fabulous. Now see if you can get down low. There you go. That’s great, that’s great. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s okay, let the dog scratch. At least the dog’s not leaving. That’s terrific.

And that’s how you photograph a family with their pet.

Transcript

Hi, I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts. Today we’re going to do an indoor family portrait.

I set up very, very simple lighting here. I used relatively inexpensive battery powered flash units bouncing off of umbrellas to keep the lights soft and very diffuse. Although you could use very simple, cheap tungsten lights that you can find even in a pet store. Clamp reflectors with big dishes and you could spin a could of 500-watt tungsten bulbs in there and do basically the same thing.

Now I have the lights criss-crossing like this so I don’t get a harsh shadow on one side or the other, and the lights tend to fill each other in, in the backgrounds.

Get everybody sitting close together and it helps if you’ve got somebody standing behind you to amuse the small people who are very easily distracted.

Hey. Hello. Everybody looking at Joe. That’s great, that’s great, that’s great, that’s great. Look at you. I can’t believe that this is actually working. Yay. Mom, move the child. There you go. That’s great, that’s great. Everybody looks fabulous.

Don’t try to photograph everybody from way up in the air. Get down where their eyes are.

That’s terrific. Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me. Everybody put your finger in your mouth. There we go. Everybody put your finger in your mouth without choking the children. Very nice. Okay, take the fingers out of the mouth.

Whenever you’re photographing small children, the best advice in the world is surrender the illusion of control. Just keep shooting and shooting and shooting because it’s the only way you’re going to make sure you get everybody with their eyes open and you get that one moment when everybody’s kind of looking at your and smiling.

Small children don’t always need to smile but it’s better if they’re looking at you than away from you.

Hello. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Look at you. Absolutely fabulous.

And that’s how you shoot a family portrait indoors.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts. We’re going to talk about photographing groups and families.

Have everybody dress nice. Lose the tee-shirts with the writing and the logos on them. Tee-shirts that have a lot of writing on them, people are going to read the writing instead of looking at the family.

Anybody that needs a shave, have them shave right before they get to the shoot.

Anybody that needs hair or make-up done, have them do that right before they get to the shoot.

And especially when you’re photographing kids, it’s much better to catch them in the morning than in the afternoon.

When you’re photographing a whole family, especially a family that’s got small kids like this, don’t have them standing. The gap between the little ones down on the ground and the grown-ups up at the top is too much and you don’t even know where to look.

When you have them standing, everybody has to stand very far apart and they don’t even look like a family. Well, they look a little like a family.

Try not to dress like an auto mechanic.

Photographing families with small children is an excellent lesson in surrendering the illusion of control.

Get them down on the ground so the parents and the kids, they’re all close together. Let everybody bunch up.

Get in there with the camera, maybe a little reflector to bounce a light back in, and shoot your little heart out.

Make a lot of noise. Try and distract everybody in your direction. Hello. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Hello. Wow, what a fabulous family. Yay. Yay. What a great grumpy look. Everybody looking at me. Look at me. Me. Me. Not bad. Just a little bit. Hello. Hello. Arrrrrr. What a terrific looking group. And the young lady looks totally confused. Happy, happy. Smile. Is it tickle time yet? Make sure I’m doing this right. I’m doing this right. Keep your eyes on me. Absolutely fabulous. Everybody’s nice and close together. You know what? Let’s go with it. Everybody put your finger in your mouth. Everybody put your finger in your mouth. Come on. Put your finger in your mouth. If somebody, if one person’s going to do it, let’s all do it. And she’s going to make a break for it. I see it. She’s totally going to make a break for it. Bah-boom.

Now somebody stand behind me and make faces and jump up and down. The trick is to be the loudest person in the room. That’s terrific. Eyes on me. Eyes on me. Look at me, look at me, look at me. What a terrific family with the finger in the mouth again. There we go. Buster, you look fabulous. Your life as a model is assured. Look, everybody looks great. Happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy, happy. Don’t be too terrified. I’m more bark.

