Lady Of the Sea Fine Art Shot

I’ve been feeling very inspired lately and have decided do some more fine art style shots as that really seems to be my bag at the moment.

so i started work on my lady of the sea project which included working with the lovely model holly Moriarty who besides being a great model is also a great friend of mine too so working with her was a blast.

the shot however ended up with 30 layers in Photoshop and a file size of 2.8gb!

Building the shot.

the idea as most of mine started off from a little sketch of an idea which involved a model on a beach walking along with a lighthouse in the background and also the sea as well.

Given this was always intended as a fine art project I knew I could allow myself a little artistic licence so decided to make it a composite image to give me the freedom to be able to create how ever I wish.

Unlike studio composites I chose for the option of shooting everything on site at the beach where I live just so it would not have that composite look  about it.

So before thinking about shooting holly I needed to start building up the scene so I went out onto the beach and started shooting some stock images of the beach and surrounding areas so that I could start piecing the image together in Photoshop.

by them selves the images are not terribly exciting as you can see from the examples below

the shots consisted of things I would need such as the sea the sand the sky than within Photoshop I used layer masks to blend the different images together to produce my master background which looked like this

from very early on I had decided to work in black and white /sepia so all further edits would not be done in colour.

next up was to add the lighthouse I didn’t have one in my own library that suited so i decided to get a stock one .

Once the lighthouse was in it needed light coming from the tower this was achieved with the use of a layer in Photoshop set to soft light and then using a brush set to 10% opacity and painting white where I wanted the light to be to achieve this image

this was also the point I started to burn down parts of the image to give it that more moody look and also to give it my sepia treatment.

Time for the model

there was a lot of back and forth discussions with holly about how the shot was going to play out including some silly drawings to get the point across.

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The idea for her dress originally was going to be a large fishing net but after some research I found out that fishing nets of the size I wanted were amazingly expensive so an alternative was needed to be found.

in the end i settled on army camo net as this was relatively cheap by comparison and there was something about the texture that I really liked.

 

The other piece of material was bought from a local material shop from one of their bargain off cut bins and cost a massive 85p

Lets just not bother with Focus!

On the day of the shoot myself and holly walked out onto the beach and walked out the mile and half to where the sand was wet and because i knew i would be compositing different parts at different distances i decided to use hyperfocal focusing a technique more commonly used by landscape photographers.

basically the idiots guide is 2/3 in front your subject is where you focus and dependant on your f-stop and focal length anything within a certain distance to infinity can be in focus.

there are mathematical equations based on sensor size focal length etc but I don’t worry with them as I have a depth of field calculator on my iPhone which was a free download from iTunes and that works out everything for me.

so I ended up deciding my f-stop based on that and that allowed me to make sure that all my shots were in focus and I could leave the camera on the tripod set to manual focus after the initial spot was focused on.

3,2,1,go!

the shots that followed involved me moving the material around holly to get the shape I wanted so I could comp it all together when I got back to the bat cave.

other shots included me setting a self timer and going and throwing the material in the air and ducking out the way as the flash fired

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Back at the bat cave on the editing table I composited the various elements together using layer masks exactly the same as i had with the landscape followed by more burning in to achieve the look I wanted.

i did re visit the edit as there were elements I didn’t like but the final image became the one at the top of this article.

 

What Holly Thought..

Having worked with Jay in the past I guess I knew what to expect. A friendly, bubbly guy always conscious of what I may be thinking / needing whilst not losing sight of his brief.

we had discussed jays project and exactly the image he was hoping to achieve in the weeks prior to our shoot so I had plenty of time to consider what we were working too and do some research of my own bouncing ideas off jay too who was always interested to hear my ideas.

I was excited on the day given all the planning and preparation that had gone into this particular shoot. I drove down to the location and met jay. I was initally a little concerned how I would reach the location given id been very poorly as of late but after explaining this to jay he confirmed we would take our time, go at my pace and only do what I felt capable of doing.

so… after a cheeky ice cream and wander down the sea front we took a long slow walk to the location. Jay has a fab sense of humour which is so necessary i find when working together… particularly in such shoots as these. I have to say the shoot was nothing like work. It was a whole relaxing day from what is my usual madness and stress! I felt so revived afterwards…it truly was just what the doctor ordered!

before leaving we discussed timeframes and when jay felt he would reasonably set to work putting together the image he had so firmly kept in mind. I have to say that was blown out of the water and before I knew it I had been tagged in the image you have seen !! After a night to sleep on it and a little rejig / further editing jay had his final image.

there were so so many variables in this shoot not least with the image itself but from my persoective and health too. But with planning and consideration for all things jay and I managed to nail it … cheers jay! Cant wait to work with you soon x
 

 

Any way folks thanks as always for reading i would love to hear any questions you have just leave them in the comments and I will try to answer.

