Hi I'm Charles Lewis and I'd like to welcome you to my camera room. In just a
minute we're going to bring a live class in here and we're going to start going
into the details of exactly how each one of these sets and props you're about to
see or are used. But before we do that I wanted to give you a 360 panoramic view
of how this camera room is set up when a client comes in because we've got sets
all the way around the room and I wanted you to see the whole layout before we
started showing you each one one at a time. So I'm just going to kind of walk
you around here a minute and let you see the room the way it's set up when we're
beginning a photographic session. The idea here was to have a number of
different backgrounds all set up at once so that we could go quickly and
efficiently from one to the other. One of the neat things about photography is you
can do a whole bunch of different ideas if you just have the time. The problem is
that normally you don't have the time because you're doing one client and then
the next and then the next. So we designed this camera room to have a
multiple number of sets so that we can just move from one to the other
efficiently and quickly without taking a huge amount of time to set up a whole
bunch of things. Of course we'd have a camera in here, a real still camera and
we'd have a main light in here but other than that this is basically the way the
camera room is set up when we're ready for a client to come in. So now we've
walked you all the way around the camera room here so that you have a feeling of
how it's set up. Now let's bring in the live class and let's walk you one at a
time through all these different sets and backgrounds so you get a whole bunch
of really neat ideas that you can start putting to use in your own studio. Let's
go to the live class. Most of the ideas you'll be seeing here are not mine. Most
of these ideas I got from photographs that I had seen, magazines that I had
gone through, things that I had looked at, other speakers and teachers that I had
had seen. Bruce Hudson gave me this idea, this particular idea right here of this
set came from Bruce Hudson and you get ideas from all different things and then
I just tried to kind of Louisize them to work in my particular area and in my
camera room and in my budget and how much room I've got and my clients and
what they like. So I want to make sure you understand that these aren't all my
I'm not a creative genius or anything. Most of these ideas I got from somebody
else and I also don't want you to think that I think this is the world's greatest
camera room and aren't you impressed? Boy oh boy I'm here to show you the state
of the art, the 90s, yes the 90s camera room. This is just a camera room that I
use and I wanted to give you my ideas. There are photography studios around the
country that have a whole lot neater camera room than this with a lot more
state-of-the-art equipment and all that stuff but what I'm trying to show you is
a way we can do it in a relatively small space. I mean some photographers have a
whole warehouse you know for a camera room and we don't have that. This is a
relatively small area but I know a lot of you work in a lot smaller area than
this but it's cool, it's cool, it works, it's efficient, the clients seem to
really love this stuff, it sells well, they're pleased with it and they're
really impressed when we give them the tour. When we walk them through the
studio to give them a tour when we're closing the sale and collecting the
check at the pre-portrait interview they walk into this room and their eyes
just kind of light up you know they say boy I can't believe this is really cool
wow look at that because it's so three-dimensional there's there's there's
primary and secondary backgrounds and and it's just interesting to the eye but
this certainly isn't the best camera room in the world. The multi-set camera
room is designed with the following requirements number one I wanted ten
camera areas ten of them I wanted to be able to have ten areas that are
photographable without hardly doing anything I mean literally you could set
up ten sets and not change anything and literally walk from set to set but now
what I'm going to try and show you today is 16 different backgrounds 16 of them
so that means that some of these actually have to be changed the one right
over here for example is extraordinarily versatile we use this for three or four
different backgrounds right that one little camera area right here so we
we're going to use different backgrounds in one camera area okay but we have ten
areas and I wanted to have it easy to travel make it easy to travel from one
set to another with as little moving of things as possible now we have great
separation lighting on a lot of these sets I'm really into separation lighting
so if I know these are my photography areas I can take a white lightning stick
it up in the ceiling run it by remote control and I can adjust it for whether
she has black hair or blonde hair or whatever or whether it's a bald guy I
wouldn't do a bald guy in this set you know a little contemporary but when we
get over to that one I would and so I would I would want to be able to change
the power of the separation lighting but I don't want to have to move the
separation lights around so in the old days I used to have dual separation
lights right one on each side and that worked really well under certain
conditions if we're you're photographing a girl with long hair and lots of hair
coming out here and so it just looked absolutely stunning it was gorgeous but
if you're doing a girl with really short hair or you're doing a photographing a
gentleman sometimes the lights would strike the face a little bit and it was
a little bit inconvenient slowed us down a little bit so when we went to the
multiple set camera room we decide okay one separation light is better because
it's so easy put it directly behind the subject up above and it's not going to
hit the side of the face and you can go boom boom boom boom boom plus frankly I
didn't own enough lights to do two separation lights on ten different sets
now chance so we're each set can be easily torn down including this one can
be easily torn down so that we can put something else up there's only like
really there isn't any real set that can't be torn down there's one set that
wouldn't be as easily torn down and that's our executive bookcase set but
you could still take that sucker down in an hour it would be gone it'd be wrecked
but it would be gone it'd be gone actually you probably could save it but
we wanted to make this so that we can grow as we get new ideas plus we want to
market test this okay what if this particular set never sells in Grand
Rapids Michigan what if they just don't like it they thought it's too well made
immediately in the projection room they throw this one out every single time
they throw it out well guess what's going to happen to this set it's out of
here man forget it or we figure out a better way to photograph it maybe we
don't know how to photograph it properly or maybe we don't know how to light it
properly so I wanted to be able to have flexibility in every one of these sets
to where if it doesn't sell it's out of here client driven not product driven so
I'm going to try these ideas make sure that people like it so I'm constantly
marketing market testing this with my clients it also utilizes the concept of
a traveling main light traveling main light means that that we have one main
light in your dreams we have two main lights in this place it's really crowded
we use a medium multi dome and we use a large multi dome the medium multi dome is
24 by 32 that's the one we normally use we usually have vertical louvers on it
and it's on a rollers and it's strung with the power from the ceiling so that
means there's no cord on the floor that's my my way of doing master rail
system okay because I don't particularly want to invest in a master rail system
so I just have that little boom the little boom up there and the boom just
follows all the way around the entire room so we can just power our medium
multi dome from that location and we just roll from set to set all the way
around you know that we use a reflector as a fill light so all we need is to
bring the fill the reflector with us and each on one of our sets so it's really
quite easy but then I like them the large multi dome lately I've started to
get really turned on with that thing it's big it's a pain it takes up half my
camera room but man it is really nice light so we have that in here and then
one particular set you're gonna see our columns set our Roman columns or
whatever you want to call them we light by using a photo flex panel light panel
and that's this big okay so that usually is floating its way around the camera
room as well so it doesn't look quite as neat and tidy as you're seeing it right
now because when you put the main lights in here and a few reflectors it starts
to get a little bit crowded but it is a riot to work in and we have a lot of fun
in it and the and the seniors really enjoy it and it's really cool for kids
because you can literally say well come on over and sit down here and the sets
all there I mean it's all there so you just plop the little kid down right here
boom take the photograph and then you walk them over to that set and do
something else and then you walk them over to that set and it really is very
easily it's very psychologically easy for him where otherwise in the old days I
used to have to make them wait you know how much time do you have a little kids
not a whole lot of time well and I guess I better just do one set so then mom
didn't have a lot of variety and I didn't have a lot of fun and this is a
whole lot more fun the size of the camera room is 24 by 25 and I'm very
very lucky to have this and I know that to some of you it is a dream camera room
because when I started out my camera room was a third this size and I kept
dreaming then I won't move to the next building and I got a little bit more
adequate size and then I moved to the next building and I said oh if I could
make it any size I want what size would I make it and I figured out 24 by 25 I
mean you couldn't possibly need anything I mean I don't do cars no
motorcycles I'm not a commercial studio how much more room could you ever need
well as soon as I moved in here I was complaining because I was tripping over
everything because you know the law of clutter says that the amount of space
you have will be immediately filled up with a whole bunch of clutter so the
more room you have the more clutter you have and so we constantly want more and
now I want I want a bigger camera room than this but I really think that that
would not be wise financially because you have to pay for this space and it's
a lot of space and I don't see any reason to go larger than this we have a
whole lot of fun in here and we do a whole lot of stuff and remember that our
best sales come when we go on location so let's not get too carried away here if
our best sales come when we do the photographs on location at their home or
their cottage or on their boat if they're lucky enough to have one or
whatever like that what in the world are we doing putting all of our money into
this camera room so let's not get too wild here so most of the stuff other
than this set right here and a couple of very very adequately priced painted
backgrounds the rest of the sets are really really really inexpensive really
these aren't inexpensive but they're sure cool so let's take you down some sets
now let's walk in let's start here and I want to want to bring in Ed Ed is very
very a great deal of thanks and appreciation has to go to Ed because
without Ed there's no way we could have done this thank you it takes a huge
amount of time you have to come up with the ideas then you have to carry the
ideas off and having Ed on my team has really been a tremendous asset here
because he is able to follow through with the ideas he helps me with the
ideas Dan helps me with the ideas we come up with the idea that would be a
