Category Archives: Concept Images

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Halloween

Corpse Bride – Part 3 Outdoors

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This is the third post from my 2022 Halloween themed shoot.

After getting the shot for the ghost image, we then brought Katy into the image and we had Devon interact with her in a most threatening way. 

As mentioned previously the area was in shade and I was finding that there was not enough light. So I brought out my Godox V1 speed light in a small 24 inch soft box and positioned it camera right.  This added sufficient light for what I needed.

All of the images we shot with my Nikon Z6ii camera using a 24 -70 4.0 lens. camera was in manual mode set a 1/200s f8 at ISO100. 

Most of the final images from this sequence received relativey simple adjustments in photoshop but the main one received an extensive edit. The video below shows the layers in the Photoshop file.

The first step involved removing items that had come into frame such as flex leaves. Although Eden had done a great make up on Devon I decided for this image I wanted more. So I added a hue/saturation layer and completely desaturated Devon.

I then dodged down the highlights on Devon’s face. This was done by creating a 50% Gray layer setting the blend mode to soft light and then painting with a black brush. After this I add a Colour Lookup layer the image using the moonlight option. This was then lightly masked around my character and the layers opacity was set to 57%

Finally I created a stamp visible layer and on this used Color Effex Pro to get the final look I was going for. 

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Halloween

Corpse Bride – Part 2 Ghost

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This is the second post from my 2022 Halloween themed shoot.

If I’m going to the effort of costuming a model I want to get the maximum amount of shots from the session. Given that the theme was corpse bride I thought that it was quite appropriate to have her as a ghost in a graveyard.

Not far from home is an old church with a section a small section of graves that date from the late 1800s. I am always mindful of the sensitivity about shooting in graveyards. For this reason I decided that I would composite the image rather than take Devon to the site.

The actual show was scheduled for a Sunday so on the Saturday I went to the graveyard at around the same time that I figured we would be shooting the next day. I did this so that light would be as close as possible to that on the day.

The back of our old garage has a plain wall and the ground was covered in onion plant. This had two advantages. Firstly, the wall made it easier to cut Devon out from the background. Secondly the plants covered her feet. Composing a person’s feet into an image is one of the most difficult parts of the process. Therefore, if you can cover them or not show them it makes the process much easier.

The area that Devon was in shade and I was finding that there was not enough light. So I brought out my Godox V1 speed light in a small 24 inch soft box and positioned it camera right.  This added sufficient light for what I needed.

All of the images we shot with my Nikon Z6ii camera using a 24 -70 4.0 lens. The ones in the graveyard were shot at f8 ISO100 using aperture priority which set a shutter speed of 1/80s. For the ones in the garden the camera was in manual mode set a 1/200s f8 at ISO100. 

Once ahead of the images it was a matter of choosing the best background and the best image of Devon and bringing them together in Photoshop as shown in this video.

Once Devon had been positioned and masked I applied both exposure curve adjustment to her. This was to balance her more to the background. Once I was happy with that I created a stamp visible layer (SVL) onto which I applied the moonlight LUT which is one of the standard colour look up tables. After that I tweaked the hue/ saturation particularly around Devon.

Once this was done another SVL was created. I did a slight brightness correction before creating another SVL where I masked out everything but Devon. This layer’s blend mode was set to softlight so that the effect was very subtle. Finally I created another SVL and on this used Color Effex Pro to get the final look I was going for. 

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Halloween

Corpse Bride Shoot – Part 1

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Each year in October I plan a Halloween themed shoot. In 2022 I decided to reuse a dress from the previous year and create a corpse bride shoot. I knew that Devon would be perfect for the shoot and was really happy when she agreed to do it. The original concept was only to have her in it. During the fashion shoot with Katie, we were talking about the shoot and Katie sh said she would be keen to take part.

