In order to create this image, I went through some heavy metal band's covers, and found that Iron Maiden's ones were quite interesting. They are consistent in style, feature "Eddie", their mascot, and depict dramatic situations: I liked them, and decided to try and create another one, exactly like for a "In the style of..." DPC challenge.
"Hallowed Be Thy Name" is one of their classic song. Instead of illustrating what is actually happening in it from an external point of view, I wanted to show how it could have been perceived by the sentenced unfortunate person, in his imagination. From there, the idea of using Eddie to represent the condemned man's perception of lack of God came quickly.
Some words about the photos:
- The background is composed of photos of sky, at night. I was out almost every night of the week with my camera, until I got lucky and shot what I was hoping for: the moon clearly appearing in a hole, in a very cloudy sky. There was a lot of wind, and the clouds were moving fast: I had to use a fast shutter, and consequently, rise the ISOs, even at f/2.8. Fortunately, the camera did the job well, and denoising the result was not a problem. As you probably guessed, these moon shots became the eyes of Eddie.
- The bell is the one at my garden's door. I had to unscrew it, bring it to the home studio, and shot it by emulating the light coming out of Eddie's eyes.
- The man is composed of 2 photos of me: one with a rope around the neck, but with the feet on the ground, and another where I lift myself, holding a beam, so that my legs were in adequate position. I blended the 2 photos in post production.
The processing wasn't too long. The light around the eyes was mostly good, so I didn't have to change much things: I simply burned darker lines in order to create the wrinkles, composing Eddie's face. I would have thought it to be extremely difficult, but in fact, using a tablet, it went quite smoothly. The same technique was used for the hand: I chose another image of clouds where the light was close to what I wanted, pasted it as a new layer over the picture, then masked it in the wanted shape and burned wrinkles again. Finally, I created some shadows on the bell, added the blood, some blue filters for good measure, and that was it.
Thank you all again for your votes and comments! Much appreciated. Regarding the "Digital art" VS "photo" controversy, honestly, I don't care much about it: as I stated several times, what I try to do is a convincing final result, whatever the tools used for that. One can use photos to create something that doesn't look like one - yet good photography skills are required (that is the case here), or one can paint a canvas and achieve a photo-realistic result (although this requires some serious painting skills). Debating over the categories names is nothing that excites me, I much prefer to spend my time creating stuff that I like.
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Place: 1 out of 67 Avg (all users): 7.1129 Avg (commenters): 8.2667 Avg (participants): 7.0714 Avg (non-participants): 7.1341 Views since voting: 8509 Views during voting: 384 Votes: 124 Comments: 41 Favorites: 11 (view)
Awesome work, great description of your photo and editing process and excellent approach towards everything. I think those who balance both the technical and artistic qualities of photography produce the most consistent and compelling pieces of work. Getting it "right" in-camera is definitely important but so is expertise editing in post to bring out your vision.
Great work as always Christophe, glad I was one of your 10s! And congrats too on sticking to your guns during that silly debate that keeps arising here.
Well done on yet another ribbon. What struck me (pardon the pun) was the final touch of the bloodied marks on either side of the inside of the bell, where the blood soaked head mask has hit either side during rings. Odd no-one else picked up this little detail or that you mentioned it in your comments. Une image très macabre. Joyeux Noël à vous et votre femme. J'espère que vous obtenez quelques dormir ce soir!
Congrats on the Blue with this most amazing creation. Your skill and imagination continues to evolve and give all of us inspiration. Thanks for commenting on how this image came into being. Wonderful work as always Cristophe.
Congrats on the blue Christophe, for me this is one of your best and was a straigt 10. Please add a description as to how you made this image, I would love to know.
Congrats on your ribbon Christophe! If I may be totally honest with you friend, I have to say I more appreciate your reality based images, but you did a great job with the digital art in this- and I really like the look of light on that bell photograph! ;)
Compared to the rest of the entries, this seems to be the best edit. But IMO it crosses into Digital Art and is a bit too far from photography as the rule set requires. No doubt a tremendous example of extremely creative work, but I think SC should consider a new category identified as "Digital Art" for works of this level.
I like the artwork, but despite Eddie and supernatural is so much part of Iron Maiden visuals, many of their songs are, at least as I see it, much more about real life with no supernatural interventions. An Hallowed by Thy Name really is about the indifference of god, rather than his active interest in human sufference. But I love the bell touch :)
A really great shot, I think a ribbon may be inevitable for you! How you achieved this, I have no idea, so I can't say much from a technical standpoint other than your "image" seems properly exposed, haha. I'm not sure how the song you've associated this image with goes, and I don't exactly see the connection between title and content, but I think you've done an excellent job with this.
christoph? nice skull how did you do that? drew it photoshop or photographed a mask etc? love the detail on the hand of teh beast, and the attention to detail in no shoes and feet hanging down. giles
Hallowed Be Thy Name (Iron Maiden)
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