Everybody look at me. Look here. Make a smiley face. Look up. That’s great, that’s great, that’s great. Everybody looks great. Or at least not angry. And some people look confused. Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.

If you shoot enough pictures, eventually they’re all going to be looking at you.

And that’s how you shoot a family portrait.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’m going to talk about dramatic portrait lighting techniques.

The first one you’ll look at right here is called loop lighting and it’s known for the sort of loop shaped shadow that it creates underneath the nose. It’s a relatively flattering kind of light for most people because it lights most of the face.

To set up for loop lighting, you take one strong direct light with no diffusion in front of it. Maybe scrim off the sides a little bit so it doesn’t spill out to the rest of your space. You move it up and to the side that’s a little bit away from the direction your subject is facing.

So Syd, turn your face a little bit to the right. So you see that the light is coming in from this side but Syd is actually facing this way.

You want it about anywhere between about 25 and 60 degrees above your subject, and then you’re ready to shoot.

Just turn your body to your left and your face to your right and your chin down very slightly. Very nice. And move the hair back from your left eye a little bit.

It gives a little drama on the one side of the face while still giving, while still lighting most of the face.

Rembrandt lighting is very similar to loop lighting except the light, you move the light a little bit higher and a little bit more over to the side, away from the direction your subject is facing in. So usually you can tell you’ve got it right because you get this sort of triangle shaped shadow right underneath the eye here.

Eyes on me, Syd. Turn a tiny bit to the right so that you’re, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, that’s great. Lift your chin a very little bit.

Usually, if you’re doing it right, you get just a little bit of a highlight in the eye that’s away from your light source.

Lift your chin a little more. Little more. There, right there. That’s terrific. Roll your left shoulder back a little bit. Very nice. And lean towards me just a tad. Very dramatic. Oh, the drama.

Butterfly lighting pretty evenly lights the entire face without creating a strong shadow on one side or the other. It gets its name from the fact that you get this butterfly shaped shadow right underneath the nose.

You make this happen by getting the light right behind you so that it’s literally right over your head and shining straight into your subject’s face but from high on an angle facing down.

Much like the other types of lighting, somewhere in that 30 to 60 degree arc range, depending on how far back you have to move it from the subject and how much ceiling light you have to work with.

Turn your head a tiny bit to your right. Very nice.

With side lighting, you set the light at a 90 degree angle to your subject so that it’s illuminating one side of the face, and the other side of the face is completely in stark shadow.

Make sure to put something, I used cinefoil, which you can get at any decent photo store. But you could also just put a big black card or something over here to make sure the light doesn’t spill right into your lens and cause flair. With the light forward like this, it’s very easy to get the light right into your lens. And flair makes your pictures look kind of flat and fuzzy and out of focus.

With the light shining right on the side of my subject’s face, you see how the shadow gets very, very deep on this side. Fortunately with side lighting, it’s very, very easy to open up that shadow if you want. All you have to do is take a reflector or a piece of white cardboard or something like that on this side, and move it in if you want the shadow opened up more, or move it back if you want the shadow to be a little bit darker with more drama.

Very nice. Move the hair back for me on the right just a little bit. Very good. Lift your chin just a little. Turn your head slightly right. Very nice.

Now bring that reflector in just a bit to open up that shadow for me. A little more. Even more. Now pull it out again.

Lift your chin a bit, Syd. That’s terrific.

And those are four different dramatic lighting techniques that you can use for shooting portraits.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’m going to show you how to use an umbrella to shoot a portrait.

As you can see, I’m using this strong tungsten light over here. Inexpensive. Very, very easy to get. It makes a very, very harsh light, and the deep shadows that it forms on your subject’s face are not particularly attractive.

A photo umbrella, something like this, you can get in any decent photo store. They’re not particularly expensive. $20, $25, $30 dollars. You’ll need something like this, an umbrella clamp and these come in a lot of different shapes and sizes, to attach to your stand underneath your light.