So we modified the concept so that the corpse bride was unhappy that her groom was marrying someone else. I reached out to a friend who has a whole collection of wedding dresses and brought four to choose from. I also enlisted the assistance of Erin Gibbons to do both bridal and horror makeup. 

I took the dress and further distressed it. First, I soaked it in diluted black poster pipe. Then we added rips to it.

Normally I shoot alone but for this session I invited two other photographer friends to take part. Rochelle lives in Palmerston North and has a wicked since of imagination. Toya mainly shoots birds. As she had invited me to shoot on a number of occasions. I felt it was appropriate to return the favour.  

The initial set was set up in my garage as it had sufficient room. I used the canvas backdrop that I had painted previously. From the roof I hung a chandelier to add a little extra element.

The main light was my Godox AD600 in a 1.5 m octabox positioned at a 90° angle camera left. This provided for in coverage and insured that we got catchlight in the eyes. A reflector camera right provided a bit of fill on that side. At the rear of the room an Elincron D400 fired into a 7″ umbrella with a diffusion panel to further provide fill.  

Devon was told to act like she was a ghost and two interact with Katie by trying to annoy her. Katie was told to look like she was completely unaware of Devon. Both pulled off these rolls perfectly.

All of the images we shot with my Nikon Z6ii camera using a 24 -70 4.0 lens. The camera was in manual mode set a 1/200s f9 at ISO100. This is my standard setting for studio work. It provides a reasonable depth of field as well eliminating all ambient light. This means that I am in full control of the light.

My original plan was to set up the lighting. Then, I would allow each of us to take turns with the trigger. While I am totally comfortable with flash, the other two were not. We discovered that if we opened the rear door of the garage it let in enough light for them to capture their images without affecting mine.

Everyone enjoyed this part of the session and some great images came from it.

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Nudes

American Beauty (NSFW)

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This is the final post covering a concept shoot with Rachel and around 300 vinyl records. As mentioned in the previous post the records were all classical discards from a bookfest that my wife is involved with.  In this shoot we recreated the famous flower scene from “American Beauty”.

For this set in addition to the records on the backdrop I covered the flooring with them. 

I positioned Rachel on the floor and then used records or pose to shoot. The camera was at the end of a boom arm over her. As it was tethered to the computer I was able to control it. Using the the boom enabled me to get the camera positioned level. This is much more preferable than standing on a stool and trying to take the shot.

The lighting was the same as the previous two posts. It consisted of a Godox AD600 shooting into a 1.5m softbox. This was positioned at Rachel’s head and shot along her body. The light was also elevated and then angled down. At the rear of the room my Elinchrom D400 was shooting into a 7 foot umbrella with diffusion covering it. This light was being fired by an optical slave built in.

In addition to the overhead shots I did shoot some from floor level so that we had a variety.

All of the images in this post were shot on my Lumix G9. The setting was 1/200s f8 ISO200. The focal lengths ranged was 24mm.

The angle of the main light did mean that I was getting some reflection/hotspots in some of the records. This was a relatively simple adjustment to fix in post. In the final images I also cloned in more records to fill blank spots on the floor. Some were also needed when I created the images using the 1.91:1 ratio used for Instagram landscape images.

The whole afternoon was enjoyable and Rachel really loved the Images that we produced during the sessions.

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Nudes

Nude with the Records (NSFW)

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This is the second post covering a concept shoot with Rachel and around 200 vinyl records. As mentioned in the previous post the records were all classical discards from a bookfest that my wife is involved with.  

In the studio I had positioned two sheets of plywood as a backdrop. Onto this I attached overlapping records using small nails to hang them up. It took the best part of two hours to nail them all in. I lost count of how many times I hit my thumb during the process.

On the floor I placed plywood planking as I thought this gave a better look than the carpet. The records stack was made up of groups of ten records glued together with a central steel rod giving it stability.

The video below shows what the overall studio set look like as well as the lighting positions. 

