It was such a silly thing, when all those tiny boats approached her. She had only been cooling her feet in the river, when the tiny armada attacked. Now, it w...
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It was such a silly thing, when all those tiny boats approached her. She had only been cooling her feet in the river, when the tiny armada attacked. Now, it was too late to escape.
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Contest Finalist in It Is Red Photo Contest
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Behind The Lens
Location
I shot this photo in the Redwoods/Jedediah Smith State Park last summer. This is Northern California just next to the Oregon border. I spent my whole summer camping alone in the National Parks doing this Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales series. If you want to read more about that adventure you should check out the blog I wrote about it, it was an amazing trip. https://exploredexposure.wordpress.com/2014/12/11/an-artist-alone-in-the-national-parks/Time
This was shot in the late afternoon, just after the sun set behind the trees so that I could shoot in the shade.Lighting
This is a composite image so the lighting is really important. Everything in this image was shot on location, so it is necessary for the boat and the subject to have the same lighting to make compositing easier and more believable. Shooting in shade helps out with this a lot because the shadows are really subtle and don't change so fast between shots.Equipment
This was shot with a Nikon D7000, and a Nikkor 28-70mm lens. I used a tripod and a remote. As it is a composite, it is really important for the image to be stable so that the compositing lines up in photoshop layers.Inspiration
This image is called The Captive, and was inspired by the story Gulliver's Travels. Each image in this series comes with a little caption to describe it, and for this image it is: "It was such a silly thing when all those tiny boats approached her. She had only been cooling her feet in the river, when the tiny armada attacked. Now, it was too late to escape." What you probably don't know, is that this is a self portrait!Editing
This is a very complex composite as all the boats in the image are the same boat. To get this multiple boat effect, I tied fishing line to the boat and held it in the water and took a photo. I walked around with it like a puppet and did this over and over again until I had a whole armada of boats. Then I layered the photos in Photoshop revealing all the different boats. The dress I was wearing was actually blue, so I changed that, and then I added a nice blur to the back ground, to soften it, and put a texture layer over the whole thing to help blend it together. Finally, I did some color editing in Lightroom to get the overall feel. It's not a simple process, and you have to really have an idea of where you are going before you even start shooting, which can be hard.In my camera bag
Well, not to much actually, I have a Nikkon D7000 and a variety of Nikkor lenses that range from 10mm to 300mm. I always have a tripod and a cheap remote, but I would like to get a fancy one so I can shoot images from longer distances.Feedback
Well, pre-visualization is the most important part of getting an image like this to work. I have a very vivid imagination, so I can really see what I want to shoot in my mind's eye, but some people might find it helpful to sketch out what you want to shoot before you start. Second, take way too many photos, because in the end you never have enough! When you are compositing, it's really important to have lots of options, too few can really be so frustrating. Especially, if you are like me, and you don't get around to editing your images for months after you actually shoot them, so re-shooting at that point isn't an option. Remember to have fun, I am never scared to walk away from a shoot that just isn't working and come back to it at a later date. Rather than fighting with a situation, it's so much more helpful to let it go and think it through for a while, then when you do re-shoot it will be awesome.