But you’ll see when I put the umbrella on, how much softer and more attractive and more appealing the light gets and how much better it looks on our subject than the harsh direct light looked just a minute ago.

Strap around neck. Strap around neck because you don’t want to use your camera as a gravity checker.

That’s great. Eyes on me. Lift your chin a tiny bit. Move your shoulder back just a little. That’s fabulous. Turn your head a tiny bit right.

And you see that no matter how our subject turns her face, the shadows never get harsh nor deep. No part of our subject’s face is ever so blackly shadowed that you can’t see it.

From your waist, lean towards me just a tiny bit, Syd. Turn your head a little more to your right.

And that’s how you can use an umbrella to shoot a portrait.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. This is a cheap, do it yourself, studio lighting set up.

The lights are simple clamp reflector lights. You can find these online. You can find them in pet stores.

I like the ones with the ceramic bases because you’re going to use very hot bulbs in them.
I use 250 watt ECA photo floods in the back, and a 500 watt ECT photo flood in the front.
The two back lights provide a nice, even light across the background.

I have a little photographic diffusion over each light, and you see I used a big umbrella over this one to make the light nice and soft and even and flattering to my subject.

Don’t try to shoot against the wall. If you’ve got brick or something that could be remotely attractive, that could make a nice background. But if all you’ve got is a white wall, no white wall is ever clean and smooth enough to make a good background.

Buy a roll of seamless. A roll of seamless is like $20 bucks. You can get it in any color you want. I prefer the grays, although white can work really well. The lighter gray can work well. Colors, if you’re really into colors, I’m not that fond of that. I think gray works really nicely. You pound more light into that and it gets a little lighter. You hold light back from it and it gets a little darker. It’s very easy to use. And although I have it hanging on stands right now, you could tape it to the wall and just let it hang down.

If you’re in a basement or something, or in a garage and you’ve got rafters or pipes, you can just clamp it or run a piece of rope through it and hang it from the pipe or the rafters.

You don’t have to use the stands to hold up the clamp lights. If you’ve got rafters or pipes, you can clamp the lights on that and shine those on your background and on your subject.

If you find that you’re getting a little more shadow on the sides away from the umbrella than you want, come in with a reflector just to open up that side of the face a little bit.

Syd, roll your left shoulder back just a little bit. That’s great. Wow. Wow, wow, wow. From your waist, turn more to the left. Good. Lift your chin just a tiny bit. Turn your head to your right. That’s terrific.

This much light gives me enough to shoot at ISO 400, a little close down from F-4 at 1/125th of a second.

Make sure to set your camera’s light balance for tungsten or incandescent because that’s the kind of light that you’re working with.

Lift your chin a tiny bit, Syd. Turn your head more to the right. Fabulous.

And that’s a cheap, do it yourself, lighting set up.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at School of Visual Arts in New York. This is basic lighting for portraits.

This is a very simple thing that pretty much anybody can do if you’ve got any kind of an off-camera flash at all.

You want one that’s got that action going on. You’ve probably seen photographers bounce their light off the ceiling. This is better when you’re doing a portrait. You bounce the light off of the wall like this.

When you shine the light directly, flash is really, really focused. Focused light tends to be not flattering. It makes very harsh shadows. Every piece and bit of your face that can possibly make a shadow is going to make a really long one when you use the flash straight on at your subject.

But if you bounce light off a wall or something, it has a tendency to spread and flatten out and unfocus, and become very diffused. Diffused light has very, very, soft shadows and soft shadows tend to be more flattering.

Engage with your subject. Syd, you don’t really need to be engaged with this but tilt your head a little bit to your right. Very nice. A little bit more. Good. Lift your chin a tiny bit. Turn your head to your left. Chin down very slightly. Arrrrrrrrr. You’ve done this before, Syd, I can tell.

