Well its Sunday morning, we don't have anything planned so what do we do?
BLOW FAKE SNOW around our living room! Lets make a mess and have some fun!
Thats how this image came about, I have wanted to photograph this type of
scene for a while now so I purchased the snow, hat and scarf and it all came
together.
Not having a snow machine I had to improvise so i grabbed the garden
leaf blower from the garage and gave that a try and it worked a treat! I
pulled down the roller blinds and that was our backdrop set up the 7ft
parabolic umbrella, my light source I used the Lencarta Atom 360.
I wanted to create a moody snow scene, we started off with a few test
shots after I had created space in our living room ( I had planned shooting
this scene in the studio but felt the kids my subjects could have more fun
at
home after all how much mess could it make!) the first few shots were so
funny as Hannah was so surprised to see snow falling all around her (bit
of a blizzard really!) after I got the hang of the garden leaf blower and
amount of fake snow needed we had lovely snow falling all around, time to
get the shot!
I stood Hannah 6ft from the background positioned the umbrella to
her left to give a nice cross light and also to reduce the spill on the
background, I knew i would not be able to control all the spill light in
this smaller environment but that was ok as I had planned originally to
paint a cloudy backdrop to use in the studio setup so being an unplanned
shoot I decided I could add the background in post later not the best way
to do it but another improvise, so that little bit of spill light on the
background worked to my advantage.
Its a great feeling when you see your image come together from what
was really nothing but a vision, and its amazing how you can use any space
to shoot in improvising along the way! I am a strong believer in forward
planning when setting up a photo shoot as thats where all the hard work
lies, this shoot was unplanned for that day but I had already made notes,
diagrams etc for the studio shoot so I had everything ready to go and that
helped loads!
Once I had downloaded all the images to the mac the rest was pretty
straight forward opening it in photoshop I added the background from a shot
i took of the clouds the day before, making a selection of Hannah from the
layer below, then simply loading that selection I made onto the cloud
layer, I am then able to delete the selection from that layer exposing the
subject from the lower Layer. Using an overlay blend mode and reducing the
opacity to around 20% to give a subtle moody feel to the background.
Like I said earlier I had intended on painting a backdrop and lighting it in
the scene which would of gave a great look also.
Thats how the shot came together I hope you guys enjoy it I know we
did!
so this is the initial test shot, my son Noah wanted to help and yelled BLOW ALL THE SNOW AROUND! as I did it turned out he didnt like the sound of the leaf blower so he said 'Dad I will put my headphones on !!(ear defenders!)
So Hannah stepped in and we started to get close to the image I had in mind!
This is what gives me a huge buzz sitting behind the camera! seeing it all come together!
it doesnt all happen straight away by no means, talking to the person infront of the lens making them relaxed and having fun takes time! but the creative process takes as long as it takes to get the shot. Its all about getting the shot and I was thrilled with the images from this test shoot!
being Autumn and all I couldnt resist this last shot! especially when I have so many leaves blowing about in the garden!
OUT TAKES
Ok time for a role reversal Hannahs turn to take the shot and I am left to strike a pose! How cool would I look with white hair!
and a touch of snow.
Enjoy , create and have fun!
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