Subtitles section Play video
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Hi, I’m Karl Taylor,
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and I’ve got less than ten minutes
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to convince you
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how good our Pro training stuff really is.
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So, what I’m going to do is
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show you through a
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professional-level product shoot here.
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And, show you all step-by-step, all completely free.
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Just to give you an insight onto
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our knowledge and what we can do for you.
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So, let’s take a look at the set-up.
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And we’ll break it down, show you the lighting,
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show you how we make a shot like this work.
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And, hopefully you’ll be able to take away something
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from this that will give you
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a better insight to this type of photography
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which is often considered quite difficult.
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Because liquids, bottles, glass product photography
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can be quite a difficult shooting scenario.
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But I’m going to break it down into some simple
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step-by-step sequences for you.
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So, let’s take a look at the set.
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I’ve got a sheet of black ‘Perspex’ as my base;
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sometimes called acrylic, ‘Melamine’, different things.
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This is a glossy black plastic, basically.
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It’s commonly used in product photography,
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a lot of jewelry photography, liquids, bottles.
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Here, I’m using it because it gives a beautiful reflection
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of the product.
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It’s a very classy look, and classy feel to the product.
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I’ve got one light here at the moment,
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which is just putting a light onto the label of the bottle.
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You can see the shadow from my fingers there
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on the bottle.
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We’ll come back to that in a little bit more detail shortly.
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On the background here, if you come around this side,
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I’ve got a light on my background,
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which is creating a gentle glow.
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It looks quite harsh at the moment
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because the modeling light is on full power,
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but this is creating a gentle glow
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on the background just to give us a little bit of
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light above our horizon
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at the back edge of the picture, OK?
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Now, my depth-of-field for this shot
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is only going to run the depth of the whiskey bottle,
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to make sure the bottle and the label are sharp.
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I’m going to keep the glass out of focus.
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Now, some other key things on the back here
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are some reflector cut-out panels.
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If you have a look at these things,
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you can see that I’ve got some
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bits of card—gold foil card—that I’m using,
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carefully positioned, behind the liquids
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to bounce the light from my main light sources on this side
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through the liquids
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to give them a lovely, rich glow,
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to bring the product to life.
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Let’s go back around the other side
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to look at the main lighting.
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So, if we look on this side,
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you’ll see I’ve got two soft boxes.
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I’ve got two, thin, strip-light-type soft boxes.
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One of them you can see here at the front
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is a little bit further away from my trace,
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and the other one is a little bit closer.
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Now, the tracing paper
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is used to diffuse my soft boxes even further,
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because I don’t want to get
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a really harsh strip-light on the bottle.
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I want a lovely, graduated soft light,
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and the reason I’ve got two of these lights
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is so that I can get one light as an edge light down the bottle,
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and one as a general light on the bottle.
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So, what we’re going to do is
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we’re going to film through another camera
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to allow you to see what each light is doing on the bottle
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so you can fully understand
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the lighting set-up that we’ve got here.
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We’re also going to film the result of what those reflectors do
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that are behind the glass and the whiskey bottle,
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so you can appreciate how important they are to the shot.
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And we are going to get a really stunning image out of this,
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and this set-up will show you how easy it is.
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Now, you might be thinking, “Well, actually, I don’t have,
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necessarily, this particular type of soft box.
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I’m not using fancy studio lighting like this.”
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Well, interestingly, these particular soft boxes by Broncolor,
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these have a speed ring adapter,
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so you can attach a strobe or normal flash gun
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to this type of soft box to shine it through.
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So, you could create most of this set-up
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even with a pretty basic lighting.
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Oh, there’s one other thing we need to look at.
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Just come around this side.
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You’ll see, as well as the two soft boxes here,
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I’ve got this piece of black card.
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And, if you have a look here,
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this black card is shielding this soft box,
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so that I’m not getting any light spill
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from this soft box hitting my background.
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Because, if I take this away,
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you’ll see when we look through the other camera,
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the light that would hit the background and spoil the shot.
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So, let’s take a look at each of these lights and what each of them are doing.
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OK, forgot to mention before about the ice in the glass:
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fake ice
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This is an acrylic ice cube.
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These are readily available from most studio suppliers.
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So, I’ve got a couple of those fake ice cubes.
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Obvious reason: doesn’t melt,
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won’t cause us any problems, stays where we need it to stay.
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So, let’s start looking at what’s happening on this bottle.
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What I want to do is break it all down,
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and then put it all back,
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so you can see exactly what’s going on.
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So, Fabian is going to take these lights out,
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so what I’d like you to do, Fabian, is
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take the two soft boxes out completely.
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You can leave them switched on,
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because we just need a bit of light
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so we can see what we’re doing.