You want to use your flash at an F-stop somewhere around 4 or 5.6, something that will allow your background to go really out of focus so that all the attention is spent on your subject, which is where you want it to be.

It’s an easy trick. It doesn’t require you to buy a lot of lighting or equipment or anything like that to do it. And that is one basic way to light a portrait.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. These are some window light portrait tips.

A window is probably the best and easiest light source you can use in your home. Don’t use the window when the sun is shining right into it. Make sure the sun is shining somewhere else. But even so, there’s an awful lot of light coming in that window and it makes for a nice, soft, diffused, attractive light when the sun’s not shining straight in.

In order to keep the other side of the face, the side away from the window from being too dark, bring in a reflector or something to bounce some of the light back into the subject. It doesn’t have to be a reflector like this. It could be a sheet or a piece of foam core or a piece of poster board or whatever you have handy.

Keep your background relatively uncluttered. It doesn’t really matter what your background is. Try not to make it be a plain white wall or something like that, and watch for any vertical objects. Make sure they’re not growing out of your subject’s head when you go to take the picture.

Lift your chin up just a little bit, Syd. Turn your head a little bit to your right. Tilt your head a little bit. That’s terrific. Inch towards me just a little. That’s great. Move away from the couch just a little bit. Nice. That’s terrific. Lift your chin. That’s good. Turn your head slightly right. Very nice. Lift your chin a little higher. Turn your head a little more right. Tilt your head a little bit to the right. Very nice.

And those are a few window light portrait tips.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. These are a few environmental portrait ideas.

You can actually make a good environmental portrait almost anywhere. Don’t make the mistake of looking for an interesting background. An interesting background doesn’t help you, your subject is what’s interesting. Let the background be really soft and out of focus and indistinct. Try and choose things in your background or position them in such a way that you’re not actually going to have anything growing right out of your subject’s head but other than that, almost any kind of decoration or bookshelf or books or something like that in your background will work fine so long as it’s outside of your depth of field and out of focus.

Try to shoot it at relatively large F-stops like 2 and 2.8 to make sure that happens. And make sure you’ve got 3 or 4 or 5 feet or more between your subject and the background.

A window is an outstanding light source. Not with the sun shining right into it on the side of your subject. The sun shouldn’t be coming right in the window but even so, there’s always a lot of light coming in the window compared to the rest of the room.

Have somebody hold the reflector on the other side of the model so that you don’t have a really dark shadow on one side of the face.

Eyes on me, Cin. Just make sure that there’s nothing growing out of your head. That’s great. Move the reflector in a little bit, Mary Ann. That’s terrific. Cin, lift your head up just a little tiny bit. Turn your head a little bit to your right. A little more. That’s terrific. Lift your chin up a little.

If your subject is particularly short and not really above the edges of the couch or whatever you’re having them sit on, throw some cushions under them so they get a little height and the light comes in and illuminates their face really nicely.

Don’t look weird and creepy. Don’t look like, not your serial killer smile, your happy smile. There you go. Lift your chin up just a tiny bit. Turn your head a little bit to your right. That’s fabulous. Now lean towards me. That’s it. Bring it. Oh, that’s outstanding.

And those are a few good environmental portrait ideas.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York. This is some tips for helping people look better in pictures.

Have them show up groomed. Have them show up wearing nice clothes. People look better when they’re dressed up a little bit. They don’t have to wear an evening gown and a tuxedo but it’s better if they’re not wearing torn jeans or tee-shirts with a lot of writing or logos on them.

Have them show up with their hair done. If they’re the kind of people that need a shave, have them shave before they show up for the shoot.

Have your subjects show up with their hair and make-up done or groomed, if that’s what they need.

Never photograph people with a wide-angle lens when you’re doing a portrait. Lenses in the focal length from 75 to 105 millimeters are pretty good for portraits.

Try not to photograph people from below their eye line. It’s better if you get a little bit above. It has a slimming effect. It makes everybody look a little thinner.

