Nikon D5100
35mm Prime Lens
ISO100
f/1.8
SS 1/4000
Struggled with the picture for this week.
Not for the idea, had that Monday, as soon as I saw Shadow was the theme I thought of Pol Úbeda Hervàs series “I’m Not There“.
The struggle was the dull overcast weather we’ve had all week, thankfully the sun came out for the weekend!
Also struggled with the shadow a little, I was eager to get out and get this shot before the sun had a chance to disappear (I’m British so it’s pretty much a reflex to enjoy the sun whilst it lasts) but the early afternoon light left me with quite a short shadow, this though has pushed me to learn another new photoshop trick, free form transform tool.
The image creation itself was fairly straight forward, set the camera to manual and dialed in the settings I felt worked given the bright light, Pam standing in for me to get focus (which was also set to manual).
We swapped positions and I fired off the camera with a wireless remote. Scarpered out of shot, leaving my flip flops in place and took a second shot.
This is where having all the settings on the camera set to manual are important, it gives me two shots that are close enough to overlay in photoshop to erase myself. Even a slight change in focus or aperture would mean they wouldn’t line up and make this more hassle than it’s worth.
I’m presuming this is the technique Pol used (though probably a timed shot rather than remote, as he has great detail of his hands in some of the shots – I lost detail on my left arm trying to get the remote to fire).
In retrospect I should’ve probably focused more on the shadow than having a nice backdrop to the image, though I guess when you directly compare your work to a great artist you will find it lacking.
I picked this style though as it resonates a lot with me at the moment. We moved to Australia a little over eighteen months ago but I’ve not really had much time to enjoy it. The job that brought me here has been very challenging and I’ve worked so many hours overtime (my record so far is a twenty-seven hour shift) that I’m simply left with very little free time to enjoy such a beautiful place or, to be honest, the volition to do so being lethargic and drained constantly. “I’m Not Here” as an emotion is a constant companion.
Behind the scene shot to the left here, original two images pieced together. Link to the original Facebook thread here.