Why I Love These Photos - Day in The Life Shoot with Fujifilm X-T2
Regular visitors to my old F16.Click Website will notice that all that content is now on my main website. I’m consolidating all my sites into one to enable me to keep creating content.
In this video, I look at a few images from a Day in the Life photo shoot.
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Image Discussion
11:39 The Editing Process
13:16 The Full Photofilm
Transcript of the film:
Today, I will start something a little bit new for the channel. I've been doing something like this on my wedding photography website for a long time. I used to title it: Why? I love this photograph. So I'm going to bring it to the channel.
Why not? And occasionally, maybe even every week, if I get my act together, I'm going to take a look at a handful of images, perhaps just five or six photos, and discuss the reasons why I took them, how I took them, all of that kind of stuff.
The feature film is very, very beautiful. Now, a little bit of a trigger warning. This is from A Day in the Life Shoots that I did in 2015, and it was a birth photography day. So there is a sequence in the middle of a real-life birth, a cesarean birth.
So if you're slightly squeamish, you might want to close your eyes at that point. But I think it's very good, and it's undoubtedly a very, very beautiful thing. So everything was photographed from a technical point of view on the Fujifilm X to use in the original 23mm 1.4 lens. That's all I use for the entire day.
I will, at some point, dip very briefly into Lightroom to show you a quick edit of one of these images.
But really, the whole point of these little presentations is to talk about photography, its meaning, the light, the substance, and the emotion. I hope you like it. So let's have a look at some of these images:
Okay. First image. So this is Mia, who I photographed her birth maybe two or three years previous to this. And this is a day in the life, remember. And it's entirely candid.
So she was very excited to have a new baby brother later in the day. Now, as I met her many times before, she's very comfortable with me being there. And we started early in the morning. It's time to get up, clean their teeth, wash their hands, and all that good stuff. Now, always, whenever I'm shooting, I'm thinking about the light first light is so important.
And, of course, the position we've discussed on this channel many times before about the light composition of moments, but the light is super important. Getting that right light to make the image have that density so you can see a difference between the light in the shade. And that's all to do with where you position yourself as a photographer.
So this is a beautiful start to the day. The whole day was very long, and you'll see the clock appear several times. I'll talk about that in a moment, which gives a little bit of context to it. But Mia was just a little girl, so she was just playing. She's hiding. She's running around the house. I'm in her bedroom.
At this point. She's lying on the floor, as we all do. I remember doing this as a little kid. You know, that comfortable carpet, the warm floor, Everything's changing for her today. She knows that, but she can't manifest that in her own mind. So capturing these little kinds of candid portraits throughout the day was very important to me.
And I love this picture. I was also getting them very, very low. And, with the tilt screen, I probably use that or can't remember. I certainly didn't have my head on the floor, that's for sure. Now, at this point, mums sister, I believe, turned up, and it was going to be the sister going to look after Mia when we all went to the hospital.
And so, you know, we're just having this little kind of “oop, there's my auntie” moment, And they are they played beautifully together.
You'll see some more images of that in a moment. But again, remember, this room's lights have a powerful light source from the window behind me. So I'm positioning myself purposefully to make the most of that light within this room compositionally-wise.
You know, we always talk about the uniqueness of the W shape. If you can get the W shape and no crossover between the main subjects in an image, it will always make the composition stronger regardless of what's in it will always make the composition stronger.
If you can avoid overlaps, it will just look better. And again, using that light.
Now Mia is having a book read to her, and remember, this is early in the day. Mum's now gone to pack a bag and prepare for this very eventful and emotional day. As it turned out, that would happen ahead of her in the next few hours and 12 hours or so. But it's just a beautiful moment.
It doesn't need anything, you know, you don't need anything fancy to make a beautiful picture. And I often say this to people I'm working with at workshops. I would say it to my clients, too. “a photograph doesn't have to be good. It just needs to be important”.
And I have to keep reminding myself of that. And perhaps you should, too.
All right. And as we start moving through the day, Mia is still keen to keep the book going. And you can see mum and her sister, you know, kind of feeling the bump, getting ready. The excitement is building, the anticipation is building.
Mia is still just thinking about what comes next on that page in that book; it's beautiful. And again, the light and the composition are good. It's strong, at least. And but more importantly, it's about that interaction. You know, human interaction. The human touch is such a powerful, powerful thing. And as we can see that hand going on the belly, the three hands, in fact, you know, the smile, the look of anticipation on Mum's face, all of these things come together to make a very emotive human picture.
Okay. And we're still in the bedroom here now. So we talked about that light, and I keep reiterating that light, but now I'm in a challenging situation. The light is more substantial, but it's ahead of me, so I need to adapt. I've always talked about using spot metering and seeing in black and white.
If you have a mirrorless camera (I’ll display another video about this at the end), I talk about this in full. If you have a mirrorless camera, I encourage you to switch your viewfinder or your EVF to a black-and-white film simulation because you can see popping into spot metering if you wish. If you're not shooting fully manually and see that light and shade, it will just pop in front of you, and you can adjust accordingly.
You can adjust your exposure accordingly to fit the scene that you're in now. So now I've got this nice little bit of side light in Maja picking her nose, which is lovely. And Mum's picking up that teddy bear which she's going to take with her to the hospital, and I’m always looking for opportunities, and the rain starts to fall.
I think at this point, if I remember rightly, it was 2017, remember, the taxi has arrived. It's going to take them to the hospital. And I think Mum has just said, “Hey, Maja, you know what? I'm off. I'll see you later at the hospital where you're going to meet your brand, new baby brother”.
And can you imagine all the emotions going through his mind now?
She really probably doesn't understand the enormity of the day and the enormity of what's going to happen to her for the rest of her life. A beautiful little life is about to become even more beautiful and even more astounding. So this is a nice little juxtaposition. Also, she's now standing in her own bed.
And as you can see below, it is a clue to what's come in, I guess. So if you can see that picture above her, you can expect something similar in a while. And that's her being born two or three years previously. And it's just a lovely little capture of her.
She's jumping up and down on her bed. She's getting excited now, and I think bringing that together with that photograph that her mum has framed to put above her bed just adds a little bit of context to the story.
All right. We're at the hospital now, and you will see the entire photo film and see this clock appear several times.
The clock is a little bit tilted. I won't straighten this image because this is precisely how Mum and Dad saw this on the day. The clock is essential. It pegs everything together throughout the day, and you'll see this clock about three or four times in the photo film, which gives us a timeline of the actual events that are unfolding.
All right. So we are about to see the actual photograph of Lenny, the name of the little boy, being born. So get ready for that. And it's a remarkable photograph. And this is a paid job. You know, this is a client who has paid me to come along a few times for day-in-the-life photo shoots.
And, you know, I talk to my wedding clients several times about this idea of the very embryonic stages of their marriage. And, of course, this is, you know, the embryonic stages of Lenny's life. He's been born, and these are the very, very, very first seconds. And it's a very, very powerful picture, of course, a beautiful picture.
So it would be best if you never forgot that you're the jobbing photographer here. But what a beautiful photo. I think it's it's just an adorable photograph. And again, remember, it's not about the technical details.
I'm not patting myself on the back here and patting life on the back because, as I said earlier, a photo doesn't have to be perfect.
And we fast forward now to the end of the day. Lenny's been born. Everybody's happy and healthy and wonderful and they are finally getting to meet her little baby brother. So she's just come back into the hospital. She was at home with her auntie for most of the day. She's come to the hospital and says, “Hello, Lenny, my little brother, I love you”.