The actual lighting is shown in the diagram below.  It consisted of a Godox AD600 shooting into a 1.5m softbox positioned 90° to Rachel. At the rear of the room my Elinchrom D400 was shooting into a 7 foot umbrella with diffusion covering it. This light was being fired by an optical slave built in. The video shows a hairlight but this was not actually used.

For the second shoot Rachel was naked and used records to create images that wouldn’t get me banned from IG. Rachel is comfortable being nude in front of camera so the shoot flowed easily. 

My studio has mirrors on both sides so we also used them in the shots.

All of the images in this post were shot on my Lumix G9 at the following setting 1/200s f8 ISO200 with focal lengths ranging from 24mm to 32mm. The combination of 1/200s and f8 ensures that I have full control of the light while giving me a reasonable depth of field. I am operating in a small studio with only 2.4m (8 feet) available between my model and camera. So if I want full body I am forced to shoot wide. This is not an issue if you place the subject in the middle third of the frame.

2022 Shoots, Concept Images

With the Records

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In this post, I’m going to cover a concept shoot with Rachel. In the next two posts, I’ll share more about the experience with around 200 vinyl records. The records were all classical discards from a bookfest that my wife is involved with.  I had them stored in boxes in the garage for around two years before I started using them. I had used a small number to build a stool which was incorporated in my shoot with Lucy.

In the studio I had positioned two sheets of plywood as a backdrop. Onto this I attached overlapping records using small nails to hang them up. It took the best part of two hours to nail them all in. I lost count of how many times I hit my thumb during the process.

On the floor  I placed plywood planking as I thought this gave a better look than the carpet. The records stack consisted of groups of ten records. These were glued together. A central steel rod gave it stability.

The video below show what the overall studio set look like as well as the lighting positions.

The actual lighting is shown in the diagram below.  It consisted of a Godox AD600 shooting into a 1.5m softbox positioned 90° to Rachel. At the rear of the room my Elinchrom D400 was shooting into a 7 foot umbrella with diffusion covering it. This light was being fired by an optical slave built in. The video shows a hairlight but this was not actually used.

For the first shoot, I had Rachel wear a selection of clothes and accessories that I had acquired from thrift shops. I felt these items had a 1960s sort of vibe to them.

As with most of my shoots I tend to not direct the model, but rather let them do what they want. I find that this produces much more relaxed and better images. It does help when you are working with an experience model such as Rachel.

All of the images in this post were shot on my Lumix G9 at the following setting 1/200s f8 ISO200 with focal lengths ranging from 24mm to 32mm. The combination of 1/200s and f8 ensures that I have full control of the light while giving me a reasonable depth of field. I am operating in a small studio with only 2.4m (8 feet) available between my model and camera. So if I want full body I am forced to shoot wide. This is not an issue if you place the subject in the middle third of the frame.

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Lighting, Models

Devon Wet Play

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The second set with Devon involved water. She wanted to look like an athlete that had been competing really hard and was covered in sweat. She had brought some strips of fabric that she fashioned into a top and gloves.

The example images she had shown me had a high degree of contrast. I knew that we needed to go with a punchy hard light. We essentially used it to create shadows in the previous post. It was a simple matter of removing the blinds. Then, we slightly adjusted the strength of the light.

Devon is a real trooper when it comes to getting into a character. She was not phased when she was asked to put baby oil over her skin. Then she was sprayed with water. The oil has two effects. Firstly it prevents the water from absorbing quickly into the skin and secondly it increases the skins reflection. Both of these add to a higher contrast image.

All images were shot using my Lumix G9 1/200s f8 ISO 200 at an equivalent focal length of 50mm. These settings ensured that I had full control over the ambient light.

Devon was really happy with the way that shoot turned out.. 

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Lighting, Models

Devon Shadow Play

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After we had such a great time with the Barbie shoot I arranged another session with Devon. I left it up to her to decide what concepts she wanted to shoot. As before, she created a Pinterest board. From it, we determined that she was looking for two quite distinct looks. The first involved heavy shadow and the second water.

