BPP 195: Seth Miranda - The Creative Realm
Seth Miranda is a creative commercial photographer whose work just has to be seen to be fully understood who had a really unconventional start in photography. Today we talk about the creative journey that he has taken and how he builds a shot from what it is that he sees in his head. Seth is also a contributor to Adorama TV
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
What about Photography Clicked for Seth
The technical skills Seth learned shooting BMX on film
The hardest part of learning photography with the long review process of film
When Seth transitioned from shooting BMX to working in a studio
Where the ideas come from for Seths photos
How close a final photo turns out compared to the vision in his head
How to make do with the lighting gear you have
What most new photographers dont understand about lighting
Where Seth draws inspiration from
Where Seth sees the creative limit
Resources:
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Full Episode Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond: 00:00:00 Today's guest is Seth Miranda, a creative commercial photographer whose work just has to be seen to be fully understood who had a really unconventional start in photography. And I'm really excited to talk about the creative journey that he has taken and how he builds a shot from what it is that he sees in his head. So Seth, that was an interesting introduction. But thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Seth Miranda: 00:00:22 Thanks for having me. I'm really amped that we finally got to do this. I feel like we went back and forth for I think like months actually.
Raymond: 00:00:29 Yeah, no, it has been a few months. But obviously you're very busy and if anybody follows you online, they know that you are working and that you work hard. And I feel like everything that I've seen of yours, you put in 100% of your energy into that thing. And maybe that's just cause I'm not, maybe that's who you are and maybe it's because I'm not from New York that I don't fully understand that a, that personality. But regardless you know, it's really fun to watch you work. And again, I'm really excited to to have you on the podcast today. But before we really talk about this creative journey that we had, I mentioned that you kind of had an unconventional start into photography, or at least where it is that you are today. Can you start to share how it is that you did get started in photography? Like from the very, very start? Yeah, like w like tell me about the time that you picked up your first camera
Seth Miranda: 00:01:18 Or, I mean, so I started out, first of all was just a punk kid. I went pro very young. So my preamble to going pro was just like a raw punk on a BMX bike, riding with my friends. Maybe I had a point and shoot camera that I found at a garage sale full of film. But I never thought anything of it. Maybe you develop the role, maybe you didn't, who cared, right. And then, yeah. And then I broke my arm and I still want it to ride. So I was like, I'm going to keep riding with these guys. And I guess I'll just keep taking pictures. And the rolls of film just kept racking up and everything. Anything with them. I didn't think about it. And then when I went to go I think I can't, I never get this part right cause it changes in my head every time.
Seth Miranda: 00:01:54 But I found it an enlarger in a Dar in in the garbage somewhere, like a dump or is on the side of the road somewhere like that. And I just thought, Oh, this looks expensive. I'm going to try to sell it. And then when I tried to sell it, someone said, all I need is the lens and you could get going. I was like, wait, it's a lens. What is it? They told me. So I went to the library, I took out a ton of books. I taught myself how to use it. I processed the film and I built a darker my parent's basement and I wrecked that basement. So thank you to my parents for letting me like destroy that base with like rusted baseboards and everything from the chemicals and everything. But I mean, I thought I invented dodging and burning.
Seth Miranda: 00:02:29 Like, I didn't know anything. I just was like, look at all this stuff I can do. And kept on trying it. And it was really, that's the magical time when you're getting serious about photography, when everything's so new to you and it's like, look at what I'm doing. You feel like you're getting something back instantaneously from the work you put in. And then it came towards the middle of my high school, end of high school career, so to speak. And I was so into BMX. I was so into the magazines that it was like a newsletter for our community. And I thought that getting in the magazines, immortality, I get in there, I'm a rock star, my, my little community of, of writing. And so I literally went to my desk and took all these prints and just shoved them into an envelope and mailed them away to ride BMX magazine.
Seth Miranda: 00:03:11 And I got into the reader section and then Jeff Z at the time, who was the editor told me if you could just shoot these on slides, I could probably get you like better pages. So I started shooting slide film, which was super particular. You know how that is. It's like you're off by a third of a stop, you're screwed. And I learned a lot hard, way hard. That way I, I I started buying either extra flashes like Vivitar 20 threes and 20 fives from garage sales and just using nine steps away from the flash as my exposure setting. Wow. So that's how I knew. That's all I knew what to do. I didn't, I couldn't afford a light meter. I was reading the side of the flash that said like this many feet away, whatever. And it was just praying that these shots came out cause I didn't want these guys who were riding risk in their lives at the time or the wellbeing rather to go, Hey, where's that shot?
Seth Miranda: 00:03:58 And be like, Oh I screwed up. I didn't have it. Cause then you're never shooting for them again. Either way that evolved. I started traveling around shooting other riders went around most of the country. And then that's when I started really making a living as a photographer. After that. Then digital came around and nobody was getting paid for anything because everybody was submitting shots like crazy from all over the world and they basically told me I had to shoot twice as much. Meaning the photo I give them that gets a full page is like an advertisement for me to get a job shooting for somebody else that would pay me. And I was like, what? And that's what I dropped out of that and I was like, I've got to figure something out. I ended up going to community college. I lived in that dark room.
Seth Miranda: 00:04:37 I learned so much at community college. It was crazy. I didn't want to go, I thought it was like 13th grade. I thought it was so insulting. I didn't think I was like supposed to be there, but they had great facilities. Amazing teacher. Shout out to Larry Chatterton and Robert toter and Susan Dooley, NASA community college. It was like the best experience ever. And I'm, I've just kept on building my portfolio there and I went into the gallery world and the gallery world was like, sell one print for a lots of money and try to make something happen. And then I realized that they weren't selling the print, they were selling the idea of me and it was just another business, like what could be sold to these people that aren't going to care about the print when they buy it. And I dropped out of that and back then I was shooting something called Dachi dramas and that was my friend's issues like drug overdoses and bulemia and cutting themselves and all this stuff.
Seth Miranda: 00:05:28 And I would have them act it all out and I would shoot it on cross process film and print it. And then I'd have them write a letter about what they went through as like a living book. When you came to my gallery shows you showed a photo, then you saw the handwriting of what they went through. And in fact, one of those kids in that series recently just took his own life. So that's how real that gets. And that's what I came from. But that's like what I came from was like a lot of kids that didn't get the world with huge issues and that's all I knew. It didn't make sense to me. Anything else that was out there like I don't know how to explain it. I guess like you always look at someone else's life and wonder like how would they like that?
Seth Miranda: 00:06:03 But you don't know it until that's like all you know. So long story short, I kind of put that on the back burner and I went and worked at thousand odd jobs, you know, kind of construction screen-printed tee shirts and stickers for 13 years on the side, all sorts of stuff because I wasn't making the money I was making for the magazines anymore. And this is probably like the most, I'm not the most, but like the thing that I try to tell photography to keep in mind, especially new ones, you have to constantly keep yourself out there because I was ready to throw all my stuff out the window. I posted all of my gear on Craigslist while I'm waiting to sell everything because I couldn't make anything happen anymore. And the day I put it on Craigslist, I got a call from a girl eight years prior that I shot a headshot for.
