Father and Son

A few weeks ago, I wrote on G+ about some of those images that just keep you coming back. Images that you made but that have a special connection or meaning for you. Beside the image I posted on that day, here is another one of my earliest images (it remains probably my best seller – though that is a very relative term). It was a really warm early spring day. A day that brought some of the thickest fog I have ever seen. You could barely see 20 feet ahead of you. For certainly makes for one of my favourite shooting conditions, the dark, mysterious and atmospheric conditions are great to create some fantastic imagery. The ordinary turns into the extraordinary, the beautiful into the sublime. It’s the perfect condition for simple, streamlined compositions that are half real, half dream.

I headed to my favourite spot back then, a short walk from my place, by the Ottawa river. Remember that at the time, I am almost exclusively a landscape photographer. That said, as I arrived on the scene, I couldn’t help but notice a boy have the time of his life with his father. The scene was touching and beautiful. I knew right there and then that it would make for a compelling image. The only problem was that I didn’t have a clue how to photograph people, and my legendary shyness would very much get in the way. The very thought of mustering the courage to start thinking about approaching them to let me take their photo was too much to bear. So I moved on.

For a while at least. As I was heading back home, I couldn’t help but take some side glances hoping *they* would start the conversation (yeah, right). For some unknown reason however, I though those trees would also make for a pretty image. Given that I was using my wide-angle, our two friends would hardly feature in the image and I was fine with (yeah, right). Anyhow, I set up, I make an image or two, and miracle, the two decide they have had enough and head out for their car. That meant they were going to walk right into my frame. In the best possible spot. Click. Better to be lucky than good I guess. I’ll take it .

The answers pretty much covered the entire gamut with some really intricate responses and some more straightforward. So how did Amanda and I make this image?

Well believe it or not, this is a single frame. No trees or snow or model were added.

Let’s start: it was snowing very heavily that day, with big, fluffy snowflakes falling at an impressing rate. By choosing a slightly long focal length, we knew that was going to make the background look foggy. The key to this image is two fold. First, Amanda is standing under the shade of the tree, thus creating a strong contrast with the background which is much brighter. Second, the choice of lighting had a strong influence on the final look. Instead of going for the colourless and drab conditions that prevailed at the time, we thought we’d rather go with a cooler atmosphere and convey the cold feeling that reigned at the time. For this we chose a low WB temperature (4700K), to compensate for that and maintaining the warm tones of the came and Amanda’s skin tones, we gelled two flashes with full CTO gels, slapped them on an umbrella at camera left at a 45 degree angle to Amanda. And that was that.

In post-processing, we simply added a tiny bit of contrast, brought in some highlights then cloned out all of the footsteps to keep a clean look.

And tadaa!

Congratulations to Duffy Knox for coming the closest to the actual explanation. You had it down to a tee! I will be in touch shortly.

Anyhoo…Amanda and I headed to the new Ikea in Ottawa a few weeks back. Not to shop, not even to the store. What we were aiming for was the very cool looking new garage! Yeah! That’s what I am talking about. Some cool colours, great lines and some cool lighting.

The setup was a straighforward one: a CTO-gelled flash in a Westcott Apollo 28″ softbox as a key light, then a bare flash in a 1/4″ grid for a kicker (either on the left or behind Amanda).

#1 Taking advantage of all those lines and lights…

#2 Telephoto for compression, taking advantage of all the colours in the garage

It is a co-creation of Amanda and I’s (equal parts: she added the good part, I added the bad part ). In any case, I asked the question on G+ and I’ve been getting some interesting answer, so I’d like to ask it here too and see what you think. At the end of it, I will be drawing a 12×18″ print for whomever gets the closest to the answer.

The question is simple: how did we make this photograph? Straight out of Camera or Photoshop montage? Lighting or no lighting? Fake or real?

Now, your turn.

The results, next Tuesday .

Click on the image to see it larger