cool thing all right and then Ed says I can do that and he takes off to Builder
Square and figures out how to do it right so we'll start out here with the
glass blocks set I saw this in a video by Bruce Hudson Bruce and I Bruce and Sue
Hudson and I go back a long long way and they're very innovative people and I
really think the world of them and if you ever have a chance to study with
Bruce and Sue Hudson I strongly recommend it and I saw this in one of
their videos and I said man is that cool you know Grand Rapids won't like it
probably it's a little bit too advanced but it sure is cool and so we say well
let's try it and it ate at me for a while that he had to soak you know you
need some soaking time but after a while I figured okay let's do it so my uncle
is a mason a brick mason so I figured how man how much can this cost you know
so I called him up and I said we want to put some glass blocks those glass
bricks you know that are coming back in style now they were really big a few
what 20 30 years ago and 40 years ago and now they're coming back again so I
want to be on the front edge of the things that are going on in the world
you know so I mean could you come in and tell me how much it'll cost so because
there's always two things I want to know with everything I do and one of those
two things how much and how soon that's right that's what I tell everybody on my
staff is to find out how much and how fast how much and how fast so I called
up Jerry Jerry comes in and I tell him where I want this little glass wall I
mean how much can it cost you know I mean what's the big deal you know and so
he looks it over and he's scowling and say no you know you got and I said I
want it to be about this high and you know I want it you know I want it to
just be right here and I want it freestanding and and he's shaking his
head and he's scowling and he's saying Chuck you don't understand it that that
this cement stuff doesn't stick to the glass blocks said you gotta you put the
cement in there but it doesn't really stick to it he said you got to really be
careful with this he said first of all you can't have a freestanding wall like
this forget it man you're dreaming I said well now wait a minute I saw it on
Bruce Hudson's video me I'll just call Bruce and find out how he did it but I'm
sure Bruce would have said the same thing the wheel has already been
invented you know and he probably already knew that well meanwhile Ed where
did you come up with this idea well I talked to my father actually who used to
work for a department store and he knew people who were in window dressing
that's right type of work and so I called a couple of his suppliers who are
into theatrical supplies staging and that type of thing and he put me on the
right track what these are these are plastic okay now the the real glass
ones are less expensive but then you got to pay the brick mason to put them in
and then you got to make the cement and and then you got to cut a hole he
wouldn't you know I've got what is this called a carpet no it's carpet what kind
of carpet is it it's um in thank you that was what I was looking for indoor
outdoor carpeting on the floor okay now remember I said I want each of these
sets to be movable and removable so the first thing that my uncle Jerry says is
well now we'll just just cut a nice little you know hole because underneath
the carpeting is cement see so he said we'll just cut a nice hole right in
your in your carpeting as a way a minute these are the dressing rooms back here
that's the first thing the client sees when they walk in and if I ever take
this thing down there when he rocking over a patched up piece of carpeting no
no no there's got to be a better way he said Chuck you don't understand how
heavy those suckers are those babies are really heavy some you know some kid will
bump into it and the whole thing will crash down people will die I mean he's
really scaring me and I said well how much is it gonna cost me for you to put
this thing in he says all time and labor now keep in mind this is a relative so I
probably could have divided that in half he said all 300 350 bucks to put them in
I went oh 350 bucks just for one set he said well then you got to buy the cement
and you got to buy the bricks and you got to buy the special braces that go
in between them there's this grid thing that you lay down that the cement will
stick into to try and give anything you got to go all the way up or you're gonna
have braces oh yeah it was it was a mess we were discouraged okay that's but
meanwhile that had come up with this idea and I had asked dad what the
investment would be for doing that this little plastic things I mean these are
light you know I mean cool they snap together they have these little snap
things and they snap together you know and so I thought that was the way to go
that'd be cool don't have to drill any holes and cut any carpeting how much are
these things nine dollars a piece nine dollars a piece so now you say this baby
is eight feet long and it's about four feet high and so you've got and they're
they're eight inches right square and so a little bit of mathematics tells you
you need a whole bunch of these suckers and eight at nine bucks a piece that's
expensive so I'm starting you off with our most other than our painted
background by Lamar Williams since the two that we have of those this is our
most expensive set so anyway we decided to go with this and we have it hooked to
the wall back here with a couple of braces right back here so that the thing
actually will move if we take this we can just take it out just want you to
get the idea this thing move it out from the wall and now it's completely free
standing so if I want to do something with a person leaning up against the
thing and have it vertical we can just I mean it's it's heavy but it's they're
all just snapped together there's no cement in here or anything and no
kidding the thing really photographs like real you know you don't you don't
miss the I mean you look at this you say oh that's really fake but when you
photograph it on a slight angle usually the angle is right over here and we're
coming in like this these suckers really look real you can't tell they're not
really glass and so now it's light lighter and it's portable and we can
change the configuration and if I ever if this sells okay in the unlikely event
that this will sell in Grand Rapids we can go and order more of these things
and snap them together and make it higher so we have a lot of flexibility
with this thing and if it really doesn't work at all it's gone we can take it out
right now no loss at all so we just put it in and we lean it in
against these little pieces of wood so that it's not going to fall over if
somebody leans against it especially children so now you can take it and the
way we use this set is we put this muslin down okay we got this from Denny
manufacturing and we just put that thing down and now you can take a person you
know a guy or a girl and you can lean them you know and you can it gives a
little but you can't tell that in the in the film and you can do a really really
nice photograph right here or if it's a girl in a really cool outfit you can do
maybe something like this you know and you and it's really good that now we
light it by putting a photo flex light panel behind it and then we take one of
our ultra lights here with a parabolic on it and we bounce it obviously it
would have been a lot better for us if this had been a white wall and if I were
really serious about this set I could paint the doors these are the dressing
room doors but I'm not that serious about this set and I'm gonna paint those
doors so we just take a light panel we stick it back there we bang the light
into the light panel it bounces off gives us a nice broad source of light
which catches all the little speculars in the glass or the plastic actually okay
so and now you can put a gel on here so you know you can start gelling this
light and usually what I like to do is I have this as just basically a set it's
not the source of the main light because if this becomes the main light and I'm
sitting here like this what kind of lights on my face besides lousy it's
broad lighting okay and it's lousy light and even if you move the camera way over
here like this it's still broad light and he said well you could could do
something like this okay now it's a narrow light two-thirds view it looks
pretty dorky you know so all we do is we bring in one of the multi domes we make
that be our main light so we put that over there we have no reflector for a
fill this kind of gives you the fill and we put a color gel on it if you want to
get kind of creative and the light comes through it's cool that's just a fun
thing and if it really really sells well we'll keep doing it and modifying it and
if it doesn't sell well we'll get rid of it this is really a nice setting again I
want to thank Bruce and Sue Hudson for this idea it's a really nice setting and
it gives a nice look to the to the photographs in the background it's a
little more contemporary really sharp you can use it for clients like this
where you're doing ballerinas or something or else you can go to just a
casual outfit like you see here where she's leaning up against the glass
blocks very very nice some clients are going to love this some clients are not
but you're I would recommend you do it just because you want to have variety
and this is a really neat effect now this is our translucent white accordion
blind our translucent white accordion blind it's a blind that you bought by
the blind store and they're relatively difficult to find that are the way this
is this has no major seams in it the first few years that I was working with
this TWAB we call it a TWAB T-W-A-B translucent white accordion blind TWAB
and the first few years we were working with this I found a company that could
supply me with one that was local a local store and it cost quite a
substantial amount of money 300 bucks and it had seams down it and it was okay
it wasn't bad but then I started showing this thing and then the stuff I was
doing with it and everybody wanted to buy one and I said well just go to a
blind store you know you how hard can it be and everybody I mean the phone was
ringing off the hook with people saying we can't find your TWAB I said well
you're not calling it a TWAB are you they're gonna look at you're really
funny they said well no no no no we're not that stupid you know we know it's a
blind and but we're not sure what it's translucent okay we know what
translucent means in white we know that an accordion okay but they were having a
terrible time so finally I got my supplier I found a supplier that would
make them for us and make them for us without the seams this was not easy to
get them to do this because it's sags and they want they were having trouble
with it sagging they couldn't get to work and I said well we want nice seams
here and I said no I can't have any seams it's for photographic purposes so
finally we ended up with this but this it took us like three years to get this
to where it is right now but it is really versatile because now we can set
this down on the floor we can take an ultra 600 we put the ultra 600 on the
floor back here we put a honeycomb attachment on it and we aim it up what
we're trying to do now is to increase the appearance of this accordion effect
okay so now we can bring it down onto the floor here like that and then we
take our mylar background material and we lay it out on the floor now we used
to lay it out on the floor you know just unwrap it and lay it out and the stuff
is so thin and so light that it would wrinkle and it would float and it would
it took us half an hour to set this thing up and it was driving me nuts
because this stuff is so light so we put it on foam core so that we can just take
it we just store it back behind that set over there I mean it's real light and we
can just pull it out and lay it down and we have two of them so we have eight
feet by eight feet and when you put them right together you can't even see the
