Three important facts that I learned from this documentary:
1. One thing that he made clear was that you should be open minded. You need to look at all the ordinary things and make something out of them. He used garages in many of his shots as a good background. They had color and different textures that added to his photos.
2. Something else that stood out to me was when he talked about lighting on the face of the subject. Sometimes if a reflector is placed right on the head, the subject could look washed out. Using the light source right above their head would be the most ideal location.
3. Lastly, another thing that was brought to mind was that you do not always need to go find the special equipment that costs tons of money, but it is rather easy to get materials that emulate what you would buy in an expensive store. In the video, one of his workers made a great reflector from simple materials.
Extra: Probably one of the most important issues that was brought up was focusing on the eyes of the subject. You should make the eyes your center of attention and not blur them out. I think the main reason eyes appeal to many people in a picture is because of the contrasted colors they consist of. We see peoples eyes everyday, and so it just looks weird not to have a good focus on them in a picture.
-Spencer Swetnam
