Helen_Mountaniol

Gamer

Meet my son, Emil. This is our first levitation game.

Meet my son, Emil. This is our first levitation game.
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NIKON D750

settings

Aperture f/4.5 ISO 1600 Shutter 1/10 Focal Length 200/10

upload_date

May, 2015

Views

4256

Likes

+307

Awards

Honorable Mention in The Digital Age Photo Contest

Contest Finalist in Levitation Art Photo Contest

Contest Finalist in Experimental Photography Project

Contest Finalist in The Art Of Levitation Photo Contest

Honorable Mention in High Tech Photo Contest

Contest Finalist in High Tech Photo Contest

People's Choice in Levitation Photo Challenge

Peer Award

+236

Outstanding Creativity

+51

Superb Composition

+10

Top Choice

Absolute Masterpiece

Superior Skill

All Star

Genius

Magnificent Capture

Virtuoso

Emotions

Impressed

Happy

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo in my home. On this picture you can see my son, who is a big fan of video games. He is also a professional model.

Time

This photo was taken at about 6 PM at one of the summer vacation days. My son, as he very often does in his spare time, was spending many hours with his new PlayStation, sinking deep into the world of games. So, I thought it would be a great idea to hang around with him and take some photographs of him. Then, indeed, we found ourselves high on life that evening!

Lighting

This photograph is a combination of several shots taken with different exposures and using several lighting sources. I intended to use only natural light to create the scene as natural as possible. The idea was to make it look like a snapshot – a casual episode of some domestic picture. I lighted a reading lamp in the corner to accentuate the domestic atmosphere. Essentially, I wanted the child’s face to be lit by the light coming from the monitor. Unfortunately, as the game was on, the light for it was poor. Therefore, before taking the shots of the face, we had adjusted TV screen to emit as much white light as possible. Then we made a separate frame for the picture on the monitor by choosing an appropriately illuminated screenshot from that video game. The room has an exposure of several seconds; it is illuminated by daylight with addition of the reading lamp in the corner.

Equipment

This picture is a combination of eight pictures so I used tripod and remote control to prevent any shifting. It is very important for the merging several pictures in Photoshop. The camera is Nikon D750 the lens is Nikkor 16-35 f/4.

Inspiration

Like many parents, I deeply care for the issue of kids’ involvement in computer games. For my boy, games are a substantial part of his life; sometimes it is hard to divert his attention from computer to another activity. I found my inspiration for the “levitating” picture of my son when I saw him playing as passionately, so I could literally think of him as having his head high in the clouds.

Editing

Post-processing of this photo consisted of merging several frames in Photoshop. This body position was pretty difficult for the model to keep; therefore, some photos best captured an expression on his face, others – his arms or legs placing. Together we have picked the takes we loved the most. Then I had to remove the chair from beneath his belly, on which he had actually rested during the session. I used layers and masks to complete this step. The photo also required a color correction because there were different exposures and lightning sources.

In my camera bag

Usually, I take Nikon D750 with me, the lenses are: Nikkor 16-35 f/4, Nikkor 50 f/1.8, and my favorite Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8. In addition, I always carry a tripod and a camera remote in my photo kit, because I often photograph landscapes.

Feedback

I absolutely recommend on making “levitating” pictures with your children! This would be a terrific fun; for my son, some of the post-processing stages were exciting and looked like magic and the result gave joy to him and to his friends. From the technical point of view, it would be very important to fix the camera as tight as you can, adjust the focus on the point of your choice, change the mode to manual. From this moment, you operate your camera only with the remote, not touching it, this saves you from getting problems with merging the frames later.

See more amazing photos, follow Helen_Mountaniol

Helen_Mountaniol

Helen_Mountaniol

Gamer

Meet my son, Emil. This is our first levitation game.

Behind The Lens

See more amazing photos, follow Helen_Mountaniol

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