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ElenaParaskeva
Waiting For God
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Waiting For God



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upload_dateApr, 2015

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14 Comments |
dkvart1
 
dkvart1 May 05, 2015
Love it!
Alicja
 
Alicja May 16, 2015
Cool:)
LadyJ1
 
LadyJ1 May 17, 2015
Absolutely love this shot.
Flemming
 
Flemming May 19, 2015
Great composition, good colors.. Love it
DebbieKMiller81 Platinum
 
DebbieKMiller81 May 19, 2015
Great composition
tazdog
 
tazdog July 01, 2015
Great view....
JDLifeshots
 
JDLifeshots July 04, 2015
Great capture and title! Congrats.
Oceanblue22
 
Oceanblue22 July 05, 2015
Great work great job.....where are you from?
karantrivedi
 
karantrivedi July 17, 2015
Wish I Could Give U pro Awards.. This Is the most Amazing compostion I've ever seen ..!!
DavidXavierPerez
 
DavidXavierPerez July 24, 2015
Great Photo!
gerigivenstaylor
 
gerigivenstaylor March 31, 2016
Other than that "Children of the Corn" feeling...I LOVE THIS!!! Beautifully done. Everything works.
klansing799
 
klansing799 September 09, 2016
I absolutely love this photo!! Awesome job!
zannybc
 
zannybc March 27, 2017
Wow really love this photo!
Benfox1
 
Benfox1 June 11, 2017
Fantastic shot it's epic and I live the colours.

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Behind The Lens

Location

I took this photo just outside of the tourist town of Ayia Napa, Cyprus in April of 2015.

Time

I believe it was about an hour before sunset.

Lighting

I wanted to do this shoot for a long time, but in my country we don't often get dramatic clouds at sunset or even a clear non hazy sky so I patiently waited for the right day to grace me with its drama! The light was truly divine during that day, I'm not kidding..fortunately I had two strong guys with me who moved the bales to suit the composition I had in my head. I needed their sides to face the setting sun to make the scene more realistic. Because I wanted tons of drama I underexposed the scene by two stops and then lit each child separately by two speed lights at full strength...in other instances less lighting would have sufficed but I wanted them to have intense light falling on them and actually have a rapid fall off because I wanted to get the feeling that they were specifically chosen.

Equipment

I had to use a tripod for this because I would have to blend 6 different images. So I mounted my nikon d810 and the 16-35mm lens (a wide lens was essential to capture everything I wanted and give it a cinematic feel) on my Manfrotto tripod and used two Yongnuo 568EX flashes in Westcott octaboxes.

Inspiration

First of all I love, love bales. I could make a whole series based on bales and for a couple of months Cyprus is full of them so I couldn't resist. Second, I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi and horror movies especially ones that feature brainwashed or possessed characters. So for this one I wanted a cinematic mood and a feeling that the children were perhaps brainwashed..I named it Waiting For God but it could be easily named Waiting For The Mothership, hah hah..you can almost imagine a spaceship out of the scene on the left landing to take these children away..

Editing

I only had two speed lights with me, which meant shooting 4 different scenes, one for every child. I also shot the base scene without the children and the flashes and another one that was even more underexposed in case I needed even more drama in my clouds. Then I got down to blending the scenes manually in Photoshop CC using masks. I played around with my color balance (I only shoot RAW) because I wanted a bit of cyan for a more alien look and did some dodging and burning as well as contrast adjustments. I had previously shot a cloud scene with the sun rays apocalyptically coming through so I used it as my final layer to create the feeling that the children are touched by a higher power.

In my camera bag

Way way too many things. I have a Lowepro bag which actually looks huge on me but it looks like it's going to burst at the seems!! I'm actually coming back to the US for the summer (I lived and worked in CT/NYC for a decade) and I'm afraid walking around new York city all day long with it will put an end to my shoulders and back, hah hah. So I carry three different Nikon lenses one of which is very heavy, my Nikon D810, my tripod, at least one speed light with a small folded octagon and a bracket (because when allowed I use them for street portraits), a bag of filters, triggers, flash gels, extra Eneloop batteries, extra camera battery, two memory cards, a remote control, an LED flashlight and cleaning cloths.

Feedback

The best way to get something similar is to use off camera flash. You could bracket your exposures f you only use natural light but blending them later due to to the complexity of the edges would prove difficult even with the refine edge tool. You use matrix metering on your camera to meter the scene and you set your exposure compensation to -2. That usually implies using your flash at full strength though. Your shutter speed can't be faster than 1/250 in order to sync with your flashes. I usually work with aperture priority because I want to control the depth of field Ifor the particular scene I'm going for and then I adjust accordingly. Once you settle on your optimal exposure switch to manual. If you are new to off camera flashes I recommend starting off with a simple scene that you just want to add some drama and contrast to. Get a cheap flash to experiment with (the Yongnuo line is pretty good and affordable) and a modifier like a 24 inch soft box.

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