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The Boy who could Fly
Adding a Model to my Photography Concepts is the best way to challenge my creativity. And juxtaposing the ordinary with the surreal can often make conceptual images have a strong visual impact.
Recently, ferocious storm clouds raced over my house, offering an exciting heart pounding opportunity to make some dynamic cloudscape background photos. And later, while I was looking at the new images on the monitor, my young son came over and said he wished he could fly. Eureka! My next concept photo shoot was born!
Finding feathers, a trampoline, and a child who loves jumping, was easy. Determining the diameter of the feather shaft to match the model’s hand was more challenging. To solve this, the model held a piece of PVC pipe in each hand while jumping on a trampoline. This meant his fingers would be in the right position, and scale, to match the feathers, that would be later added in PhotoShop.
To complete the illusion, I photographed at a low angle to dramatize the height of the model in the air. For the jumping photos, the camera settings were ISO 100, 35mm, f8, 1/1000sec. The main light was a bright overcast sky. Two Elinchrom strobes in strip boxes rimmed the model to replicate the direction of the light from the clouds. And thanks to Icarus, no wax was required.
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Love this image! And the fact that you didn’t mind cropping off the one feather.
Steve, you have some great photo making stories on here.