Syd, roll your left shoulder back a little bit. Photograph people on a little bit of an angle across this way. They look thinner.

Have them look right into the lens so they’re engaged with you. Talk to them while you’re shooting.

And have them smile. Smiling people look good. You put a smile on anybody’s face. Happy people look good.

Roll that shoulder back even more, Syd. Even if you’ve got to turn from the waist down a little. That’s terrific. Turn your head a little bit to the right. That’s terrific. That’s great. There’s the face. That’s terrific.

And those are a few tips for helping people look better in pictures.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. These are a few good portrait photography tips.

One. Cameras like this, they kind of want to force your hands into holding them horizontally. People aren’t horizontal, they’re vertical. Don’t be afraid to turn the camera sideways and take vertical pictures. That’s the direction that people actually are.

If you’re photographing outside, put your subject in the shade or photograph them on an overcast day. Even the shade created by the side of a house or something is better than direct sunlight. Direct sunlight makes people squint. It creates big shadows on their face.

Get a little bit above their eye line. Nobody thanks you for photographing them from underneath their chin. You get 10 or 20 or 30 degrees above their eye line, everybody looks a little bit better.

Bring your chin up just a little bit, Syd. Turn your head a little bit to the right.

Have them move through a variety of poses.

Roll your left shoulder back a little bit, Syd. That’s great. Turn your head a little bit to the right. Don’t let that smile fade out. There you go.

Keep your background fuzzy and indistinct. Almost anything will work as a background if you keep it out of focus.

And those are a few good tips for taking better portraits.

Transcript

My name is Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. We’re going to talk about some couple photography tips.

Don’t try and pose your couples side by side. It makes the frame really wide and makes them look kind of disconnected. Put one person a little bit in front of the other one.

If you’ve got them sitting on the ground like on a picnic blanket or something, get down on the ground where they are. Don’t try and photograph them from above.

Have them lean into each other a little bit, as though they like each other which is kind of what you’re looking for.

When women sit or kneel or something like that, there are a variety of attractive, fetching poses that they fall into right away. Men can’t do anything that way. So try and frame your picture in such a way that wherever their long gangling legs are going, it’s out of the frame and cropped out of the picture.

Talk to them. Don’t let them just sit there and stare at you. Talk to them. Let them know what you want them to do.

Very nice.

Don’t be afraid to shoot horizontals when you’re photographing two people together. Don’t make all of your pictures be horizontals, but don’t be afraid to do it.

Syd, tilt your head a little bit to your right. Good. Very nice.

You don’t want them to get so close together that one person’s head is blocking the other one’s face unless they really don’t like each other.

I usually use a short zoom on the camera when I’m photographing couples. Something that goes to telephoto pretty easily but comes back to normal. I don’t use a wide angle lens when I’m photographing couples. It makes people look fat. Nobody thanks you for making them look fat.

Don’t be afraid to shoot a lot. You never know which one of your subjects is blinking and which one is not.

That’s terrific.

You want to make sure you close down to about F-8 or so, so that you have enough depth of field so that both people are in focus.

When your couple is standing, try to get a stool or something to stand on to get a little bit above their eye line. You don’t want to be way up in the air, just a little bit so you’re not shooting from below their chin.

Once again, have them be close together. They’re a couple. It’s okay if they’re touching each other.

It’s better when they look really, really happy. That’s kind of why they’re a couple in the first place is to be really, really happy.

Mark, put both arms around the chick. There you go. There you go. You too have done this before, I can tell.

When they’re standing and they’re very close together like this, you can use a reflector to bounce a little light back into them. It makes them stand out a little bit from the background.

If you’ve got a couple who’s kind of fun, don’t be afraid to camp it up a little bit. Introduce some props, have them play against type. These kinds of pictures are a lot of fun and people enjoy them.