Seth Miranda: 00:06:52 And it turned out that she ended up being like a rock star makeup artist and was like what she ended up doing, Oh she was an instructor, one of the best makeup schools in New York. And she said, Hey, could you come here and take a shot at photograph from this class work? Cause we're not really psyched on the work we've been getting. We don't think it's selling the school well, they don't see me amped on the work. And I shot one class of beauty makeup. I was like, I don't know pretty stuff. I dunno, I'm going to shut a door, you know. But I knew light theory and I knew that they wanted to smooth out the skin and do you know, so I figured it out. Right. And then when I was there, I saw a class on character makeup and they, I said, this gets photos too. And they said, yeah. And they showed me, and I'm not kidding you, it looked like a yearbook full of zombies. Like it just looks like the most annoyingly bad images I've ever seen.
Raymond: 00:07:43 And yet I really want to see that yearbook.
Seth Miranda: 00:07:45 I know, right? Yeah. It was all like aliens and zombies and injury make us, but it was like a great background, single light, no dimension, just garbage. And I was like, so how much do these makeups cost? Like, Oh, someone could be like 300 500 I've shot $5,000 makeups in my career. So, and then it doesn't exist ever again. Like it's up to us to immortalize it. So I'm like, can I shoot one of these? And I shot it. They offered me the entire class when they were ready to do the portfolio. I shot that one class led to a year contract, which led to another few years, 12 years later, I shot for the special effects makeup industry.
Raymond: 00:08:19 Jeez. Okay. Whew. So that was an incredible journey that we all just went on right there. So many questions. I have so many questions and now I'm at Adorama. So there's another twist. There's another, I guess why I want to start is that in the beginning, in the beginning, riding your bike and your skateboard wasn't enough for you. You know, you wanted to pick up that camera. It was, it was picking up the camera just on a whim, but it wasn't until developing the photo that, that something inside of you clicked or did you see the camera and something clicked?
Seth Miranda: 00:08:56 I think the first thing you have to realize is that if you're a photographer, you've always been a visual person. Whether you've had the technical means or not, you've always seen stuff and you've needed to materialize it for others to see what you're saying. I wasn't, when I was younger, good at communicating myself at all and trying to get this out of my skull into people's heads was not helping out. And I also had a really hard grip on the idea of mortality. I lost people in my life. I mean from the stories I've told you that like it's just something that I was used to and I kept thinking like what if something isn't documented? What if it is? And I always looked at the camera as a documentation tool and I still think of it that way today in regards to I don't Photoshop or retouch anything.
Seth Miranda: 00:09:36 I do, usually the clients do that they want to, but my stuff, whatever you see my Instagram, that's out of camera cause I wanted to see what was in front of me. I want to know what was there. I mean whatever happened to that idea. Right. So I think shooting the BMX, it, it felt like it lasted forever because here in New York we would all shoot all day and go ride and then we meet up at union square and that's what we would trade tapes and pictures to show each other what we did. Cause we didn't shoot it. It didn't exist. It never happened. Yeah. I mean there was no phones, there was no sharing, there was nothing. I think friends was out back then. Maybe, I don't know. But it was a, it was the only way to prove you really existed and that everything happened that day. And I couldn't let go of that idea and it became an obsession and I tried to make that obsession, not destructive, but in the end I was that kid on the corner selling parts off my bike to hopefully buy the film, to get a print in a magazine to then buy back those parts. I mean, that's just the mentality. I just, it was everything was for the legacy. Does that make sense?
Raymond: 00:10:41 Yeah, it does. It does. It does. Yeah. I think that you touched upon something really interesting there, which is obviously that if, if you are a photographer, you have to be some sort of visual person and things that are visual, just have to connect with you on some level. And then I guess, I guess what separates, tell me if I'm wrong here or not, but I guess what separates a long lasting photographer from everybody else is just simply that persistence to, to keep trying to make an image that can
Seth Miranda: 00:11:11 Connected people. Yeah. I think it's hard, right? Because you all think about it as success as monetary. And I think that we all keep looking at photography. Like how come I can't make a living at this? People want me to shoot for free nonstop. Well, first of all, you're not valuing yourself if you're going to shoot for free, like they'll always have a friend with a camera. But you have to develop a style that people want. You have to develop a product or a service that people want that they can't get elsewhere. They're going to come to you for. And now in an era where we create more content than ever before, let's say I have someone out there doing a merchant company or a streetwear company, they don't want to get lost out there and the rest of the golden hour bullshit, preset world garbage that's there, they're looking for a point of view.
Seth Miranda: 00:11:55 And if you stick to your point of view and elevate your technical skills to always execute, not only what they want, but what you want and also what standard, right? So I always tell people, get the clean shot, get the same shot, get the job done, then change it to something you know you can do that would totally give him a different versatile look. And then the third thing before you're out, throw something against the wall technique wise. And if it works, great. If it doesn't, you tried it and you can hold it in your pocket for something that it would work for. And that's how I elevated, or I should say, evolve the special effects work because you don't light a zombie the way you lighten old age makeup with like a somber look as opposed to a graphic look or an alien. The same way you would do an injury, makeup or so on and so forth.
Seth Miranda: 00:12:39 And I think you have to stick. Firstly, you have to trust yourself. You have to trust yourself that you have a vision and that's what you're going for. Because if you're trying to create someone else's vision, who are you really working for now? What are you really doing? You know? So maybe not everyone's gonna agree with your vision and your style and you might even come into a pocket where your style is a trend and then it's over. But then it's really up to you to say, well, am I just that style or am I a photographer?
Raymond: 00:13:07 You mean in the sense of, of, of continuing on with your education and growing your skills into something else
Seth Miranda: 00:13:13 Or your style or your point of view or, or I don't, you know, people change as we grow and so should you work if you look at something I shot in the beginning with those grimy Dachi dramas and then you look at my commercial work, which is way more clean, there's a idea behind both, but you know, clearly the cleaner will sell, but you yourself have to be able to realize when you've done that style, it's over. Maybe it's time to move on. Sometimes you're over in the public isn't like every time I do a live demo, someone in the crowds like do a shutter drag, do a ghost. And I'm like, I've done ghosting for 15 years. Can we move on from this? But listen, I, in the end, I want people to receive what I'm putting out there because nothing's worse than like creating something, putting it out there to avoid and nothing comes back. Right? Where's the fulfillment in that?
Raymond: 00:14:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So moving on a little bit, I want to know more about kind of that learning process for you as, as this kid who just like, I'm going to take a camera and then whatever happens, happens very rarely. D I'm assuming, would you get those photos back and be critical of your work, but for some reason you were, there's something about either the photos that you took or, or, or the development process that when you got those photos you wanted to become better. But I'm always fascinated by this because I didn't learn photography with film. I, I, I, I I went to a film school, so I got a I shot on film, but the review process was pretty quick because I was taught to always write down my settings, my lighting setups, all of these things. So that when I would go back and review it, I could remember of how it went and how to change things. But in the world of BMX photography, skateboard photography, I would imagine that when you're out shooting, you're not like writing down, Oh this was five, six with a 60th of a second. So when you got those photos back, how would you, what was that process like for learning the review process?
Seth Miranda: 00:15:08 Well that's kind of funny cause it wasn't like that. There's actually prints somewhere around here that are photos of napkins and trash that I wrote what I thought I did in the middle of the roll of film. So what do you mean? So like if I shot somebody at dead of night, well first of all, just trying to figure out how to shoot a fast moving sport at the dead of night with cops probably shut me down in a few minutes. Really. ELL sped up my learning process fast. Like, like, you know, so but in the middle of shooting I'd be like, Oh, I'm at five, six at 400 and I'm using ISO. I, you know, I have a roll of 400 and I'm using this lens. I would write it down on like something by me and I take a picture of it before I left the scene.
