Not that long ago, there was a discussion about posting how you did one of your photos (basically step by step).. I thought we could start that up again.. Im always browsing photos wondering "how on earth did they do that??" and why you took a certain shot.. so if you would like to share, please do.. Since a lot of us would love to learn from you..
Ill start :)
For this shot, i was inspired by Dr. Phil. There was an episode on about Domestic Violence. I was standingin the kitchen and saw the knifes, it then just clicked.
I grabbed a knife, a medicine cup, a spoon, honey and red food coloring.
I mixed the honey and coloring with a the handle of the spoon in the medicine cup until it was thick and red enough to be "blood".. I laid my knife on the black countertop on a spot with direct sunlight then i sort of painted the blood on with the spoon handle, along with letting it drizzle around for splatters.
For editing, i played with the levels a little then i made a duplicate layer (photoshop cs5) and made it black and white. The black and white layer was on top, then i changed the opacity to what i felt was a good spot. It gave it the faded color look, so the red wasnt popping too much.. and thats pretty much it.
Yeyy....I started that discussion a few times in the past and it kind of fizzled out. I have been doing 'how I got the shot' on all of my shots that are unique. Take a look if you have some free time. Here is one for you.
Here's how to do it. You need a black background (I used a black trifold piece of cardboard that I had from AC Moore Craft store), a desk light, an off camera flash with a stand, some black paper and obviously the incense stick.
The lighting was a challenge as usual and it took me a little trial and error to get the best placement and power. Looking at the picture, I had my desk light about 1-2 feet to the back right and my flash to the same but to the back left and sort of pointing down on it. I taped the black pieces of paper to the sides of my flash to keep the light concentrated on the smoke and prevent it from spilling onto the background. I believe the flash was at 1/2 or 1/4 power. That was it!!
There really wasn't much to do in Photoshop. All I did was a levels adjustment to bring out the highlights and make sure the black was all black. I also added a hue/saturation adjustment (with the colorize button clicked) to exaggerate the blue color. Finally I just did a slight burn in the top corner (I think it was 20%) to keep the eyes centered on the picture. From start to finish including editing it took me less than an hour. The hardest part (as usual) was getting the placement of the lights right so it didn't hit the background or get the lamp/flash showing in the picture. Once I got that set, the rest was just shooting and hoping to get a good design. Give it a try and if you come in to trouble, do a quick search on google (or whatever search engine you prefer) because there are plenty of articles explaining a little more in depth what I just did. I credit those sources, I just don't specifically remember what tips I got from each article.
I love the shot Kayla. The blood came out great. I teach Forensic Science as an elective and I am always struggling to get realistic looking blood with household supplies. I'll have to try that recipe.
Nice explanation. Glad it wasn't, um, went behind someone's back, stabbed them, took some blood home, before the cops arrived. ;-) Never thought honey and food coloring, very creative.
I took a flowerhead and put it into water in a container with a domed bottom then pressed the flowerhead down using a stick and froze it (to create a clear ice first boil the water , wait for it to cool, filter it and then boil it again (this gets rid of most of the impurities that create the milky looking ice) I chose to boil the water but not filter it as I wanted some cracks to appear within the ice. I tipped the block of ice onto an aqua blue plate and wiped the surface of the ise with a cloth dipped in warm water, to increase the clarity, I angled a regular standard lamp onto the dome so that the light was focused into the middle of the flower head and took the shot from the side
@kaylaferguson the info about the ice I picked up from an ice sculptor (they really need clear ice) and the idea I got from remembering making resin paperweights that contained stuff with my mum when I was a kid just put it all together with what I learnt about lighting
This photo is done completely on iPhone. This is my work keyboard. I see it in this way after looong day in front of the monitor :))) The main trick here is to enable long shutter and then move the phone or camera from far to near to get the tails of the letters. It's not a big problem on a camera with possibility to manually control aperture and shutter however it's not possible on iPhone by default. I used Magicshutter app for this (may be there are much better apps for this but I've never tried them). The most amazing thing with this app is possibility to view your results in real time. You can see how shining tails appear behind cars, etc. or see how you paint with led light on your phone screen :)
After making this shot with MagicShutter I processed it with free app Instagram that applies vintage toy camera effects to your photos.
I am really proud of this one and it is my first and only popular page photo atm and what a good one to feature so if it is my only one its fine by me :)
I had an idea of a photo that actually after setting up led me to a tangent which when I took the photo blew me away and my mind led me to a creative edit...I had taken a macro shot of a glass heart shaped container filled with red glass pebbles with a white lit tealight in the center...I covered the tealight completely except for the wick and took a close up macro and after a couple slight edits this is the finished product
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
Here's how to do it. You need a black background (I used a black trifold piece of cardboard that I had from AC Moore Craft store), a desk light, an off camera flash with a stand, some black paper and obviously the incense stick.
The lighting was a challenge as usual and it took me a little trial and error to get the best placement and power. Looking at the picture, I had my desk light about 1-2 feet to the back right and my flash to the same but to the back left and sort of pointing down on it. I taped the black pieces of paper to the sides of my flash to keep the light concentrated on the smoke and prevent it from spilling onto the background. I believe the flash was at 1/2 or 1/4 power. That was it!!
There really wasn't much to do in Photoshop. All I did was a levels adjustment to bring out the highlights and make sure the black was all black. I also added a hue/saturation adjustment (with the colorize button clicked) to exaggerate the blue color. Finally I just did a slight burn in the top corner (I think it was 20%) to keep the eyes centered on the picture. From start to finish including editing it took me less than an hour. The hardest part (as usual) was getting the placement of the lights right so it didn't hit the background or get the lamp/flash showing in the picture. Once I got that set, the rest was just shooting and hoping to get a good design. Give it a try and if you come in to trouble, do a quick search on google (or whatever search engine you prefer) because there are plenty of articles explaining a little more in depth what I just did. I credit those sources, I just don't specifically remember what tips I got from each article.
I took a flowerhead and put it into water in a container with a domed bottom then pressed the flowerhead down using a stick and froze it (to create a clear ice first boil the water , wait for it to cool, filter it and then boil it again (this gets rid of most of the impurities that create the milky looking ice) I chose to boil the water but not filter it as I wanted some cracks to appear within the ice. I tipped the block of ice onto an aqua blue plate and wiped the surface of the ise with a cloth dipped in warm water, to increase the clarity, I angled a regular standard lamp onto the dome so that the light was focused into the middle of the flower head and took the shot from the side
This photo is done completely on iPhone. This is my work keyboard. I see it in this way after looong day in front of the monitor :))) The main trick here is to enable long shutter and then move the phone or camera from far to near to get the tails of the letters. It's not a big problem on a camera with possibility to manually control aperture and shutter however it's not possible on iPhone by default. I used Magicshutter app for this (may be there are much better apps for this but I've never tried them). The most amazing thing with this app is possibility to view your results in real time. You can see how shining tails appear behind cars, etc. or see how you paint with led light on your phone screen :)
After making this shot with MagicShutter I processed it with free app Instagram that applies vintage toy camera effects to your photos.
I had an idea of a photo that actually after setting up led me to a tangent which when I took the photo blew me away and my mind led me to a creative edit...I had taken a macro shot of a glass heart shaped container filled with red glass pebbles with a white lit tealight in the center...I covered the tealight completely except for the wick and took a close up macro and after a couple slight edits this is the finished product
i just made this post a few days ago it explains how i did this :)
http://365project.org/discuss/general/4075/rain-droplets