026: Chad Winstead – How To Become an Off Camera Flash Master & Create EPIC Portraits That Don’t Look Posed

April 20, 2021

“Make sure you educate yourself on how to run a successful business – not just on how to be a Photographer. “

CHAD WINSTEAD

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Chad Winstead!

Check out some of the biggest points from Chad’s interview below:

What would be your top tips for listeners who are looking to really create something epic and stand out from the crowd? How do they go about achieving that in their portraits?

With our style, we’re always looking to either add in colour or just add in some type of dramatic light. So, when we think of epic dramatic portraits, we’re thinking of landscape style portraits with off camera flash, or we’re lowering down the ambient light and increasing the flash power to make the couple pop against the background. So, we like the saying, “Kill the ambient.” And you achieve that with your camera settings by exposing for that ambient light. And then you bring in the flash and you get the flash power where it needs to be, and you get the flash close to your subject, where it needs to be with whatever map modifier you choose. And then it’s all about a balance of light from there.

So, that’s what we think of when we think of epic portraiture. A wide landscape scene, dramatic lighting, if you will, where the flash is basically overexposed on the ambient.

How do you create that relationship with your couples where you get to the point where they can be in this quite posed, quite really planned out thought out shot, and yet still look like they’re just in the moment?

Yeah. So, that’s a great question and it’s something that’s very important to us, is creating relationships with our couples before we ever put them in front of the camera. Our whole process is based off of giving a good experience and becoming friends with our clients so they trust us. And how we actually build those relationships is, from the first time we get a lead, we want to get them on the phone. We want to get talking to them and getting to know them right away.

Once they see that we’re not just a button pusher and that we actually care about them and care about the types of images that they want and all of that, they put even more value and trust into us. So, by the time that the engagement session rolls around, we’ve talked to them multiple times, either in-person, on the phone. Either way, we’ve put our faces in front of their faces one way or another way, whether it’s a video chat like this or whatnot.

And then we have the unique advantage where Beth, my wife, is my second shooter. She’s half of this business with her. And she shoots just as much as I do, has all these creative ideas. So, when we’re doing an engagement session or doing a portrait shoot, she’s right there shooting with us and we’re bantering back and forth and we’re being goofy, cracking jokes with one another, picking on one another. And that’s one of those things that also helps put our clients at ease.

But we are not the very posy type. We like to engage them in conversation, direct them in a way to where we put them in those natural in the moment poses, where they’re walking, cuddled up. And then when we have them, if they’re staring in front of one another, just look at … that awkward look at one another’s eyes pose. That’s when we’re bantering back and forth, getting them to giggle, laugh, and just draw out those natural emotions of the day. I mean, we’ve got prompts that we use too, but ultimately it’s all about building that trust and relationship before the fact.

Who inspires you and why?

Yeah, for sure. Just a few names that come to mind were photographers that I just happened to find or follow along the way that I drew inspiration from their work, Daniel and Davina up in Canada, Two Mann studios up in Canada, Ryan Brenizer was another one up in New York. And then the Chrisman’s down in Charleston. Those were all four photographers that their work stood out, at the time and … or still does obviously. But their work stood out at the time and they were big names and educators in the industry and all that. And they were willing to give back and just drew inspiration from not only their work, but their approach and their presence in the industry.

And it’s one of those things that ever since we’ve been photographers, we’ve also wanted to give back to the photography community as well. So, I’ve drawn inspiration from that and that’s the reason that I’m here today, I guess, doing this podcast and the reason that we’ve done some classes. I do a lot of classes out of the studio here and we’ve done some online workshops and we’ve talked at WPPI, at the MagMod booth and stuff, and just giving back and sharing some knowledge and stuff is just a lot of fun and rewarding for me.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Chad for joining us on the show!

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally