SF4 Behind the Scenes
LiquidAir
Registered Users Posts: 1,751 Major grins
I have gotten a few requests, so I'll start the thread this time around. Semifinalists, post your beind the scenes here...
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But I am doing this for laughs….which is what I will get when you see the complex techniques I used….
Have no idea why
Here is my set up....and yes, they are tea flowers. The are constructed of tea, flowers and sewn together with cotton thread.
Kitchen counter....fabric I got in China (yes, I was fortunate to go to China....my husband had to teach there and I got to go as a Kling-On..)
right....other fabric options...and yes, that is mother nature who provided the light!
Popcorn is a great energy boost and check out my friends on the cookie jar...they are cheering me on...WIPE your fingers before you touch the fabric PLEASE......
Desaturated the photo, did leave the original color in the tea and the tea flower....AND the Pièce de résistance.....I needed to add steam to the photo because I could not capture it on "film"...so I logged on to NAPP as I figured Scott Kelby must have a tutorial.
OK this is where the big laugh comes in.........
Well, I found the tutorial on episode 43 (August 2006)....if you are a NAPP member do log on and have an incredible belly laugh!!! If you are not a member....what a wonderful reason to join!!
Obviously I am anxious about this round and hope to make it to the finals....in any case I have had a few opportunities to make it this far and am proud and excited and have had a fantastic ride!!!
Best wishes to all who have qualified....and hope I get to compete against you!!
Maureen
The other thing I was thinking about was using the moon as a backlight for a glass or water shot. Sunday night shortly after the round started I ran out to the back yard and took a few shots of the nearly full moon. The next day I brought the best moon shot to a local developing lab and had them print it to 35mm slide film. The slide wouldn't come back until Friday, so I had some time to think and prep before I could start shooting. Finally, I needed a way to project the moon on my backdrop so I called around looking for an old slide projector. It didn't take long to a broken one that I could hack for use with a shoemount strobe.
Finally I had to decide on a subject. I had been thinking of dropping things into a glass but those shots are pretty common and I wanted something a bit more unusual if possible. I had seen a few shots that I liked with splashes created by moving a table the glass is resting on and I thought there might be some possiblities there. But how to move the table to create an interesting splash? It was a day or two of thinking before I came up with a strategy I thought had potential. It's all been done before and when you want to launch something into the air, there's nothing better than a mediveal siege engine. A quick trip to TAP plastics netted me a 1' x 3' sheet of black acrylic, some structural supports, and some glue. Then I went into the shop and built a base out of scrap plywood. A day to let all the glue dry and I had that essential piece of kit for the photographer who has everthing,
The Martini Trebuchet
At this point I had all the elements I needed to start work and it was time to put theory into practice. In the end it took 3 long nights of experimenting and shooting to figure out how to get a shot which communicated roughly what I had in mind. The 4th night of shooting was about refinement and luck. I had the process down and a basic workable composition; now I just needed that one extra special shot. At the end of the third night I took a setup shots to document my process. Other than the slide projector (which is sitting on a chair to camera right), it covers all the major elements.
The Setup Shot
If you are serious about trying this at home, I have included a few more details about the setup in my blog. This rig is quite effective but enough work to set up that it is only really suitable for the truely obsessed. What is nice about it is that you get nearly a final result in camera. In this day and age you never really know what was "real" and what was Photoshop, so for full disclosure this is
What the Camera Saw
I did quite a bit of cleanup on this on Photoshop, but the only really substantive effort was to clone out the fishing line which supported the lemon slice.
Its nice to see your setup, but I have to ask... how was the tea?
Good luck to you too,
Ken.
P.S. I've tried to capture steam before and you're right, its hard. I am not a NAPP member so I can't read Kelby's technique, but I did end up adding my steam in Photoshop.
I have three word for you, my friend:
O.
M.
G.
I don't know if this should be my "behind the scenes" or "forgive me father, because I almost forgot about the competition". The critter season is starting here and I've been working on my macro lighting technique. I wanted to get better diffusion and after trying several different materials I've finally settled on using two Gary Fong Puffer diffusers for my MT-24EX. Details here. The end result is a light source that's "warm" and very diffused -especially for a harsh flash like the MT-24EX.
Here's a shot of the jumping spider that I submitted for the competition, but this image is at twice life size (the image I entered is at 4x).
Notice how soft the shadows are and the warm colors in the shot. I never spend more than two minutes in post processing, and with the new diffusers I have even less to do.
