Class Three
This is the shoot. You have chosen your images, scouted your location, and tested your frame. Now the work becomes physical. Every decision you make today should already have been made.
What We Are Doing
Team Meeting
Final checks before going out. Every group confirms their location, their two reference images, and their roles. If anything is missing or unclear, it gets resolved now, before it costs you light outside.
The Shoot
Groups go out to their confirmed locations on campus and make their images. You have your reference, your plan, and your question. Hold the reference next to the camera before every frame, not after. Answer the image, do not just approximate it.
Post-Production and Critique
Back inside, everyone selects and lightly edits their two best frames. Then a group critique: each pair of images goes up alongside the reference. The question is not whether it looks good. The question is whether you answered your compositional question.
Before Every Frame, Not After
“Hold the reference image up next to the camera before you press the shutter. Not after. You are not inspired by the reference. You are answering it.”
The most common mistake on a recreation shoot is to glance at the reference, put it away, and then shoot from memory. Memory drifts. The reference does not.
One person in your group holds the reference up at arm’s length next to the camera. The photographer looks at both. Only then do you shoot. This is not a suggestion. It is the method.
Three Roles, Every Group
Assign these roles before you go outside. Rotate them if time allows. Directing teaches more than shooting alone.
Photographer
On the camera. Executes the frame. Takes direction from the director. Looks at both the reference and the viewfinder before shooting.
Director
Holds the reference image. Watches the frame being built and gives specific feedback. Is the background clean? Is the subject in the right position? Is the light from the correct side?
Subject
In the frame. Takes direction clearly. You are not performing, you are being placed. The director will tell you where to stand, where to look, and what to do with your hands.
Rotating roles mid-shoot is encouraged. When you direct a shot you have already photographed, you will immediately see things you missed behind the camera.
Gear and Reference Check
Confirm These Before Leaving the Room
These are not formalities. Each one has caused a shoot to fail at some point.
- Reference image on at least two phones in the group
- Camera battery charged, or phone charged above 50%
- If using a phone: portrait mode OFF. You are studying composition, not simulated depth of field
- Shooting wide enough to include the background - do not crop into a headshot
- You know your return time and you will be back inside by then
Questions to Ask Yourself While You Shoot
These are the same questions from the test shoot, now applied to the real thing. If you cannot answer them, stop and look at your reference before continuing.
Post-Production: Minimal and Honest
You have 15 minutes to select your two best frames and do a basic edit. Not a heavy edit. This is what those 15 minutes are for:
Post-production should be honest. You are studying composition, not retouching. The question is whether the image matches the reference in structure. Resist the urge to fix in post what should have been fixed on location.
The Only Question That Matters
“Did you answer the compositional question you set yourself?”
Each group puts their best frame on screen alongside the reference image. One person from the group speaks first: what was the compositional decision you were studying, and did you make it?
The room then responds. Not with general impressions, but with specific observations. What reads the same? What reads differently? Is the difference a problem, or is it an interesting discovery? Some deviations from the reference are actually stronger. Those are worth naming too.
What You Leave With
- Two edited frames uploaded to WeChat, labelled with your name and group number
- A clear answer to: did you solve your compositional question?
- One thing you would do differently if you shot this again
- The understanding that the shoot is not the end of the work
Next class, we move into a new phase of the workshop. What you have learned about composition this week is the foundation for everything that follows.