Over the last three posts I have been outlining the steps that I went through to put together a composite image based around the story of paper cranes. Having shot the cranes as outlined in the last post I was ready to out the image together.

When I had laid out the test composite I had started with the front image and worked backwards. This was a serious mistake as it meant that I was having to mask out very large areas of the image. I was also discovering that the tree I had shot against was not actually working in the image.

The answer was simple. Start with my background image first and move forwards, and in fact forget about the tree.

The first two layers of Megan and the background went together relatively easily although something was nagging me about the lighting as it seemed to not be consistent. But I couldn’t out my finger on the issue because as far as I was concerned I had been very careful in what I shot. Then when I was re-reading my earlier blog post I realised what the issue was. I had chosen a tree that was taken with the sun immediately behind me when in fact the correct location for the other images was with the sun to the left of the image. Once I swapped out the image the level of lighting in the two images matched up much better.

Megan had actually changed positions slightly with the two books but I was able to pick up her face from the lit shot and mask it over the original one. I then used a “clouds” filter to put in an effect for the cranes coming out of the book.

The cranes were brought in one at a time and their background was masked. To get a great variety of colours a number had a hue/saturation adjustment applied before being copied in.

Finally it was a simple matter of rearranging them to in the final image as shown below. There is a still a couple of weeks to go before it has to be entered into the competition so I may still do some more tweaks to it.

This is the third instalment in the process behind a composite image. The first part “Getting set up” can be found here and the second instalment “Shooting the background” is found here. The actual shoot took place on August 25^th but other commitments have not allowed an earlier post.

The shoot involved Megan as my willing model and also my daughter Samantha acting as assistant (and behind the scenes photographer). Despite the fact that this was to be a composite image I was actually trying to achieve as much as possible in camera. There were basically three shots to be done on the day namely.

1. Model reading a normal book
2. Model reading the book with the flash gun (as detailed in the first post of the series)
3. Model and paper cranes.

Because I was not sure what would be the best angle to shoot from we were going to recreate the shots twice. I had factored this into the shots I had taken earlier with backgrounds.

As I knew that I was not going to be using the actual background I set up a large blue tarpaulin to act as a blue screen for me. This was to make the process of cutting the subject out easier but it does rely on having a reasonable consistent colour. Because the area was actually in shade I knew that this was not going to be the case so I place one of my lights to light this background. It was angled so that it would not spill light onto my model.

My main light was used a beauty dish over which I had placed a yellow gell to give me a warmer light. I placed this light directly in line with the sun so that the images had the same lighting location as the backgrounds I had shot previously. For the second shot I had hoped to trigger both the main lights and the speedlight at the same time but unfortunately one of my triggers refused to work so they had to be fired separately.

For all these shots the camera was set on a tripod which was set at exactly the same height as the park backgrounds had been shot at. This would ensure that all the angles would be consistent.

Fortunately this was the only technical issue that we ran into on the day. The biggest challenge that we had to face came with shot three. The paper cranes had been strung together on a single wire and though we tried several approaches to attach them to the book and various light stands they proved difficult to handle, and the results were not exactly what I was looking for, but there was the hope that it would work in post.

Later that night I downloaded the images, chose what I considered to be the best and started to prepare a rough composition. I think that this was a bad move because I was too tired and so I made mistakes that meant that two days later I essentially started again. What was confirmed though was that the head on angle was the best for the images, that the tree in my garden was not working and that I would use all of the backgrounds trees, and that the cranes had not photographed well at all.

The conclusion was that the process needed more image and that I needed to shoot individual paper cranes and composite them.

So yesterday I set up to shoot the cranes. I used two background supports and balanced a length of wood on it from which I which I could hang a crane. Again the main light was a beauty dish positioned in roughly the same direction as the week before. This time I used a piece of red card as the background which was light with a second light with a bounce umbrella. The camera was set on tripod at roundly the same height as the weekend. I allowed the crane to rotate on their strings and also swung them a little. That way I would get different angles to use with the same lighting.

Finally I felt that I have all the elements for the final image to be built.

This is the second post that is going behind a composite image that I will be shooting next weekend. The first part can be found in this post. Due to the earthquake that Wellington had on Friday I had an unexpected day of work so it provided me with the perfect opportunity to sort out the background for my image.

No ideally the whole image would be shot on location but as I will be using gelled strobes as the main light, and I don’t have a portable power pack, I am somewhat limited to a location within reach of an extension lead and power socket.

I have decided that a tree at the bottom of our garden would be a base but as you can see the background is not that attractive.

We do live close to a park and so that enabled me to locate a suitable background. In order to try to replicate the light conditions I went out at the exactly the same time as the shoot will be.

Now the key to a good composite is consistency so I put a 50mm on the camera and found the distance from the tree that I thought would best frame the subject. I did this from two locations as I am not sure at this whether a head one or a side image is going to give me the best result.

I noted that when I was head on to the tree that the Sun was directly overly my left shoulder and when I was lined up for the side view it was directly behind me. This will be useful for Sunday should the day prove to be cloudy, as it will give a direction to place the main light.

Once I got to park I tried to locate a suitable tree that would be the base of the background and then angled myself to it based on the Sun. The first two were not ideal as there were distracting items in the background.

I eventually settled on a suitable tree, and measured out the desired distance and set the camera on the tripod. I was using the tripod because this meant that the angles that I would be shooting would be consistent.

The test shot revealed a problem with a road behind, in that cars were appearing in the shot. I therefore had to make sure that I could see gaps in the traffic before clicking the shutter.

When I am shooting with lights I tend to shoot around F9 but as I am not sure what setting I will be using on Sunday I set the camera in Aperture priority and I took a range of shots at different f-stops from 5.6 to 9. I also rotated the camera and took a similar range in portrait mode. This means that I can match the focal lengths between the ones shot with the model and my replacement backgrounds.

Next weekend I am going to be shooting the final images for a competition in October and while I will show you the final result once it was finished, I thought I would also share some of the pre-shoot preparation.

In my final image elements will be flying out of a book and I wanted a burst of light to accompany them. This will be done using a speedlight to provide that part of the light and Cokin filters to colour it. My daughter was roped in to be my model for the day.

The final results are still a little hot but I was not worried about that. I now have a good starting point to tweak them on the day of the shoot. Plus these shots were taken inside on a dull day, when the actual shoot will be outside so the natural light will have a greater influence as well.

Later this year I am submitting images for a club competition on the theme of “once upon a time”. You are expecting to stage a shoot rather than simply finding an object and shooting that.

One of my favourite stories is King Arthur so I wanted to recreate the sword in the stone which is fairly integral to the whole story.

For those who don’t know the story there was a magic sword embeded into a rock and only the true king of England was able to remove. Of course Arthur managed the feat and became king.

I had thought to borrow a sword from a local medieval group but when I told them that it would involve water no one was interested. Turns out that authentic swords and water don’t mix.

Anyway TradeMe was you friend and I sourced on there. On last Sunday I decided that the area below the old Birchville dam would be ideal so with my daughter as assistant we set off up the trail to the dam.

Unfortunately the light was not ideal and we had to resort to flash to boost the image. Shooting on slippery rocks below a waterfall is quite tricky especially as recent rain meant there is was a lot more water. The spray was a major issue as the lens got coated very quickly.

I got the image that I wanted although I suspect that I will probably tweak it some more before it is submitted in October.