While it’s currently the height of summer in the only hemisphere that (supposedly) matters, where I live in Australia it’s so cold that the state I live in saw snow for the first time in 30 years. When faced with the prospect of driving 2.5 hours to photograph said snow OR hibernating under blankets, I decided to stay in the warmth of my home and research how to make my own snow. Problem being that no two tutorials use the same method to add snow and some weren’t even convincing so after much experimentation I bring to you the Photoshop-snow-makin’-machine that I like best. Note: This was the exact workflow I used in my image this week but to demonstrate some of the steps for creating snow I’ve used a forest image from Graphic Stock so it’s easier to see the results.
In your layer’s panel you should see a tab labelled ‘Channels’ but if you don’t you can access it with Window>Channels. Now you need to look at each of the colour channels to see which has the most white showing in the areas where you want your snow. Do this by clicking the eye next to Red and Green so only Blue is showing, then turn on Green and turn off Blue etc, etc. When you’ve chosen the channel you wish to work with drag it to the new layer button at the bottom of the layer’s panel to duplicate the channel. If you want to get fancy you can add a curves (Ctrl/Cmd M) or a levels (Ctrl/Cmd L) adjustment to the channel to create more or less white in your image.
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Now stay with me here ... Ctrl/Cmd click on the channel to turn it into a selection and then switch back to your Layers tab. Create a new layer. Click on the top square of the colour swatch in your tools palette and choose a colour a little under white. Click OK. Go to Edit>Fill and choose Foreground Color. Ctrl/Cmd D to get rid of the selection. Pretty magical right?
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If you aren’t entirely happy with the result you can continue to create more snow by pressing Ctrl/Cmd J to duplicate the layer or follow this process again with different colour channels. You can also mask in some snow in areas that you feel need more.
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Add noise[/caption]
Add a Threshold adjustment layer and drag the slider until you get a nice spacing between your snowflakes. Clip the threshold layer to the noise layer (by alt clicking between the two layers).
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With the noise layer selected go to Filters>Pixelate>Crystallize and move the slider to 10. Press OK. Change the blending mode of the layer to Screen to get rid of the black background.
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Add some movement to the snowflakes with Filter>Blur>Motion Blur and adjust the angle and the amount to taste. Pull down the opacity of the layer a touch. Done! This gives a nice snowfall to use in the background of your image but it’s all the same size so we don’t want to stop there.
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Photoshop's soft brush in brush settings panel[/caption]
Under Brush Tip Shape start off with a brush about the size of a grain of rice. Make your hardness 0 and your spacing around 230. Under Shape Dynamics, change your Size Jitter to 100%, your Angle Jitter to 10% and your Roundness Jitter to 35%. Under Scattering tick the Both Axes box and take your Scatter all the way up and make your Count about 10. Under Transfer take your Opacity and Flow Jitter sliders all the way up.
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Now start to paint in your medium snow using a few clicks because it’s easier to control than dragging your mouse around.
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On your large snowflake layer make your brush about the size of a small coin and just dot in some large snowflakes. Save this as a brush preset if you wish to use it for future use by clicking the menu icon at the top right of your brush settings panel and choosing ‘New Brush Preset’.
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If you have people in your scene spend some time brushing snow into their hair and clothes. Using the same brush we created, set the size to 25 pixels, scattering to 60 and with this you can draw little piles of snow. It’s time consuming but will really help make your scene convincing.
Lastly, depending on the original colour of the image it might help to add some bluish toning. I chose to add a solid color layer filled with blue, set the blend mode to Hue and reduced the opacity slightly.
Let it snow! Let it snow. Let it snoooow.
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About 'Rest Stop in Winterglen'
Every Christmas in Brisbane, Australia a magical world appears called Lollipop Land. The keepers of Lollipop Land, Jule Barten (visual designer) and Chris Boston (doll designer) were kind enough to let me photograph there after hours last January but I haven’t had the right project for the photos (until now).
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I chose to work with their gorgeous Enchanted Forest scene, posing myself on the unicorn (supplied by Natureworks) and taking a 25 shot panorama. I composited in snow and hedges to cover the wooden floor. I added icicles (from Graphic Stock) to the roof and and an ice cave (from DeviantArt) to cover the ceiling. The trees outside of the ice cave are also from Graphic Stock. The dragon was photographed in another area of Lollipop Land but moved into the scene. My favourite part is that the unicorn has a seat built into him so I had to composite in a real horse’s “ass” for realism. I added snow using all the methods above and spent days colour toning the image (only to later delete three-quarters of what I'd done). Lollipop Land is a magical place to spend time (their high teas are great fun) so do visit if you get the chance.
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Photoshop brushes are a brilliant way to add interest to your photos but did you know you can use brushes on layer masks? Say, for example, you want to create a bird made of fire, you could take a picture of fire, add a black layer mask to it and then using a bird-shaped brush paint with white on the mask to reveal the fire in just the shape of the bird. Here, let me show you what I mean … [gallery columns="2" link="none" size="medium" ids="2112,2113"]
* Fire stock and bird brush courtesy of DeviantArt.
