in this two-part tutorial i'm gonna take
you step by step we're gonna work from
shoot all the way through to post as we
create one of our signature portraits
the environmental shutter drive
my name is pai and i'm one of the
founders of lynn anderson photography
and slrlounge.com
we're teaming up with adorama to bring
you a new series of photography
tutorials called master your craft right
here on adoramatv so let's dive in
what's up friends my name is pai welcome
to adoramatv it's wonderful being here
with you all
so video one i want to break down the
process of actually shooting and getting
a clean raw file for this look the
environmental shutter drag in video two
we're gonna take that raw file and work
through from start to finish inside of
lightroom and you guys can follow along
with a downloadable dng
let's get straight into this and the
first thing that i'd like to discuss is
what is
nope missed my air quotes what is a
signature
portrait still miss my hair quotes
so a signature portrait this term i use
to kind of just describe images
that might be unique to you and your
studio now this isn't to say that nobody
else has shot this kind of image or any
kind of signature portrait what i'm
saying is from your client's perspective
these images are unique they kind of
stand out to them and it might be an
image that they look at and go you know
what i want that for my photo shoot so a
signature portrait is an image that you
tend to create or recreate quite often
for different clients now i'm going to
save the importance of these signature
portraits for a separate video and
discussion for now let's focus on this
one specifically it's an environmental
portrait with a shutter drag and we're
gonna shoot it natural light i'm gonna
break the process down into 10 steps
starting with step one
time of day
for these types of images i find them
easiest to create at dusk and if you're
bold enough sure at dawn it works as
well so this is right around sunset and
just past sunset and the reason is you
have to slow down the shutter to around
one half to a quarter second that range
and doing that when it's bright outside
really isn't possible without the use of
a neutral density filter or an nd filter
so at dusk the light is dim enough that
you can slow down the shutter close down
the aperture a bit and you're good to go
just note that if you want to do this
mid-day you will need to use an nd
filter to cut down light so you can
actually do a mid-day shutter drag but
we all like it during golden hour anyway
it looks best during that time so just
do it at dusk number two scout your
angle now here's what i mean before you
have a client step in for the shot i
want you to make sure of a a few things
okay number one that the client is going
to be standing in a safe place when
we're working at the beach it's going to
be a spot where i want the water to roll
past their feet but i don't want the
water to be high i don't want to be
crashing near them i don't want any risk
or liability of my clients getting hurt
during the shoot so what i'm looking for
is kind of an area that they can stand
like say for example these rocks where
the water is going to roll over their
feet slowly
the next thing i'm looking for is the
motion itself so you'll notice that i'm
actually shooting and i don't have the
camera set up on the tripod what i'm
doing is i'm setting the camera to a
slow shutter speed we're at one third of
a second f16 iso 50. this gets me slow
enough that i can see the motion and
just hand hold to see what it actually
looks like so in this first spot i kind
of would have to wait for a really long
time for the water to actually wash it
past their feet i like the way it looked
though the second one the motion didn't
really look that great the water doesn't
kind of pull the way that i wanted to
the third one's okay but again the water
doesn't come deep enough this one's good
but i noticed that
the detail of these rocks kind of makes
the movement of the water
a little bit less noticeable
i know that this works well on sand so
that's kind of my back of my head and
when i kind of realized that this spot
really isn't working for me i go back to
okay i know this works well in sand why
because the sand is just a constant
textured surface and it's simple so it
allows the movement of the waves to
really stand out
so
i kind of go back to what i know works
in this case since the other options
aren't okay this brings me to step three
it's time to actually place your tripod
now i am using the peak design travel
tripod it's this guy and i have a couple
tips when it comes to beach safety when
using tripods or at least how to keep
your equipment in good working order so
i like the peak design travel tripod
it's great it's well built it's small
and compact and very light it does have
its drawbacks i mean it is rather
expensive but the main thing for me is
the head it can shoot portrait aspect
ratio but it's a little bit annoying to
kind of use compared to other tripod
heads so if that's important to you that
might be a little bit of a drawback
but either way this is kind of my go-to
because i do a lot of destination work
and so when i set this up and you're
going to do the same thing with any
tripod that you're using once you get to
the beach i want you to actually extend
just the bottom legs and you're never
going to lay the tripod down on the sand
you're simply going to insert the bottom
legs wherever you go just to make sure
that this is the only part that goes
into the sand
the number one way that i see tripods
kind of
get destroyed is actually well laying
them down as one but two is once they've
been put down in the sand
retracting or
basically closing this thing up and
putting it away without actually
cleaning the bottom feet so once these
bottom feet go into the sand you're not
going to
close or collapse the legs until you're
back at the car until you have these
legs fully cleaned off
okay so it's extended now when you place
this into wet sand like i'm doing you're
gonna kind of place it and then press
down that head a little bit to get it to
sink into the sand so it remains
relatively stable once it's in otherwise
when the water comes through the tripod
is going to keep on sinking
okay four with the tripod placed you're
going to place the camera onto
the shoe what i want you to make sure is
that your plate is very sturdy it's on
there nice and tight and then i want you
to get onto the head make sure
everything is nice and tight
the reason is is i prefer to do this
without a shutter release granted you
know if you're doing a lot of landscapes
and doing this stuff quite often use one
that's best practice
but for me i'm working on location i
like to take a minimum amount of gear
and things like a shutter release often
get lost so as long as the camera is
sturdy i can use my trigger and just
spam the trigger through burst mode and
capture the images that i need to
without a shutter release and be able to
do it a bit quicker with less gear
but the camera has to be on the tripod
in a very sturdy manner otherwise you're
going to cause a little shake and
movement it's going to mess up your shot
now side note my workhorse camera is now
the canon r5 but you can literally
use any
camera for this we're shooting at a low
iso anything's going to work what's
