Not My Normal Self Portrait - Part 2 "The Shoot & The Gear"

Part 2, "The Shoot & The Gear." The original concept for this image came to me when my wife asked me to take her to Michael's, a local craft store. It was around Halloween and they had all of their Halloween themed things out on display. As soon as we walked into the store I saw the skulls, which got me thinking about how I could possibly use one. My first thought was some kind of self portrait with the skull overlay, or a bones behind the face kind of thing. So I had to grab one.

I decided to try some sort of overlay so I knew I needed a headshot of both me and the skull. 

I wanted a dark look so I chose only one light to camera left and positioned it so I would fully light my right side, and have enough drop off to darkness on my left.  I needed to have the lighting the same for both shots, so I had to have both my face and the skull in pretty much the same position. I also chose a black background to keep the dark theme. Here's the lighting set-up.

I took a lot of test shots, and was tethered into Lightroom to see them a bit larger so I could assess the overall exposure and focus. Once I had both nailed down I did two things:

1) I turned the AF switch on the lens to "off" so the camera wouldn't try to refocus everytime the shutter was fired, and;

2) I placed a mark on the ground as a reference for my distance from the lens.

Here's the self-shot I used - this is the RAW shot converted to jpg, no post done yet.

Once I was satisfied with my self-shot I grabbed the skull for the next shot - again, this is the RAW shot converted to jpg, no post done yet.

As you can see I was holding it up at head level to try and get the same perspective. This is where the mark I placed on the ground came in. For the self-shot I was sanding over the mark, but for the skull shot I was standing behind the mark placing the skull above it closest to where my head would have been. This was key to get light to fall in same way for both shots, and also to try and match the perspective when I took both into Photoshop to merge them.  

Gear used for the shoot:
- Nikon D810
- Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8
- Nikon SB900 Flash
- Nikon SU800 Commander Unit
- Lastolite 24" Ezybox
- Black backgound with Manfrotto background stand
- Vello wireless Shutter Boss - remote trigger
- Tethered into Lightroom

Stay tuned for part 3 "The Post," where I'll show you how I created the final image in Photoshop and Lightroom.

Cheers!

DC

Not My Normal Self Portrait - Part 1 "The Shot"

Hey everyone, here we go with another instalment of "The Shot," The Shoot & The Gear," and "The Post."

Now, there is a back story to this image. While I was at Photoshop World in August one of the tidbits of advice I picked up about pushing your creativity is doing something the complete opposite of what you would normally do. Well, if you look at most of my portfolio you'll see that this about as far from my normal as I think you can get! LOL!

This was also a way for me to work on generating a concept, planning the various elements, figuring out how to light it and shoot it, and finally how to bring all the elements together in Photoshop and Lightroom. I'm definitely not a Photoshop genius, but I've picked a few tricks here and there, so it's always fun to try new things.

Stay tuned for Part 2 "The Shoot & The Gear," where I'll walk through the concept, the planning, lighting, and shooting.

Cheers!

DC

I'm Now Up Over on Instagram!

Blog has been quiet for the past little bit, but I'm getting things back on track starting with announcing that I'm now on Instagram! I've been a very late adopter to Instagram, so I thought I would give it a try. I'm always looking for ways to share my images, and so far I'm finding Instagram quite fun.

You can find me at @darrenclarkphoto. I'll be posting every couple of days so check me out and start following if you like what you see.

Also, stay tuned for another instalment of "The Shot," "The Shoot & The Gear," and "The Post," coming up shortly,

Cheers!

DC

Out of the Mist, Into the Calm

Digging back into the archive again, this time 6 years ago and our Alaskan cruise. We sailed out of Whittier, Alaska, heading down to Vancouver, British Columbia. One of the stops along the way was Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve.

What I remember as we began navigating our entry into the park was that it was extremely cold, and extremely foggy. We brought our winter gear so we were able to stay warm, but couldn't do anything about the fog and mist. We were starting to get a bit disappointed thinking we were not going to see anything when something magical happened...we sailed out of the fog. And I mean that there was a wall of fog and mist behind us and it stayed there.

Once on the other side we were treated to a pretty clear blue, and some of most beautiful and tranquil sites I have ever seen. It was like we just sailed into another world.

We enjoyed the day on our balcony just taking it all in. Not much more to say about it so I'll just leave a few of my favourite images here.



Cheers!

DC