So you look kind of sly and you look kind of over it. Yeah, you look way too happy. That’s a good sly look. I can see you’ve been practicing that. Mark, even your over it look looks pretty happy. Very nice. Mark, camp it up. Give it up. That’s it. Now, switch. Syd, bring your arm around to his other shoulder. Like that. There you go. That’s terrific, Syd. Don’t break character.

If you get a couple that really likes each other, let them show it.

Lean into the man just a little bit more. That’s fabulous. They look very happy.

It’s nice to have pictures where they’re looking at each other but don’t make it be all about that.

Look at me. That’s great.

If they really like each other, they’re going to smile big while they’re doing this and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Syd, put your arms around Mark’s neck. Syd, look at Mark. Mark, look at me. Switch. Mark, look at Syd. Syd, look at me. Everybody looking at me. Syd, lean your head back just a little bit. That’s great.

And those are a few tips for shooting couples.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. These are a few tips for posing outdoor portraits. I usually try to keep people in the shade. Nice soft, even, diffuse light is much more flattering than direct sunlight. I usually try to have people standing as much as I can. Bring a ladder or stool or something to stand on so that you can get above their eye line.

Standing is better because you have a great range of movement that you can ask people to do. People that are sitting are restricted by the limits of whatever they’re sitting on and where you’re going to sit them outdoors. You got to worry about the weather, is the ground dry, is it wet. If you sit them on a piece of masonry, is it covered with pigeon stuff or something like that. If they’re standing you don’t have to worry about any of that and you can ask them to do more different things as far as leaning and turning than you can when they’re sitting.

I usually try to get people on a little bit of an angle too so that you’re shooting across their shoulders. Roll your left shoulder back just a little bit. That’s fabulous. A reflector, to bring in a little light, make them pop out a little bit from the background. That’s terrific. Lift your chin tiny bit. Turn your head a little bit to your right. That’s fabulous. From your waist lean towards me a bit. That’s great. Lift your chin tiny bit, turn your head slightly right. That’s nice. Sweep the hair back just a tad. Roll your left shoulder back just a little bit. Turn your head a little more to your right and tilt your head a little bit to the right.

It’s much easier to go through all of that when they’re standing. Take a few steps this way. The same location outdoors can work for a long time just by having them make very, very small amounts of movement through your location. Come this way just a little bit. Very nice. From your waist turn to your left. Bring in the reflector a little bit and fall off the ladder. Too much, come back just a little. That’s terrific. Turn and face straight towards me. We’ll try that. Spread your feet a bit. Pop the hip to the left. Very hard to pop the hip to the left when you’re sitting down.

Roll your right shoulder back this time. From your waist turn more to your right. That’s great. Lean towards me a bit. Tilt your head a bit to your right. It’s not a bad thing to bring a couple of props into the shoot if you have something that looks nice and makes sense from where you are. Bring your feet out just a little bit. Can you get a good lean going on that? Nice. Turn your head a little bit to your right. Very nice. Spread your feet a bit. Pop the hip to your right. Very fabulous. Turn your head a little bit to your right. A little more. Tilt your head a bit to your right. Those are a few tips for posing outdoor portraits.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. These are a few outdoor location ideas.

Almost anything works as an outdoor location if you let the background go out of focus. Use an F-stop of 5, 6-ish or so, so that you have enough depth of field for your subject to be in focus and your background goes completely out.

It doesn’t hurt if your background is much brighter than your foreground. Keep your subject in the shade so there’s nice, soft, even, diffused lighting on them. Use a reflector to brighten them up a little bit in the shade.

But so long as your background is out of focus and indistinct, there are very few things that really don’t work.

Be careful when you’re setting up your subject. Sidney, from your waist turn a little bit to your left.

Be conscious of anything vertical in your background so its not coming right out of their heads, even something that’s a little bit out of focus or indistinct that’s coming right out of somebody’s head is going to be a little bit distracting.