Yeah, phoenix baby! Using brushes on layer masks you can create a fun dispersion effect that makes your subject look like they're breaking into pieces and scattering away. Perfect for those moments when something really awkward has happened and you wish you could dissolve away into nothing.
My base image[/caption]
Pretty[/caption]
Dispersion effect on liquify layer[/caption]
Bats added[/caption]
One of Photoshop’s coolest features is the ability to customise and import different brushes. Until now you might only have used Photoshop’s standard round brush to paint masks that hide and reveal layers. But if you spend some time with the brush panels you’ll discover that using different brushes not only makes your work easier but will give life to your photography in ways you’d never dreamed were possible. And the best part is you don’t even have to be able to paint or draw! Hooray!
Here are some examples of Photoshop brushes. With a single mouse click I created grass, smoke, the moon, scattered leaves, hair, birds, blood and ink spatters, clouds, stars, fire trees and snow. And that’s just a small sample of the brushes available. You can then customise these further by playing around in the brush options, adding colour, and using the transform tool to move and warp the brush as you desire.
Edit>Fill the canvas with white (if it isn't already). Using black, draw the shape you wish to turn into a brush. Vary the opacity of your brush to give areas of transparency for depth. If you don't like to draw an easier way is to make a selection from another photo and drag that onto your blank canvas. Use Edit>Transform to resize the selection to fit your canvas and then Image>Adjustments>Desaturate. Whatever is white becomes invisible so you may need to go to Image>Adjustments>Invert to swap white to black (and vice versa) and then play around with Image>Adjustments>Brightness/Contrast to get your tones as desired.
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Then go to Edit>Define Brush Preset, name your brush, press OK and your brush will now be at the bottom of the Brush Preset Picker ready to use!
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Define new brush preset[/caption]
If you have Photoshop CC you can also download the Adobe Brush CC app on your phone or tablet to create brushes that sync with Photoshop (although I found it I bit hard to create anything usable).
Shape dynamics[/caption]
Scattering[/caption]
Color dynamics[/caption]
Transfer[/caption]
These are the options you’ll probably use the most but there are other options in the menu you may wish to play around with such as adding texture, noise and wet edges to your brush.
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If you use a tablet with Photoshop you can use the brush panel to control how your pen pressure affects the brush tool so it will mimic your drawing. (I highly recommend using a tablet by the way – I have a small Wacom Intuos Pro which I love but sadly no desk to put it on! So I usually get by without it *sad face*)
Use a Color blending mode to add colour by hand[/caption]
Use gradient map to add a range of colour tones.[/caption]
And that's it for my round up on brushes! Brushes are brilliant in compositing for tasks like drawing hair (because selecting real hair is too difficult), for drawing grass in front of your subject to make them look like they were really in a scene or drawing trees along a horizon line to hide a seam between your foreground layer and a replaced sky. Endless possibilities!
About ‘The Endless Delight of Delirium’
This week’s image is based on the character ‘Delirium’ from the greatest graphic novel series ever written, The Sandman by Neil Gaiman. I’ve always wanted to create a photo around Delirium because she’s so visually interesting, often surrounded by fish and butterflies (and sometimes frogs and bubbles). Because each of the Sandman comics was illustrated by a different artist the appearance of the characters change, so in researching this image I looked at many different interpretations of Delirium and designed my costume around the common elements. For example she has red hair, sometimes shaved on one side, sometimes with stripes of colour. She has one green and one blue eye. She is always wearing fishnets, and sometimes mismatched socks and a tutu. Watercolour and swirls are used to allude to her delirious mental state. I shot the images of myself and the bubbles in my garage with a Speedlite.
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The brushes I found in various places on the Internet but after they were added I felt the image lacked depth so I composited in some real photos of fish I photographed at Underwater World, Mooloolaba and butterflies photographed at Penang Butterfly Farm in Malaysia. The background is a paper texture from Lost & Taken.
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Composited fish and butterflies[/caption]
Working on this image was a joy from start to finish. Let me know what you think!
A little known fact about me is that I’m a bit obsessed with miniatures. There’s just something about dioramas, terrariums and the work of artists like Thomas Doyle, Slinkachu, and Lori Nix that thrill me beyond explanation. Because of this I went through a fun phase of photographing Smurfs and other toys around my house. But now with the help of compositing I can use myself instead of figurines to insert into small scenes, instantly turning everyday objects into magical worlds. There’s not a single object that doesn’t become significantly more interesting by the addition of a tiny person interacting with it. [gallery size="medium" columns="4" ids="1995,1997,1996,1994"] For example, I am staring at a water bottle. If I put a small person in that scene I could show them jumping to try and reach the lid, I could place it on its side and have a person drinking or bathing in the spill of water, I could have someone trapped inside the bottle. Instantly, one of the most dull objects in the world becomes something fascinating. It’s a really fun exercise and I encourage you to give it a go. Even the least creative people would be hard-pressed not to come up with SOMETHING.
I couldn't use a telephoto this time because my scene (bottom left) was too close to a wall.[/caption]
A macro lens isn't necessary but if your scene is quite tiny it would certainly help you get in close enough. If space allows I like to use a telephoto lens positioned far back from the scene but zoomed right in close because this gives good focus where I want it and a nice blurry background to remove distractions.
