It is an hour long talk about faith, marriage and mixing that with your business with Q & A from the live crowd! We had over 450 people tune in when it went live which was amazing!! During the live chat, some people could not here Stephen and Scarlett for the first 7 minutes or so, but the audio is on this mix, so check out the beginning if you missed it last time around.

Stephen and Scarlett also started the Prosper Community which is a photographer community for Christian photographers, or those wondering more about what that means, so check it out HERE!

Enjoy!!

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Are we only capturing moments, or can we create them? We believe that many of life’s greatest moments are ones that were deliberate, ones where we participated in the creation of. As a wedding photographer, we become a part of the wedding due to our close proximity to the couple and the family throughout the day, and therefore we do have an effect on how things will unfold. We try and do our best to not get in the way of things as they naturally happen, but also try and become our client’s little coach sitting on their shoulder helping to guide them in a way that allows those moments to happen photographically. Many times when shooting weddings, moments are happening, but it can be beyond difficult to capture it in an elegant way because of either the lighting, the angles or other factors.

Become the kind coach. When things are going great, at say the getting ready part of the day, and the bride is in some good light or we can easily bounce a flash on her for great light, then we just shoot away and don’t really get involved with what is happening. But sometimes, if we just made a few small adjustments, things could go from OK looking to great looking! And, many times a client is thinking and feeling something inside about how excited they are to be married or how much they love their parents who are there helping them get ready, but it does not always show on their face. That is where we step in and try our best to show that, without interfering or making the images about us and our agenda. A client will never look back at a beautiful image you created and love it if they didn’t feel genuine emotion when it was taken (when doing candid style images).

So, let’s break down a few images that I, Zach shot while the groom was getting ready in his hotel room in Destin.

In the below image, I started by opening up all the windows in the room that had indirect, soft natural light coming through them so that I would not have to use flash unless it was absolutely neccesary. Then, I positioned those windows over my right or left shoulder at a 45 degree angle when shooting which allows the light hitting my clients to have a great highlight and shadow side of the face. If they turn toward the window light, as you see in the below shot, then I get what is called a “short” lit image where the short side (or the side of the face the camera sees the least of) gets lit, and the rest of the face falls into shadow which is always flattering to almost any type of subject. Then, since I am positioned there, I simply ask (if need be) for my client to turn my direction when doing important things, like getting his tie put on by his dad.

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Now I am ready for a moment to happen. In the below image, I am simply documenting a moment, but I know that if the only shot I get of this great moment is the groom (doing what most people do when they get a tie adjusted) with a serious look on his face not really showing any real emotion, it would be unfortunate because I know how he feels about his dad, and what is about to happen at this wedding later today. In this moment, he could be thinking about how he doesn’t like to wear ties, or how tight the tie feels, but deep inside I know that he is beyond excited to be getting married and that he loves his dad (and his dad loves him) a tremendous amount.

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This is where knowing your clients and them knowing you comes in. If you don’t have a relationship with your client where you can read them, know how they are feeling and be able to bring out, if necessary, some of that real emotion, then we may miss a great opportunity for greater memory to be recorded.

In this image, as the dad moved around to adjust the front of the tie, I knew the moment for some genuine emotion to be captured was about to slip away.

I personally wish I had a great moment captured of my dad helping put on my tie and I wish I had a photograph that showed his joy that he has for me on his face.

So as this moment was about to end, I became that little coach for my client. The person in the room to remind my client of what this day is about and mention it at a time that I was ready and my clients were in a moment that they are never going to forget. I whispered over to our groom, Jared and said “this is going to be an incredible day, isn’t it?” And the result was both father and son thinking about the love that this day is about, and showing that emotion on their faces.

This image was one that I really like. I always want a shot of the groom getting his jacket on ready to head out and meet his bride, so I always find the best light available, then gently ask the groom if he can stand in that good light while he throws his jacket on.

I say something like, “it would be super rockstar if you stood right here and threw on your jacket! The image will look really amazing!” So he stood there, put on his coat and we got a few good shots of it. But I had a vision for a really slick shot of him getting his coat on that was more artistic and more of a portrait. So I asked the groom if he would do a few jacket adjustments in another location and he thought it was a great idea!

