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Inside the Home Studio

Lesson 15 of 31

Home Tour Q&A


Inside the Home Studio

Lesson 15 of 31

Home Tour Q&A


Lesson Info

Home Tour Q&A

question for you is well two things so folks were saying and observing that this is a very lovely home as you've been saying and all different types of rooms and sizes eso wanted teo let everybody know two things one is that we will be photographing you'll be photographing in all different types of setups within that space including the smallest room in the house that small room which people were saying oh that's a little you know that's more typical of what my personals space it's t by eleven thirty and the lure ceilings as well but also wanted to mention to folks that when we're out there filming we're actually using a sixteen millimeter wide angle lens so the rooms actually might look bigger then then they would actually look in person so just a consideration there as well but this obviously is definitely meant to teach you about whatever size space that you are in just like we demonstrated yesterday with our small space within here and we'll be talking through all of that I love ho...

w you know you're able tio talk about using a garage in certain spaces and yes certain places maybe it's too hot to use a garage or maybe it's too cold to use a garage so really it's all about adapting to whatever your space is going to be so I do have another question to that toning those folks are in there and are asking are we looking at this through the eyes of going into somebody else's home and finding the best space to temporarily photograph of them in their space or are we looking at you know setting up the space in our own home I think it's both thing and I think I think you have to I think you have to look at these rooms and consider in this case we were invited into this home so this is not my home and this is not where I would be setting up a studio if it were I probably would not use that beautiful living room because that's it's a beautiful living room as a living room I don't want to lose my living room if that's my home uh the small office that we were in there right there at the end I think that's where I would probably set at my studio and then I would deal with the fact that it's not very large uh with other methods by using the deck at certain times a day by using the garage by by using the living room on occasion if I needed to do a full length uh but as we talked about in the first part of this whole siri's we've got some limitations when you are working in a home studio and those limitations are it's very difficult to do full lengths it's very difficult and almost impossible to do full links with three four five people your you do paint yourself into a little bit of a corner when you step into this but you also get the benefit of working your hours when you want in your space without the added overhead and without any unknowns that you get when you go into somebody else's home that's a that's a big scary part when you step into somebody else's home you don't know what you're gonna be faced with and on that breaker situation there are times when you plug in lights and you do trip breakers and and it's embarrassing and it shuts down everybody and the kids were getting cranky and you're trying to do a family portrait and it's just it's sometimes can be an issue in your space when you set up a space in your home for your work you know exactly what you're dealing with you you know that it's gonna be the same every day now you can change how you like things and change your structure of your of your lighting set ups but but you do know that the physical ramifications of what you have in your limitations and I think that's the key to me at least it seems like that's great thank you do we have any questions in here not have got more online okay so number one question asked tons of votes let's talk wall colors an ideal while colors and ceiling colors go so ideal ceiling color white if I don't have a wife celia is very difficult to bounce something off of a white ceiling wall colors so many homes don't have white wall colors if you're going to set up your home studio I would say white or I would say a light or a medium gray ah lighter and medium gray at least is neutral and I do need neutral the thing about color casting is if you turn on a strobe or flash in any situation that takes care of the primary area of your subject that is hit with the light but any area of shadow will pick up any tone ality of color and that's the same thing working outdoors working with you know an outdoor portrait late in the day in the park where you've got this beautiful nice warm light on your your subject's face but the grass is bouncing into the shadows that's that's the challenge so in the studio it's the same thing if I've got a warm tone wall I'm going to see it in the shadows I will never sit on the highlights because my flashes going overpower that but I will stay in the shadows and so I think that's where it needs to be neutral white helps you bounce things but if you are liking a more dramatic look like you and I talked about then you have to control that ambience and maybe you paint your walls white or light gray and you have within your arsenal of tools in your garage you keep some of the big four by eight foam core v flats wide on one side black on the outside if you need to subtract light on the walls then bring in black flats and just lean him against the wall says to subtract that light so that the shadow side goes to a dramatic shadow if that's the look that you're interested in so I think that's pretty important yeah grab your microphone there tony I'm curious if you were to walk into that home and didn't have any studio equipment with you so you had to camera and say a reflector how would you think it would be different and trying to evaluate the space and control natural light stand by I'm going to show you it's coming up that's a that's a great question and I have an answer but I'll just show you the video in about an hour perfect all right we've got we've got more questions from folks at home okay so and this might be something you're going to show us a swell but you mentioned that you look at how the light hits the back of the sofa what do you look for in that case whether the lightest harsh what is a good indication of good like exactly what I'm looking for I'm looking to see how bright the highlight is on the back of sofas in the back of chairs when there's ambient light coming in a window especially because it tells me how bright on how harsh or how soft that light sources from that position if it's if I've got bright bright highlights and then a sharp edge I really can't use that window as a light source it's just gonna be too bright and too harsh but if I've got a real nice soft highlight that goes down into the natural color of the sofa or chair then I know that linda was a pretty good candidate and you can just glance around the room and just look at all the sofas and chairs in the room that are near a wall or near a window and that's a really quick fast indicator that you might have a beautiful soft light coming in one little window that you might not have noticed at first it's just a small little tip that it's one of those little small tools of the ten thousand your toolbox it's like pull that tool out yeah yeah this sofa oh that's a great highlight I bet that's a nice window grate and then start figuring out how you can shoot there and put it back ground up and if you can get over there and what's in the way and they have to move out of vase or vase or you know depending on your income uh and how you deal with that sort of situation but it's a guest it's a great indicator of like quality yeah those are awesome tips in terms of you walking in the room and what what toe look at there's a lot of us just walking you're taking in a lot of information when you walked in that room you know all right so this is a question from a joy bob rink I'm getting ready to buy a house so this is a great info is a north south facing home better or east waste if east west facing home for the best light and is that different in different parts of the world a north face well I don't know I don't do geography I can tell you that a north facing window is almost always better than any other direction facing window because it doesn't get directions so with a north facing window you'll be ableto work more and for longer and more consistent brightness level throughout the day so I would set my answer would be if there's a room in the home that has a great window that faces north I don't care if the house faces western eastern north or south doesn't matter to me uh I think that's probably what they meant that's issue yeah and then plus but but think about this when you're selecting the room that you're gonna put your studio in in your home you have to think about the path your clients will take us they come in the door when they come in the door is that the first is gonna be the first room down the hall on the left are they have to walk down a long hall make a left and go down two steps and down the basement mega right is it is it a long journey for them once they walk in and you have to put your mindset in their shoes as you walk in and how how are they perceiving the experience from the moment you greet him at the door and open the door and they come in it's customer experience all the way through all the way through the process absolutely and we talked a lot about that earlier in the class a cz well absolutely so I believe that then if you're in the southern hemisphere then you want a south southeasterly wind the window right right okay cool

