All language subtitles for 01 Introduction To Clay Cook.mp4

So I'm clay cook.

I'm an editorial and portrait
photographer based in Louisville, Kentucky.

My goal for this tutorial is to show
you everything I've learned over the

past few years.

I'm going to show you everything I know
about natural light on location, and

then strobliding in a studio.

Once we have those fundamentals down,
we're going to take everything we've

learned and go back out on location to
build and create an editorial story.

None of my imagery would be complete
without a team that includes styling,

hair and makeup.

So I'm going to introduce you to my
style team, who I work with on a

regular basis to create the imagery you
see in my portfolio.

Once we have the images captured, we're
only halfway there.

We then have to move into post
processing.

Now I don't require a lot of post
processing, but every image needs

something.

I've been working with Jordan Hartley
for the past two years, and it's become

a crucial element to my work.

And so we flew in Jordan from Ontario,
Canada, just for this tutorial, to show

you everything that he does in
retouching and post processing.

Even though I don't handle the skin
retouching on my images.

I do want to have the final say on how
my images are finished.

After Jordan wraps up his retouch, I'm
going to take over and Photoshop and

walk you through each step that's
required to get that perfect color

grade that I'm known for.

So now that you have a basic
understanding of how this tutorial is

going to work, let me tell you a little
bit about my story and how I got

started in photography.

My creative career began at the age of
sixteen, started playing some music

with some friends of mine.

And we went from playing small shows
and bars and clubs and playing large

venues up to sometimes 20000 people.

And so my musical career really began
at a young age, and it really exploded

throughout my 20s.

And around that same time, I started
dabbling in Photoshop to supplement my

income while I was on the road.

And

I really got involved with graph design
very quickly.

And so I started designing flyers for
bands.

I started designing album artwork.

I started working for

a few smaller advertising

firms.

And then that eventually moved up to
working with bigger adages and doing

some commercial projects, as well as
working with

labels, major labels.

And

it went from

zero to 1000, very quickly in the same
way as not only my musical career, but

also my photography career.

And so by the time I reached 26,

my graph design business was doing ok,

but the band broke up.

And that's when I picked up a camera,

my camera.

First camera was an icon d 5000.

That dicon d 5000 literally changed my
life.

So from the time of when I picked up
that Nicole d 5000 for the first time,

two years later, when I quit my day job
because I was making enough money to

make ends meet,

I was always just

somebody with a camera.

I was competent enough to get a
photograph and get a project done, but

I never really truly had a defining
style.

So everything started with

a speed light

myself, a makeup artist

and a model

creating this series called the
bongirls series.

And the bongiril series was a creative,
collaborative project.

It was a concept

that

formed around my love for

James Bond films.

basically we wrapped a story around a
photo photo project, because I think it

was like a series of eight photos.

And once that was released, it

sort of created a small splash in the
city.

And that moved into my second creative
effort.

Which was the Gaga series, where

we surrounded photos around a lady Gaga
song that we selected, and we listened

to the lyrics, and we really tried to
grasp

really the meaning of the song, and
then we created a photo out of it.

So those two projects

really set me to another level.

And I started working with clients and
publications in louville.

And after forming a few strategic
relationships, I shot my first

publication, my first cover,

and for end focus magazine.

And that sort of unfolded

and

LED me to shooting for bigger
publications, with bigger budgets,

which eventually LED me to working with
an agency,

which eventually LED to more national
projects,

which eventually LED to working on
international projects,

to where I stand now, where I
photographed

and done international projects for
clients such as nfl.

Espn,

modern salon ink magazine,

red bull Toyota

and so on and so forth.

So one of the milestones that I feel
like was

a trip to Havana, Cuba.

It was a project for, actually a local
publication called the voice of

Louisville, in which I was contracted
to shoot

a full blown fashion editorial

in Havana,

which consisted of Cuban models Cuban
stylus

Cuban hair Cuban makeup,

a full blown Cuban team, which
collaborated with an American

photographer and an American
publication.