Seth Miranda: 00:15:51 And yeah. And so there's like a bunch of, I know they're on Dunkin donuts napkins cause I remember on fifth Avenue there was a Dunkin donuts that was always open here, this riding spot. And I would take a stack of napkins and write it on there. That is resourceful. Yeah. Receipts. I did not receipts all the time. But I also had these days where we'd call up like my closest friends and be like, Hey, I'm trying to figure this out. Let's go ride. And then after every shot I would open up a, you know, one of those black and white notebooks and write it down. And then I would wait for the film. And that's how I would see. I told you hear sirens and but the it was hard to keep track of it, but I always knew what I did.
Seth Miranda: 00:16:32 I could look at it and what do you call it? Reverse engineer it I think, I think doing that early on led me to learn fast, able to work and I really went out and worked hard to find photographers are respected like their work and went to go assist for so that I would always be around people better than me and I never got an ego about it. I really wanted to learn the right way cause I always felt like you get the railed early, you're screwed. I don't know about you, but like I feel like that's where you learn the basis. And I think coming from all this like film and hardcore darker room and Vandyke Brown cyanotypes gum by Chrome mates, printing MRIs and x-rays and Whoa, all this crazy stuff learning that everything we're doing now digitally is a simulation of whatever the hell we were doing there. Right? I mean the burn tool and Photoshop is a hand. And some kid actually asked me why that's a hand and I'm like, cause he used to block, I forget a kid.
Seth Miranda: 00:17:27 But I think I, I really feel fortunate in my upbringing that I was around during the tail end of the film era and I really wanted, every shot costs me money and I had to make it count. And I think when you talk about how I give 100% of the demos you've seen. Yeah, I always look at it like that demo is never going to exist again. I could teach speed lights a thousand times. It'll always be different. But I have to prove at that point when someone's in my face asked me a question, I can do it on the spot. I don't go give me two weeks to Photoshop the shit out of it. No, I do it. And that's what I show my clients, that they see what I'm shooting as I'm shooting it. They're getting what they want on the spot and they're being educated to not look for obliterated pores and eyeballs with no veins in them. And somehow their eyes are illuminated in post to like they have to learn what an actual photograph is. That's the hardest part. But I think showing people that it's possible is, is, is priceless right now, especially since everybody's editing their work to be cookie cutter with everybody else's getting lost out there. Yeah,
Raymond: 00:18:31 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's interesting cause some of the photos that I would look at that I maybe I don't like traditionally, like I don't like looking at this photo. I would never hang this photo in my house. There's still something about the photo, but I think to myself, Ooh, but I could try that. And that's what gets really exciting for me. So back to that though, real quick. Was there anything that you found in particularly challenging to, to understand when it came to the technical side of photography in those early days?
Seth Miranda: 00:19:04 So I think we always talk about the film era as being like hard, right? Like you, you, Oh, you couldn't see the exposure and stuff. But I think there is something to be said for putting yourself in a corner where I couldn't change the ISO, you know I, I had to stick to color or black and white. There was no flipping it later. And I think when you started shooting for what was in your hands, now when somebody's body hands me something that could do everything that's in my hands, I can make a, a strong deliberate choice of today I want to shoot monochrome, here's how I'm going to do it. This is what it's supposed to look like. Cause lighting for gray scale is different than color and all this, all sorts of, when you're deliberate and you make choices on the spot, you have a better product in the end because you don't go, well let me get the general basic and then start withering away at it until it's something specific.
Seth Miranda: 00:19:52 If you start out with proper ingredients in the beginning you'll have the right product in the end. And that's the way I've always shot. So I think people look at film or shooting film the wrong way. And I always tell people like, just go get a used camera, throw a roll in it and go walk around. What do you have to lose? Really stick yourself to that light meter and realize what it's doing or what it's actually metering when it's seeing a whole scene or a spot or whatever. Like really get yourself to see the shop before you even set the camera up, you know, like, you know.
Raymond: 00:20:23 Oh yeah. I guess this is more of a personal question for you, but when you're shooting a mirrorless system like Fuji, are you looking, are you using the EVF? Are you using more of the, are you a fan of the optical viewfinder? X 100 V right here. Oh, I got mine right there.
Seth Miranda: 00:20:37 Oh yeah. The I, so I, I, I struggle with what to do. I feel like more natural, the OBF, but I've got to tell you, man, like every now and then I'll find myself cheating with that. EVF or I'll throw that little one in the corner where it has the, yeah. And you're kind of like, okay. Or what I really like is she, I keep mine on always on black and white because it's like my BTS side camera. So I usually have the OBF on and then the little screen, the hybrid finder up and have that in monochrome so I can at least see what my tones look like. So get, so use the technology for an edge, but don't crutch on it to do the whole job, if that makes sense.
Raymond: 00:21:18 Love it. No, exactly. Exactly. I love that. I really wish that they would have brought that to the 50 yard. But anyway, regardless, that's a whole different podcast because that camera, they couldn't fit that in there. I've had that exact conversation in my head like, come on, there's so much anyway, like the size of a VHS. Right. I know
Seth Miranda: 00:21:36 I shot the GFX 100 prototype in Tokyo and I was looking at this thing like how is this, can you put this EVF in everything but this hybrid and everything you got man. But I guess they can't with some of them because a rangefinder is one thing where it has an actual window to be an OBF
Raymond: 00:21:54 But that GFX 100 is amazing man. Oh my God, I love it. I love it. I don't know why I would use something like that but looking at others' photographs makes me think, Oh I'm sure I, if I got it I could figure something out y'all. You can totally pick it. I mean I went and
Seth Miranda: 00:22:08 It was funny cause a, just like a side story, we were chosen as a few of the teams to go to Tokyo to test like the first 20 of them or something
Raymond: 00:22:16 And everybody else is out there. They'll the first of all I was like all the other content teams like Hey, it's that channel. Hey what's going on? You know, like, yay, DP, review what's going on, you know, and they're all going out and shooting like Lotus flowers and coy fish of course. And I'm like, yo, we're at a Rama. Let's get grimy. I'm going to go and let's go get tattooed. So I went and [inaudible]
Seth Miranda: 00:22:36 Research the S hand poke tattoo artist that's like a legitimate Tuborg that tourists and I shot myself getting hand poked tattoo in low light with a medium format camera hanging off of my fingertips at a hundred megapixels and it was shot. I was like, this is amazing how sharp it is in this condition. And I just loved that we were able to keep our true to our selves and be like,
Raymond: 00:22:58 I mean I got tattooed on ad or on the TV. Like, yeah, no, I'm going to link to that video in the show notes because what's impressive, not only is the camera, but while some dude is hammering nails essentially into your skin, you're holding like this, I dunno, seven pound camera. I'm like, perfect composure, looking at yourself. No problem. That was very impressive. Very impressive. Oh, thank you so much. I'm really proud of that video. Yeah. so going back to going back to those kind of early days, a simple question, which is just what was your favorite part of shooting BMX and skateboarding?
Seth Miranda: 00:23:33 Wow. it feels like it was a whole nother person ago. You know what I mean? Like it's so far away, but I think there was just something about having someone who put lot of their self on the line to learn something or hit a spot or do something that they could only pull up one time and having it last forever for them. Like I keep coming back to that mortality and mortality thing cause I really do believe in that. There's so many times we see like throwback photos and stuff like that only exists because someone shot it. So when someone was doing, you know, jumping that huge set of stairs or running that gap or roof jump and roof to roof or something. Like I was there and I, I was their supports as I was the guy that didn't make it go away for them.
