This post covers the last shoot I completed in 2021. It was a collaborative effort with local stage actress Mandy.

In Greek mythology Pandora was the first woman created. Her curiosity led her to open a jar that Zeus has filled with a whole lot of bad things. As a result mankind was subjected to all of them.

Mandy wanted to bring the myth to life. I knew this would mean some elements would be shot in camera, and others would be created in the computer.

I built a muti-layered set in the garage using lengths of lace. We also fashioned a simple robe for Mandy to wear.

The lighting in the two images above was very simple. A single large soft box was positioned camera left. The camera was set at 1/200s f8 ISO200 and an equivalent focal length on 24mm.

For the images where Pandora was looking into the box I positioned a speedlight in a snoot at the edge of the frame. This was aimed it Mandy’ face.

The post processing mainly involved toning the image and then adding the elements coming out of the box. This involved blending in images I had of smoke or creating beams of light mainly using exposure and colour.

The faces in the first image are self portraits captured direct into the computer and then distorted. I also added the flames on the candles.

In addition to the three images shown above I edited a further eight with differing effects. These were shot at various parts of the day. You will note that the costume changed slightly as evolved it.

It was a great shoot and a great way to finish off the year.

When Lucy and I were discussing her shoot, she mentioned that she wanted to create a dark angel look.

Lucy had brought a black top and skirt but it was not really working. So I grabbed one of my wife’s old ball dresses and a set of small angel wings. The wings were intended to be a simple placeholder with the intention of replacing them in Photoshop later.

We reduced the amount of light on the set to a single light in a beauty dish. That would provide some punch to the image but also allow for a lot of shadow.

The images were all shot on my Lumix G9 at 1/200s f8 ISO 200 and with focal lengths ranging from 34mm to 60mm.

Once I had the image selected in Photoshop I added wings that I had downloaded as a transparent PNG. I had to warp them to make them fit completely and then adjust them to fit the lighting.

I was really happy with the way the image came out. Recently I tried to use the new Generative AI features in Photoshop to create the wings. I cannot say that this made the process easier as it took several attempts to get what I wanted. That image is shown below.

Once I had all of the images it was now time to put them together.

I created a Photoshop document and built it up layer by elements as I went.

I had already gone through the Lightroom catalogue containing the bird photos and classified them into potential positions in the final image. From these I selected around 36 images taking each one into Photoshop, making a rough selection, copying it into my main document and then masking out the bird.

I realised that this would be a large file, hence I did not copy across anything that I did not need. Even with an effort I had to use the Photoshop large file format as the resulting file is 2.7 GB.

The image was tweaked over several sessions. The video below takes you through the photoshop document showing what each layer does. I alway work non-destructively so adjustment are always applied on their own layer.

I have shot Rachel several times and so I approached her with a mockup of the image to see if she would be interested. She thought it would be quite fun so we scheduled a shoot.

I had always envisaged a Victorian style outfit and so I made one using a corset and then placing lave over a hoop skirt frame. I attached the ring to a belt for strings and positioned it at roughly same height as it appeared on the feeder.

I borrowed a handpainted canvas backdrop and set up a studio in the garage. I knew that the final image would be a composite but at that stage I was not sure whether I would leave the background as it was or replace it. One of the hardest things of bringing a person into a new scene is getting their feet to look right on the new surface. To make this process a lot easier I had collected leaves and I sprayed those around Rachel’s feet.

I also collected a number of nests during the previous year and we fixed one to Rachel’s head and she held the other one. It was the a simple matter of shooting her where she was interacting with birds that would be added later. I only provided minimal direction as Rachel is an experienced model. Plus I find that letting a model find their own rhythm makes for better images.

For the lighting I used two lights. My main light was a Godox AD600 in a 1.5m Octobox positioned at 90° to Rachel. The light was covered with a grid so that I could control the direction of it. This lighting positioned closely resembled the angle that the sun had been when the birds were photographed.