And it was a big undertaking.

It was a huge thing.

And for me that's when I really found
my true love for not only

shooting fashion, but also really
capturing

a vibrant culture.

I blended my

sort of, my travels and my travel
photography, my personal projects, with

what I'd do in my editorial space.

And once I sort of blended those two
worlds,

everything sort of exploded for me.

And clients came to me wanting that for
their various projects all over the world,

not necessarily fashion, but just they
wanted that editorial feel

to their foundation or their campaign.

So as a photographer, I think everyone

gets that point of maybe creative
burnouts, or time, when

they just

want to sort of give it all up.

And

for me it got to a point

where I was shooting

all the time, every day.

There was a lot of demand,

and it's significantly affected my
health.

That's when I met my friends in natist
films,

in which they give Grants to
foundations that really needed the most

foundations, that

really are doing great things, but
don't have the resources to have their

story told.

And so that's when

I found sort of a new facet of
photography that I never realized that

I would fall in love with.

And that was

just street photography and
photojournalism

and photographing people in interesting
spaces and interesting worlds.

And it's something that

I went into and never really realized I
would fall in love with.

And

when I first got into it, my health had
significantly

declined, and

I was 320

I had a resting heart rate of over 100
beats per minute, which is practically

on deathbed.

Our first trip was to Tanzania, Africa
for

water boys, in this foundation that
builds waterwells and Tanzania.

And we partnered with the nfl, as well
as espn on it,

to bring delight this foundation.

And we met this guy named

Adrianne McCrae.

And ajor McCrae is an Australian.

His passion is paragliding, and he
paraglides all over the world.

And one of his major

foundations

is wings of killman Jarrow.

He takes people up to the summit of
kilmanjaro and paraglides off.

And as soon as I found out of this
project, I knew that I needed to make a

change, in a significant change.

And so I completely changed my
lifestyle.

And I didn't even know if this project
was going to happen or not.

It was set for September of 2016,

and it was June of 2015.

And so by the time September of 2016

rolled around, we got the call that

killman Jarrow was a go.

And we are going to document all of
these paragliders

climbing up to the summit of mount
kilmanjaro, which is the highest free

standing mountain in the world, and
sail off it,

I had lost 120

pounds.

I had lowered my resting heart rate by
fifty beats per minute, and I lost

nearly 85 inches of fat off my body.

And I was ready to go.

And that's

that's when we did it.

We climb out kilmanjarro,

and then we set a couple of Guinness
world records

by jumping off the top,

as natis films.

Our objective was to capture a full
blown documentary, and I was a part of

the production team, which would
capture production stills as well as portraits

that aj mccrea could use to promote

himself and promote wings of kilmanjaro
to major news outlets and major publications.

As a team, we had 26

pilots, paragliding pilots, and we had
over 150 porters.

And it was a massive undertaking.

And unfortunately, we had, two of our
team members had to be carted down in a stretcher.

There was a few that got altitude
sickness,

and

we're really struggling.

But fortunately, I didn't have any of
those problems.

The hardest part for me was the final
summit bid.

We had to wake up at

about ten o'clock pm.

And we started climbing at eleven
o'clock pm.

And we had to climb for

roughly

six to seven hours

all the way to sunrise.

And then that's when we made our
paragliding attempts, in which,

as an attempt, you basically

have to wait for a cycle, a wind cycle,
to pick up and flate the glider.

And then you have to run full speed
down the face of the summit.

And

that required a ton of energy, because
you're also at 1900341

feet.

So you're basically on the brink of
requiring supplemental.

it's equivalent to like, a camp three
of Mt.

And so you're on the summit of this
thing sprinting down the face of it.

And if you don't get the cycle, then
your glider will just deflate.

Or you can

run down the face of the summit and
base jump off a 3000 foot glacier,

and you might get a cycle, maybe.

So I attempted four times,

and every time I didn't get, I didn't
get lucky, my glider deflated now is

tandem.

So I was riding with somebody.

My glider deflated, and

we didn't get up.