If you can’t find a situation where your background is far enough away for you to put it out of focus, then try to use something simple and uniform and regular like a brick wall. Or even just get very, very high up on the ladder and looking down so that the only background you have is ground and whatever is distracting in the background is out of your frame.

Fabulous. Lift your chin a tiny bit.

And those are some ideas for outdoor location portraits.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. I’m going to talk about lighting for outdoor portraits.

Keep your subjects out of direct sunlight. Direct sunlight on people’s faces creates big, deep shadows and makes everything that could possibly be wrong with them show up ten times worse.

Get them in the shade or photograph them on an overcast day.

Keep your background out of focus so that its indistinct and use a reflector. When you bring in a reflector, it just adds a little bit of light. Just enough to make them stand out from the background and smooth out their skin tones a bit.

Lift your chin a tiny bit. Nice. Turn your head a tiny bit right. Very fabulous.

Keep them out of mottled sunlight or mottled shade. That’s going to create hot spots all over them that are very, very hard to deal with afterwards.

If you have to shoot in direct sunlight, as weird as it sounds, get the sun behind your subject so it’s not right in their eyes and making them squint and creating all those shadows. Use the reflector on this side to bounce some of that light, just a little bit of it, back into the face and this way the sun creates a little bit of a nice rim on the hair and the shoulders.

Chin up slightly. Good. Turn your head a little bit to your right. Chin down.

You’ve got to be careful how you let your subject move their face because with the sun coming from a little bit of an angle or from behind, if they lift up a little bit one way or another you’re going to get little hot spots of sunlight on their face that don’t look great and will look overexposed compared to the rest of the picture.

That’s terrific. Lift your chin up just a little tiny bit. Lift your chin up a little bit more. Hello. Turn your head a little bit to your right. A little more. Little more. And now the sun is completely off your subject’s face. And you’ve got a nice highlight hitting the shoulders and spilling down the hair.

And those are some tips for lighting outdoor portraits.

Transcript

I’m Joe. I teach photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York. We’re going to talk about a couple of great portrait tips.

Shade is better than direct sunlight. Direct sunlight is harsh. It makes people squint. It creates deep shadows in their eyes and big shadows across their face from their nose. Shade is your friend. Overcast is your friend. Nice, even, soft, diffused lighting.

Keep your shutter speed above 1/125th of a second or so. Keep your F-stop at about 4 or 5.6. That’s enough to keep your subject in focus all the way through without having your background become a big distraction.

Almost anything works as a background if it’s out of focus enough. A reflector bounces a little light back into the subject and keeps them kind of, even though the light’s soft, it makes them a little brighter than the background.

Have your subject keep their eyes on the lens. Photograph them from above their eye line. 25 to 30 degrees is usually a pretty good spot.

Have your subject lean towards you a little bit. It makes them look like they’re engaged with you.

And smiling is better than anything in the world. Happy people look good. It doesn’t matter anything else about them. Happy people look good.

Lift your chin just a tiny bit. Very nice. Turn your head a little bit to your right.

Give your model their instructions, your subject their instructions according to their left and right, not your left and right or it’s all going to get very confusing very fast.

And keep talking to them because if you just stand there like this, it’s going to get awkward in no time.

That’s terrific.

Have people pose so you’re shooting across their shoulders a little bit. Everybody looks thinner when you shoot across their shoulders a little bit.

This looks bigger than that.

Lift your chin a tiny bit. Arrrrrrrrr. There you go. Turn your head a tiny bit to the right.

It doesn’t hurt to tell people how good they look when they’re having their picture taken. And I’m not saying that you should get in trouble with the law, but very few people hate being told how good they look.

You don’t want to use a lens that puts you so far away from your subject that they can’t hear you. You don’t want to use a lens that’s so short that you’ve got to get right in their animal space to take their picture. Usually something in the range of 85 to 105 millimeters if very flattering for portraits. It allows you to be far enough away that you’re not disturbing, and not so close that you’re even more disturbing.

And those are a few great portrait photography tips.