Please use the share buttons below to repost  and reblog and don’t forget to stop by my main site at jayclappphotography.co.uk

or give me a like on the old facebook page

until next time

Jay

Shoot update:Window Shots with Geena

these were shot natural light at 1/80th sec at F3.2 iso100

shoot update: twisted Ballerina Caroline

decided to mess around with the dark side today and do a twisted ballerina pic with the lovely Caroline

its a single light shot and is made grungy by over use of the clarity slider in lightroom

Please feel free to comment or share using the buttons below

Jay

shoot update: Natural light shots of little Jade

Shoot update: light painting with nick

just for a bit of fun at a group shoot I done a bit of light painting with model nick

light strokes were by myself with a torch

Thanks for reading 🙂 please share below comments welcome

shoot update: Sammi

quick update as to what ive  been up to this time and that’s with Sammi with makeup by the lovely Jenna

these images were shot using my gridded beauty dish just to give that pool of light

here’s the shots thanks for checking me out 🙂

please like and share below 🙂

 

On Location with Sue

Working as a location photographer is all about glitz and glamour right?

Well in this particular case i would say yes absolutely which was provided by the beautiful Sue a burlesque dancer and valued customer of mine. However mother nature was not going to make it easy for us.

This happens to be one of the coldest shoots ive done add to that driving rain and for sue to trust me in the weather we had and to be wearing very little just makes me respect how far she is willing to go for her art.

We could have just played it safe and had a studio shot but no my idea for sue was to have her, me and my assistant Kev sneak into a local park after closing time and go under this cool little bridge which would provide an interesting scene for us to shoot with.

The setup

in weather like this you need to be keeping warm… poor sue

The setup was simple for the shoot it was to be a 2 strobe affair the main one being off camera right and with my gridded beauty dish attached.

I don’t know why i keep going for this modifier it just seems to work really well for my style of photography.

Second Speedlight was placed behind her around 5 meters away so i could light up the floor and also the feathers of her fan at the same time.

setting up the rear strobe notice the attached glow stick this serves so i can see if the flash is in shot and also as a health and safety thing for joe public

No modelling lights here

setting up a strobe is super easy you really don’t need a modelling light at all you just aim the strobe in the general direction then get close and look down the barrel of it so to speak and aim it at your subject.

all you really need to know is how wide you are at your zoom settings.

the shoot went on with constant reviewing of the images to make sure that my customer was happy with the results we were getting.

I realise there are a lot of photographers who do not let the client see the back of the camera and prefer to just give them the final finished images and that’s fine each to their own but i am of the get it in camera variety and actually do very little processing of my images as a result so i have no issues showing the customer as its never far off what i am providing them.

eventually the cold got to us and we went back for a cup of tea to warm up.

other setups were done on the night here are a couple of shots from this particular setup

So there it is another blog done big thank you to Sue for letting me blog about this and thanks to Kev for his help on the night and background shots and of course thank you for reading this. comments welcome and  please use the share buttons below to share with your peers the more people i have following my escapades the more I want to write for you.

Jay

 

 

Feeling a little two faced

i went to a group shoot recently and i was in a bit of a funk as to what i should do.

everything i was shooting wasn’t coming out the way i hoped and looking back on the images i realise i was just being too hard on myself as they were fine.

at the time though this thought of just going through the motions started to annoy me where i thought i was pretending to be fine with the images for the sake of the shoot knowing it was likely to be me that was at fault which seemed a little two faced….

Then the penny dropped why not just throw caution to the wind and do some double exposure stuff combined with a little light painting.

i didnt have my tripod with me on the day so i got my lightstand and removed the cold shoe attachment on the top leaving the correct thread for my camera to slot on to.

worked a charm.

next up was to fish my 99p LED torch out of my camera bag.

camera settings wise i was on iso 50 shutter speed of 30 seconds and F13

once that was set up i put the camera on a self timer for 10 seconds to allow me to get into position

i had one flash to the left of the model which was set on rear curtain sync and fired via radio trigger and my spare flash in my hand which i would fire via the test light.

in my other hand was the torch so i could light paint

i gave the model to stand still and look at me then when i fire to turn her head and look at the second flash.

