BREAK-UP TO MAKE-UP After knocking over a glass table and breaking it, I decided it might be useful for a photo someday, so I kept most of the big pieces (but stupidly, only two of the three legs). I thought of a rough concept pretty soon after that, but as I tend to do every now and then, chose to put it aside just for a short, little while... So... after about six months of having heavy, jagged shards of broken glass sitting around my apartment (and a couple of incidents requiring bandages), I finally did something with them. In the time that had past I'd also broken three drinking glasses and, naturally, saved them as well (Yes, actually I AM a klutz). So here is the result: It took a while to arrange a time with Stacia (the model), and twice we had it scheduled but plans fell through (once because of a friend's pregnancy). When the schedule was finally worked out, I had to move several pieces of furniture out into my hallway to get the setting I wanted, as the room is small (a LOT smaller than in looks). Unfortunately the hallway isn't exactly giant, and the furniture basically barricaded the front door, trapping Stacia inside my apartment with me, surrounded by sharp slabs of glass and a hammer. Of course, she had brought her own gun to our previous photoshoot, so I suspect she wasn't too worried:) The lighting set-up included one monobloc in a softbox high and about 45 degrees camera-right, pointing down at her face. I had another monobloc in a softbox right next to me camera-left a bit lower, bouncing light off the wall (both for fill light on Stacia and to try and get some depth in the objects on the floor). I put two speedlites in the window (one clamped to the handle) with CTO gels, using the curtain as a partial diffuser, to get the shadow pattern on the wall and ceiling. I also had on-axis fill coming from a speedlight stuck in an Orbis ring flash. The flashes were all triggered with Radiopoppers. I did a lot of post-work to get the look of this shot the way I wanted (surreal), which, on its own, is already quite an involved, time-consuming process, involving two or more RAW file conversions, and lots of contrast masking with filters. There's no automatic action for this, as far as I know. You've got to get the lighting right first, of course. No amount of editing can make good light when it wasn't already in the original photo; and anyone who thinks it's easy to just photoshop something any way you want and have it look good, please pass on your secrets to me:) Since I had only kept two of the (table) legs, I used a tripod and moved them around in a couple of different frames and merge them together later to make it look like there were four. Unfortunately, I didn't realize during the shoot (but should've suspected) that I was repeatedly nudging the lens with the ring flash, which slightly shifted each frame. Not really enough to see it on the camera's LCD, but definitely enough to make merging the separate layers a gigantic pain in the... well, you know. Particularly since the six-year-old computer I was using at the time was so terminally ill that it sometimes took 10-15 minutes JUST TO SAVE A FILE. Grrrrr... At least I can finally throw out those glass shards. Well, wait... hold on. Hmmm... maybe there's another photo concept that I can use them for... I think I'll just hold off throwing them out for a short little while... P.S. I realize that technically there should be little pieces of glass all over the floor as well, but even I have my limits. Particularly since I'm already running low on glasses... P.S.S. This photo looks best at larger sizes!
BEFORE THE NIGHT OUT Lighting info: 1 monobloc in a softbox slightly off-camera right bounced off of the ceiling, 1 bare monobloc outside the bathroom in the hallway shooting through the open door, and 1 snooted speedlite off-camera right aimed at her face.
FRIDGE For this shot I put two bare flashes inside the fridge (with double CTB gels) and set one speedlite in a shoot-through umbrella on a lightstand camera right (with a CTO gel), and set the camera's white balance to a warmer tone to try and get across the feel of opening a cool fridge on a hot day. I nearly forgot to take the flashes out of the fridge at the end and had to wipe a bunch of condensation off of them. Luckily they are still working (fingers crossed). Thanks to Mila for modeling!
