When I shoot model photo's these days I try and have an idea in my head of what I want to come out with at the end of it all. So when I shoot a model on a blank background I'm often thinking what environment I can put them in.
Just to do something different today I wanted to show you one image and how it had been evolved from the initial shot.
For the purposes of the thumbnail image on my profile, and hopefully to add an eye catching image to entice you to open this post, below is one of the end results that I mentioned above...
I was shooting with Jadah for this shot at PGD and she'd mentioned that she had a Harley Quinn costume. Being a fan of Margot Robie from the DC films I jumped at the chance to shoot this, so I also had certain poses in mind.
I'm also a bit of a comic book collector and am aware of the Harley comics too (Being a big Batman fan) and so went about replicating one of the covers.
For transparency purposes I have downloaded certain graphics from Google images to create this, ie the super heroes on the floor (Who are Marvel heroes, and Harley is DC! I've just created a crossover!) as well as the logo's. This is a composition piece where I did not create all the individual parts.
The shot itself was pretty much as is, but I posterised the photo and then blended the styles together so the foreground and background matched.
Jumping back to the start, below is the original image, as shot and unedited.
The image itself works and there's nothing wrong with it, but with the black background, or any plain backdrop, it lends itself to being edited and lifted out to something more..
Finally is the first edit I created. This again is nothing too complex, I maybe could have added smoke too, but its just a more atmospheric shot where curves and colour balances have been tweaked and a tighter vignette on the face to draw the eye into where I want it to focus, that being the face..
Shown below are more examples where I have pulled images shot on a plain background and manipulated the colours and graphics to create something new. The following were shot with Jade, in a blue dress on a white background..
And finally, some of my favourite examples come from a Star Wars themed wedding I was asked to attend to take shots on a green screen, but the bride and groom then wanted me to put them and their guests into Star Wars. I have done a previous post of these before a long time ago (Just not in a Galaxy far far away!) if you would like to see the full post. Again these have been put into images downloaded and then modified, I did not create the original Star Wars backgrounds fully myself..
As a photographer I try to mix what I do in my shots, I've done still life, some macro work, lightpainting and I enjoy a good model shoot. If you'd like to check out any of my other work I'm on Facebook, or you can find me on Instagram under neilru75
Thanks very much for looking
Kind Regards, Neil
Great work Neil!
Thank you 😊