This was taken in my basement studio. I was initially trying out some wave shots, water in motion, (very cool, ill post outtakes later) but my tv-dinner table collapsed under the weight of the water. (oops) Luckily, I was picking up the fishtank at the time to empty the water and re-fill it, so the fishtank didn't break, but the stand's legs were broken and it fell to pieces. After re-filling the tank, I put it on a more stable surface and hiored my friend (Abe Deitle) to pose.
If you haven't figured it out, this shot was taken through glass looking into the water. Abe (model) is sticking his head into the water, holding his breath, and releasing air bubbles from a wine glass underwater. The idea is too capture bubbles of air, looking like Abe is drinking the water... but it's air so it's much cooler.
Lighting is simple. For silhouette effect I have two 150 watt bulbs aimed from behind the fishtank at the camera. took a while to get it so no lens flare showed up and reflections were non-existent. The backdrop is a white screen I use for all my studio work, with two 500 watt spotlight used at construction sites for lighting. They were snatched from home depot for about 20 bucks each with a stand.
Editing took a while, Photoshop CS4, not easy:
1. Tight crop to leave out parts of the fishtank
2. Noiseware Pro to remove spekcles
3. Healing brush for spot-editing out crap in the water
4. Rotate 180ยบ
5. Curves to add contrast
6. GB and USM to get the air bubbles in perfect clarity
7. Hue/Sat to make B&W
8. Save for Web
Thanks for the votes! not sure how well this will sit with the DPC voters. The idea may be too forced.
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Place: 23 out of 122 Avg (all users): 6.1737 Avg (commenters): 7.0769 Avg (participants): 5.9063 Avg (non-participants): 6.3095 Views since voting: 2184 Views during voting: 419 Votes: 190 Comments: 22 Favorites: 2 (view)
its not black and white its back light i was the stage hand for this shot and i help edit it.
??? Actually it is Black & White, and actually it is back-lighting. What are you talking about!? And you didn't help edit the shot, you sat there bitching about how boring it was watching me process the shot and how it wouldn't turn out above a 6!
very creative image,
I think it should have end up in a better place, may be the B&W reduced the first impact or some missing details on the face.
anyway, I like it a lot.
ps:I guess im really in a great position here..finished in 20th place..
Wow! What a great photo. I'm dying to find out how you achieved this. If I could offer a slight critisms (and I mean slight) there is a bit of a halo around the hand face that may have been worth removing after achieving such a wonderful and impressive shot. Well done!
Clever concept and good execution photographically speaking, but I don't really like the processing. It seems like too much Gaussian blur (or similar).
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