Rhythm and Repetition
so little tips and tricks that I have wind putting together an image. One of them is rhythm and repetition, and I touched on a lot of these things on day one. So let's get into it a little bit more rhythm and repetition for me is I mean literally. It's rhythm and repetition. It's finding the reflections. It's finding different ways to reiterate the scene. And I'm not yes, am I looking for reflections to be clever? Of course, it's nice to be clever. We kind of pat ourselves on the back when we find something cool. But what I'm looking for here, these reflections in the car, the one in the back mirror and then the one on the trunk. That's just emphasizing the fact that I want your eyes to go right up to the couple and just reemphasizing what's going on. And I didn't stage this. I didn't tell them. Come out of your synagogue and then stop and hold each other before you get in the car. I saw them coming. I saw the reflections. I had my 24 to 70. I was ready to go, and when they came out an...
d they got near the car. I dropped down to the hood and I was ready for them to do something. Now, if they hadn't done something, if they hadn't given me anything, it just would've been clever picture of them getting in the car. But the fact that she stopped and they sort of held each other and she touched his face, they gave me the moment. They gave me the content of the picture. I just set the scene and let them be themselves. And I'm always looking for something in some way to use rhythm. Some way to use repetition. This is a rehearsal dinner at the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and is the Carnegie Museum Amazing? Yeah, it is. It's incredible, but marble floors are everywhere. For goodness sakes, laminate floors are shiny. If you polish them enough, it doesn't have to be the marble floor of the Carnegie Museum. It could be, you know, the shiny rented dance floor in the tent in their backyard, but I saw the reflection of them in the ground and wiggled around on my stomach until I got it. I was using my 85 14 At 14 It was a very, very, very dark space I was at I s 0 4160th of a second laying flat on the ground. And this is what the image looks like out of camera, just looking for a different way to see the scene. That's what's always going on in my head when I'm looking for something clever to do. Compositionally What's going on in my head is, how can I see this in a way that no other photographer has ever seen it? Or how can I see it better? Or how can I see it differently? And I'm not talking about being different for the sake of being different are being clever just to be weird because, sure, you could do 80 reflections in a bunch of different locations. But if it doesn't mean anything to the picture, if it doesn't help you tell your story, then it's just being weird for the sake of being weird. So don't do that. I'm doing these things, actually. Help Tell the story of what I'm doing. Any guesses as to what's going on here? Anybody, Come on, anybody close? This is great. I can you show the befuddled expressions of the studio audience. Because this is Fanta. It's kind of one of my parlor tricks is like, How did I do this? I you know you. Yes, you got it. Teeter, Huh? Clothes, that's what. Would that actually be really sweet if I could have done that? What this is is it is actually a West Elm Ottoman. This is the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This is on the 19th floor. It's just at. All we're doing is we're outside of the ballroom. It's a fancy hotel. Oh, yeah, it's a fancy hotel. We're not in her room. We're not in the ballroom. Were not on the grand sweeping staircase were in a hallway by a window. Everybody's got a hallway by a window and there was an ottoman sitting on the ground like it was in front of their these little benches. There was an ottoman in front of it, and it was a glass ottoman, and it was shaped like a starburst. So when you look down on it, it did like this. Actually, it went in words. That would be way more pokey if it went outwards and I took it. I flipped it on its side and I laid down on it. It's thinking on the fly. It's looking at everything in the scene, not just the window, not just your background, not just what's shiny on the walls, but what's going on on the ground. What's what. What can I use in here to enhance the story that I'm telling not to be weird for the sake of being weird, but to help tell a stronger story? So I've got my light, which is first and foremost. I've got Kelly, who is gorgeous, and her bridesmaids, who are fantastic and they're just helping her. This is during the portrait part of the day. It's before the ceremony. The bridegroom didn't see each other before the ceremony, and all they're doing is kind of helping her get ready. And I said, Guys, if you want a fluffer up before we go into the ballroom and start doing some pictures, can you do it over here by this window? All of the other windows here, this one has the shears pulled up. It's wide open. I've got a nice dark background so I can have some dramatic light and dark background, and then I just lay down on the ground on an Ottoman because I just found it there and