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Just take them out.
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OK, so we’re left now with a piece of trace,
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and you can see a light on the bottle.
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Now, that light on the bottle is
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from this light that I spoke about earlier.
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This is just a little projection light
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that allows you to pinpoint a specific area or a light.
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Now, this is a projection light with a lens in it,
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which allows me to focus the light,
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or de-focus it, so I’ve softened it slightly.
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And, it’s got what’s called “gobos,” which are little adjusters,
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which allow me to
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reduce the size or the box of the light
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to a specific size that I choose.
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Now, you could use a snoot,
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you could use something a little bit more simpler,
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a little bit more cost-efficient,
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but this is particularly useful for product photography work,
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for highlighting little details and labels.
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You’ll also notice now
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that the illumination through the liquid has completely disappeared,
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because Fabian has taken away our main lighting,
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which was hitting the reflectors behind the liquids
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and bouncing through them.
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So, now that main lighting is gone,
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we’ve lost that effect.
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Now, we’ve got the tracing paper
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attached to a big c-stand with a big rod going over the top
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for that roll to hang from.
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We’re gonna take that out, as well, to start with,
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but at the moment we’ve got this attached,
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which is just a shield to stop the lights hitting the back.
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Just a piece of card, gonna take that out, as well.
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We’ll put that back in in a minute.
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So, what I want to demonstrate…
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actually, we won’t take this out, we’ll just spin this,
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just to make it a little bit easier.
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So, I’m just going to spin that out of the way.
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Is that getting clear past that light?
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Because, what I want you to see
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is how nasty the light would be
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if we weren’t using the trace.
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So, Fab, if I could get you to take that soft box,
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and put it into,
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yeah, around about here, just so you can see.
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Now, look at the lighting on that label,
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or on the bottle.
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Sorry, just my filter gels had fallen off from the back here.
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If you look at the lighting on the bottle now,
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you’ll see we’ve got this harsh, horrible block of light.
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And, this is a common mistake made
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when people try to illuminate glassware or bottles,
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is using this very defined, rectangular light
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that doesn’t gradate away,
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and that’s the reason for the tracing paper,
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is to create a gradation of light.
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So, we definitely don’t want that.
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That demonstrates that we need the tracing paper
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to give the effect that I wan to achieve on this bottle.
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So, let’s take that light out, Fab.
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Now, we’ll put the tracing paper back in.
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So, it’s just a roll of tracing paper that we’ve doubled up.
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Just going to spin that back into position.
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And, if we look at the bottle,
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as Fabian now introduces the backlight into position,
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watch what happens to the bottle.
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Stop there, Fab.
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So, you’ve got a lovely soft light already starting to create there,
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but this light is to create an edge light on the bottle,
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so that we just get a nice light down one edge of the bottle,
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to separate it from the background.
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So, if you push it into position now, please, Fabian,
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you’ll see that light become a little bit stronger,
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and create a lovely line down the edge of our bottle.
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And, what I want you to do now, Fabian,
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to just flick that light on and off for a second,
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so they can see the effect of it.
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That’s it, back on again.
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And now, just pull it out further away,
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so they can see the shape of the light
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change based on the distance.
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There you go, so you can see that light enlarging.
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And, then, slide the light over towards this direction,
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so you can see how it will wrap around the bottle
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and light the bottle differently on each time.
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So, we’re gonna put that light back into its correct position,
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and that will give us the edge light.
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Now, the problem that we’ve got from that light, at the moment,
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is that we will get some of that light
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spilling onto our background,
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because that light, and I can see that light here,
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and a lot of that light is going to come
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and hit my dark gray background,
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which is going to ruin the shot,
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because I want to just control the light on the background
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with this background light here.
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So, that’s why we bring in the card.
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So, this black card is going to attach to our c-stand
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to create what we call a “flag,”
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to stop any light from getting through onto our background,
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which we certainly don’t want.
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And, that, basically, is it
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just attaching a piece of card to act as a shield
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to stop the light coming through onto the background.
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Then, moving on from that,
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we’re going to bring the main light in now.
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So, this is the main fill light on the bottle.
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You can see that lovely extra light that’s just come in on the bottle there, now.
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And, if you push that light in really close, Fabian
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you can watch it change quite dramatically
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the harshness of the light as it comes through the trace.
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You can still see it’s got that lovely, soft diffusion from the trace,
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but it has become harsher as it’s got closer to the trace.
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This time, take it right back, please, Fabian.
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There you go, you see it change again,
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and then bring it back into its correct position.
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So, that’s the positioning on my lights,
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the key lights for the bottle.
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You’ve seen the light for the label.
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And then, my final light is
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this light that is on the background.
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So, I’ve just got a glow of light
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running over the background, here.