Class Description

Working from home is a great way to minimize costs, but it can be challenging to deal with the inevitable space and light limitations and it can feel awkward to explain to clients.

In Inside the Home Studio, Tony Corbell will help you address the logistical and practical challenges of working from home. 

You’ll learn how to:

  • Work with low ceilings, dark spaces, and small skinny rooms
  • Market and sell in-home shoots
  • Store and organize your equipment.
  • Work with family and client schedules

Tony will help you come up with new ways to shoot in ordinary spaces by sharing real-life examples of home studio scenarios. He’ll shoot formal and candid portraits throughout the entire house, teaching you how to leverage each room for its specific uniqueness.

Inside the Home Studio will show you how to approach different photographic genres and help you make the space you have to work for your business.



Another great course by Tony Corbell. I loved this course. Tony is a great teacher, great photographer and great business man. He's enjoyable to listen to and a great teacher. He holds nothing back and shows how to shoot great pictures even in small shooting environments or on a low budget. I would buy again Tony's courses.

Penny Foster

Wow! Tony is fantastic! So many hints and tips, crammed into this great course. I shoot portraits out of a small converted garage, about 9 ft high, 9 feet wide, and about 19 feet long. Tony has shown me so many ways to make this small space work for me, for which I am eternally grateful. What this course highlights is that whatever small space you have, there are ways of making it work. You need to buy this course and watch it over and over because, every time I watch it, I gain more and more info that I missed the first time around. Brilliant!

Kat Ciemiega

Absolutely wonderful, I cannot praise the content enough. I value Tony's stories as much as the information he is giving away, because it puts the data in the perspective and practical context of the actions we take. Thank you for this class!