rolled it on the ground and everyone said, What are you doing? I said, Don't worry, it's cool Promise. And Kelly was like, She just does not happen. And if you show these things to your clients when you do kind of odd things on a wedding day, like lay on the ground or hide behind a trash can or something like that, they're like, Oh, that's just David being creative again and they trust you. And, hey, do you mind getting ready in the middle of the hallway or fluffing? You know, I know we're going in this fantastic decorated ballroom to do some pictures, but while you're helping her just fluff up and everything before we go in there, can you do it in this hallway by this window? If your clients trust you, they're gonna say OK, and they're not gonna ask you questions. They're just they're going to believe that you know what you're doing, so they're going to let you do it. Rhythm and repetition. I am not anywhere fancy at all. I'm outside of Tampa. I'm at a golf course. It took all. Of course, in suburban Florida. This isn't like the Ritz Carlton in Maui. It's anywhere that there's a hill in the sky. And we were taking pictures of the bridal party and they were like, my least favorite thing that I can get asked on a wedding day is committing some fun pictures with the bridal party. God, guys, I don't know. What do you mean by fun? Like, what is your fun? Because to me, fun pictures with the bridal party would be us sitting around on our phones like reading books on our kindles like, What is your fun? Are you jumping fun People? Are you walking fun people that you just wanna hang out together? I need to get a sense of what you mean by fun pictures with the bridal party. Do you want to run from a fake dinosaur? Like what? What do you want to dio? I don't know. If you want to run from a fake dinosaur, by God, you're gonna run from that dinosaur and we're gonna make it the best running from a dinosaur picture that has ever existed ever in the entire world. We do this thing that we has been. I like to call surrendering. You want to run from a dinosaur? Okay, It's your wedding. I'll do what you want. You want to smile in the all day long I surrender. Do whatever you want. You want to hold your bouquets around the bride's face and do a portrait of her? Okay. We're gonna make it awesome. I'm not gonna be the photographer who's gonna be like, I don't do the dinosaurs is going to do a dinosaur ready to a dinosaur. I'm gonna charge you for the photo shop to make the dinosaur. But I might throw in a kitten and maybe a rainbow. I don't know, but, you know, it's my job to please my clients within reason, obviously, but, you know, we want to do some fun pictures with the bridal party. I was like, OK, do you trust me on there? Like sure I'm like, Go climb that hill, It's gonna climb the hill. We're gonna do a nice silhouette. You've got the rhythm. You've got the repetition of the bodies there goofing off and being themselves. And I was able to give them something different from what I was giving the rest of my clients. And amusingly enough, this bride actually ended up being a photographer. She wasn't a photographer at her wedding. She knew that being a wedding photographer, she's really darn good. So luckily, I still actually think her wedding pictures were good. So she is still, hopefully very confident in her choice of photographers. Any ideas what this is? No, Um, it was hot. It was loud. I felt like I was in a night club. It smelled like feet. A limo. And not just a limo. This is one of those crap tastic party buses. Right where it's like a rolling nightclub. Kolya. Smells like spilled booze and feet. It's phenomenal. And I'm laying on my back on the floor. So, um hello, Hepatitis. Now I'm just getting, but I saw this corrugated ceiling and we're riding and I'm riding backwards. I hate riding in limos because they make me incredibly nauseous. So I'm going backwards. I'm trying not to puke and my assistance trying not to puke. I don't like. Okay, get over yourself and look around. All right. Well, there really isn't any good light coming in through the windows. So there's really nothing that I could do here on. Look at that ceiling. Maybe that's interesting. We could make something with the ceiling. So I actually laid down on the ground and I shot up into the ceiling, blocking out, all eliminating all other distractions in the scene, blocking out. You know, I'm not even showing the bride sitting there. I'm not showing the groom sitting next to her. I'm just showing the scene as I see it in the ceiling. Just look at everything around you, Everything. Every sitting next to the head table at a wedding, again with rhythm and repetition. I'm sitting next to the head table. The groom got up on stage and was goofing around with a man. So where the groomsmen in a normal world, this would last about five minutes. 