Just through the door of where the above image was taken was another big window with some great, indirect light coming in, so I asked the groom to stand there, do a few coat tweaks and look towards the window while he did it. Then, I kept coaching him and saying that this shot looked sick and was going to be in his album and probably make it on the cover of some GQ magazine.

I know this groom, know that he wanted really cool portraits and that images were very important to them, and because of that relationship, I was able to ask him to take a portrait at a time of the day that we wasn’t expecting, and have him give me a great, natural look that made for a solid image that I know they are going to love.

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Don’t be afraid to ask your clients to move a little bit this way or that, or position the bride in great light while she gets her make-up done. The key is to be able to coach based on a mutual respect that your client has for you and you for them. Otherwise, you can quickly become an annoying, demanding photographer and your client will look back on the images and remember how you made them feel, or worse, you won’t get the shot. And if you made them feel awkward, then the image will be an awkward image no matter how cool it is.

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Drop us some links in the comment section below to some of your shots on Facebook that have your favorite moments that you have ever captured! We want to see them and, we want to feature the best one on our Facebook page for all to see!! So give us some links and we will pick a winner of the best emotional shot from a wedding day and post it up!

Have an amazing Tuesday and we will catch our workshop attendees at our sold-out Nashville, IN-CAMERA Workshops this Sunday and Monday!! We can’t wait to see you all!

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On a lot of our shoots we need to fill in the gaps that the natural light is leaving by adding some extra light from anywhere that we can find it. On many days here in Nashville, we can have overcast days, or days where there are lots of clouds that are in and out, and even though when it is cloudy out and we have soft light, it is not always coming in at the direction that we want. Usually, on overcast days, all of the light comes straight down on top of our clients’ heads and creates those darker shadows in their eyes. Not cool!!

So, the solution to the problem is simply adding a reflector* to open up those dark shadows by introducing some soft light to them! You would think that using less light on a client would make their skin look better, but in reality, adding LOTS of soft light to their face actually hides their imperfections and allows you to do less retouching after shooting.

Imperfections are seen when subjects have harsh and contrasty light on them. Imperfections can also be more apparent when a subject has bumpy skin (aka a pimple or other imperfection) and the light set up creates a highlight and shadow area.  However, by adding soft, indirect light, we actually minimize the shadows that show those imperfections and it ends up making skin look smoother (sometimes smoother than it actually is!).

When shooting in natural light, we use a reflector (or sometimes two, when we want to get super extra-awesome light and play around with attendees at our workshops) to get soft light!  See images below!

So, the question is, what do I do with this darn reflector to get that look?!!

If we are out on a cloudy day, the closer we are to our subject, the more particular we get about how soft and direct the light on our client’s face is. Once we get into head-shot range, we want the most amazing light hitting our client and will do whatever we have to do to get it! (Which makes them look even more awesome and saves us tons of time in post!).

As you can see on this full-length shot below, the lighting is really nice, but if you look really close, or zoom in 100%, you may notice that her eyes could be a little brighter than they are. But, because we shot this from so far away, you would never notice that the lighting is not absolutely perfect, just really good. But again, the closer we get, the more critical it is to have spot on lighting.

In this next shot, we are really close to our client’s face, and any imperfections or bad lighting will be very visible, so it is critical to get that lighting dialed in!

Here are the steps for getting great light on a cloudy day while doing a close-up head shot:

1. Pick the location that has the best light to begin with (the light hitting our subjects is more important than the background because great light is going to make – or break the shot).

2. Position your clients how you want them and also where most of the existing light will hit their eyes just above the pupil.

3. Since most of the light will be coming down from the clouds, then position your reflector in the opposite direction of that light, or under their chin, in order to bounce the cloudy light back up into the shadow areas. (We use the gold/silver mixed reflector for cloudy days, since it bounces lots of light back and NOT the white, since white usually won’t reflect enough light on cloudy days)

4. Watch the eyes! You know the reflector is in the right position when you can clearly see the reflector in their eyes, so keep moving it around until you see that light popping!