line because there's so much speculars bouncing off the thing your eye can't
see the line and so we just lay this down like this and when we lay the next
one down right out here so we have an eight foot wide by eight feet long set
of it looks like wet tile in a camera it really photographs me so now I've got a
set where I can bring people in and I can sit them down on this thing you know
and you can start getting an interesting series of effects and then though you
can put gels on the background light so that because this is white translucent
you can change the color of the background to go with their outfit by
just changing the gel on the translucent accordion blind now but you know to get
the colors to be really good you have to have vertical louvers on your main light
so that none of the main light because that lights white you don't want that
white light hitting this because then it's going to depreciate the effect of
the color this is a this see what I like about this is it has texture I don't
like smooth mylar that looks like glass you know and so we this this stuff is a
is folded up in a little teeny package and you get any open it all up and it
has all these creases in it that look like tile and it gives a little texture
and a light bounces off of it differently because each time if someone
gets on this it wrinkles it a little bit and it starts to look different and it's
really really cool and so just remember that when you're using this set you have
to be if you want colors back here if you want a color you have to be real
careful with your main light so that none of that white light hits this like
we have right now we have all these lights on in this room and we can't
really appreciate how cool this looks because we have all this light going on
but when you turn all the other lights off and you have your main light and
then you feather that main light away from the background so that none of the
light hits it this is a really really cool effect yes this is so translucent
that you'll just completely blast out if you have too much power on the
background and all same with colors too you'll put a gel on there and it'll
just blast it out you know he's a boy it sure looked good to my eye but it sure
didn't come through on the fest because you just had too much power so that's a
good point right you got to cut the power way down and I sometimes I'll use
it with a honeycomb like we have right now and sometimes I'll use it Ed can you
just grab this in there sometimes I'll use it with without the honeycomb okay
like that and that gives you a whole lot of color and it's really really a cool
effect just really neat okay so you can just be and what the reason that we're
putting the light way down below and shining it up is to accentuate the
accordion effect and obviously when a subject is sitting here you don't see
the light you see because they're in front of light the beauty of the TWAB
the translucent white accordion blind is its versatility here we're doing a
bridal portrait and we have mylar on the floor and we're bouncing some of the
light off of the mylar that's creating those stripes in the background so
we're not doing any back lighting or anything with the TWAB here we've put
red onto the translucent white accordion blind and look at how dramatic this
effect is and how nicely it goes with her outfit very striking graduating
seniors love this in this one we just put a little bit of blue through from the
back to create that soft hue around her again sitting on the mylar floor
material looks really really sharp if you have any questions on the translucent
white accordion blind or the mylar you can call us because we have this stuff
available I'm not trying to sell you anything I'm just letting you know it's
available if you need it so now on this what we're gonna do is take advantage of
the texture see this is this is a really subtle textured wall and then we took a
some what do we call us molding really molding molding and we probably got this
a builder square probably or something and you paint it white and we hang it up
on hooks if we can you know versatility we're after versatility here so it pops
off and now we have an unobstructed white wall if we so desire it okay if you
want to take somebody and lean them up against this wall and do something with
no obstruction whatsoever this makes a real nice textured effect this is the
only real of background that I have where the subject actually there's no I
actually use the same main light as the background light I mean this it's all
one light and my in fact do you have that photograph of the with the bricks
effect and that that particular light we use the adaptive spot because I just
can't say enough about that adaptive spots really cool it gives us a lot of
effects so we took it we took the girl and we leaned her up against this wall
right here and then we took our brick pattern put it in our adaptive spot and
made that the only source of light so the light is over here and that's the
adaptive spot and then our brick pattern has a little section where there are no
bricks and so that's the part where her face is down here you can see the bricks
that pattern is still on her hand or her arms okay that's why she's in black
because if she had been in white you'd see bricks going across it which could
be cool I mean it could be really cool you know it depends on the effect you
want but this is what where we did it right here because it's because it it
really makes this interesting you can see the texture in this background you
don't exactly know what it is because bricks aren't texture well I guess some
bricks are but they have they have real we call it cement going through here it's
just a cool effect that was very very fast to do just boom we just took her
leaned her up against here like this took the old adaptive spot stuck it up
there had her look back at the camera and went click it was very very fast and
easy but when we put personally my favorite part of this set is when this
is up for a reason you'll see in just a minute here so 99% no probably 80% of
the time right 20% of the time it's a Pareto principle yeah 80% of the time
this is the way we use this set because now you've got a base this is that this
is important because you can you can start you can start doing things with
this you know you can just see where you could kind of this has potential if you
want to pose it just for example this bride right here is it this is how that
was done right here she's standing like this okay now we talked about posing and
we say normally we don't have the body of the subject facing directly towards
the camera in this case she is right she's aiming basically straight to the
camera then her head turns one way or the other so at least it's not an all in
the same direction pose but the body basically is square to the camera but
very very very very very simple to do we took our medium multi dome we put it all
the way over here to this side right up against the wall right here because I
wanted the texture effect and you can see the light fall off from here over
to here that's all that texture it really is really nice so we just we pose
through here like this we turned her head towards the main light of course we
know that and then we put the reflector over here to get a little bit of shadow
detail and that's all we had to do for that photograph then we fluffed out her
gown we've got a person over here holding the gown on this side person over
here holding the gown on that side so that it gave a nice base to the
composition and there it was so this is a really really fun set my personal
favorite way to photograph this set is a circle from the adaptive spot that's
used as the main light that comes right on her face or his face whatever guys
or girls or kids and they're just leaning here like this or something and
if it's a little short kids you can either put them on a stool or you can
take this down and they're just you know they're like this I just did one last
week at Todd where he was like this with no shirt on and his art he works out
and he's really proud of his muscles whatever you call those triceps and
biceps and so he's folded like this you know and he turned his head like this
and we use the adaptive spot to get the circle no pattern in it at all and it
came right and that was the main lights like this so you could see the circle
here and where the circle didn't hit it was basically black because there's no
there's no nothing there there's no light so you just have a circle and the
person standing in that circle like this or like this or like this or like this
and it is really cool this this is my personal favorite one of my personal
favorites right here because it's so versatile and so cheap it was so easy to do
you know cheap chuck yeah okay so we use this a lot with the adaptive spot this
particular set right here because it just gives so much texture this set is
so versatile you can do so many different effects with just this one
plain old wall that you cover with a little bit of stucco material to look
really textury in this one we're using the adaptive spot as the main source of
light and the only source of light with no pattern in it just creating a circle
of light therefore you're getting these harsh shadows which actually become part
of the composition then we're putting a couple of little fuzzy whatever you call
those things on each side that you can get a pure one imports just to kind of
frame it now the next thing we use this particular camera section here for we've
got ten of them this is our second one we're talking about right here this
setting and not only do we use the TWAB not only do we use it for the stucco
wall but it also has a basically white background unobstructed area and that's
where we put our columns to do our column photographs so now columns over
here these are the columns that we made out of the corrugated fiberglass and
these are really cool and I'll tell you clients love this this sells really big
time because it's sort of conservative but it's different but it's not wild I
mean it's not quite as wild as the as the as the bricks you know and it's a
heck of a lot less money okay and it's just made out of corrugated white
corrugated fiberglass and we take our 14 inch diameter styrofoam rings that you
can get at any craft store and then we put velcro put velcro on the the fiberglass
and we put velcro on the rings and we just stick them together okay and we've
painted we've painted this with white house paint okay actually Todd and Ed
painted these with White House paint and that's how we do it and now we took
pardon me yeah the fiberglass is painted and now we this I just want to show you
how we set this set up now this is where the tree comes in to play here this tree
drives me nuts I complain about it every day drives me nuts photographs fantastic
so I put up with it now if you were at our seminar if you were at our seminar
this year we didn't have this tree because it drives me nuts we just had a
fake one we had a little stand and we took some branches and we just you know
and it so just do that okay this is really a pain and every day and I say
you know we're just go tear those branches off this sucker because it would
only take up a little bit of the space you know but anyway at this point we
still haven't done it so we and it sheds that keeps losing brain a little pretty
soon there's not gonna be any other little blossoms left on it it'll be nice
that'd be nice so we can quit using it so all I want all this does is kind of
break I want this set to look like the the porch a big porch okay and and it's
and it's springtime and the the cherry trees are blossoming or whatever this
thing is supposed to be okay and so that the cherry tree is just off the porch you
see and the tree is kind of sneaking in on that far column column oh it's going
fast all right now we're gonna have to move a little bit here because I want to
set this up so you can see exactly how we photograph it so but I wanted you to