I did have one other image that I considered entering, but I wasn't sure about it. I was shooting wolf spiders yesterday and found a molt. As they grow spiders shed their "skin". This is what's left behind. Notice the eyes...
Last night I thought I'd stop by and see what's going on with the LPS competition and to my surprise it was the last day of the semi final! I've been so wrapped up in work and getting ready for this spring that I haven't been keeping track of things here -I've missed competing in a couple of qualifying rounds too. Way too much real life getting in the way of my photography lately
Looking for tips on macro photography? Check out my Blog: No Cropping Zone.
Hi all,
Quite often I'll have a rough idea for an image, get the elements together and then play with several variations and see how things develop (sometimes with quite unexpected results). With "Hanging the Moon", it was a different story. I had that phrase pop in my head one day, for no particular reason that I can recall, and I began to imagine what that would look like in a photograph. My initial idea was of a woman in flowing gown standing on a very high cliff, but my mom had the idea of her standing on a cloud and I thought that even stronger. The image became very solid in my head. By the time I was able to begin shooting for the semi-final, my personal challenge was to take that image in my mind and make it a solid, photographic reality.
Following Nikolai's excellent moon shooting tips, I bundled up in the 19 degree weather (I hate the cold!) and got my moon shot (cropped, of course):
I then took the original frame, added the PS cloud filter and played with it until I got some clouds I was happy with (forecast showed no possibility of a real cloud shot, so I had to settle for this). I toned everything to a blue-ish hue that was stuck in my mind and here's where I was at:
Then, knowing that I had a very specific gown in mind, I made the dress.
Me sewing:
My amazingly awesome friend and model, Lana, during one of the fittings (this was the underskirt, which was followed by the layer of shimmery material):
I set up in the basement with the help of my husband, did Lana's hair and makeup and began shooting. I had several poses I was happy with, but in the end settled on the one from my original vision:
After placing her in my scene and a BUNCH of tweaking, I was thrilled to see the exact image from my mind on the computer screen in front of me:
In fact, I don't have a true set-up shot because my shoot actually ended up being rushed. And I haven't gotten into the very good habit of taking set-up shots.
I actually had this idea in mind about a month before the semis, and on the Monday the semis started, I reminded the model in question that he'd agreed to help me out and had two weeks to do so. I asked for two hours of his time (which is a lot to ask him for given his current schedule) preferably around 1pm or 2pm in the afternoon so I could get the window light I wanted. He said the next day would work for him.
Tuesday morning I frantically rearranged the furniture in my living room (this is an old photo, but it should give you the gist):
I then ran out to Home Depot and bought 150 ft. of extension cords. In hindsight, I could have used more, but I thought 150 ft. would be substantial to wrap the torso of one person.
I had originally wanted to make a Borg-like cap for the model--a bald cap studded with electrical plugs--but given the sudden last-minute nature of my shoot, I had to improvise. So I dragged my television out of the entertainment center and set it on a table behind my model to replace his head (I had him slouch over and bow his head down so it wasn't visible):
I had a smaller table that nested inside the one shown that his body would have fully concealed (my original improvisation), but it sat too far below his shoulders, and I lost the "neck" on the TV. I also took a few shots without the TV so I could clone out what was visible of the table (this shot also shows the plug placement I ended up liking):
I did start out with the plug on the floor, but on my floors it was too hard to see. I dug out some twine to lift it up as you see in the shots above.
From there is was a matter of conversion and clean-up in PS. I also ended up scaling the TV down a bit so it wouldn't overwhelm his body quite so much:
I also learned that trying to photograph static on a television screen is like trying to photograph steam--nigh on impossible. At least for me.
All of us landscape shooters can't compete with these stories but here's my quick 'BTS' for The Steps of History.
I had just tendered my letter of resignation at work and promptly ducked out at 4:30pm. I had been bringing my camera with me everywhere after my earlier attempt at a portrait was shot down. As I drove home, I noticed the sun slowly setting and decided to race it down to the National Mall. Got to the tidal basin just in time, parked and ran up to the Jefferson Memorial. There are two security guards there and a strict no tripod rule. I was very disappointed with the light initially and ventured inside where I found the place as empty as I had ever seen it. Eventually finished taking indoor shots and walked around the side where I saw the image that would be my final shot. The light was perfect with a purple glow near the Washington Monument. I set up the tripod as there were some immense marble columns hiding me from the guards and shot a few frames quickly.
I returned home and processed in Lightroom and was pretty pleased with the results. However, some very helpful folks hanging out on dgrin pointed out that the shadows could stand to be darker. That's when I was forced to learn about layer masks. Played around with 4 or 5 versions that had subtle differences and ended up with the image that I submitted.