Seth Miranda: 00:24:17 And to me there was nothing, there's nothing that felt like that. I mean, even today with the special effects makeup, yeah, they can always do the makeup again, you know, but to document some bodies progression when that's all they have. When you rode BMX back when you were 15, that is literally all you had. You lived in guide for it. So and I mean literally, I mean broken bones. I had my lip ripped off and put back by a plastic surgeon, like all sorts of stuff. So yeah, I know it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's rough. It's to think about it. I didn't feel a thing. I literally got off the ground and I'm looking at a car window to see if I'm okay. I'm like, why am I smiling? And then I realized my delay lip was gone. So anyway
Raymond: 00:25:02 Did, did you take a picture of that? No, I didn't actually, but you're never going to have that moment back again as that's like the what's the what's the phrase? The totally escapes me. What it is, but it's like the person who always does that one thing but can't do it for themselves. Do you find that you ever find yourself, like in that situation, do you feel that way about yourself? Like you're always taking photographs of other people or for other people, but maybe not for yourself?
Seth Miranda: 00:25:29 I definitely absolutely 100% do not cheer for myself right now. I work every day for every one else to an extent where you're doing a demo of a new camera, you've never touched that account before. You spend most of it trying to figure out the menu system or how it's going to act so you don't look stupid when you have to make it look good. And then by the time you get to the shots themselves, that's like 10% of the whole production is like the shooting. So when you're done, you're kind of like, Aw man, I got through that one. All right, cool. But man, I, I get asked this all the time and it sounds so distant heartening, but I feel very fortunate that I am a working photographer, that I work in media, that I can create what I create.
Seth Miranda: 00:26:15 In the end, I don't have these burning desire that I used to have when I was a kid to get an idea across anymore. I mean I've had like these overly Epic, in-depth fine art ideas and endless sketchbooks on my shelf over there. But in the end it's, it's, I don't care to create it. Then how can anybody care to ingest it and I fit. The ambition isn't really there then it's not there right now. I'm in a point in my life where I need to make this career count as hard as possible. I have more of an audience than I've ever had before. I can't falter in front of people cause I talk way too much about this industry and people in general, like I really do. I hate the whole selling presets thing. Telling people they'll get better if there's buy presets.
Seth Miranda: 00:26:59 I hate the whole idea that, Oh, fix it later. Anything that you think that, Oh, here's five hacks that fit pro photographers don't want you to know, shut up. It's not, there's nothing we don't want you to know because no matter what you learn, it's already out there. It's already been out there and you have to apply it and actually really want to do this and gain momentum with it. And that's the hard part. I think I want to look back at a career that I got to an elevation. If I had a bunch of PR personal work, I'm not so sure that I'd have that same feeling. Not to mention when you, I'm not kidding. I literally know for a fact six days a week I'm shooting something somehow some way for someone somehow or going live. That's seventh day. I want to play doom.
Seth Miranda: 00:27:46 You know, I want to go find that slice of pizza on the other side of Manhattan that I heard so much about. Like, yeah, it's, it's, that's the life because we can't create anything unless we experience life itself. You want to get a vision in your head, you have to be able to see what the world is out there. If you're staying to yourself, you're not, you're reading a page in a book. You have to see everything and feel what's going on out there to understand, you know that person part of your lens that isn't you, that lives a lifestyle different than you and still get a portrait because a portrait is like we're portraying someone, we're not trying to replicate Rembrandt lighting here. Okay? Like get Rembrandt lighting out of your head. So I'm trying to replicate shadow patterns and start looking at what you're shooting and try to portray it to create a portrait.
Seth Miranda: 00:28:27 And that's what the problem is right now is we're like regurgitating techniques and we're not evolving the idea of what we're shooting itself and I don't think that's helping anybody. How many times are we going to see a demo on butterfly lighting or something like that and say like, this is all you need to do headshots. Well that doesn't work for everybody. Maybe that's not the field I want. Maybe their shape of their face is a little different, or I wanted it to look like this or it's, it's insane to me that people put work out there. I'm rambling now, but isn't saying to me that people work out there and go, look how great this looks. And it's like, you didn't like that that's completely obliterated in Photoshop. I mean, most of the high end pros that you see out there are doing these giant soft, lighter by foot octaves or umbrellas with the fusions and getting a really flat look and then burning in the lighting later and saying, I'm going to teach you lighting. No, you're not gonna teach him how to use the burn tool, you know?
Raymond: 00:29:19 Yeah. The two, well, I think, I don't know, I don't know if this helps at all or if this adds anything to the, a tons of conversation. But I think it's, it's so easy to want to learn as much as you can, as fast as possible. Like if I get into anything, I want to know everything about it right away. But like a, I'll, I'll take the example of learning how to play bass. When I, in high school, I, I wanted to learn how to play bass so bad, so bad. But you know what? I never did. I never bought a book. I never like took lessons. I never did any of that. I just like went to my friend and was like, show me that thing that you did right there and then I'm just going to copy that, you know, because I knew that that worked for him. So I totally get what it is that you're saying. And I just hope that more people who are listening right now take away from this, that they actually need to go outside with their camera and do something instead of, you know, you can watch all the tutorials online, but if you don't actually do something with it, what good is it?
Seth Miranda: 00:30:15 Well, that's the thing is like, I think you can learn from a to Z, a single technique, but if you don't understand the core principles that, that built that technique, you didn't do anything right. You know when I do that demo or use like a party balloon and a plastic bag and a and a pizza box reflector, I'm doing that because there were times in my career that someone said, Hey, can you give me a shot that looks like this and I had nothing else around me. But I figured out that, well, I need light to be soft or how to make the light softer. It has to be bigger than my subject. Okay, how do I do that? I'll make those be light into S into a blown up balloon and hold it there with a plastic bag and now it's 10 times bigger than it was.
Seth Miranda: 00:30:55 It's softer. Well now I have a shadow on the other side. How do I get rid of that shadow if I only have one light, I need something that bounces or reflects light. Well I need something that's white. I need some that's white, that has some sort of sheen to it to reflect the amount of light I need back in. And these are the things you keep on working through your head and that way when they ask you to do something, it's not, well, let me go through this roller decks of cards of stuff that I regurgitated from a to Z. It's, I had the core principle of I only need to change this one thing. I moved this light back a little bit. Whatever the case is, if it astounds me the miseducation that's happening at this point, when I go to trade shows, like add imaging, you know, I get people saying like, well how can you do this? Like you're already thinking the wrong way. It's not about that. It's about how do I make the light do this to get me to that? Because yeah, once you understand how to work with the light that's available or work with the light you create, there's no stopping you.
Raymond: 00:31:45 Yeah. So that that's perfect because I've always wondered, you know, if you look at your photos, you have some pretty wild photos and I'm going to post them in the show notes so that people can look at them and get a sense of what it is that they are. And you talked a lot about doing, you know, costume makeup and stuff like that, or prosthetic makeup. Is that, is that the right term? Prosthetic makeup, someone's prosthetics, the special effects? Pretty much. Okay. Special effects. There we go. So when it comes to special effects, you know, your photos, they're there. They're not all over the place. They're there, they're wild. They're there. I'm looking at these photos thinking to myself like, what are these ideas come from? So obviously the makeup is part of it, but the other part of it is the photography. Like you said, you know, you have this chance to capture this thing once. So where do these ideas come from for you?