10 minutes later, that kind of still up there. And I was like, Well, I've shot this with natural light. I've shot this with on camera flash. I shot this with off camera flash. Really sure what to do here Now I've shot the reactions of the crowd. I guess I'll just take a knee by the table here and I'll see if there's anything else that I didn't see. And when I crouched down next to the head table, I saw that the water glass was referring. Was reflecting the scene. The what the ice had long since melted. It wasn't sparkling water, so it wasn't bubbling. It was just this flat glass of water, and I realized that when I looked into it, I saw the entire scene inverted, and I was like, Well, look at that kind of kind of glad I took a look around. I'd like you to note what Lindsay I was using for this one. This is one of the six times I've used that lens that 35 14 But to give it that slight wide angle look, the 14 was very important. So while I did so, I was crouched down by this table. I did see the water glass. I did see the scene, but it's the tool that I picked to tell the story that really helped bring the story on home rhythm and repetition over and over and over again, back in a limo. No corrugated ceiling this time, but I have them reflected in the actual kind of wave tastic ceiling that's going on on. I didn't tell them to do this. I waited for the moment. Sometimes you see a clever set up or a way to do rhythm and repetition, and it involves actually asking your clients to do something. Sometimes you see it and you have to wait for a moment to unfold in front of you. She's sitting in the car. She's waiting to get out. He was sitting next to her. He got out of the car. He came around. He opened up the door for her and he leaned in to give her a kiss. I'm not a huge fan of kissing pictures. The second your lips touch, the story is told. I like the second before they kissed or the second after they kiss because then you get an expression of either anticipation or reaction. So he's leaning in to give her a kiss. She's smiling, Adam, and I'm waiting for them to be in the exact right spot. Now, this doesn't mean that I could be a crazy person. Be like, OK, this moment is coming, and I know that something is happening and I'm really afraid that I'm gonna miss it. So I'm gonna shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot, spray and pray. Do not spray and pray. If you spray and pay spray and pray, I will come to your house and smack in the face with a leather glove and throw it on the ground and walk out. That is the surest way to miss a moment. If you are firing your machine gun at a wall, you're gonna hit. You're not gonna hit your target because you're crazy. But if you sit there and you wait and you anticipate the moment that's coming, do you miss it? Sometimes sometimes. But I'm not gonna have a better chance of getting it. If I'm just machine gunning all over the place, that just means that I'm gonna take 50 pictures and missed the moment. I would rather hold my breath and wait and anticipate and fire one, maybe two, maybe three frames. Click, click, click Done. Wait for it. First of all, you're gonna have more energy because you're not gonna be a spastic rabbit running around all day long. And second of all, there is going to just be a better quality to your images because you're gonna learn how to see these moments unfolding in front of you if you're not watching them And when I'm looking, what's going on? I'm literally watching the scene just with a camera to my face. I'm not thinking about the technical, because what I've already done here is OK, I'm on aperture priority and the lights gonna come in and it's gonna be really bright. The rest of the limo is really dark, so the camera meters gonna freak out, it's gonna try to equalize everything. I'm gonna end up with a totally blown out image. So I know in my head I have to roll my exposure compensation dial down by probably like somewhere between a stop and 1/2 to 2 stops and I'm already framed. You know, I met 24. I met F four so I can focus and recompose if I want to. But I don't really have time to focus on recompose, so I know what's gonna happen is gonna happen fast and put a focal point right on her face. And then I'm gonna wait. 10 years ago, I would have had to think that whole thing through while we were driving in the limo and getting to where we were going to go. Now I go, Oh, my God. He's thing out of the car. Hit the ground. Roll down, Ready to go. Done. Don't even think about it. So that's why when I was harping on all of the technical stuff yesterday, If you don't know that stuff inside and out, you won't be able to make those snap decisions. And maybe you missed. Like, Listen, you can't do this tomorrow like you might try this and you might miss it. Or you might nail the moment be like home man and a stop and 1/ over exposed fix it imposed to get over it and get a better the next time. You know what I mean? Like, you're not gonna be perfect all the time. I'm not perfect all the time. I screw crop up all the time. I didn't swear I managed to hold that one in. Um, I make mistakes. I'm only human. I have My God. I gave you a whole slide of mistakes I have made the other day and they're intensely stupid. So if you think you're above making a bad exposure decision or missing your focus. It's the worst when you think you've got something really clever and you focused on the seat behind them instead of them. I made mistakes, too, but I make less and less mistakes. The more I'm continually working