see where we began this this is the same set that we used the twob with it was
the same set we used for the stucco wall and now we're going to make a whole
different look so this one takes a minute okay this takes a minute to set
up but not very long because they're light and they're portable and they're
really easy to set but it does take a minute to set this one up so now we'll
set this up a minute let's put it right where we do we need a the translucent
just so they can get the effect here and we'll set this up for Jason's camera so
that you can see see I got I have to make some distance between them in order
to give the feeling of columns on a big porch so I've got to have them separated
but it doesn't have to be 25 feet apart because it'll just look to the eye like
we're photographing it with a telephoto lens because a telephoto lens compresses
the background so I just need a little bit of space now it's going out here on
an angle because I'm gonna this is gonna be my posing area right here okay so I'm
gonna take this photograph and I'm probably gonna put the subject and
probably if she looks or he looks good in white put them in a light outfit of
some kind and probably do the old lean up against the column routine okay this
is what I'm gonna do this is probably gonna be my pose okay so what I want it
to look like is he's leaning up or she's leaning up against looks great with guys
great with girls and and like this and then I want solid columns I don't want
to see my stucco wall back there so I place these just it just takes a minute
and I place these far enough on an angle to where drives me nuts so where when I
come back to the camera and I look down there I don't see any cracks how am I
doing Jace I don't want to see any wall I want where this stops I want to have
another one start see so that it looks like there's total permanent columns
going all the way down the house okay so you just look way out okay and now I
need to light I need a main light now if you're if you're on a porch and you have
open see now this the house is back here now okay this here's this is your front
porch the house is here the tree is growing in from off in the yard so that
means that this is open sky there's no light coming from over here because
that's the house and has a roof over it over here so now this becomes our open
sky okay so we bring this in like this and we're going to use this to light
sorry guys we're going to use this to light the subject okay and all we want
is a nice broad source of light now if we're really really serious I mean dead
serious we'll use two of these and we'll put them side by side okay and we use
two ultra 600s with a parabolic on them so the source of light becomes
extraordinarily broad but the way we do it in our camera room with our clients
because of time considerations one's fine you know so we set this up like
this and sometimes we won't even do it this way we'll use the large multi dome
that great big monster light that we roll all over the place in here and we'll
just shoot what we're after is a very broad source of light because that's the
way it looks on a porch the all this open sky so now we need our reflector we
can get that thing the reflector we do we don't need the reflector for the
subjects because the subject is here like this and any reflection is coming
off of here any fill it's enough it looks real fine but what I do need the
reflector for is to bounce some light back into things to the other side of
the column okay because otherwise you start getting some serious dark action
over here on this side of the column and and and if you have white columns you
probably have a white house if you have a white house light bounces off the
White House becomes a natural fill so we're putting this over here to light
this side of this column so that it doesn't go so dark that the thing looks
really fake and so there we have a really beautiful set it looks like I
mean it really is incredible and it looks so cool with guys and so cool with
women and so cute with kids it's just great you know little kids don't know
it just looks so cute okay do we have one that yeah this is how we did that oh
we have two okay here's a three-quarter bride column column column little tree
coming in it's exactly how this was done okay and you can have a little piece of
furniture in here wicker furniture if you wanted to put her hand on something
and but I don't have room in here any for that on a permanent basis so I just
do this this is what I always do just like that no works like the charm then
if you want to go in close-up you can go in real close-up and that's beautiful
too and it all it's doing is giving something different in the background
that's all it's doing it it's a different kind of background than a
painted background don't do more than a few images on a painted background that's
what we're trying to say and then get into something different and your
clients will love this no kidding this is extremely inexpensive we paid less
than five bucks for this corrugated fiberglass and I don't remember what was
the investment for these around three dollars a piece oh are they really oh no
you got one two three so we have four of these suckers and then the bottom one is
plywood for weight saying so it'll stand up by itself and the Velcro isn't
inexpensive but but it doesn't it doesn't cost much in in relationship to
expensive pre-made fiberglass columns things that look kind of in artificial
any although we're gonna use them yeah this is pretty inexpensive and and the
ones that are made for photographers are very very expensive and they're
expensive to ship and they're expensive to make I mean it's not the company's
fault that they are expensive to make and we do have some of those and they're
short we do have some of those and we're going to show you one particular thing
that I just absolutely love to do with them but other than that this this is
basically really won our heart and the heart of our clients because they just
love this it looks so big it looks like you're in some great big place you know
this little camera these columns really photograph well our clients really like
this they really really love these things and it's so darn easy to do the
key to it is to use a broad source of light when you're lighting the things to
try and get all of the columns relatively lit with one light source here
you can see in pose number four looks really really comfortable really really
nice and and and she loved this photograph most of the work for this set
was done when we bought the things okay they came all assembled with the molding
and everything the glass in them it was ready to it was like a prefab window
that's ready to go into a house okay so the very very first photograph I ever
did on these windows was of a little girl and all I did was set these on this
table like this and I just we hooked them together with duct tape or
something at the back so there was no wall so to speak okay and it looked so
fantastic it was just a dynamite photograph so we started thinking that
maybe we should make the wall now really this was Ed's doing because I was
perfectly happy with it the old way this is what it looks like when we bought it
and believe it or not I only paid 20 bucks apiece for these okay because I
flinched you know they told me how much the investment was and I came unglued
and said you're crazy there's no way I'm not a house builder I just need it for a
set good no way I'm paying that kind of money and ended up at 20 bucks apiece so
I bought four of them and it's all this is how it came the only difference is
that we were experimenting with this to get the diffusion effect and Ed sprayed
this with various types of lacquer to see to get the effect because you could
it's a window you could kind of see through the window and once we sprayed
this we decided nah there's got to be a better way and so we then went to sheets
of plastic that are stuck on the back of this thing so that you can't see
through the window okay but this is this is the way it looked though when it came
so all he had to do was unscrew four or five screws here and the thing comes
apart then he took and he traced the lines onto plywood and then just cut
them with a we saw that skill saw skill saw and then put them back together and
screwed them back together so it comes out I mean it's not that easy I mean he
put a lot of work into this then he had to to put the little what do you call
that stuff? Spackling. I'm not a real DIY kind of a guy you know so but Ed really
is good at this and and I really appreciate all of his help so he puts
the spackling down here and and then he sands the spackling and then he paints
the thing white and that's this is the way it is so it's used on a regular
table that you can buy at any store they're about 25 bucks or something and
they're very very very strong and I like them because they fold up the legs will
fold up and you can store them someplace if you don't want to use them and then
just take a white comforter or whatever to make this is supposed to look like
in a home it's a little bay window and in your mind you can picture the rest of
the house going off in each direction okay that's the idea here and then you
just throw a couple of little pillows in here and you've got a great set
especially for senior girls or children and you can bring them up like this and
just do the cutest little things you know and you just got a white lightning
sitting back there hitting the white wall and actually when we're photographing
it we use two of them we put one on that side one on that side hitting the white
wall behind this thing it's about three feet out from the wall and there's your
photographs and it's really cute use your main light bring your multi dome up
here it has a main light or you can silhouette this if you want and have the
light coming through the windows it's cool you can gel it so you can looks
like evening make blue gels you know whatever you want yeah your little little
amber gels for sunset so this is just a really really cool set and it doesn't
take up a lot of space and when we're not using it we just tuck it back against
the wall so we just move it back against the wall it's very easy to move because
this is our head and shoulders set right here right and our subject sits right
here for head and shoulders okay if you're looking for something that's
different but still kind of soft and delicate this set really really works
well it does not look like it was created in a camera room at all it has a
feeling of being in a home with a bay window with a little bit of a seating
area right by the bay window both effects here that you can see in this
one here as well totally totally different look doesn't look like it's
done in a camera room at all try this you'll really like it which this then
brings us to this set which is our stucco wall or stucco arch set and Ed
you want to tell them about this because you made this
actually Chuck and his wife Sherry found this when they were out shopping one day
and we at first after we cut the arch we'd hang it from a pole kind of like
that just let it unroll clip it at the top and we could roll it up in a store
but for a little bit more rigidity and firmness we took some flooring adhesive
just like you'd use for linoleum and glued it to pieces a quarter inch
plywood then we just trimmed the arch to fit the the arch and the plywood put a
couple of one by two boards around the edge as a frame to give it a little bit
more stability and made some little triangular plywood bases that just
velcro on to the side so you can just knock those off lay it right flat and
it's virtually out of the way maybe you could get a measuring tape sure thanks
so we'll give you some dimensions now another part of the camera room the way
it's set up here is that looking this way if the camera is over here this is
my full-length set this is the set we're going to end up over there okay in a few
minutes but if I need more distance I can put the camera in here if I need
even more distance away than that this moves right out of the way and behind