Again, not much in the way of set up but it'll be a memorable shot at least for marking my decision to leave DC and head up to Boston. Now I'm off to capture more of this city over the next few months that are left...
E
My site | Non-MHD Landscapes |Google+ | Twitter | Facebook | Smugmug photos
Here is the tutorial link:
http://www.dirkpaessler.com/blog/ind...r-own-planets/
Here is the first pano I did to "test it out" so to speak. I knew it wasn't going to look too good considering it was overcast and around 5 pm, plus I left my removable plate from the tripod at work so I was forced to shoot hand held.
and here is the rotated result:
At this point I was satisfied with the technique but not the result. So a few days later after droppping my girlfriend off at work, I race over there. As a pleasant surprise, the spot I was shooting from is occupied by some maintenace workers and their truck. Fun. So I had to find a new vantage point. One thing I also had to make sure was that my exposure was more or less even so I had to hide the sun behind that tree. Took a bunch of images, and a few minutes before frost bite set in, left.
Finallay a decent pano. After lots of cloning to fix the ground and the sky. I rotated it, worked with some levels and other adjustments to try to get it perfect. And here is the result:
Having experimented a bit I've found to get less distortion in the buildings/tree you need to have more ground below the horizon (not too much of course, else the distortion happens in the opposite direction)
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Can't fool anyone in here! I will spare you the sad sack long story about how all of my planned SF4 shoots turned out as total failures. Once Thursday evening hit I knew I was either going to have to find an entry that had a horse in it or not enter, as I've been in the field shooting a show since then. I spent all weekend trying to select one shot over another. Near the end of day on Sunday I was down trying to take that shot, f2.8 @ 1/4000, and my mirror actually hung up, causing my shutter to seriously drag. When it does this, the actual camera settings look really wierd.. I assure you it was taken yesterday. If anyone wants to see other shots that came out correct, let me know... ) I almost deleted the shot, but I thought, this looks as good as (bizzare as?) anything else I've done in the period... I pulled into my driveway Sunday in just enough time to hook up and post the shot. Truly, I just didn't want to let the round go by and not have any entry at all!
I'm largely off-net over the next 14 days, but I'll pop in when I can. I've got 5 horse shows to cover in that period, each of three weekends and two of them on each Wednesday... I have the lucky priviledge of being the main photographer covering the "3-day eventing" world as they compete along the I-20 corridor in the winter. Pretty much all of the world's eventing Olympians winter their horses between Atlanta and Columbia. (We won't talk about the Ocala people..) It's a great place to watch them compete for "practice" before they go on to Rolex, Burghley, Badminton, and on to Hong Kong next year, where one doesn't need a press pass to come watch... I'll put up a smattering of them in the Sports arena when it all settles.... But honestly, freinds, no one ever comments on my posts over there! Sports must actually require a ball or a wheel... Maybe there should be an animal section... nyuk nyuk nyuk....
www.HoofClix.com / Personal Facebook / Facebook Page
and I do believe its true.. that there are roads left in both of our shoes..
Here's mine:
I started out with the whole picture in my head: I had been thinking about it and planning it out for days. the only problem was the weather and the time that these guys go practice : -20 degrees and after the sun goes down. I went to one of their practice sessions and it was impossible to get any sort of semi-good captures--these guys fly by at 50mph in crappy lighting and the cold was ridiculous.
I knew I needed much better lighting, and I knew that I would be risking blowing the bulb on any sort of lamp or strobe or anything, really (including my lens) in that temperature. So I knew that, if that's what I wanted to shoot, it would have to be a composite or a studio shot.
I'm a student at the U of M, so I asked Brian (the skier) to come on in for a couple of hours to take some pics. It was my first time ever using off-camera lighting and I learned a lot. I decided on a simple cross-light setup with the ratios being slightly off (one brighter than the other) to give the skier a bit of depth. I also pointed a hard strobe at his eyes in low power to bring out the eyes behind his ski goggles.
Here's the studio:
And so I learned a lot about working with a model in terms of having to tell them (sometimes) exactly what you need them to do. Needless to say, most shots would not work: hands were off, eyes were off, etc. but that's ok. Here's the one I chose for the first image I submitted (before changing it):
I placed him on the table and just flipped him around in post.
The next challenge was finding a background that lit the skier properly and that was at a correct angle. so I went to the jumps and took a few shots. for this one I wanted to create the sense of distance so I took the bacground blurred. for the others (like my final submission) it had to be a side view, with the feeling of side motion:
So I tried different backgrounds at different times of day and settled on these last three to work with.