to refine the way that I'm seeing things in to refine the technical aspect of what I'm doing. Questions. Anyone are we feeling? You're all nodding at me. So hopefully something is resonating since we're good. Yes, please go. Go day, please pictures. You kind of start out of the lower risk and know that you got your bases covered. And then sometimes, yeah, like if I can. If there is, I know there's a safe shot and there's a creative shot. I'm not always get the safe shot first, but for something like this, there really was no safe shot. It was like you either get it or you don't and you have those. You either get it or you don't moment hundreds of times on a wedding day. Um, perception photography asked. What do you do in when couples ask for silly or tacky pictures rather than fun? Like ugly faces crossed eyes, tongue sticking out does that? And I'm adding on to their question. Does that do you ever decline their offer or their request? Just out of wanting to okay, protect your vision or your quality? It's not my vision. Like, it's not my day. It really isn't. And listen, nine times out of 10 you're gonna weed out. Clients were total style mismatch before they even book you. A lot of you're not gonna get to the wedding day, and they're gonna ask you for something violently different from what you normally do. However oh, we thought would be super funny. Is that me and my groomsmen pretend that we pee on this bush over here. Really? That's what would be really funny. Okay, you guys want to do that? Go ahead. My standard response is you do it. I'll shoot it. Am I dying inside? Oh, yeah, yeah. Am I gonna show that picture on my block? New way. And I'm gonna show that gallery to prospective clients. Know, because they're gonna think that I told them to do that. But again, you want to run from the dinosaur. You want to do my least favorite thing, which is this? You want Pretend that you're flicking me off, but you're really showing me your ring finger? Guys, that's talkie, Please. Seriously, that's what I'm thinking inside. But absolutely, of course. Do you ever show a client the back of your camera? And if you do, do you show someone who is showing signs of being a bridezilla the back of your camera as well, If they seem questionable, are curious about what you're capturing. Um, sometimes, sometimes if they're super nervous, if they're like spazz ing out, they don't get to see anything because they're gonna immediately start picking apart what I show them, especially if there if they've had their hair redone three times in their makeup, Done twice. I'm not going to show you a thing because you're gonna start picking apart the way you look. But if it's like when I was through the Ottoman on the ground and laid down on the Ottoman, the bride was like, she's good and one of her bridesmaids was just like, no idea what you're doing. And when I was done, I was like, Hey, just give you a heads up. This is what I was doing and she saw, and she was like, Oh my God, that's awesome. And then she was my biggest cheerleader for the rest of the day. So if if they think I'm doing something weird, I just want to show them what it looks like every once in a while. But for the most part, I don't show them the back of my camera unless they're a little kid. Like if it's like a two or a three year old, that's my trick. To get them to like me is come here. You want to see yourself? I'll show them the camera and they're like is me? I'm like, is you? But I don't do that to brides, no matter how young at all. I think we're good up here. We're gonna here, We'll get out here. Let's keep on keeping on so again rhythm and repetition just to show a few more examples, you know, reflection in a reflection. This is a dress in a window. This is not in a fancy location. This is literally shoving it in a corner of a window in a room that's really dirty, messy and crowded. But I've got another door and then I've got a reflection of another door that kind of opened on either side of this window and they were dirty. It was crowded. The room was a disaster, but I still found something interesting. This is in the dirty, crowded, messy living room of the bride's loud, boisterous Greek mother and family. With everybody in there ever this is a reflection in a curio cabinet. The bride's mom had one of those glass cabinets with, like the glass backs with all of the little china figurines in it. This is the bevel of one of the doors. You can find something interesting anywhere. Does it matter where this is that it doesn't matter where this is? It's a shiny floor and an open door. You can tell him in a hotel, but this could be Hoboken, New Jersey, or this could be Prague like you. You just have no way of knowing. The light is light. Composition is good composition. It doesn't matter where you are. It really doesn't matter where you are. Anything from you guys, you're all smiling at me, all happy. So okay, all are feeling good. Is the Internet still awake out there? Three days and er they stole with. Absolutely. And Joel C would like to know. Could you give us some examples about how you stir up your creativity? I mean, I did. At the very beginning, I watch a lot of TV go to