Original subtitles

You saw what's in our camera bags and

what's not in our camera bags.

And remember guys, more important than what camera

you're using, what lens you're using, what brand

you're using, is what you're doing with it,

right?

A Canon camera up in the action beats

a Nikon camera outside the action.

A Sony camera up here beats a Canon

camera hanging down around our waist.

So more important than what's in your camera

bags is A, that you know how to

use it, right?

Practice.

And B, that it's in there for a

good reason or multiple reasons, right?

Simplify.

Because as much as our gear can help

us do our jobs, it can also get

in the way of us doing our job.

And how do we prevent that?

By practicing and simplifying.

And then we got into the core underlying

fundamentals of good photography.

Exposing for the highlights, which is something you're

going to hear us repeating over and over

as we move through this course.

Because it guides so much of the way

we shoot.

But more importantly, it guides the way that

we see, right?

And once you start seeing the world this

way, it becomes much more beautiful and much

more dynamic and much more interesting.

And it really means that you can practice

the art of being a photographer without a

camera in your hand, right?

And really, if you want to become a

master of this craft, that's exactly what you

got to do.

You know, you can't just show up and

shoot to be a photographer, right?

You have to see the world as a

photographer all the time.

That's how you're going to pursue mastery.

A lot of photographers stress how you can't

just become a great photographer if you only

pick up your camera on the weekends.

But really, we're training as photographers always, even

without our cameras.

Like by the light stuff that we're talking

about, seeing the light and shadow.

And even like we'll be sitting at a

coffee shop having a conversation, and we'll find

ourselves doing this to clean up the intersecting

lines behind somebody's head, right?

So these little things like we see the

world as photographers.

And so we're training as photographers all the

time.

We don't always have to have our cameras

in our hand.

Yeah, exactly.

Like I can really see the light accentuating

the left side of your nose right now.

I can see the catch light in your...

It's like the only thing I'm noticing.

I can see the catch light in your

pupils right now.

Does it look good?

It looks awesome.

Okay.

There, I got my compliment.

Okay, so be curious and be open, okay?

Not just to seeing subjects and scenes and

moments, which are definitely important, but also seeing

that light, right?

Flex that sixth sense.

Flex it.

It's not a curse, it's a gift.

It's a real gift to have this sense

of light as photographers.

So for this week's homework, we have an

exercise that's called light as subject.

So you're going to make seven photos or

more, again, one per day or more per

day, whatever you'd like.

And the first thing we would like you

to do is to try and turn off

your brain's desire, your brain's tendency and your

brain's habit to see the world as subjects

and scenes.

And we want you to turn on that

sixth sense of experiencing light and shadow.

So go and look for light, go and

look for shadow, shards of light, speckles of

light, textures of light, gradients of light.

And it's not just about the quantity of

light, right?

Just the subtle, the quality of light is

what we're looking at, that interplay of light

and shadow.

The interplay of light and shadow.

Exactly.

The way it plays with everything else in

the scene.

And then once you, I mean, the trick

is seeing it, right?

The first, it's easy to photograph it.

The trick is seeing it.

So once you see it, I mean, you

don't even have to take a photo of

it, but maybe later on in the week,

start taking photos of those, that light that

you notice and expose for the highlights.

And you can do it, you can do

it with your smartphone.

You can do it with your smartphone.

And the subject matter in the photo is

not a cup or a plant or a

person.

The subject matter is the actual light.

Okay.

And just remember that that absence of light

is just as important as the presence of

light.

So eliminate highlights that aren't necessary in the

scene.

Right.

Tune into light and shadow and then photograph

it by exposing for the highlights.

Okay.

Then part two would be to actually have

a subject.

Okay.

Pick something.

It could be a friend.

It could be, it could be a kid.

It could be just some random inanimate object

or maybe yourself.

Okay.

And what we want you to try to

achieve in this photograph is your subject, whatever

it is, or part of your subject properly

exposed in a highlight.

Okay.

And this is natural light.

Remember, we're not creating light.

Okay.

But for this part, the first part, we

don't want you to manipulate anything, turn on

lights or open blinds.

But for this part, you can do that

as long as you're not, as long as

it's just natural light and properly expose your

subject or part of your subject in a

highlight with that highlight properly exposed and the

rest of the frame in complete darkness.

I'm going to take an example for you

guys right now that you can see later.

So if she succeeds, if she succeeds, she'll

have me properly exposed in a highlight and

the rest of the frame in complete blackness.

Okay.

So that's the challenging part.

And then you guys, Erica's going to share

this one.

And then you guys are welcome to share

these in the Facebook group if you like.

I mean, this is easy because you've got

this beautiful highlight coming in, but I'd still

have to be careful with the way I

frame it because if I'm down here, there's...

Do you want to show them real quick

how to change the exposure in their phone?

Because this, I mean, this exercise, you don't

need your, you don't need your fancy camera.

Yeah.

You can just basically, and you can see

it right there.

You can dial in the exposure.

Just basically hold your thumb where you want

the exposure for.

And then it says A, E, A, F,

lock at the top.

And then you drop your exposure down to

the highlight.

And then no matter which way you turn

your camera, it'll stay locked on that exposure.

That's a really good way to start to

kind of see those, see those highlights and

see the way that our cameras pick those

up.

Okay.

So next week, we're going to take the

fundamentals of light and shadow that we scratch

the surface of here, and we're going to

move into the magical world of off-camera

flash.

Now, for some of you, this might be

a brand new frontier, in which case we're

going to demystify a realm of possibilities that's

going to change your photography forever.

And for some of you, off-camera flash

is already your gem.

You've possibly been doing it longer than we

have.

You've possibly, quite possibly, know more about it

than we do.

That's quite possible.

But if knowing something, we're all it took.

Because how you light isn't so much about

what you do as about what you can

imagine.

Okay.

If you can't imagine it, you can't create

it.

So we're going to dial it right back

to the nuts and bolts and recalibrate our

thinking to imagine new possibilities.

But first, go and look for light and

expose for those highlights.

And have fun with it.

We'll see you next week.