this is a door so I can move the camera even back further yet into that other
room that's back through here very rarely that I need that because you could put
a 90 millimeter lens on here and you're going to get plenty of room but I like
a 127 or a 180 and if I'm going to use that kind of a length lens I have to get
way especially with 127 I can get right back against this wall and I can do a
beautiful full-length photograph on the painted background that direction that's
why this set is here because it covers up that door and makes the background
for this set you know you can stick a guy guy in here like this it looks really
really cool you can put a girl in here like this and looks really cute you know
you can do something in a real foxy outfit you know and get kind of cool you
know that's really it's just very versatile but if we need more room boom
the sucker just has moved over and back behind it is a whole nother door so we
can move back even further so that's why this is here this stucco arch set is
kind of fun to work with because every time you photograph it it looks a little
different by the way the shadows fall on the way the light hits the different
types of clothing that the client is wearing the key here is I usually will
try to keep the archway at the top in the photograph I try not to crop that
off I like to have the full archway going all the way across the top but
it's a real nice effect you can see here with two of them of a man they look
really really nice also looks really good with women nice nice effect nice
set your clients will like this really a lot which then brings us to this one
this set here is really a neat set I'm really excited about this one if I move
this out of the way here now because we've got all these different
photographing areas whoops
it's probably is now because we have all these different photographing areas so
close together this one had to be put that so I can roll up this always stays
here like this we have two white lightnings in the ceiling aiming down
with parabolic we have a white lightning right over here to cover what we're
doing is hitting that white paper behind here behind this is white paper and
that's going to give us the back lighting to evenly light all these
curtains now on the floor I want to be a full-length set many many times we will
use this set with a table we bring another one of those tables like the bay
windows on right over here and we'll lay especially senior girls with pets like a
little cat or a little puppy perfect put her in a white sweater white slacks she
has a white kitty you layer down on the table okay so the tables this high you
layer down like this kitties right here it's really darling and this becomes the
background with this effect but if you want a full-length effect something
really cool then we just take our paper and we roll the paper out just takes a
second it's cut so that it misses our bookcase set which is right next door
here okay let me just roll it back we set something on it it's one of the neat
things about having real books we just throw a book down there now we've got a
set here where we can sit the person down like this in a light outfit and you
could do really cool things you have a we take the pillows if you wouldn't mind
grabbing a couple of those pillows for me yet and we take some pillows and
stuff for a white and a white little white stool okay thanks while he's doing
that let me give you did you did you get this do you take it with him
anyway this is two sets of curtains okay the first set softens the window behind
it is this window that Ed built out of just regular pieces of wood and routed
them so that they could be put together okay but then I want to soften yeah that
what was that word dado cuts yes that's it and so they go together you know and
then but we want to soften that it's real hard it's real hard so you put the
shears in here to soften the look and it gives it a real nice soft look but then
we want to frame it with a little softer look yet so you put another set here
and tie them back so that it gives a real nice variety of different looks by
how whether you're close to it or far away from it full length or with the
table my favorites with the table I very rarely use it all the way down on the
floor but it's built in ready to go any second that I want it so here we go so
we take our white come from our sofa out and area number one right and we can
throw those down there and we bring in our little time the fur for the edge
there okay and let's say she's dress say it's a female and she's dressed in this
white karate outfit and you know there's this jumpsuit type thing and you can do
something really cool you know where she's sitting here like this you know
I mean you just it's really and it's full length and it's really and it's
built in it's right there boom we just roll a camera over there lower it down
and start taking photographs the lights are always the same the light settings
don't change so we just leave them like that we've got one over here one over
here and two up there and they just evenly light that baby so that you've
got nice even light and it just works like a charm usually I do them in bare
feet or actually in they've got hose on usually but with no shoes in fact
sometimes it looks really nice with a shoe just sitting there you know as the
shoes are off oh yeah but we've got a big roll up there so you know you better
believe it you're always pulling it down and cutting it and and it rips we
always rip it up here this is my I always trip right there when I'm running
back and forth I go oops trip rip so you just cut it off and roll a little bit
more down you know but it just makes you know you can see where you could put on
a really nice house coat or or what do you call those things robes a nice robe
you know and you could you know this is your classic this is the classic Roman
pose and you could just do some really nice things like this or a guitarist you
know I have a guitar that I painted white so the whole guitar is white so you can
take someone who wants something really creative or if you want to do a
photograph for competition you know I have my white guitar we put the girl in
all white put it down here like this holding the guitar you know looking at
this you know we have sheet music you know you can just see where you could
quickly do something that was very artistic and even if the client doesn't
invest in it makes a great sample to put out on display and all those 12 displays
you're going to have all around the community when you get home okay yes this
is mothers and babies right here but usually for mothers and babies I will
either use a rock we have a white rock bent wood rocking chair and come in
close so this just goes out of focus soft or I will use the table the bigger
not the desk here but it's another one of those six foot tables bring it right
in here like this put the comforter on the table layer down like this with the
baby right here stuff like that very very versatile set a lot of work Ed put a
lot of work into building this thing so do you have that tape measure you want
to give them a couple dimensions of our stucco arch because everybody likes to
know that the two basic panels are just full-size four by eight foot sheets of
plywood I didn't cut them at all the rolls of linoleum that we bought just
happened to come six by nine so I had to trim of course a little bit off of each
edge the archway that we have here is 32 inches wide and from the floor up to the
very top of the arch is about six and a half feet and that makes it pretty
versatile if you get somebody that's real short then you kind of lose a little
bit of the curve but then that's what they make posing helpers for but it's
tall enough in the middle so that even if you get a decent-sized senior guy
that plays basketball or something he's not going to be you know out of flight
behind the arch or something so it really works out quite well and when
we're really motivated really motivated we take our favorite prop in the camera
room and that's the tree over there and we put the tree back over here so a
little bit of that tree is kind of spilling in you know gives a little more
texture back there we also use one of the 600s that right now is behind the
bay window right down here with a honeycomb on it to slightly light the
stucco wall that's behind the arch and that's all we have to do with that if
you want to get real contemporary you can set it off to the side put a colored
gel on it and shoot a diagonal up the background yeah that's what Sam Young
did when Sam took this set on tour he got real excited about it and he was
putting the thing off the side with a colored gel on it and it's making a
diagonal line across it and from the yeah good that is a good point and see
how far apart is that don't know I'd say it's just a little less than that but
there's 30 inches I don't think that's real critical the main thing is that you
don't want to be able to corcede the edges of your background through the
arch and then this one is how wide how wide is eight feet okay so it's eight
feet wide and we're about I think about six and a half feet high seven feet
right on the dock okay right and then you put what tell them about this wood
here what okay basically what I did is I bought some one by twos for the
framework and the centerpiece and then this is what they call screen stock is
something that they use the whole little piece of the window screen in when
they're making a screen frame and I took a router and just routed out joints
every place where I want them to intersect so they'd interlock and I'd
come up with a flat surface put the wider one in here for up just the
centerpiece to make it to break up the frame a little bit put the curtain rods
on with just standard little curtain rod brackets and have little triangular
bases here that are hinged so that you can fold them out one goes alike happens
all the time it's one of the things I like about those white lightnings you
can't believe what we put them through that's why we didn't it's why we didn't
flinch it happens on now if that had been my camera I would have flinched but
because we do it all the time and the worst thing we've ever had happen is we
blow a bulb modeling light so yeah these little hinge things are really critical
because it makes it stand up all by itself but it's still independently
movable so if we if for some reason it's in the way of something we can move it
back against that white paper and it's out of the way or we can pick it up and
take it right out of the camera room if we want it totally gone okay or if we
want to be really creative we can take it outside right and do something
outside with the trees back in the background shining through this or I
mean it's it is portable we haven't done that we just leave it right where it is
never move it this stays right here one thing about what's like a term is to
make sure that one folds out in front and one behind yes so you've got this
too but if you put them both the same way as we found out it'll yes it does do
that doesn't it makes for great expressions though on their clients you
know because you're back here focusing and you duck
not very often no that doesn't know we're careful this set photographs
really beautifully and once you've got it set up if you're lucky enough to have
a camera room with enough room to set this baby up and leave it up it is so
easy to photograph here's one of a mother and baby three-quarter length you
don't actually see the floor or anything but you get the background effect and
the feeling of the curtains this one here is full-length we're also using our
artificial stairway for part of the set beautiful background nice effects works
great with ballerinas or even with brides or prom dresses sitting down on
the floor very versatile very nice and your clients will love it I mean the
things already sitting here we made it for a background it was made for the
background but if you put the camera over here and we set these so they say