In this post we’re going to cover the first one.

I knew from previous shoots that you could create interesting effects by shooting hard light through Venetian blinds. This appears quite often in film noir images. The key to getting hard shadow was that light had to be very hard. It also needed to be positioned reasonably close to the blinds.

The shoot was planned for the same weekend as the more elaborate record shoot with Rachel that will be covered in later posts. For that I had built a wall using plywood panels. These had interesting features in them so I did not bother covering them.

I clamped a bamboo Venetian blind to the crossbar of light stand and then positioned a strobe in front of it. It was in a 7 inch reflector which insured it delivered a lot of power.

Devon went through a number of costume changes so that we had a variety of images to use.

All images were shot using my Lumix G9 1/200s f8 ISO 200 at an equivalent focal length of 50mm. These settings ensured that I had full control over the ambient light.

The images were exactly what Devon wanted. 

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Models

Barbie Shoot with Devon

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As I have mentioned before ideas for photoshoots can come in many ways. The concept for my Barbie shoot actually started when we bought a new treadmill. It arrived in a very large box that I realised was big enough for a person to stand inside it. That got the ideas flowing. 

I had shot a model as a doll a number of years before. I did not want to repeat exactly the same concert. Then the idea of Barbie in a multiple outfits came to mind.

I knew that I needed someone who could embody the doll, so Devon was the obvious choice. Her acting experience meant that she could pull off the expressions I wanted.

I have a large collection of gowns so I selected a number for the shoot. But when Devon arrived in a colourful outfit, she had made herself, there was no hesitation that we would use it as well.

The shoot was relatively simple. I placed the camera on a tripod ensuring that all of the angles would be the same. I then positioned the box and took a series of images in each outfit.  

As with the previous images on this shoot day, there was no need to change the lighting. The main light was in a beauty dish positioned above the camera. A second light was positioned camera right. This was shooting into a 7′ umbrella with diffusion to fill in the shadows.

Having shot the main images I now had to shoot the background plate. This had to be done in a toy store. Therefore, there was no way that I could go to a full set up including lights.  Also I had to be somewhat inconspicuous so I could not shoot with my camera.

Fortunately everybody today carries the camera in their pockets so I used my cellphone. I knew that I did not have to worry too much about the resolution. The overall image would not be large enough for anyone to pick up the differences.

The boxes provided a very easy border in which to mask the studio images into the composite. I then had to some graphics to go over the front of the boxes.

The studio images in this post were shot with my Lumix G9. The settings were 1/200s, f10, and ISO 200. The focal lengths ranged from 26mm to 50mm. The setting ensured that I had full control of the light while also giving me a good depth of field.

The shoot was only in ever intended to be a bit of fun and I was happy with the results. Obviously, it would have been better if the box had been white. However, when you work with found props, you often don’t have the luxury.

2022 Shoots, Concept Images, Lighting

Reflections Shoot with Sian

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As I mentioned in the previous post I love playing with reflections in camera and also water. After the practise session Sian joined me to do the actual shoot. She was not feeling the best but she was willing to try it.

The pool was constructed using a long length of black polythene sheeting and several lengths of 4 x 2 timber. The water was approximately 2″ deep. I placed a paving stone that was just below the water surface so that Sian appeared to be walking on it.

The test shots had shown that the best lighting position was two gridded soft boxes on either side, with a single softbox camera left. . To remove the reflection of the plastic, the fabric backdrop was run down into the water. The backdrop was well anchored as it was an outdoor shoot.

The camera settings were my usual when I wanted to control light and have a decent depth to the field. (1/200s f8 ISO200 using a 50mm equivalent on my Lumix G9).

The shoot only lasted 30 minutes and we shot a variety of poses.

The final images were pretty much strait out of camera except for removing the lights.

I was grateful for Sian’s help with the shoot and the images came out just how I wanted.