Seth Miranda: 00:32:30 So the special effects just so people are clear, a lot of it volume-wise comes from like a makeup school where I shoot 30 of them in a day. So I have to be able to like go through all these styles and different genres and concepts. One after another 30 times. So that really got me quick and fast and able to fix flaws in the makeup with the lighting while still making it worth looking at. Right. Keeping the mood but still smoothing out like an edge to a prosthetic where you might see it or whatever or you know, fixing off color makeup or whatever happens, you know. But the the concept comes from the makeup artists I my button and be like, this would shoot better. Don't use this gold here or watch your shimmer stuff. There are sheens and things, but when it hits me, most of the time I have no idea what it's going to be to walk in my room.
Seth Miranda: 00:33:19 They'll tell me like, I'm going to do this alien. I'm like, okay, cool. And they come in and it's a completely different color. Could they ran out of it or they couldn't make this happen or the prosthetic and it fit properly or whatever the case is. And because I've shot 600 of them, I can figure out plan B pretty quickly because every time I take 10 more minutes on a makeup that's 300 minutes, that's over two, three hours that I ate up. Just trying to think of what to do next and that I can't afford. And that's what keeps me working. But I think one of the things like, so there's like a story. Did ya, did you ever see the pop by makeup I shot? I did, yes. Yes. So that was in the middle of a trade show floor that wasn't in a studio, that was a demo makeup on a stage and they were just gonna let it walk away.
Seth Miranda: 00:34:04 Wow. So I said, there's no way. There's no way. This was done by Neil Gorton, who's the guy behind dr who all the effects on dr who, wow. And Josh Tory, who is the guy behind all the Marvel, Netflix series, Daredevil, Luke cage, all that stuff. So these two powerhouses communicated by email over an ocean, then got together on stage and created that makeup after everything they built for it. Like what I knew was just going to walk away. It was just going to walk away. So I was working for the trade show document and the demos and so I had the gray background, but I had to grab him and I literally had three to five minutes to figure out how to shoot this thing. And I'm looking at this Popeye going, well, here's the problem. His eyes are sunken in it at least four inches deep under prosthetic.
Seth Miranda: 00:34:51 How do you not make that a shadow? Okay, so then how do I not make this look flat? How do I get them to show that there's like stubble on him so that people realize how detailed it is? How do I get people to see the proportions that are Popeye with like the small legs in the big upper body? How do I get them to recognize that it's pop off the bat? Get that I had to start on my phone. I'm Googling Popeye poses and looking at the cartoon and seeing the whole like fist up thing and after, you know, moving that fast and after all putting the pieces together, the five minutes was like an hour of shooting for me in my head. And then it was gone and it made the cover of makeup artists magazine actually have it. You want to see the cover? Of course. Yeah, no, I got it right here. Yeah, it's a, yeah. That's amazing. That is amazing. You can't really
Raymond: 00:35:38 See it on this, but it's like it's you, I'll get it posted in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. So in a situation like that where as you said, you know, you, you did an hour's worth of work before you even had them in front of the camera. You know, and that all comes from your technical knowledge, knowing how your, your gear works, right. There's no way that you could do any of this without that. This, this isn't just something that happened like in, in those three minutes. So, no, no. How important is what's the question that I'm trying to put together here for new photographers? Sorry, I'm totally butchering this question. For new photographers, how much do you think that they should focus on the technicals versus the creative? Does that make sense? How much should they focus on the technical versus the creative? Okay, so cause that photo right there were perfectly demonstrated both of those two things working in unison.
Seth Miranda: 00:36:34 Yeah. I mean also the thing I work against all the time is I'm constantly in a sterile environment of a studio. It's an empty box, plain background. There's no location. Right? If I had a shit chance to shoot that pop by for real, I'd find an old tugboat somewhere to put them in and shoot the cabin, the whole nine. Right. But I don't have that. Right. So when you ask like what's there, what's, where's the weight of the creative versus the technical? The creative has to be strong enough for people to want to document it and create it. And the technical has to be strong enough to do justice for the creative. If one doesn't have the other, you're not going to create an image that's going to be mainstream, accepted it or be worth looking at. Now that being said, there are plenty of photographers I know that do amazing creative concepts and maybe the technical isn't there, but who cares sometimes when the technical isn't there, people feel that it's more believable of an image.
Seth Miranda: 00:37:30 Case in point, look at American apparel they had on camera flash as their campaign forever. But you felt like you were there with that girl in that hotel room. You felt like you knew her, like you took that shot at that party and that's why it feels less of a barrier. You know, there's plenty of people that look at like Playboy and go, well that is super polished lighting and it doesn't seem like they can't connect with it as much. But then somehow a or maximum, I should've said I'm solely, I don't even know anymore. But somehow the grime year looking stuff, look at DK and why or Dolce Gabbana like all these ads that are humongous campaigns are literally on camera flash. Like they've been going around a nightclub shooting at a high end party and now you feel like you're there. The technical isn't there, but the concept is solid as a rock. So you can't really judge one of the other, which you have to do is make a decision for what you're trying to achieve. What's the importance? And I think you, if you don't have the technical, you limit yourself what you can do. If you don't have the creative, your technical is boring as, so it's kind of like you tell me where you want to go. You know, it, it's, it's one doesn't override the other.
Raymond: 00:38:44 Yeah. Yeah. So, so then cause cause I'm always fascinated by this. I feel like this doesn't get talked about enough. But how close would you say that you get? How close is your finished image, your final image? How close is that to the vision that you have in your head? Say when, when somebody new walks right in front of your camera and you have to think to yourself, what am I going to do here? You have to come up with that idea and then how close is that idea to your, to your finished image.
Seth Miranda: 00:39:12 So yeah, that's interesting, right? Because I think people assume number one, they all are. They assume if you're a pro, the first shot is done. They think it's like you just nailed it and you know, you might get to a safe idea right off the bat on the first shot because you've done it a million times like this far away will look like this or whatever. Fine. But there's a million variables. You could shoot the same person every day for seven days. The same kid, same area, and a look different every single time. Cause they're the variable. Their skin gets puppy, they're tired, they're more energetic that day, whatever the case, right. I think we have to let go of when you're starting out is you're not going to achieve everything that's in here because everything in here doesn't have the reality of everything that goes wrong. And what I mean by wrong is the way things that don't act the way they act.
Seth Miranda: 00:39:54 Like, Oh, I want to shoot this a dress flying in the air. Well maybe that dress isn't long enough for it to fly in the air as long as you had prepared for and thus it doesn't look the way you thought it was going to look. I mean it's just, there's so many variables that you have to get the ideas of them and be at peace with, well what can I achieve there? And then also what can I organically let this subject and concept let me get to, because sometimes there's things you could never thought of that are happening that spot on the spot during the shoot that if you don't let yourself be open to letting yourself steer that way you're kind of fighting against the shot and that's where you start getting a less, a lesser shot. Really. I mean, I mean how many times have people tried to get like a super clean headshot, but it was really the moment where they stopped posing that they got the shot. You have to let the shot be organic to some degree. And that means letting go of your ego, letting go of your, your hardcore idea that you need to achieve. And sometimes just being okay with, I have this idea and this concept, let's see how we can build it on the spot.
