Once in awhile you have a shoot where you make suggestions and the model says yes to everything. If the model is eight and you already know him it makes it easier. I did have to coerce him into wearing the shorts, he knew they were from my models wardrobe and they were huge on him.
As a photographer beginning out you will pretty much shoot anything that’s breathing. Anyone walking by my open door is fair game. Alexander was getting off the elevator one day, playing hooky from school. Too sick to go to school but not so sick he couldn’t come in for a quick shoot. He had no idea what he was in store for.
I had the background set up but that was it. What is the backdrop? Well you know me by now, TRASH! It’s a folded up 4 ft x 8 ft piece of blue corrugated plastic cardboard. Someone folded it up and threw it away, you can see the crease right in the middle. I had something blue for the floor, perhaps a piece of laminate?
I put a palm behind it and probably a bare bulb strobe. I can’t remember how I lit the front. I asked Alexander to put on a pair of studio shorts and get into a Tupperware storage tub. My mom is on a ladder with a plant watering can. I’m on a taller ladder shooting down on him with a wide angle lens. I haven’t rotated any of the images, they were shot as is.
The one thing that surprised me is that he started doing his hair in a mohawk. I think any eight year old would of done the same thing. I didn’t realize he was matching the background so I can’t take credit for that! It was purely a fluke. If you would of walked in during the shoot it was quite ridiculous looking. We were laughing so hard I could hardly hold my camera still.
This was my first time doing a collage and it took me awhile to do it. It took so long I never thought I would do another one. I now realize there are ways in Photoshop to speed the process along. I’ve since done a few and they’re when the model was so good I couldn’t possibly just chose a few images from the shoot…just sayin
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woooowww Mary, I love your imagination to create sets, really amazing what you accomplish in this case with a few dollars, congratulations from México.