five six and a half okay so if they're five six and a half to eight right in
there five six and a half to eight because that's the aperture I use in
this camera room that means I can roll around like this stick a reflector over
here and I've got a main light right here has beautiful soft light so if she
does kind of a real soft blouse on or something you know you can put her in
like this or you can give her a little flower and she can lean right in and
you're coming right in across these curtains here and in the background it's
curtains and then just nothing back there and it's just really real close up
this is real soft just you know you can have her looking out the window you know
something like that very very versatile I do this a lot because it sells because
they like it it's just so soft you know it's like it's a real window out there
so it's all how creative totally different than a than a camera room look
you know it's just oh wow so we do that a lot look at how real this looks this
looks like she's standing by a real window with real light coming in the
window it has a real soft look it looks like someone just walked her over by a
window and snapped the photograph it's very beautiful light very soft very
natural and all we're doing is using the previous set that you just saw and
do photographing it into the side so that it becomes the source of light the
light is bouncing off the wall over to the left coming through the curtains
giving a real nice modeling to her face all right this is our this is our one of
our favorite sets this is really cool because it's real you can buy painted
backgrounds that have painted books on them and stuff but it is so obviously
fake and I wanted it on a look that looked like we went into some executives
office somewhere and actually did photographs so I realized that that's
not realistic either because it's going to look the same for every client so
obviously over a year or two people are going to start recognizing this okay a
year or two we'll tear it down or we'll change it okay we can change the books
we can change the props on it and do a lot of things to change it we can take
one of these shelves out these are all real okay so we can take these shelves
out and make a wider opening we can put bigger things in here you can keep
changing this but now Ed is totally responsible for this you want to talk
about this sure set and tell them how inexpensive it was considering the way
it looks it looks really expensive it wasn't dirt cheap we're not talking 10
bucks here but it's not as bad as you're going to think it is basically all it is
is two very inexpensive bookcases that we purchased from an office supply store
for around forty some dollars a piece they each were this wide and what we did
is we eliminated there would have been a double board down here we eliminated one
I just transferred the whole pattern from the shelf mounting holes to the
other side so I could connect the two and eliminate that and turn it into one
huge bookcase but we had a problem a challenge didn't we we but we what we
missed something that we didn't realize that we can maybe save you a little pain
and suffering here with that with this yes when you when we bought these
because of the fact that they were relatively inexpensive they came with a
folded up cardboard background you just unfold it and stick it on the back there
which looks okay if it's just setting in your home but when you hit it with a
main light all that cardboard is curved and you get what looks like these shiny
white columns in the back of your bookcase doesn't look doesn't look good looks really
bad so we pulled it back off of the wall ripped the cardboard off the back went
out and invested in a couple of sheets of quarter-inch birch plywood and what
was the investment for those investment for the plywood was about thirty five
dollars a sheet that's the first time he's heard that and we but they sure
look nice don't they only two sheets only two sheets and he had it cut there
they he told him the size and they cut it for him so it was got lots of nice
leftover plywood yeah we got some nice leftover plywood in case we want to do
something else thanks we bought a can of stain that matched the finish on the
bookshelf stained the plywood nailed on to the back it's built up on a plywood
base just made out of plain cheap three-eighths plywood that sets it up
off the floor so that the bottom of it is just barely out of camera angle and
then against the top we built another cheap plywood box so that we had some
kind of a built-in effect to make it look like it went all the way to the
ceiling and then this material right here which I'm sure you're familiar with
from the seminars is timber made by Formica and mr. Lewis found this again
at another salvage outlet just rolled up roll ends from some contracting job
probably you can buy it from a contractor supply but it's considerably
more expensive that way we glued it to the plywood top and bottom these are
just stuck on a little piece of trim that goes down here and just rolled up
into the corners bought some inexpensive molding stained it with the same stain
and then put it across there to make it to make the timber blend into the bookshelf
so it looks like it's just all built into a huge wall and the books oh the
books this is a good fortune this is good fortune the thing that really makes
this look good is these beautiful bindings this is expensive stuff the
books we've got I think we averaged about 32 cents a book on these yeah we
traveled around town Salvation Army Goodwill mission stores we've got tons
of books they just love to get rid of they usually sell them for about 50 cents
a piece but if you flinch real good and you want to buy 50 of them they'll give
you a lot of them for a quarter a piece or 20 cents a piece and we I think we
averaged about 32 cents and we've got about a hundred and 110 books on here
and the knickknacks the same thing while we were shopping for books we just go
look through the bins of junk and these were all ugly white and dirty and head
down them so we just washed them off spray painted them black and stuck them
up there and they look pretty we're considering going antique gold with
these but we haven't quite decided yet but they just kind of they're there but
you don't really notice them in the photograph same with this little book and
we could only find I think the other half sunk or something I think we paid
still got a price tag on it oh two dollars two bucks that ain't bad just
again just something to break up the the books but not to stand out so the real
key part of building this particular thing is you know that you've got
verticals and horizontals so you know that the camera is going to have to be
perfectly level so if you know the camera is going to be perfectly level
and you know we have our little desk here the desk is on rollers so we can
roll it around so we know that the subject is going to be my almost every
photograph that I do is built on six feet it's almost always the subject is
six feet away so I know the subject is going to be about here that means I know
I can put my oops that lights supposed to be aimed around this way we aimed it
that way so that it would look good on the video but that's not the way we
photograph but it's aimed around this way that's the separation light so we we
know that we can nail the separation light right there we're going to sit
the subject like this okay we can do something like this we can do something
like this we bring in our books to put the hands on the books okay you can do
this getting the cuffs and everything of course okay now making this perfect
bring in a little globe like this then we have our main light which is our
multi dome over here with no louvers on it since there are no louvers on it the
light spills on to the background as well and lights it very very softly
occasionally we will strike it with a little honeycomb type of a light but it
starts to get hot real fast and it's supposed to be you know because it's a
busy this is busy background so you like it to fall off and look but if it's not
enough you just kick a little light in on that thing so that means now that the
key part of this is that we have to figure out very carefully how high up
that is and how high up is that I think it's 16 inches okay so we had determined
when we put the camera there we put the lens on the camera we came over here we
sat like this we composed the photograph in the camera then we went back to here
which was now just a plain white wall and we measure we put a mark on it I
told them go lower lower lower up up up up boom they put a little pencil line on
the wall then we just measured to see how high up that was because we wanted
to see as much of the bookcases and as little of the timbers possible at the
timbers just there to kind of look nice when the client walks in it looks kind
of cool but you almost don't see it so that's the key to get it just the right
level to where when you're sitting here like this and you're and you're
composing this so it's about a three-quarter length portrait like
something like this that you don't see the bottom and the top very much but
you have to have that camera perfectly square or everything is a skew and for
as massive as it looks and as built-in as it looks there are two little L
brackets one on each side and little wall anchors into the drywall and one
screw on each side and if we take those two screws out we can slide it I mean
it's heavy but once you take the books out two people can slide it and put it
where you wanted to so it's not like you really built a construction project in
them in the camera yeah if this doesn't sell tear it out but this will sell this
is a guaranteed sell especially for senior boys guaranteed or little boys
how about little boys in a nice little suit and tie darling darling a guaranteed
sale there's no way anyone's going to be able to resist that but this is really
made for executives and senior boys but we've also done some very nice stuff on
this set with a seat with senior girls where they're in a nice outfit and you
just pose them here just like a man would be posed if they're in slacks sit
them like this and it looks really nice you can do really nice stuff with a girl
as well then I love this set we pull this is pose number four we'll talk
about posing in a little bit but like this this just looks like a million
bucks you come in and compose it right here it's like that so I usually bring
in I'll either put a couple books like this for a base you know it looks really
really nice
yeah then you're right that they there are things growing out of their head for
sure and but if you if you're careful not to over light it it's not distracting
at all because it really is a library and it's an executive office someplace
and it looks really nice photographs beautifully oh also we have these little
things here okay which I use to fill the composition okay I'll stick it in there
so it just barely kisses in on the edge of the portrait you know so it becomes
part of the composition so that's probably too far over for where I am it
probably be over on this side for where I am the way I'm posed right now okay
one of the important parts about this set is that you always have this desk on
an angle so that you're not photographing into the crotch area that's
the main camera right there you're not photographing into my crotch at all you
can't see the crotch at all I find that very offensive okay and distracting so
this is this is the way we do it so if I'm going to photograph it this way this
is the way it is otherwise we're going to rotate it around this way and do it
this way like this like that perfect cuffs half a watch you know this maybe
with a little bit of the watch especially mine with the Mickey Mouse
that's important like that here's another example on this set the different
ways that you light the bookcases can give you totally different looks as a
general rule we try to under light the bookcases rather than over light them
because you do want to see the faces first of the subjects really really nice