Now the problem was extracting the skier from the background and making it look semi-real, in which, of course, I seemed to fail miserably.
I tried everything and spent countless hours trying to make it look right but realized that my toolkit and skill weren't up to par: hours with the pen tool, extraction filter, etc. The problem wasn't so much extracting the skier from his background, but of blending him into a new background successfully. I tried different degrees of feather, layers, different blending options, etc. but never seemed to get it 100%
Anyway, I learned that there is a ton of thought that has to go behind a successful composite image: I found myself thinking about the lighting of the subject in relation to the background, the colors between the two, motion? distance? etc etc etc. I would have rather spent this time taking one good photograph!
Great explanations!
Nice job. I like the trick of photographing the skier upside down. I had a very similar experience with composites back in LPS#12. I actually enjoyed the puzzle of putting the pieces together but I was never really satisfied with how well they blended. I'll try again someday, but the process certainly convinced me that is it worth getting as much of the shot as you can in camera.
aha! so that's how you did that hahaha. I'd always wondered. I figured out that it's best to go shoot the background first, then shoot the subject at an angle that corresponds to the background. that way you don't have to mess with 23423 poses and can concentrate on getting a handful correctly. Also, photographing the subject in a similarly colored background than the one you will use will help in blending. and i KNOW it can be done well
Yeah it's definitely a puzzle, as most of your photographs are. I love your style, seriously, and will suggest a no-liquidair-allowed lps lol
Ken,
The tea is very good! (So glad as I made lots of it....had to make new pots as it got murky.) And naturally, it is fun to see it "blossom".
Scott Kelby, Matt Kloskowsky, and Dave Cross dissolved into a laughing jag and could not stop!!! It really was an outtake that they left in.....and just made you roar! They did repeat the process without Scott and Dave ....so we got the best of both worlds a great laugh and "steamy" knowledge.
WOW ....looking at your set up ...you now can understand why I am intimidated. You have a beautiful, crisp, clever picture and the effort you have put into it is amazing!
Good luck...
Maureen
I was on the hunt for the perfect covered bridge photo… http://www.vxphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/4206462
Unfortunately the weather soured as soon as we moved into the Mountains… Well we were driving through a small town and my Wife said, “STOP, look at that”?!?
She’s somewhat attracted to strange and interesting things (she married me…) anyway I stopped and we all got out and I took a few shots of the strange, eclectic, useless stuff in this store’s windows… I was very attracted to the slinky… My Wife said the bunny and the skull symbolized life and death… When we got home and I was reviewing what I had shot, I remembered the novel by Steven King called “Needful Things” so I went for it… I posted this one first…
Strangely someone sent me a pm asking about an object in the window and could they get the stores name and phone number because they just had to have it… Well I thought that was too weird! Just like the novel, “Needful Things”, when people went into the store they always found something that they just had to have… I found the information for the person and passed it on… haven’t heard back as to weather or not they were able to purchase the item they wanted from the store…
I decided I didn’t like the first one I posted so I changed it… The bunny and pig were added, I figured the more weird elements in the shot the better... they were actually in a different window…
And this is a close up of the big picture window… note the slinky... If the store had been open it would have been mine!
We also drove on gravity hill, or I should say coasted up gravity hill, we actually defied gravity!... If you want to know more about it check out my link at the beginning of this post.
Winston:D
shooting from the side, i could do a little better (this is SOC, no compositing)
So while I scratched my head, thinking how to change my setup, the jumping fool (how many times in a kids life does mom command you to jump on a king sized bed!?) was resting between takes, but wired with energy doing things like this
and this
and finally this:
I had gelled my lights for full CTO (these were shot w/ tungsten WB) but it clearly wasn't enough to overcome my bright orange walls...so BW was a logical choice. The white bedding gave me enough contrast to work with to get the high key effect I ended up with.
50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8, 24-70 2.8L, 35mm 1.4L, 135mm f2L
ST-E2 Transmitter + (3) 580 EXII + radio poppers
This is better than some of the books that I've read. Great shots. Thanks for posting your techniques. Let's keep this going.
Thanks
Educate yourself like you'll live forever and live like you'll die tomorrow.
Ed
So, in the true photographer spirit I got up in the middle of the night (OK, at 5 a.m., but that's just as bad
The light was drab, so I walked to the other side of the lake, and as usual, Murphy didn't fail me and there was no sunrise to speak of!
Well, nothing like I had envisioned anyway!