Although the image below shows it as a square was actually octagonal. On the opposite side to the main light I positioned a white polystyrene reflector to provide a bit of fill and at the rear of the studio I had an Elinchrom D400 firing into the 7 foot umbrella covered with diffusion. This was solely to fill-in the shadows. While Elinchrom and Godox lights operate on different triggers, I could use the optical slave on the Elinchrom and this worked really well.

All of the images on this page were shot with my Nikon D600 f7.1 1/200s ISO200 using a prime 50mm lens. The camera was mounted on a tripod that was set at the same height as when the birds were shot.

We also shot some images from a different angle but these were never taken any further in post.

You can see a behind the scenes video of the shoot below

In part three we will cover putting it all together.

With my conceptual photography I will often spend several days building a set and sorting out lighting before the model arrives. However the majority of this time is not spent actually shooting.

The creation of my Birdlady image was completely different in that it involved seven days of actual shooting and many hundreds of images.

I am not sure where the concept came from but I definitely wanted to create an image of someone representing Mother Nature surrounded by birds. I also wanted to incorporate some metal rings that had originally come from a wine barrel.

The first task was to photograph the birds which to me was somewhat of an unusual challenge. I have shot them on many previous occasions but I cannot say that I’m overly good at it.

I knew that would have to clearcut the birds out of their background so I tried to make it as simple as possible. In our backyard I set up a frame in front of our old garage that has plain walls. From the crossbar I placed a feeder and then suspended the ring below it. I figured that birds would land on the ring before going up to the feeder.

My Lumix G9 can shoot timelapse so I thought I would use this feature to get my shots. I positioned the camera on a tripod located inside of our double garage. The G9 is a micro 4/3 camera which meant that they reach of the lens was double its setting. was working on the theory that with the camera in the garage the birds would not be disturbed.

That theory proved to be true but the overall experiment was a disaster. During the time that the timelapse was running, the camera shot around 1,200 photos but when I reviewed them I discovered that only three had birds actually in them.

On day two I tried again but this time I set behind the camera and photographed. This guy gave me a much better hit rate but I was still not seeing large numbers of birds I came to the conclusion that the strings were perhaps putting them off.

On day three I tried something different and I moved the birdfeeder to the end of the garage and I also changed cameras to my full frame Nikon D600. This time I had much greater numbers of birds coming but now I realised that these images were going to be much harder to work with. I figured that shooting in front of the plain wall was ideal but that I needed to improve where the feeder was located. I also realised that having the ring positioned higher up was going to cause a problem in matching the perspectives when it came to create the composite.

So on the afternoon of day three I built a stand for the feeder that also enabled the ring to be positioned without the need for strings. The rig also meant that I could set the height of the tripod and the ring so that I did not have issues with perspective.

On Day four, the new set up was put into action. I also realised that I did not need to hide myself. Rather if I stayed still the birds would ignore me. So I positioned myself halfway across the driveway with the camera set on a tripod that was triggered remotely. While the shutter did make a noise the birds got used to it.

In order to try to encourage birds onto the ring I used peanut butter and glued seed to it. This was not overly successful.

After about 30 minutes or taking photos I thought that I had some definite ones that I could use. once they were loaded in light room a classified them based on where I thought they would fit in the image. That lead me to the conclusion that I still needed some images specifically birds in flight.

So on the morning of day five I was back in the seat with the same camera set up but now focused on only shooting flying birds. I had pushed the shutter speeder to 1/800 of a second. I also positioned LED light just out of shot to brighten up the wall slightly. Again this was to make cutting out the birds as easy as possible.

That night I did a very quick composite in Photoshop to see what multiple birds looked like. I was pleased with the result and figure that we were now in a position to move onto the model shoot.

The one thing that I was not sure of was how I was going to incorporate the wings that I wanted my main character have. I knew that I could not use any of the images I had shot as those birds were simply too small for it to be realistic. I had contemplated going in Te Papa Museum and photographing one of the stuffed birds.

That proved to be not necessary. When we returned from a Saturday morning walk I discovered that a young thrush had flown into our bedroom windows and broken its neck in the process. Before I disposed of the body I positioned it on a black piece of card and insured that the light direction matched how I had photographed the birds.

In part two we will cover the shoot with Rachel.