pleasing effect our clients especially graduating senior clients both men and
women really like this set it's more popular with men but it looks nice with
women as well you can also use it for executives very versatile very very nice
and it cost hardly anything to make it's really a very very useful set all right
this is our one of my personal favorite sets I really love this thing Dan built
this one and I don't know where we got the idea I think that Dan I sent Dan off
to the to Builders Square someplace and said come back with some kind of windows
or something so we can do it we didn't really have a particular plan in mind
when he took off and he came back with these windows that had been custom-made
for somebody that they never picked up and and there there's four of them I
think if I remember correctly yeah this this is one right here okay and then
this was another going up here there was four of them he got it for two dollars a
piece yeah two bucks a piece because they had been custom-made now you can
order these I mean just you know we can do you have your tape measure and they're
not that expensive but I mean two bucks you can't beat two bucks and this isn't
really a critical dimension but 16 inches so 16 inches wide and each one of
these was approximately 48 four feet so we end up with eight feet and so then we
we got the little what do you call this stuff one by four one by fours okay and
we built a little base around it now what I really want to do next I love this
this is really good stuff this photographs fantastic it makes you a
beautiful primary background and then you have a secondary background behind
it and the next step I want to do is get another set of these and paint them
white I really can see this in white as well as in black but I like the black
right now and I'm really happy with it so then we just made a little base a
little triangle base so that they would stand up and that was very critical
because they had to be perfectly straight up and down in order for the
verticals to be correct and yet it will tip over real easy so then Ed put a
little specially constructed right I'm sure this was some very special piece of
equipment found it in the closet a little bit of weight there so that it
doesn't tip over quite as easily okay so now we you could paint the other side
white but you can see the insides of the molding and that would cause me a little
discomfort but you know you could probably do something over there that
wouldn't look bad so now we set this here when we first started using this
was about two years ago we would move it out onto the only set we had and two
years ago we only had one set in the camera room and that was this one right
here and so we'd move these over while we'd bump into this cut the separation
lights things would tip over it was driving me nuts so when we put the
multi-set camera room in I wanted a set just for this now also by the way you
can pull this out and you have a high-key set right and you have a high
key set ready to go that will look really nice if you want to do something
in front of high key you know with with nothing because this is basically your
primary background you can just pull it out but this is the way I like it so I
bring this in and they just sit here now they're put just far enough away from
the wall so where we have room to put our 600 here with a parabolic on it so
little basically burn the background to white they're not out so far that they
get in the way of our full-length background so now that's these can just
sit here and I can still roll our full-length background out without having
to move these every time so now I have the capability here of doing all sorts
of cool things you know like this is pose number three for a guy okay and you can
just do really cool things here or you can get rid of the chair which is my
personal favorite is to do this bring it out just a touch pose number four like
this you can put this in closer like this so that it breaks the line oops there
this comes out like this because it just takes a second stay like this and you've
got this on the edge of one side of the photograph and this on the edge of the
other you're only seeing a little bit then we have black chiffon we also have
red chiffon so that we can hang the chiffon from this thing and let it just
kind of drape across behind it that looks really cool very very also you can
use white chiffon which we don't have which would look really really cool okay
so this has all kinds of possibilities you can do a full-length or actually a
three-quarter length can't do really a full-length because you'd see the floor
but we could do the same thing we did over there and just have a roll here and
just have a roll out and you can do full-length here and you can take a girl
in a really cute outfit you know and do pose number five like this and it looks
really cute and just a little it's just something different than a painted
background that's what you want to do something different you know and you can
you know you can you can see where you could start to get clever here you know
and you could really diffuse your lens you know and you could do something
really close up like this that would definitely hang a competition I mean
this is guaranteed hanging material because it's just you take a second look
at it you go huh because it's you know it's like a rainy day or it's a sunny
day you know and you get I'm being slightly facetious but not much I mean
basically windows really are cool and photographs whether they're behind the
background or whether you're peeking through them they're really kind of cool
here's another example of this set this is such a versatile set you can get so
many different effects off of these two simple little window type deals you can
do it in red or any other color you can just use different colors of material
hanging down you can use a fan and blow the material or you can do it in black
and white looks really really sharp very striking high contrast you can do
different poses like this really nice effect I highly recommend you get
something like this you are going to love it we use this for almost every
single setting that a session that we do you're going to really really like it
which then brings us to one of my favorites here this is our silver
timbre set now this is photographic area number nine we've had we've gone
through eight photographic areas right now plus the columns the TWAB that were
on the stucco wall so now this is our timbre this is the same material as
this material over here except it's just different access this different material
it's the same concept it's called timbre and it's silver this is a lot heavier
than the wooden this brown stuff is quite light this is a little bit heavier
and we've taken an Ed made a base just cut a base out of wood in the approximate
shape that we wanted these to take on then we put velcro on it and we just
stick it to it so you can take this down and move it if you want to okay it's
just stuck on what's hand with what is that velcro now we have a separation
light nailed down up there in the corner because we know the pose and the
location where the subject is going to be for this it's just something we want
to be there quickly that we can do a quick photograph so I think my favorite
you can do pose number five like this and you put four like this and it looks
cool as heck in the camera really looks cool so this becomes the the primary
background against which the person's leaning so it's also a prop okay and this
becomes the secondary back secondary background back here little fluffy
nothings contemporary nothings back there just to kind of break the line up
and you compose it as a vertical composition and you do not see the edge
here you don't see the molding it stops right there okay and you don't see the
gap between here you don't see this because you put the camera so it goes
right from here right to this and then you have the vertical a little black
looks cool in a black leather jacket looks really cool in black leather
really good in black leather okay and then you all kind very contemporary
though okay this is a contemporary feel mom and dad probably won't go nuts over
this but the kids will okay and you also know that expression sells photographs so
you could take a little three-year-old little three-year-old kid guy and bring
him over here you know on his little black leather Jack or his little real
coat you know you can come over here that would sell you know okay it's a
little bit contemporary but it was so you know it would because it's just
different than a painted background okay what then brings us to our last set
which oh do you have a oh this is this is one that we used the timbre for okay
we just did it a little differently here we have once one piece of timbre on one
side the other piece on the other side then we have a background behind it a
red paper background and then we hit it with a red gel off of a 600 ultra 600
with a honeycomb on it we have a separation light behind it which in this
case was the half dome I think is behind it and it looks really really cool so
you can do it that way as well in my camera room the way the camera set up I
had this corner that I didn't couldn't figure out what to do with in the
corner and this just just begged for this so it's set up like this it takes
up no space at all it would have been wasted space basically and we can still
get into our storage closets without any problem and it really works because this
looks so cool like this and it's easy you don't have to move lights around and
and colored gels and stuff it's just real quick and easy this timbre really
photographs need every single time you photograph it it looks a little bit
different gives you all kinds of different possibilities because you can
move it around a little bit all right this is this is our main full length set
this is the set that everything else was built around this set so we had to see
what would become how far this would be coming out how close it goes to the
walls so that we had room over here you'll notice that this the glass blocks
and the muslin hang up here so that it is not interfering with this set at all
so if we hang this back up that or maybe I hang it up like that it stops right
here okay so we now have an unobstructed full length set we can put the camera
right through the stucco arch and we can put a 90 or 127 lens on it and this is a
gorgeous background this is made by Lamar Williamson Greenville South
Carolina absolutely beautiful I highly recommend him he's extremely talented we
have two of these we have the low-key one here which he painted exactly to our
specifications we told him exactly what we wanted and he did it and then we're
behind it we have a high-key one as well this has so much classic potential we can
bring one of our leather chairs in one of my favorite things to do here while
Dan is working in another part of the camera room we'll bring in a the leather
chair that I had behind the desk here before we'll sit that here we can sit
the guy or the girl in that we take the table out of the dressing room bring
that in set it behind it and it becomes a very low-key classic set where they can
just sit in that with the leather and the table behind it it's very
classic Grand Rapids Midwest people just love that set it's very classic
traditional stuff we also have a love seat a wooden love seat that most of you
have seen that is in one of our dressing rooms that we can set here and we can do
beautiful photographs on that like brides you can do girls in really formal
gowns on this set really pretty we have our bride here yeah so this was done
right here just like you're seeing right now where camera was right back through
there put the love seat right here put the flower arrangement down there put
the main light over here and there and there you're all set okay little
reflector we use the photo flex reflector silver reflector wherever that
is and we just set that over here just outside of camera angle and it gives
just a beautiful look so you can do close-ups but what one of my favorite