The view to the west seemed better and I managed to get a surprisingly nice photo that I even considered entering for a moment:
As the light wasn't getting any better, I concentrated on a narrower field of view:
Then, mildly disappointed and freezing, I headed to the nearby hotel for some coffee. An hour or so later most of the clouds were gone and what was left of them made for a great, dramatic sky. I decided some wide angle shots were in order.
In the end, this photo was the one I liked best, so I entered it:
I didn't get a chance for another photo session (with this subject, or any other for that matter), so this was it.
Ana
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This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
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www.printandportfolio.com
This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com
www.printandportfolio.com
This summer's wilderness photography project: www.tessa-hd.smugmug.com/gallery/3172341
Well i was on roof of the Van in freezing wind and dust
My Gallery
There is a soccer park about a mile from my home that had a lone metal pole in the middle of the snow field. It has been so cold here (-25 below wind chill) that all my thoughts were cold. So I talked my kids into going out to the park to shoot. They weren't really excited about going with me, but complied with my request. We hauled some strobes and a tripod across the frozen snow to the pole. We ran out the door so quickly that we all were wearing tennis shoes so by the time we got to the location, everyone was complaining about snow in their shoes. I set up the camera by the pole and started shooting. I warned my youngest boy to make sure he didn't get to close to the pole as he would be stuck. Originally, I told my oldest boy to have a shocked look on his face. After a dozen frames or so, he said, "Dad, if this really happened, I would be laughing at first like this." This happeed to be the best frame.
I brought a small plastic bowl for the tongue shot. So keeping the same angles, we shot it.
The sun was behind and left of the kids, two flashes; one on the front and one on the back two provided the lighting. What appears to be "oversharpening" on the front subject's hat is a small sliver of sunlight.
The complaints started to increase, and I was getting cold as well, so we called it done. It was just above 0 F.
Sooo...back to the car.
I brought the two photos together then also found a more shocking "eye" photo that I put in. I used liquify to raise the hand of the back boy to be pointing more directly at the tongue. I cloned out the repeating patter on the pole (from manufacturing?), did a little post production which included some breath. Crossed my fingers and entered it. The kids were glad they went after they saw the final photo.
Some of My Photos: app.electrikfolio.com/v/steven-hatch
Well... I do not have any cool shots of me carrying light stands through snow or shivering atop a van or wetting my floor with water catapults or even me sewing anything.
I have a really bad habit of forgetting that this thread will happen and fail to take documentary photos of my setups.
Where the behind the scenes comes in for me is something that may seem really obvious but I only thought of it recently. The collector happens to be a self portrait. My remote trigger release wire is too short for a proper setup and getting up and down from position to start the timer is a tedious and distracting practice.
When I bought my mac book pro it came with a remote to control the ability to watch DVD's etc... I felt there must be a way to use that remote to control my shutter, and in fact there is!
I used a program called Proxi made by Griffin Technology. The application allowed me to program the Apple remote to trigger the Canon software that controls the camera via a USB cable tethered to it. Thus triggering the camera shutter from a greater distance and at the same time being able to see within seconds the result of my shot on the laptop screen. I did not have to get up and down from my position other than to adjust a light or change the camera's settings like FStop.
For those interested in my lighting setup I have recreated roughly how things were situated down in the ancient basement via a diagram.
The shot was all done without any compositing and the main Photoshop work that was done was contrast adjustments and quite a bit of dodging and burning
Thanks to everyone else who shared all the really amazing setups and thoughts behind their images.
Izzy your upside down skier was an ingenious idea and Dalantech you manged to freak out my wife not once but two separate times with your spider!
EDIT: I forgot to mention also that liquid glycerin was used in my hair to give it a more oily, dirty look, it also does wonders for controlling the frizzies ;-)
Sorry...
My favorite spider shot is this one (not taken during the contest cycle). It's a large wolf spider shot at three times life size. If I had been man enough to pick it up it would have covered the palm of my hand...
Looking for tips on macro photography? Check out my Blog: No Cropping Zone.
And to me, that was the most awesome pic of the bunch. You got my vote because this image "spoke" to me the most. The others were technically brilliant and technically advanced, but they failed to move me. To me they lacked realism. I like "back to basics". I love black and white. I like simplicity. And this picture, to me, is absolutely stunning. I hope to be able to take a pic like this some day.
Thank you so much for taking the time to show us your efforts to create your masterpieces.
My Photo Blog -->http://dthorpphoto.blogspot.com/
I'm STILL waiting to hear how "Autumn Harvest" was created...
www.feliciabphotography.com
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