Raymond: 00:41:00 So then personally, when do you know that you have the, when you have the photo, if you know that it's not going to turn out the way that you have it in your head and then you have to allow something to organically happen, how do you know when you got it
Seth Miranda: 00:41:15 That I think you, you know, you know that feeling like it's, it's something that I think experienced photographers get is they just know that that was it. And then they usually take a few more frames, you know, but you usually go like, ah, I'll never be as good as that one. I, you know, or you take 10,000 of the same one and you're stuck. Like, wait, which one doesn't that one fingernail cut off or something? You know, it's, it's it's hard to explain, but if you trust yourself, you know it, you just know it. Right. I just, I, I, I guess it's like trying to say, how do you know when a connection happens with a person? Like you don't, it's just like, it's something you kind of know. Your, your images are being created right there on the spot and you have to be able to connect with them.
Seth Miranda: 00:41:59 If they're not connecting for you, then you're not going to feel it. And I think that it's when you start realizing like, well, the technicals are okay. Okay, the eye is sharp. You know, like how many times you've done like, Oh, this looks great, but the eye's not sharp or something stupid. Right. and you like, you just like, Oh, let me try it again. And it never hits again. That's when you start realizing what you were trying to go after. But it's really a connection feeling. Doesn't that seem, I don't know, for you, doesn't that seem like it?
Raymond: 00:42:22 100%. 100%. And it's funny you said that sometimes, you know, you'll take the shot and you'll know, but then maybe you'll just fire off a few frames. I find that I don't do that. Whenever I have that feeling, I stopped right away. Why only excited like, and this is very rare. I'm not trying to toot my own horn or anything and this does not happen every single day. But if I take a shot and like I know and I do get that feeling, I'll tell my couple like, that's it. I got the photo, we're done. Like, let's, let's move on to something else. And for me like that, that's a fun feeling. Then I, then I feel like I'm just like wasting my time taking more photos, but I always feel like I'm the exact opposite. If I can't get it to work, I'll just keep shooting. Like, what, what can I do to check this? And then you start doing a vertical, you know, you're like, yeah, you're like, I'm just going to try anything at this point and try to make it work. And then usually those shots I just hate the most.
Seth Miranda: 00:43:11 Yeah. Because you didn't do anything to change. You just hoping that the next button is like magical somehow. Right. But it's not going to do it. It's not, you're, you're still shooting the same scenario. I think number one, I think shooting extra frames after the one you got it is a film thing because we were trained to always take a few more frames in case you scratched that negative, you had it. And I think the other thing is I like, you're kind of wondering like maybe there's like that extra evolution that's not going to come like that 37th exposure on a 36 roll. Like maybe there's something there I'm not going to get. I don't know. But I definitely hear you that, so sometimes I want to stop, but there's, for me, I don't know about you, but for clients sometimes they want to feel out the session go a little longer cause like they feel like they, you know, you've given them not only a product of a shot, but you're giving them an experience of being photographed.
Raymond: 00:43:56 Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. I, I guess I never thought about it like that. I, I, I've never thought about what my couples think in that moment. I always just assumed that they know what the photo looks like and they're just like, Oh great, we got it. Cool, let's move on to something else. But yeah, that's, I'm going to have to put some thought to that.
Seth Miranda: 00:44:15 Yeah. Cause sometimes when they're in the experience then they get into a different mood and organically your shoot goes somewhere else. Like they got a little more comfortable. She's laying across them or something weird like anything, you know, so something weird. Yeah. Well I can't tell you how many times I'm shooting in FX makeup. They're like, Hey, well what if we tried this? And they just like start spraying water in the air cause they got comfortable. You know, there are some, yeah. I mean there's blood on everything I own. I mean there is just, there's so much stuff. I mean [inaudible] zombie blood has instant coffee in it to make it look like it's the Cade and it smells terrible. Decayed blood. I've never heard of such a thing. Well, different color. Yeah. What looks different depending on where you're bleeding from. If it's like more of a lower torso, there's going to be like bile and digestive fluids in it.
Seth Miranda: 00:45:01 So it's darker. You know, your head has really bright blood because it's a lot of capillaries. You know this. Yeah. There's a lot of great info here and I think that that that needs to be your next shirt. There's blood on everything I own that would sell out so fast. I'll tell you what, especially in the makeup world. Oh man. Oh man. Think about that. I am going to do a video on making fake blood, so it's gonna be great. I can't wait to see the instant coffee thing. I've never, I've never thought about that before ever since I've had people throw up. Oh really? Because of the smell. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. No, I don't know if I want to see this anymore. When it comes to, when it comes to lighting, I feel like you you have to be a master of lighting, you know, especially working in the studio setting.
Seth Miranda: 00:45:48 If anybody's watching us here on YouTube, it's clear that you're a fan of lighting. You've you've even got some backup lighting here just for this audio podcast. But when it comes to lighting, it's obviously a very important, but when you're starting out, you know, you said that you started with some garage sale lights in those early days. What do you think that's a question that I'm trying to get at here. How do you, how do you think that being held back by a small kit helped push you forward? All right, I take that back. Do you think that having, sorry for changing the question, do you think that having a limited kit held you back or did it push you forward? I don't think it held me back, but there's definitely stuff I know now that if I knew back then things would have been cleaner, like understanding that not all light is the same.
Seth Miranda: 00:46:39 That there's, you know, strobes can shift colors. And I mean, I didn't really look at the color of my lighting till I had to start shooting commercial makeup. Like I didn't need to have a dialed in perfect, you know, color until they were like, we need that red lip look, Pantone one 95. Like what? So when I was shooting BMX, that didn't matter. But I think when I didn't have light stands right and I laid the flashes on the ground and everybody's lit like Frankenstein when they're riding BMX. You know, I thought it looked cool, but if you did that for anybody that was like trying to be a fashion model in the street, they'd be like, why do I look terrible? And all my textures like exaggerated. But I think I realized that exaggerated texture and I brought that to everything else. I think one of the things you have to remember, no matter what your kid is, look at the properties of it.
Seth Miranda: 00:47:25 What is the properties? Is it like if I have a smaller sensor and it's noisy, we'll then start making your work work for what would look good, noisy. You know, like there's, there's not so much like a, a golden camera that works for everything. There isn't the best lens in the world from everything. You're looking at $30,000 systems that are meant to look soft focus. Why when we're supposed to be taught that we want sharp lenses because it's about character of the equipment and what you want to get look wise out of the image. You know. So I think people get caught up in so many stupid things because they're being sold spec sheets. They get in a hobby of buying equipment rather than using it or applying what that equipment can do. And I think that once you start realizing you can't buy better skills, you can only acquire them.
Seth Miranda: 00:48:10 It's within yourself. If it's not in you, if you're not building it in you, it doesn't matter what those hands are holding. Cause those hands are still the same skills. So you have to get yourself to a place where you understand what the tools that are in your hands and what you can do with them. The the garage sale strobes taught me how to fix flashes first of all, like when they're corroding in the battery cells and all that stuff, like figuring that whole thing out or trying to figure out optical triggering of splashes, like how far they can actually go, what bright of a sunlight I can use them in. I mean they learning the fail points of cheap gear kind of made me realize what to appreciate about the gear I use now. Case in point, I get a lot of flack for using pro photo when I'm alive.
Seth Miranda: 00:48:51 Like people like why do you use five 80 ones? I'm like, cause they're dependable and I love them and they're awesome. But there'll be like, well this is just as good. It's only $60 I'm like, you think it is, but you shoot one 10th of what I have to do and you don't know. What about color shifting when they warm up? You don't know about power efficiency. You don't realize that when a light is more efficient, you can actually get more power out of them even if they're both rated at the same watt seconds. I mean there's all sorts of stuff and I think having to exploit the small kids I used to have to the fullest extent to where they're barely holding on helped me really extend and exploit the major kids I get to use today.