things to do with a set so I walk over here because it's sitting right next to
it and I do a low-key with these windows so I bring the windows in let's set that
up just for a second it's one of my favorite sets last year we had a very
conservative Midwestern client invest in a 24 by 30 on canvas from this one this
sounds just like this so this is almost contemporary but then you've got this
incredibly conservative background so it sort of softens up how sharp this is you
know it starts to look a little more traditional so we take this like this so
we've got foreground middle ground background we do like this but it's very
low-key and this this comes in just enough to break that line here so she's
she or he is leaning here like this and the background he put a little ultra 600
with a honeycomb on it lights that up softly and it looks like a million bucks
you can also do them sitting down because this is full-length so you can
sit people down you know things like this and it looks really nice okay so now
if we take this out we'll roll up we have these canvas backgrounds are on
motorized background rollers from Denny manufacturing that are made to take the
weight this is an extraordinarily heavy background and I have my own homemade
background rollers here that are made from electric motors from electric
windows and cars and it costs like three bucks apiece to make those but there's
no way that those can lift this so we have right back here our motor driven
which is really really nice
so we take this one up and this is our high-key painted background made by Lamar
as well absolutely gorgeous background now you see other companies trying to
to do this same type of an effect and then they're fine they're okay but if
you want the absolute best this is it this is getting a little bit dirty now
this is one of my favorites this I use a whole ton and it does get dirty really
easily my favorite set for this trying to think of where they are they're in
the bathroom the client bathroom the bushel of roses okay so again we have
full-length how do you clean these Ed we don't obviously I think you can do it
with soft detergent and a sponge because this is an oil-based paint that is
painted on here yeah some kind of soft soap or something but it's due for a
clean I do not want to attempt to paint it even though like you know you could
probably match it but what if you didn't because I want this seamless effect here
so this has all kinds of potential obviously you can do full-length brides
on this set you can do little children on this set you can bring in a white
piece of furniture on this set you can do all kinds of things right here and
you have the capability of going full-length if I so desire or close up
if I want to do close-up work but I have a similar background to this over on my
head and shoulders set for the classic head and shoulder things so I don't have
to take the time to roll this thing all the way down and set it up if I'm only
going to do a close-up so my favorite use of this particular set is some
because most studios don't have the luxury of owning backgrounds like these
and I want to try and make my studio separate from everybody else that's why
I went to all this work to do all these different backgrounds so I want my work
to stand out from everybody else's so we get now this is something Sherry put
together my wife Sherry put together for me a little off-white basket with some
roses stuck in it thank you sir so we'll take and set this down and then we have
our little white stool just back there and we can start doing wonderful things
of children mothers and children this has a real soft feel to it so we can
take and sit somebody down here let's say you have a graduating senior in a
really pretty mauve prom dress very flowing and and soft and there's just
bags for you know like this type of a thing or like this you know if she it's
a little bit more flexible to work with you can do something like this so you
can have a relating to the flowers or whatever my favorite one I've ever done
in this set is the one of the little girl with the artificial kitten yep we
also did one with her and her mom but this is photographs like a million bucks
and that's with the roses in the little basket and then the it's just too good
to be true how cute the dress matched and then you have the little kitty and
she's turning her head to the left and down and and you see how it gives this
beautiful effect back there really photographs well so this is stuff that
most photographers don't take the time to do full-length things like this so I
try to do that okay yes background light comes from the side and also sometimes
if you use a large multi dome you don't need any background light at all
because just the light itself from the main light because you just feather it
slightly see with painted backgrounds you don't have the louvers on because
you want the light to go all over the place so you can feather it just a
little teeny bit and it'll just beautifully like that back there so it's
it's it's so easy you have to be careful or you'll make it hard you know it's
really simple but that's why so many photographers use painted backgrounds
that's why you don't want to do very many unpainted backgrounds and this one
here is one that we did for the Grand Rapids ballet very very soft tones in
the background makes a very nice effect we really love it of all the sets that
I use this is my favorite for using besides I talked to you about the
adaptive spot over there on the stucco wall where I'm using this stucco or the
adaptive spot is the main light but now if I'm going to go for a little more
contemporary feel we go with our white background just white paper we bring
that out like so and this is a whole lot easier to keep clean because you can
just keep cutting it whereas you don't cut the other one and I then we bring
our adaptive spot in I think I've got some muslin action down there but it's
not going to show so now we bring in our adaptive spot which is one of the most
powerful things we use in the studio we use it both as a main light and a
background light we absolutely love it so now we can take our adaptive spot we
put it on an ultra 1800 we have these different patterns that we can slip into
it so we can start accomplishing all kinds of different effects in the
background just by slipping a different background pattern into the spot but
this is how we do it right here so normally this this is always set up in
the camera room always like this and it just basically a set off in a set we're
not using and when we just move it around sometime most of the time lately
I've been over here using it as a main light with a circle I just love that but
this is so pretty because we can put in different patterns and if we can turn
off our our video light there a minute so if I'm going to use it as a main
light the first thing you do is you can go back like this and this is the way I
used to do it before I used that stucco wall when I got the stucco wall it just
begged for this but you just take it off to the side but see it's kind of boring
because it doesn't have any texture or anything on it but then you bring the
person over and you stand the person up against it in the light and you can do
some pretty cool stuff and work with shadows that's what we're doing and I
like it very much over there where I've got the molding to work with and it
works really really well the more popular way that we use it is when we do
something on the floor with this set this is really popular our clients
really like this but we just have the white paper and we're using the adaptive
spot as the main source of light so we bring that down like this and we take a
senior guy who lettered in basketball and we put him in his leather is a
jacket his letter jacket and we bring him down on the floor like this okay and
you put the the we call that thing ball the basketball there and you get the
light just right and it looks really really cool on film it looks really nice
really neat and we've sold several like this where we just put the guy down like
this thing and if the clothes are right it looks really really macho kind of
cool and he's got you know like if he's in basketball you got the basketball if
he's in baseball you've got the glove there and a ball you know and you can
have a bat lay in there or something he's a looks a little bit feminine it
really doesn't when it's when it's lit this the dramatic lighting that makes it
really cool when the dramatic light hits the face and it falls off the light
falls off I couldn't set this because I didn't have a subject down there the
light falls off on the rest of the body if the whole other rest of the room is
dark now we only have our separation light on and this light and the body the
light lights the face really cool so it looks really really neat and then it
fall the light starts to fall off everywhere else and looks really really
cool so we use that a lot nope no reflector no nothing highlighting ratio
really neat but then the easiest way that the thing we use this for a lot is
when we just put it back on the background and we put a pattern in the
background whatever pattern it might be most of you know about the 12 different
patterns we have and we throw it out of focus a little bit to soften it and then
we can put a posing helper in here of a chair or something and we can zoom in
close and we can do all sorts of really cool things you got a pattern cool oh
one of my favorites Venetian blinds I love that so what it does is it allows us
to get a cool effect very very rapidly looks really neat and then you can just
bring in something here you can a lot of times we'll use this one with a white
stepladder we have a white stepladder that we painted and we can take a girl
in that and we can lean her on the stepladder like this and it looks really
really cool that's in the background you saw the one we have of the ballerina
that was sitting on the love seat that had that background in it so you can do
all kinds of cool things and it's so fast because once you put this in
position and meter for it you just leave it there and you just change another put
a different pattern in and you just get all kinds of different effects very very
quickly so you don't take a lot of time time no I meet her with the pattern in
it yeah see this is is one that was done right here just like this exactly where
we just have the lines pattern that we made and we just slipped it into the
adaptive spot and boom there it is and it looks so cool and it's very fast it's
very quick it's very easy and it looks very very theatrical it has a real
Hollywood theatrical kind of a feel to it so that's why we use this so that's
the last thing we use this set for here's another example done in this set
using the adaptive spot it's a very powerful tool we use it for almost every
session that we do this one here is just an almost all in black and white picking
up the tones of her outfit in the background very soft you don't know what
it is here's another example where we just use the adaptive spot with no
pattern in it to create the circle effect very very strong almost a
theatrical feel and this one here we're doing a horizontal one on the ground or
on the floor really on seamless white paper really neat effects with a large
white background like this with seamless white paper there's so many different
things you can do here we just took a couple of pedestals and inserted them
into the photograph to break the composition up it looks really really
striking it's almost entirely in black and white other than his skin tones
looks really really sharp client loves it we always do a head and shoulders on
a painted background for almost every client we photograph and then we work
our way into the other more exciting sets around the camera room area if you
have any questions about any of the information that we've covered on this
tape would like to contact us for any other reason here's our address and our
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