3 2 1 fire!

here’s the shot

Post processing wise all i did was in lightroom shift the temp to blue bump up the contrast clarity and blacks.

i like it let me know what you think 🙂

Here is what the model thought

The day at Oyston Mill had gone really well and it had been great to see a variety of different  talents and skills being used by all the photographers. It was coming near the end of the day and I did some work with Jay.  wasn’t sure what to expect at first he seemed   to explain it all very quickly and with great excitement in his voice.  so as not to get it wrong i clarified what he wanted me to do, and it was simple, stand and face one way then when he said turn……that simple yet that effective.  The results amazed me the image had been created with a couple of flashes, Jay running manically round with a torch and me moving my head, no photoshop,no computer editing, nothing, just a creative and talented photographer and me moving my head.

Shoot update Emma

just some highlights from my shoot with emma comments welcome 🙂

All is Not what it seems

Something a little different for you this time.

I was at a shoot at a models house and as like most of the models i shoot with i am pretty good friends with her.  so we are there chatting away when on the mantle piece i saw a model VW Camper van.

the detail on this thing was incredible and i just had to use it for our shoot.

Getting the shot.

So because of the realism I wanted i had to make sure that the camera was at the correct height so i brought the model down onto the fire place which gave me a nice step so I could get the camera lower than the van if needed so I could take the picture at the height I would be as if I was stood there.

next up I surrounded the scene with wood from the log fire this allowed me to enclose the scene and give it a natural feel and a little detail in what would be darkness.

Next up was to think about lighting the shot now the trick to pulling off the shot like this is to light it correctly so the first thing i needed to create was an all over ambient light so this was achieved with the speed light overhead at 64th power with it being so close and to add the atmosphere of the shot i added a CTO gel to warm everything up

After this i had to think about lighting my model as if she was stood there so with a bare strobe behind the wood I had set up I aimed it at the door of the van and with a little repositioning of the wood i was able to create a shaft of light which would help me merge my model into the shot.

The other advantage of this shot is because its white light it will draw the viewers eyes to the model rather than the van so it actually makes it more believable.

Shooting the model

This was pretty easy as all i had to do was match her angle to that of the bus this was achieved by placing a pillow under the left buttock so she was at a 45 degree angle to the wall.

All that was needed then was to replicate the light on set which was achieved using a speed light off right of camera with a 50x50cm soft box.

The Edit

After importing them both into cs5 I started on the van first things first the flowers that were on the van had to go as they were stuck on decals and not painted and took away from the realism of the vehicle so i cloned them out using the healing brush.

next up was to add a little detail into the headlight as the one that was there was just a little plastic disk so i just created a little detail using a white disk and layer masks to add a little detail.

So the next point was to get the model in so I imported her into the picture and with a layer mask I decided to separate her out manually by using the pen tool to trace her body then creating a selection from the path then using that as a guide to paint out the layer mask.  I know there are many other ways and plugins that will do this method and i do use some of them i just chose this time to do it this way :).

Once i had her in i needed to put in the shadow this was achieved by adding a new layer and from the fill menu changing it to 50% grey then all you have to do is change the blend mode of that layer to soft light and it becomes your dodge and burn layer so if you want to go darker choose black if you want to go lighter you choose white brush opacity was set to 23% on this so i could gradually build up the shadows.

This was enough for me to give believability of her being in the scene so the next step was to start thinking of the picture as a whole so i made a new layers adjustment layer and brought the blacks up over the entire image to make it dark this gave a definite night look to the image which i liked but over saturated the colours so another adjustment layer was created to drop the saturation which took it much near what I wanted.

finally I added a warming photo filter over the top so the colour from that would be on both subjects and create a uniform balance of light.

from there I went into lightroom.

all i did there was apply a little crop bump up the contrast make the shadows darker boost the whites a little increase the clarity a little and drop the vibrance.  you can see the values of what I done in the screenshot above.

Job done!

Any way i hope you enjoyed this blog and if you are still reading this then please use the buttons below to share it to your social media channels and by all means comment and question 🙂

thank you for reading

Jay