Raymond: 00:49:33 Do you think that many new photographers don't see it in the same way you think that they're using that as an excuse?
Seth Miranda: 00:49:40 No, I think that people just, well there's two camps, right? There's the people who buy affordable lightning, which is totally fine. Never not shoot, always use whatever you can. But then there's also the camp of the people that are, well I'm well off and I want to be a photographer, so I'll buy Baya a flagship camera and some $2,000 a piece strobes. And somehow I'm still not getting these amazing photos cause it was never the strokes, it was never the camera. It was how you're using it all. And while I don't believe that things are ever just as good I do think that things are perfectly usable. But if you're getting to a point where things are failing on you, or if you bought those super expensive lights and you don't realize why they're constantly consistent or always dependable and you, you go to a less expensive system, you start seeing it misfire or shift color or whatever, build quality issues, whatever the case, you know, you kind of miss out on those growing pains and makes you a better photographer if you just go right to the luxury kits.
Seth Miranda: 00:50:41 I mean, think of it now, I don't know about you, but we're buying cameras that are about under $2,000 that could do everything that a 30 $40,000 kit years ago does. Yes, I'm, look, you're looking at me through a Nikon Z six. This is like $1,700. Yeah, it's like 700 bucks. It's four K video, right? It's 2024 mega, whatever it is, 24 bagels or whatever it is. And it's small as hell. Years ago, if you wanted video, you had to get a separate camera that could do that resolution. I mean, the stuff we're doing now at the lowest price point is insane. I don't think you have to spend a lot of money, but I think you have to realize what you have in your hands to actually use it correctly.
Raymond: 00:51:22 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Recently I I didn't get into an argument with this person, but I posted a I think SanDisk had a sale on their UHS to cards, you know, obviously they have faster ride speeds and all of these things. And I think the cost was like $65 or I could be making that up, whatever it was. I posted the link on the podcast page and somebody else had posted, like, I just bought 128 gig card for $9 and was like, well, yeah, but he's not the same thing at all. And it's, it's, as you said, like when you know, you know what it is that your gear can do, what pro gear can do is really when you can grow. And and appreciate those things.
Seth Miranda: 00:51:59 But it's also knowing what to invest into. I mean, memory cards, you invest into memory cards, you're going to use that and whatever. I mean that's boils down to everything going on my card and it goes to whatever system you upgrade to. People that buy cheap grip drive me crazy. If you buy a cheap seat stand and wonder why your light hit the ground one day, I don't, I don't know what to tell you. Your, your, your grip goes with you for your entire career. If it's good grip, no matter what camera you buy, lens you buy, whether you're doing photo, video, what lights you buy, the stuff that goes with you as you evolve is the stuff you actually invest into a really good camera bag so that it doesn't rip open and pull your gear all over the place and protected properly. That's the stuff you invest in. The technology will always grow and get less expensive and so on and so forth. Or you could be at the type of photographer that buys the, the next generation of used gear and just stay ahead of the, a little bit on the curb, but not spending a lot but cannot use your head when you make purchases. You bought a $9 memory card and it fails. Your entire kit is useless.
Raymond: 00:53:01 [Inaudible] I think she was using it like in her inner five D Mark four, something like that. And I was thinking to myself like, what's the point? Like what's the point? Yeah. Anyway, anyway I, I like that idea about staying just like one generation behind on used gear recently. Now this is, this may shock some people, but I bought my first ever new camera, which was the the X 100 V right there. Every camera that I've ever purchased has been, has been used and I strongly considered buying it used as well. But I didn't want to wait. I was way too impatient. Way too impatient. Did you have the F? I did not have the F I had the I had the, I had the X 100, the original. I had the T yeah, I know that the F is like one of your favorite cameras, right? Look, Oh, this is getting X-rated real quick with these two cameras.
Raymond: 00:53:55 They're kind of related to, it's really taboo. Oh yeah. I didn't even think about that. Yeah. We're going to change the subject real quick. Personally for you today. Like as somebody who, you know, you said that you don't really do much of any shooting for yourself. Now, a lot of it is, is, is, is work. You're shooting for somebody. But your work doesn't all look, it looks consistent. Like this is who you are. Like I look at one of your images and think, yep, this fits your profile. But it doesn't all look exactly the same. So at some point you're still growing and you're doing new things. So where is the inspiration for new thing? Where are you drawing inspiration from?
Seth Miranda: 00:54:34 I think just boredom and just boredom. Yes. I mean honestly, how many times you just get bored and taking the same shot even if everybody loves it. That fricking rainbow ghost that I did turned into like keep doing it every day, all the time. I'm like no enough. And I'm really against photos being all about gimmicks of the technique and not about the technique applied for a better subject, a better shot for the subject I should say. And I think I always think to myself, cause again I think the way I keep myself on my toes probably inadvertently is I talk a lot of trash and and I don't want someone to look at my work and go, he's the one trick pony. He keeps on doing the cold rim lights looking thing and I don't know. It's like, no, I want to show that I'm versatile that sometimes I feel like doing a shot this way.
Seth Miranda: 00:55:24 I learned a lot of that actually that I concept of, of doing something differently for the hell of doing it that way from Daniel Norton actually that guy doesn't care. He's doing whatever is happening on the spot. He lets things blow that way and I've seen him get bored as well, you know, so it's hard to keep motivated. I think one of the best ways you can do that is go, well, what else is possible? What can I do that I haven't done or what's something I can do to get this to the next level? When I started shooting like swamp creature type stuff, I'm like, how do I make this look like it's not a studio like cause what? Swamp creatures coming out and go like, Hey, I'm in front of a camera in a studio and that's when I started trying to make it, well how can I make this look like an atmosphere? Then I'm like, well this would be really cool if it was like a lightning storm and there was rain flying, but they're kind of half under an awning. So this half their face looks like it's in the dark and it's dry, but then the lights coming in from the side because that's where the, is it in my head, I'm visualizing what's outside of the frame so that I were there in the location. I'm zoomed in shooting the crop of the frame and that's how I build it normally.
Raymond: 00:56:30 Wow. Wow. So it's funny cause all that just sounds totally rational, you know, and yet, and yet I think for a lot of people they're going to think to themselves like, Oh, I need to do more of this. So that's, that's a great tip.
Seth Miranda: 00:56:42 Well, we get stuck in the frame, right? We get stuck in exactly what's in that rectangle or square or whatever. And we don't think of ourselves as like, Oh, well. So if you notice a lot of the effects of shot on black background, because a black background, if I don't light it and I change my lighting on the subject, it can easily just be something coming out of darkness. And darkness can be anywhere. You want it to be, dead of night forest, some cellar, somewhere. I mean anything, right? So that gave me a lot of versatility given the most vapid dark what do you call it? Open-Ended box to build something in. And that's where I make the light, create the atmosphere. So when I want something to appear you can't, light air, air doesn't light, but you can light mist and haze and missed it.
Seth Miranda: 00:57:24 Water bottle stuff, you know like all that type of stuff is or make the ghosting happen to give it some sort of like shake or drag or some kind of dynamic movement. But in the end you can create the frame if you understand that you're trying to make them believe that they're in a place that's beyond the frame. So what's being on the frame? And I think I learned a lot of that from when I did a lot of a document drama stuff from early in my career when I shot in hotel rooms and stuff, like all the weird motel rooms, I didn't want it to look like I lit them. Nice. I want it to look like you were in that motel room. So what did I do? I put my strobes exactly where the light sources were. The lamp on the desk, the all my strobes went inside the bathroom and I cracked the door and that way that would look like then the light coming from the bathroom and then that's what I shot it with. And you believed you were there and you really connected better with the image.