actually more important is the lens
and that brings me to tip or step 5
which is to use a wide angle lens
now something like the 28 to 70 is going
to be fine something like a 35
millimeter would work fine but my
preference for shots like this
is actually going to be something a bit
wider my go-to is going to be something
more like a 15 to 35
the reason for this is that we're trying
to capture and even exaggerate the
motion so we're going to get more of
that exaggerated effect when we work
with an ultra wide angle lens so
something like 14 millimeters this 15 to
35 a 17 any of those in that range is
going to be great for this now because
we're using an ultra wide angle lens
when we get to step 6 finalizing our
composition there are a couple things i
want you to keep in mind i find that
when shooting portraits with an ultra
wide lens and focal length i want to
keep my subjects
dead center in the frame so usually when
i'm doing this technique i'm leaving
them right in the center so as not to
distort their bodies do make sure that
if you are placing them at edges or kind
of tops or bottoms that you kind of zoom
in a bit so you're not getting too much
edge distortion and creating weird
shapes
the next thing is i want to exaggerate
the movement coming down and into the
lens
so i like to tip the camera down a bit
but not too much
i noticed once i shot this image here
that the angle that i want had them just
barely right at the horizon line i like
to actually keep my couples either below
the horizon or kind of well above it but
not with their heads going right through
the center it's not a make or break
thing it's just i find it to be a more
pleasing composition here i'm going to
lower the camera angle a bit so that my
subjects are nicely above the horizon
line while also bringing the camera down
closer to the water to further
exaggerate the motion coming through the
lens
step seven you're gonna set your
exposure now what i would recommend is
do all of this before even bringing your
subjects into the frame until you are
really practiced at this technique
i've done this a lot of times so i'll
often just place the couple and i know
exactly what i'm going for and it's
relatively quick to do it but with your
exposure what you're going to end up
doing is getting the shutter speed to
around somewhere like one quarter i find
one quarter to sort of be the sweet spot
when you're this close to the water
where your clients can hold still so
your subjects can hold still through one
quarter of a second pretty easily
especially when they're placed a little
deeper into the shot
and you're also going to get some really
great motion in the water you're going
to get more motion as you slow it down
but then your subjects are going to have
a hard time holding still
around 1 5th of a second and faster you
might not get enough motion so i'll
usually start at one quarter of a second
and then from there just close down the
aperture or you can even start by
lowering your iso to 50 or 100 whatever
your lowest iso is start there then keep
closing the aperture down until you get
to an appropriate exposure also please
make sure you're shooting raw this is
going to give you much more flexibility
in post and recovering your details as
you're going to see in the next video
what we want to aim for when it comes to
the histogram is a histogram that is
maximized meaning when we look over here
on the right side we have all of the
detail there in the shot and you'll
notice for this image if i press j
the only thing that's blown i could even
save more of this i tend to expose a
little bit on the brighter side when i'm
shooting canon just because i know it
doesn't recover as well as like say a
sony would but i could have probably
gone safely down one more stop and had a
tiny bit more over here to recover but
even up here this is totally okay too
but just notice that we have good
shadows we have most of our highlights
retained we want to maximize all the
detail that we can comfortably get on
our camera so we get this histogram
there now step eight bring your subjects
into the frame what i would recommend is
first give them a little bit of an idea
hey i'm slowing down the shutter so for
this photograph when i say hold you guys
are actually going to hold your
positions completely i'm actually going
to even have you hold your breath for
that moment and then i'll say relax
right afterwards just give them that bit
of instruction so they know what you're
doing because you do need them to kind
of work with you as soon as that shutter
opens they need to be holding still so
instruct them have them step into the
frame where you want them for your
composition and now you're ready to
shoot step 9 use a high frame rate shoot
through the motion so as soon as this
wave comes i start shooting and i spam
all the way through
this is the shot that i end up using but
i keep shooting all the way through it
because i want to make sure that i have
the perfect motion selected for the
final and my favorite in this set was
right here where you can kind of see the
front edge of the wave coming up and
through the frame so shoot through the
entire sequence holding the shutter this
is also going to ensure that one of
those images has the subjects perfectly
sharp so long as they are holding still
one or more of those images will and so
worst case scenario if the subjects are
a little bit blurry in the shot you can
find a different one a different set
among there to
layer and do a simple composite with you
can kind of just erase and mask them out
right but here because we're using a
good shutter speed that they can hold
still at even when you look at the raw
file they are plenty still and plenty
sharp for us to use in this shot this
last one is a big one so step 10
verify before you stop so too often i
see shooters come back
with an amazing set of images where the
motion looks fantastic and when i zoom
into the couple i'm like dude you missed
critical focus or there might have been
a little bit of movement either way
they're not quite sharp enough
so before you touch the tripod before
you have the subjects move
look at the image where you think you
got the perfect motion in the wave and
everything else
zoom into the couple zoom into your
subject make sure that they're sharp at
least make sure that they're sharp
enough and if they're not
you're going to simply repeat and do
another sequence
when you practice at this you can get
this dialed in in one or two takes i
think i did like one or two tries and
then we were done with this it took all
of say five minutes but what i'd highly
recommend is when you're developing kind
of a new style a new technique don't do
it during an actual client shoot try to
set up a test shoot get good with the
technique first then employ it on an
actual client shoot so you're not
burning their time doing something that
may not end up turning out well now at
this point you'll have a final raw image
here's my final image and you can see
two different edited versions ones in
color one's in black and white and we're
going to cover this in complete detail
in the next tutorial next week so be
sure to join me for that one in the
meantime i would love for you to
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and until next time peace