Schneemian Rhapsody
Just a followup - I did very well in the Self-Portrait Farktography contest. It really is nice when a concept is validated like that.
Posted at 08:58AM Jun 29, 2007 by schnee in General |
Self Portraits
Tonight's Farktography contest is "Self-Portraits". I'm rarely the subject of any photo (self- or otherwise) and I was not all that fired up for the theme. And then I was inspired: I'd reproduce the cover image to Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", except I'd play all four subjects. The difficulty was that (a) I had to take the photo and (b) I could not use Photoshop to composite the final image. And (c) I needed to figure out the lighting. Turned out to be a very fun and creative exercise. Major props to Strobist for the technical ideas.
Here is the original:
And here's what I wound up doing:
Not too bad, but not perfect. The "front" me is too ghosted - if I ever re-shoot this, I'll probably try to solve that by twiddling with the light for each exposure.
The other shots in the series (including my riff on the "Mac vs. PC" ads) can be found by clicking on the cover:
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| Self Portraits |
The technical details are as follow:
| f-stop | 4.0 |
| shutter speed | 1/125 (flash sync speed) |
| Film Speed | 100 |
| Focal Length | ~80mm |
| Flash Output Power | 1/16 |
I used my brand-new Vivitar 285hv off-camera flash which was zoomed to its narrowest beam (to get the hard-light fall-off on the left- and right-me's). I shot film which meant that (a) I could do the multiple-exposure thing on one frame and (b) I could not see the results until after I developed the film. To handle (b), I twiddled with the flash power and the f-stop to bracket the results, and the image presented above is the best one (it was actually the third one in the series).
The physical layout is as shown below. I selected an unused and windowless conference room in the office complex where I work. The camera was probably 9 feet from where I was standing and I ran a flash sync cable up and across the ceiling where I suspended the flash unit (pointed straight down). 1 foot behind where I was standing, I hung a 90" x 72" drape of black broadcloth ($1.99 per sq yard at Michaels!). It doesn't show up at all in the images.
I used my remote shutter cable to trigger the self-timer, had a friend turn off all the lights in the room and quickly positioned myself on pre-taped spots on the floor. I waited for the timer to expire and then I did it over again. And again. And again. For each "Brent Schneemian Rhapsody" composition, I had to make four exposures. I got a bit tired near the end.
Posted at 08:07AM Jun 27, 2007 by schnee in General |
