I thought that for this particular log, that I would talk more on photography and a technique of how to create multiple images. I won’t be going into the specifics and tools, but I will mention the methodology behind how it was created.
Probably the main tool that you will need is a tripod, which must be firmly secured into place once you have found the ideal location in which to do the shoot. I am using a basic tripod by Manfrotto; nothing too heavy and cumbersome (as I don’t have a super heavy camera). My other equipment is the Nikon D200 and the Sigma 10-20mm F4-5.6 lens (superb lens by the way) to gain a super wide angle to the entire shoot. I have set the camera quite low to the ground. If you notice, you’ll see that I am probably only about 2 feet off the ground, about eye level to the seat of the chair. Once all of this was set up, I then set up the lights, one of the left (with normal cover), then one on the right (with soft-box), just to create different shadow (and thereby mood).
Subsequently, I added the chairs. Three of them, with the farthest one away in the center of the view, the next closest on the left, then the closest on the right, so as to give the image some interesting depth when Kwunho, friend and willing model, was going around from location to location. I told him to use the area from left to right, front to back. I didn’t really need to tell him ‘how’ to pose, as I left it up to him. So it ended up that the just did his thing and so long as he occupied all areas of the viewfinder, then that was all that was necessary. For variety, we did some with just his tank top, then others with it off. I wanted him to take it all off, but he wasn’t quite ready. Shy perhaps.
Kwunho repeated several times ‘Norm, it’s gonna take ages to edit this.’ Well, not really, I guess for me it was a matter of sitting down with a concept of how I wanted it to look like. I took approximately 300 or so images (I’ll have to recheck), and edited it to about 40 images that I wanted to work with. How I chose them is hard to explain, but I knew that all had something that was usable in some way. In the end, I created 2 end products with 3 images in each.
Using Lightroom, I first edited the selected images to basic black and white. I created a ‘master file’ in which I was going to copy and paste all the images that I wanted to use in the shot. Mind you, I don’t know which images work or don’t work, so it’s working back and forth using transparency to see what looks good to eye. Once I have finalized my three guys (Kwunhos’), then I go ahead and start the process of layering the images. The way I do this is more a substractive process, rather than an additive process (which I used to do a long time ago). This means that when I add another Kwunho to a ‘base image’, I add the layer, and then erase all the stuff around him, so that only he is in that layer. I find it a much simpler methodology. Then once that is done, I add another image/layer. And since all the images were taken on an tripod, there should be very little discrepancy from one image to the next. It works for me.
In the end, I merged all the layers together and then added some color toning using the gradient tool. A wonderful way to add a tone to the image. Normally, when I hit upon a gradient that I like, I save it, so I can use it again in the future.
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