If their eyes are the brightest part of your subject, then you are golden and going to get great looking shots. In the below close up of our previous image, you can clearly see the cloudy sky just barely reflecting in the upper part of her eyes, and the silver/gold reflector in the bottom portion of her eyes below the pupil. You also may notice the very soft shadows and smooth skin that this produces. This images has NO retouching done to it.

The image below was shot in the exact same lighting with the exact same exposure, same lens and same depth of field taken just seconds apart, but this image has the reflector removed. You can clearly see more imperfections in the skin in this shot and you can see how the cloudy light coming straight down on her creates shadows under her eyes that show every line in her face.

The above image in contrast, looks like we retouched her skin and dodged the whites of her eyes to make them brighter,  even though all we did was add light while shooting.

5. Remember that the closer you can get that reflector, the softer the light will be and the less imperfections you will see on your clients faces, so get that reflector in CLOSE! (*Note for when shooting your clients: Unless they are used to having their photos taken all of the time, never start off a photo session putting a reflector all up in their mug.  We always start our sessions shooting them from far away and then we work up to getting close to them.  Then, when we bust out the reflector we tell them that this makes them look even more awesome and they love it).

6. Take awesome shots! :)

A few more tips for getting that creamy skin and soft light are to use a shallow depth of field, like 2.8 or 2.0, and then make sure that you have the correct color on your images by doing a custom white balance which will further help the skin look soft and buttery!

The last thing you want to do is soften the skin by pulling contrast out of your shots in post by taking down the clarity or by reducing contrast in any other way. It could seem logical to remove middle-range contrast (which is what the clarity slider in Lightroom adds or removes) since that middle-range contrast is what shows the imperfections in skin. But the reason we don’t want to do that, is because contrast is created by light and not by a computer, and if you start manipulating that natural contrast on anything other than an overall level, your images will start to look Photo-Chopped and unnatural.

You will also lose clarity on any other part of the image that has middle-range contrast and it will look like you added a soft-filter to your shots (like people did as a trend in film photography in the 90′s). Not cool!! (Try Google image searching “Soft Filter Photography” to see what we mean).

Here are a few more images from some of our weddings where we used the exact same principals to get great in-camera shots that look stellar with little or no editing. All of these were shot in either cloudy overcast days, or in soft, indirect lit areas and we simply added that silver/gold reflector to soften up the skin and add light.

*Definitions:

Soft, indirect light – light that is not coming directly from the source (like the sun) but bouncing off of something evenly (like clouds, a big white wall, or the blue sky) that is LARGER than the source of the light in comparison to your subject.

Reflector – Material that bounces light off of itself to add light to another area of an image. Some reflectors can add soft light, and some can add harsher light depending on the material on the reflector. White reflectors bounce the softest light but reflect the least amount of light, and silver/gold reflectors bounce harsher light, and also reflect the brightest light back.

Hope you guys enjoyed this weeks tips!! Want us to blog about something YOU want to hear more about?? Email us on our photographers page by filling out the form HERE.

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So, enjoy the video and then decide for yourself if the upgrade is worth it for you! If you are currently in Lightroom version 4, then the upgrade price has dropped down to only $79 which is really nice. You can check out Lightroom 4 HERE and grab it the download! If you are still using Photoshop to edit, then stop as fast as you can and start using Lightroom!! :) See you all next week!!

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300,000,000 minutes is basically 24 years worth of play happening every single hour and almost 1 billion dollars spent!

Michael Chorost, Ph.d and author of the World Wide Mind, says that the reason this game is so addicting  is because it is a “terrific manipulator of the brains dopamine system, because of how simple, rewarding and funny it is.”  You really want to know what is going to happen after you pull that little slingshot back, so you keep doing it over and over.

You may be saying to us, “Don’t hate on Angry Birds!  So is there some sort of problem with that, Zach and Jody? I love that game!!”

The answer is NO! There is nothing wrong with playing you some Angry Birds, as long as it doesn’t cost you your business, your family life or cause your priorities to get out of whack. Unfortunately, many of us are addicted to something that is not benefiting our business or lives, and you only have so many minutes in every day, actually there is precisely 1,440 of them.

