Why you should have a shot notebook, and why it should be a yellow legal pad

[fjrabon]

So, tonight I'm shooting our first set of swim team photos of the year. I check all my gear, all the normal stuff, reflective umbrellas, two impact lights, 5DIII, 70-200 f/2.8 MkII L, 17-40 for large group shot, pocket wizards, light meter, expodisc.

I get to the pool, set up my lights, go to white balance. Put on the expo disc, point it at my lights, set my white balance in camera and everything is ready to go. I take a shot of my background to see how it looks. Always test shoot, right?

AAAAANNNNNNDDDDDD.

The pool looks like urine water. The ambient light is of course much warmer than my flash, and thus, white balancing for my flash makes the ambient very yellow. Now, I've got 2 impact lights that are battery packed, and I ain't getting the pool to turn down their lights as other teams are swimming in the other side of the pool, and I wouldn't have enough light to look remotely good anyway, even if I could get them to do that. I knew I needed 1-2 cuts of CTO. I of course didn't have 1-2 cuts of CTO.

Previously, most everything we've done has been either outside or like a basketball team. Having a slightly over warm background when you're outside or in a basketball gym is in fact not only not bad, but most people find it fairly pleasing. However, when your background is lo longer a warmly lit football field, but a urine colored pool, we got problems.

My next try was to white balance for the ambient. I tried that and the people looked like smurfs. Next I tried a compromise white balance between the two with kelvin settings manually. That was a bit better, the pool only looked like 20 kids had peed in it instead of 500, and the kids only looked like they had mild hyporthermia instead of smurfs.

So, as was my three choices were:

1) Urine water and normal looking kids
2) smurfs and normal looking water
3) mild urine water and mild hypothermic kids

None of those would really cut it. Our post guys could fix it, but it would be a major PITA and would involve multiple copies and two different white balance adjustments (I was shooting raw of course) and then layer masking the background and kids together. It could work, but they would HATE me. Having your post guys hate you isn't a good place to be.

So, I took out my shoot notebook. Was I furiously scribbling out how screwed I was? Was I cursing our shift managers for not giving me gels? Was I cursing myself for not thinking about this in advance? Well, I was doing the latter two things under my breath, but mostly I was getting ready to duct tape a prayer to my lights.

Two sheets of legal pad paper, one duct taped to each light. I white balanced for the lights with the sheets of legal pad taped to the 5 inch reflective bowls on my lights, that were then pointed into reflective umbrellas, took a test shot of the background. It was a tinge overly blue, as legal pad paper is probably something like 2 cuts of CTO, and I just needed probably 1 and a half. But I've never heard people complain about overly blue sparking pool water. Took the shots and they turned out good. Kids skin was very natural, pool was nice and sparking blue.

Usually my shoot pad just helps when I review my work and try to get better. Today it more or less saved me.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

LOL


AWESOME. I swear if there were 3 photogs on the Titanic with a roll of gaff tape each, that ship would still be sailing!

 

[MLeeK]

I'm totally screwed. My shoot notebook is a little one with white pages.

<hangs head in shame>

 

[manaheim]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

 

[fjrabon]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

Just take general notes, draw lighting diagrams that worked well, make notes of poses I really liked, just general interesting issues that came up in the shoot. Sometimes it's simply writing down names if I run out of camera cards (ie cards that have the kids name and jpeg number).

When it's not for work I use it to write down shots I want to try if they occur to me when I'm doing something. Like if I want to revisit a location at a different time of year, or day, or with different gear.

 

[fjrabon]

I'm totally screwed. My shoot notebook is a little one with white pages.

<hangs head in shame>

I actually keep one notebook of graph paper too, for when I want slightly more precise lighting diagrams, which works decently okay as a makeshift diffuser.

 

[manaheim]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

Just take general notes, draw lighting diagrams that worked well, make notes of poses I really liked, just general interesting issues that came up in the shoot. Sometimes it's simply writing down names if I run out of camera cards (ie cards that have the kids name and jpeg number).

When it's not for work I use it to write down shots I want to try if they occur to me when I'm doing something. Like if I want to revisit a location at a different time of year, or day, or with different gear.

Oh ok. I just put that kind of stuff in my phone, generally. Paper is faster, but I always lose paper.

 

[fjrabon]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

Just take general notes, draw lighting diagrams that worked well, make notes of poses I really liked, just general interesting issues that came up in the shoot. Sometimes it's simply writing down names if I run out of camera cards (ie cards that have the kids name and jpeg number).

When it's not for work I use it to write down shots I want to try if they occur to me when I'm doing something. Like if I want to revisit a location at a different time of year, or day, or with different gear.

Oh ok. I just put that kind of stuff in my phone, generally. Paper is faster, but I always lose paper.

its hard to diagram lighting setups on a cell phone (though I've done it before).

 

[MLeeK]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

I keep settings for different schools, names, stats, thoughts on a shoot situation. something I might want to play with later...
I encourage students to always keep a notebook of EVERYTHING about a session: lighting notes both natural and added, settings, problems, subject info, thoughts, mistakes... EVERYTHING. You'll learn MUCH from a shot book!

 

[KmH]

LOL


AWESOME. I swear if there were 3 photogs on the Titanic with a roll of gaff tape each, that ship would still be sailing!

:thumbup: :thumbup:

....................:thumbup: That's a great story fjrabon :thumbup:..............................

 

[manaheim]

Wow that's awesome.

I've never even thought of bringing a "shoot notebook" though, so I'd be screwed either way.

What do you NORMALLY do with such a thing?

I keep settings for different schools, names, stats, thoughts on a shoot situation. something I might want to play with later...
I encourage students to always keep a notebook of EVERYTHING about a session: lighting notes both natural and added, settings, problems, subject info, thoughts, mistakes... EVERYTHING. You'll learn MUCH from a shot book!

Just take general notes, draw lighting diagrams that worked well, make notes of poses I really liked, just general interesting issues that came up in the shoot. Sometimes it's simply writing down names if I run out of camera cards (ie cards that have the kids name and jpeg number).

When it's not for work I use it to write down shots I want to try if they occur to me when I'm doing something. Like if I want to revisit a location at a different time of year, or day, or with different gear.

Oh ok. I just put that kind of stuff in my phone, generally. Paper is faster, but I always lose paper.

its hard to diagram lighting setups on a cell phone (though I've done it before).

This makes total sense. Thanks for sharing that.