But

I think out of 26 pilots, twenty made
it off the mountain.

So the people that dig it off the
mountain did paraglide.

It takes roughly 45 minutes for them to
sail down, which is actually a pretty

long paragliding

experience.

But a descent

by walking,

a normal

climber, will do it in roughly eight to
twelve hours.

And because you actually go down a
Porter supply route, which is a direct

route down the face of the summit or
face of the mountain,

and a lot of it's a lot of scree, so
you're basically skiing down this thing

for much of it.

I made it in five and a half hours
down.

So

we're running practically down

the mountain.

And

the reason why I did it, because I was
feeling terrible, I was sick.

I was not feeling good

after all these summit attempts.

My body was just

toast.

I was

trashed, you know,

it's not feeling well as hypoxic.

And my brain was in a hypoxic state.

So it was getting to like a dangerous
point

to where I really needed to descend and
I needed to send fast.

So my guide at the time knew this, and
so he really kicked my ass, and

we descended down the mountain.

Quickly.

When I came down the mountain descended,

I honestly felt like I was a changed
person.

Not only because of what I just

tried to do and what we had all
accomplished,

record setting,

paragliding experience and then raising
all this money through the foundation

wings of kiliman Jarrow, which was the
whole point of the project.

We ended up raising 200000 dollars for

clean water in Tanzania.

And

I think that when I descended, and we
were able to go to a Masai village in

the remote section of Tanzania

and witness a water well being opened
for the first time.

To people that have never seen clean
water.

They had

to walk for Miles just to get some sort
of nasty algae

water that was laced with dysentery.

And it was just bad.

And

to see these people's reaction on

how thankful they were that

we did this crazy thing for them,

that's one of the most rewarding
experiences I've ever had as

a human being, little on a photographer.

So when I picked up Nicole and d 5005

years ago, I never possibly imagined
that I would go from

that guy just shooting

those babies and his closet or as
friends at parties, to climbing mount

kilmanjaro and shooting and partnering
with major clientele's.

I could have

never possibly imagine that, even a
year ago, that I've lost 120 pounds.

I think for me, the core has always been

failure.

I've failed many times in my life, and
I truly believe that

failure is

the foundation of success.

And

I learned a lot in the music business

that it's ok to fail.

But more importantly,

as far as the business side

relationships or everything,

I think that relationships

are just how

I've achieved in what could be really.

Consider my number one reason why I've
had some of success is because

I get out, I talk to people, I have a
good time.

The reason why Klein millkilman Jarrow
is because

I met Adrian McCrae in a bar in
Tanzania.

So you just never know who you're going
to meet.

And that's also why I think insisting
is so important,

is that you just never know who you're
going to meet.

You never know who you're going to come
in contact with, because one thing can

always lead to another.

And that's what I could really
attribute my success to, is just

getting out there and talking to people.

So what I do day in, day out is

create portraits of people doing
awesome things in interesting spaces

in the editorial space

that's magazine work.

That is

photographs that will be going to print.

And a lot of people get fashion with
editorial

and

publication work with commercial all
confused.

And I think at the end of the day, if
you shoot editorial, that means you're

working for a magazine with fashion
editorial.

That means that

a designer is basically buying

the, or paying the magazine to feature
their clothing in an editorial

space.

So it's basically advertising,

but in an editorial kind of fashion
that it is being editorial.

And advertising is that

editorial

is

something that we photograph for a
particular story

or a particular

copy,

copymeaning the writing

and advertising is something that
people use it commercially

to promote

a product.

So photography has given me the
opportunity to travel the world and to

work and

make money.

And I always

wanted to be my own boss, and I'm just
so blessed that photography has given

me the ability to do so.

And I feel like it's my

necessary

job to

give back

and to pay it forward

and to tell people exactly what I do
and to be completely transparent about

it.

And that's exactly what this tutorial
is.

So now that you've heard my story,

you've seen my portfolio

and you've heard my do day and day out,

now let's get to the first lesson