bed. I take a walk. I go to the movies, I pick up a magazine for me. Sometimes I just have to get out of my own head space and all that takes us some fresh air, maybe a drive with some really loud music. All right. I mean, I've got two vacations coming up. I guarantee you, when I come back from vacation with my kids and then when I come back from my honeymoon, I will feel more creative than I felt in an incredibly long time. And it won't be because I did photography while I was gone. I'm not taking a camera for the Bahamas with the girls. We're gonna take a camera on our honeymoon because we're ultra nerds, and there's no way to get around it. But not going to shoot a bride a single second while I'm there. I'm just gonna shoot if I feel like shooting. And if I don't? I'm gonna shoot a thing. And if I'm feeling super stock and super uncreative, I just walk away from work altogether. You know, sometimes trying too hard is worse than not trying at all. You can just spin your wheels and spin your wheels and spin your wheels. And then not only you're not getting anywhere, but you're exhausted. Great. And I think it also goes back Teoh looking other photographers or being inspired by my other work as well. And while that's a great thing, sometimes you just gotta shut the Internet down and stop looking at it, because then you're going to start thinking I'm never gonna be that good. I never able to do that. I don't shoot in Bali and I don't have gorgeous clients. And you know, I'm not working with models and just stop looking at that stuff seriously. Just be inspired by, but the second it starts making you feel bad about yourself, walk away and go do something that has nothing to do with work. Cool and so creativity. When you're bringing something to the table on a wedding day and you're not quite feeling like your brain groom have come out of their show from a creative standpoint, How do you sort of coach them through that? And that's the thing. Sometimes they're never gonna come out of their creative. If you know, if I'm trying to kind of get a little bit something more out of them than what they're giving me, some people will give it to you. They just haven't opened up yet. Some people will never give it to you because that's the way they are. And if you start trying to shove a shy, introverted someone who's not really into displays of public affection into, like making out in a park, you're gonna shut them down a lot faster than you're gonna ever open them up. So I'm trying to read my clients the whole time. Like, is there a vibrant, boisterous person? And they're just waiting to get out, and it just takes a little coaxing. Maybe I'm gonna joke with them and I'm gonna laugh with them. And it's more about getting on a friend level with them than it is about. Do this pose and then do this pros, and then do this pose. It's just about being chill and calm and hey, guys, Let's go try something else and let's go try something else. And you tell me about your honeymoon. Where you guys going? Get him talking. Getting talking about something has nothing to do with the wedding. Where'd you get your dress? Oh, my God. I love your shoes. Where'd you get your shoes? Talk, talk, talk, Talk, talk. I never got the story of how you guys met each other. Then that's gonna open them up more than put this hand here and turn your body this way is going to dio. But if you ask him, where did you get your dress? Kleinfeld's with that place is insane. It's like a warehouse. That was crazy. Did you have a good time there? Yes. Okay. Why don't we just go take a walk sometimes. Hey, let's be BFF's. How's everything going? How'd you meet your husband? Makes them go. Oh, my God. Please, just stop with the noise. You know what I mean? Like sometimes it's Hey, guys, why don't you just take a walk out there and just spend a few minutes with each other? I'm not gonna be able to hear a word Your saying nobody is around you talk about whatever you want to talk about, snuggle up however you want, Teoh, and let me just give you a few seconds alone and then back off. So if you're constantly trying to force your vision onto your clients and it's not true to who they are as people, the pictures are gonna look dumb. They're gonna look fake, and the clients are gonna look at the pictures later and be like, I mean, that's nice. We've got some portrait of us from our wedding day that look exactly like us because we were being ourselves and we were interacting together and they were letting us just kind of be dumb together. And so you can see, like the sweetness of our relationship in the way that we feel about each other. But the second anyone tried to contrive a portrait, we were like a god on out. I'm out because I can't. There's no way I'm able to look at a picture of us later me clutching his face and like gazing into it because we would have just died laughing. That wouldn't have felt like us at all. So it's figuring out how your clients are together and then allowing them to be like that and not trying to shove your vision down their throat because that's just I feel like that's an incredibly disrespectful and that's just not the way to treat someone on their wedding day.