Raymond: 00:58:12 Wow. You know, with today's digital cameras with their ISO performance, I don't think many people would actually take that. That very simple approach. It's got to add more light. No, that's very cool. That's very cool because obviously, you know, you weren't just doing it just for more light. Part of it was, was to get a better exposure, but the quality of the light is going to be entirely different from like three to four strobes in a bathroom with the door cracked. Then just the a of the array of, of bare bulbs
Seth Miranda: 00:58:40 Or maybe it's daylight out and you want it to look like it was a nighttime shot. You have to be able to do that if you want to tell your client, no, let's wait till later. I know you're available now. We'll wait till late. Like they, nobody wants to hear that. You have to make the shots happen. Now, what's funny is there's a lot of equipment that people don't even realize exist anymore. Like AC slaves, they're flashes that are like 15 watt seconds, that are light bulbs that go inside of a light socket. So if you want to shoot something inside of a hotel room and make the flat, the lamp look like it's lit instead of balancing it out, you just put that in as the light bulb and it strobes for the shot. People forget that even exists.
Raymond: 00:59:18 I didn't know that existed. Wow. I would think the amount of, I guess it all has to be contained within that light bulb. A capacitor and the, the radio transmitter and everything.
Seth Miranda: 00:59:27 Yeah, they're, they're relatively cheap and they're actually kind of funny because you can unscrew it and sometimes the capacitor holds one less strobe so you can actually hold it and fire it. But they're, they're opticals so they just see the other flashes in your shot and fire. So there's a lot of times when I worked for other people like a years ago, years ago, shooting on location, they would have a crate of those. And I, it was my job to go unscrew every light bulb and put those in there. Or now you see a lot of filmmakers using led tubes, they're putting them right where the fluorescent lights will be, but their daylight balanced. They don't worry about like the way it looks. I mean, there's so many tricks. It's insane. And I guess, cause I learned all those tricks, I don't have to worry about the post-processing or higher ISOs or the fact that I'm not just shooting for Instagram and it can go to print, you know? Yeah,
Raymond: 01:00:15 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. That's great. I, I, I have one last question for you here. And this question actually comes from your website. It says on your website with an endless drive to push, create and collaborate, it's safe to say Seth's evolution of work has yet to reach its limits. So my last question for you is,
Seth Miranda: 01:00:37 I didn't write that. I didn't write that and that website's so outdated, but yeah. Okay. My question for you is what does that limit look like? I think that's the one thing that will always keep you going. I mean, no matter what financials come and go. I lost contracts. I lost my entire career overnight three years ago. When contracts ran out on me and people under cut my rate, I thought my life was over. What, what keeps you wanting to shoot and what am I native? What can I do? Cause then the end of the day, I've been doing this almost two decades. This is what I do. And I hope people feel that way when they approach it, whether they started a week ago and they're just getting the grasp of it or if they've been doing it forever. This is our part of society is to document it and share it with the rest of the world.
Seth Miranda: 01:01:24 And you can't let things lie. Like I'm not getting paid to do it. Stop you. And you can't let things like I already work for the jobs. Yeah, but you still burn away in the back of your skull, right? There's something clawing at the back of your skull. It's like, I need to get this shot out of my head. I want to create it. Or you know, we'll be cool is if I did this or that. And I think finding people to work with is easier than ever before. You can go on Instagram and find local people that share your aesthetic and go, Hey, I'm thinking of doing this. What? You know? And that's when you start really networking. Forget this whole idea of giving people business cards. Forget it. No one needs your business card unless they want to contact you. Giving it to them does nothing.
Seth Miranda: 01:02:06 So what you have to do is go and work with people and you working with people, even if it's not paid or whatever is the job of interview. And when they evolve, they remember you. They bring you with them. When you're out there working and meeting all these people. I've been assistance for photographers. I've met the models, I've met grips and I had them all in my Rolodex or whatever you want to call it on my phone, several days to to call on them if I need to. Like, this is the stuff that keeps you driven. You can't think driven unless you're already driving. And I think it's hard to let yourself stop because, Oh, that guy has more followers than me. This picture didn't get enough likes. Get out of that Headspace. Some of the most amazing retirees on the world barely even get on Instagram anymore. So like, not that it's not a useful tool or very relevant today. You have to get the evolution of yourself from yourself because you yourself want to know where you're going next and the only one that's going to take it there is, you know, that's it.
Raymond: 01:03:05 I I don't know how to in this podcast any better than that. That was those fantastic. There was something that everybody needs to hear. So thank you for sharing that, especially coming from your expertise and your experience. This isn't just like you just saying these words cause it sounds good. That was a, that was very powerful.
Seth Miranda: 01:03:26 It's hard. No one is saying it's not hard. No one's saying this is easy and no one's saying that like this craft isn't valued. There is, there are working photographers out there. It's going to take forever to get over that hump until you jump into actually being constantly working. But you can't give up because it's when you give up that you never should have started in the first place. I mean, let's be honest, you spent money on gear, you spend time trying to learn, you wasted people's time, shoot with you and those, that work just dissipates and goes away. No, you have to get to the evolution to the point where that work gets to such a level that people can't ignore it. And I think you'll be happy. And there's nothing more satisfying in the world than that. Just as a real quick side note to buy my first wide angle lens or BMX, I sold every comic book I had and I got venom and carnage tattooed on my ribs.
Seth Miranda: 01:04:20 You know, like, I mean, I'm all in. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I was able to buy back every key book that I had sold in the past and that feeling of I sold those books, I got the gear, I went through the career and I acquired back the books because I able to actually have them was one of the most crowning achievements ever. I don't know how to explain it. It sounds stupid and I'm not saying go sell stuff that you care about, but you have to take a gamble on yourself. You have to roll the dice on yourself, have confidence, don't give up. Step forward and just remember that what you're shooting now, even if it's not working, you're still evolving and you'll get there, but only you can get there.
Raymond: 01:05:01 Geez. Yeah, that was powerful right there. I can't imagine what that must have been like to get those to get those comment. Awesome. After all those years. I bet. Geez. Geez. Well, Oh, Seth. I feel, I feel like we could keep talking for hours. I, I really enjoyed talking with you. You really did share so much about not only your journey but you know, the creative process that you go through to take these photos. I'm sure that the listeners right now are going to want to learn more about you. So can you share how they can find you online and follow you in your work.
Seth Miranda: 01:05:35 Yeah. first of all, thanks for having me cause this is totally rad. I think you're super easy to talk to, like you're doing the right thing. And I totally come back on anytime you want when we can figure this out. So you can find me on everything, all social media, last X witness and you're more than welcome to join my Twitch channel and have the same name where I go live and we just have a community actually. I go live, we do live Q and A's. All your questions that I can answer or the community that I'm building answers. Also, I do image reviews there so you can submit your work, we can talk about it, how to make some of them better, all that kind of stuff. And also there's a 24 seven discord channel on side of that where you can have a whole community of people from all over the world help answer your gear questions, look at your work, whatever you're having issues with, or just vent that you're driving yourself crazy in this industry, you're more than welcome twitch.tv last X witness. I'll see you there and I would be more than happy to hear from some of you guys. I do answer DMS. They take me forever to answer them, but I do answer them and I'm thank you for having me. This is freaking awesome.