When you really get down to it, all you have is time and what we choose to do with is going to determine the success or failure of the different areas of our lives. If you were to ask yourself right now, “what are the top 5 most important things I want MY life to be about ?”  What would those things be? Would they be the things that you are doing right now day in and day out, or are there some “Angry Birds” getting in the way of you succeeding like you know you should be??

The top 5 important things to us are written in our mission statement that hangs on the wall in our office as a reminder of what we want our LIFE to be about:

1. Get to know the Lord by spending time every day in prayer, reading the bible, and talking with each other and others about that relationship.

2. Getting to know each other and spending time working on our marriage by going on dates, talking about deep and intimate thoughts, and laughing together a lot!

3. Spending time, energy and resources to be with our families that live VERY far away from us (we know this takes extra effort, so we have to plan ahead to be with family).

4. Not only spending time with our friends but MAKING time to be with them to build lasting friendships that are meaningful.

5. Grow, not just maintain our business so that we can pay our bills, have money to help our families and causes we believe in, and  we will grow our business by reading business books, business blogs, spending time with those that are winning at high level and continuing to get better at our craft by doing. (Notice that this is 5th in priority as the other 4 are much more important)

With the time left, we can play Angry Birds!

David McRaney, writer of You are Not So Smart, says this about one of the most accomplished people of all time (someone who more than likely did not spend his time playing Angry Birds), Mr. Benjamin Franklin.

“Born in 1706 as the eighth of 17 children to a Massachusetts soap and candlestick maker, the chances Benjamin would go on to become a gentleman, scholar, scientist, statesman, musician, author, publisher and all-around general bad-ass were astronomically low, yet he did just that and more because he was a master of the game of personal politics. Franklin’s prospects were dim. With 17 children, Josiah and Abiah Franklin (his parents) could only afford two years of schooling for Benjamin. Instead, they made him work, and when he was 12 he became an apprentice to his brother James who was a printer in Boston. The printing business gave Benjamin the opportunity to read books and pamphlets. It was as if Ben Franklin was the one kid in the neighborhood who had access to the Internet. He read everything, and taught himself every skill and discipline one could absorb from text.

“At 17, Franklin left Boston and started his own printing business In Philadelphia. At age 21,  he formed a “club of mutual improvement” called the Junto. It was a grand scheme to gobble up knowledge. He invited working-class polymaths like himself who wanted to experiment in 1700s lifestyle design the chance to pool together their books and trade thoughts and knowledge of the world on a regular basis. They wrote and recited essays, held debates, and devised ways to acquire currency. Franklin used the Junto like a private consulting firm, a think tank, and he bounced ideas off of them so he could write and print better pamphlets. Franklin eventually founded the first subscription library in America and wrote it would make “the common tradesman and farmers as intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries,” not to mention, give him access to whatever books he wanted to buy. Genius.”

Those of us reading this post and who are NOW absorbing what we just heard about Benjamin Franklin are the ones that have a real chance at making their business work, those of us that skipped over that part because there was too much text to read, are unfortunately the ones that may have a really difficult time making their businesses work for them, because you are not committed to growing and learning. :)

So what we are getting at is not that Angry Birds has somehow ruined all of our lives and made us dumb, but rather that we need to find those things (Angry Birds) that are taking the place of us succeeding in our businesses, our marriages and our personal lives. Maybe it’s time spent on email, on Twitter (interactions & tweets that are not helping you gain traction on your business), maybe it’s too much TV or too much time spent editing when you should be marketing.

We want you, TODAY, to write down two or three of those things that are killing your business, killing your friendships or are generally getting in the way of getting you where you want to go.

We then challenge you to figure out what YOUR top 5 priorities are, then make a daily, weekly and monthly plan that incorporates those things as top priorities. Do them FIRST every day for the next month and see if you get some traction on your life and business. We think you will and would love to not only have you actually do it, but then let us know what happens in your relationships and with your business!

So, if you feel a little bold today, tell us what things are getting in the way of you running your business the way you want to run it and you having the relationships you want to have!

The more we talk about it, the more normal we will all feel and the more empowered to change we will all be!

We’ll start first :)  For us: Too much Netflix after work is definitely one of our biggest struggles! We want to veg out on “our shows” as we call them, even though we know we need to be focusing on each other more. YOU??

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