Thursday 14 October 2010

Beyond the Lens - A Surreal Portrait

Written by Tamara Kwan of TammyLynn Photography

This week’s photo is a portrait of my daughter Sarah.  After a little shopping spree we decided we’d like to do a little fashion shoot with Sarah’s new clothes, so I booked an afternoon down at The London Road Studio in Gloucester. We had a lot of fun coming up with and creating this surreal image. We didn’t really have a plan, we were just having fun. I can’t remember whose idea it was for her to sit in the chair upside down and I didn’t get the idea to flip the photo upside down until later in post processing.  

The set up for this image is actually quite a simple set up with very little post processing. I used a black paper background and a simple two light cross lighting technique. Cross lighting is where you arrange your lights facing each other on either side of your subject diagonally. If you look closely at the image you can see that the light on her face is coming from photo left and the light on her legs is coming from photo right. Also the light on her face is quite a bit softer than the light on her legs, this is because a soft box was used to diffuse the light.  The light on her legs is harsher because it’s not diffused and was focused using barn doors. It was originally suppose to be a hair light to light up her hair from the back when she was sitting upright in the chair.

Post processing consisted of darkening the areas of the background where light spilled over onto it; removing part of the chair from behind her back; tweaking curves; and flipping the image upside down.

This is the type of photography I really enjoy doing, where I get to be creative and have a little fun. :-) 


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