Find your focus. You can’t exactly have someone stand in the scene for you while you find focus so put something in your scene to focus on. A small human shaped toy is ideal because it helps later to find the right sizing for your person and also because the shadow it casts can possibly be used in the final image, but do remember to remove the toy from the scene once you’ve found and locked your focus so you can take your main blank shot.
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My scene - I just focused on the ground where I knew the girl would go.[/caption]
When you’re happy with the scene you’ll need to shoot your person. To preserve your sanity my suggestion is to try and shoot them in the same area so the light matches and you won’t have to do a tonne of work in post to make them fit. You’ll also need to shoot them from a similar angle. If you shot your scene from above you’ll need to shoot your person from above. When starting out I’d advise shooting both your person and your scene directly on. For this week’s image I shot my scene very low to the ground but still slightly above where my subject would be so I also shot the image of myself close to the ground but slightly above (although in retrospect I didn’t get high enough). To keep things easy for yourself have your subject pose in a way that is mainly flat to the camera. For my image this week I had myself laying straight and parallel to camera so I knew my whole body would be in focus. Had I laid with my head close to camera and my feet far away then I would have had some real issues with focus.
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The subject shot[/caption]
Be mindful of where your subject is positioned to avoid any colour casts. For example, the ground of my scene was primarily brown rocks and mulch. I couldn’t fit myself into that same space to shoot the subject image so I had to shoot myself lying on grass nearby. I knew that grass would not only give my skin a green colour cast but that parts of it would obscure my body and since there’s no grass in my scene these would need to be removed. To avoid unnecessary work I instead lay on a brown coloured towel so the colours would match. This sort of forethought is so important when creating composited images to save headaches later.
If the subject will be interacting with an object in the miniature try and recreate this in the full size scene, for example, if I want my person leaning against that water bottle then have them lean against a bookcase or a wall.
I’ve always been fascinated with Bowerbirds and in particular the Satin Bowerbird which collects blue objects to surround their bower. Having never seen one in person I researched pictures on the Internet and created my own bower using sticks collected from my backyard, stuck into polystyrene and surrounded with mulch, and even with opposable thumbs it's still nowhere near as good as the beak created version. I then had great fun collecting blue objects from around the house. Those with a keen eye will spot a smurf amongst the collection. The ridiculous irony in this is that a week later I was holidaying at Binna Burra in Lamington National Park and actually got to see a REAL bowerbird bower. Oh life, you’re so hilarious.
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A real bower with a poor blue collection.[/caption]
The scene is a two shot expansion stitched together. I've had a terrible time making the girl fit and only just now realised that it's because she's too flat so I need to warp her midsection so it sits lower. However because I've done so much work to the image I'd practically have to start again to fix it. It's a good lesson that not every image will work so don't feel too blue about it (badum tish).
The wonderful thing about compositing is that you're no longer limited by size so, not only can you make people small, you can also turn water features into waterfalls and rocks into mountains so don't forget to utilise this handy trick in your future work.
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Ugh[/caption]
A few week’s ago armed with my camera, my mother (who was convinced I was going to get murdered) and a $20 piece of fabric I disappeared into a forest to try and build a dress. But we got there too early and the sun was all wrong and I had to shoot all the components three different times because although I kept moving out of the sun the sun kept following me and my props weren’t working and the mosquitoes kept biting and my makeshift dress kept falling off and tripping me, and really, the whole thing was just a disaster. And it makes me wonder how many photos are born out of similar stories. Certainly most of mine.
However, were I a more emotional person, I would probably weep with joy on a daily basis at Photoshop’s magical powers. Honestly, I don’t know why they haven’t changed their motto to … “It turns out you CAN shine sh*t!’ Because so often I’ve taken a photo I wasn’t feeling good about and watched Photoshop transform it into something well beyond expectation. For example, I can buy a $20 piece of fabric, throw it around in a forest and manage to create a beautiful, unique, priceless dress fit for any mosquito-bitten princess.
Hair flick horror[/caption]
In both cases I had some images where the colour and luminance of one flick was wildly different to the colour of the others so I had to clip an adjustment layer to the problem images Alt click between the adjustment and image layers) and use curves or levels to make them match.
For some areas of the dress I wanted it to look as if there were many panels of fabric flying in different directions but usually I like the dress to look like it’s fully intact, so to blend your fabric together add layer masks to each fabric flick and using a low opacity and very soft brush, mask away parts of the fabric until it blends into the underlying fabric layers. Best to work through the layers one at a time while switching the other layers off. Sometimes the healing and spot healing brushes work great for blending fabric also. Just use them to paint along the seams. Be mindful to assess the direction of light in your image and how shadows are falling and ensure to replicate this in your dress.
The easiest way I’ve found to blend hair together is to vary using a brush of soft to medium hardness on a low opacity to brush around your hairs (and because I always work non-destructively I paint on the layer mask, not the layer itself). It’s not foolproof but it’s generally good enough.
If your hair is giving you real grief you can also sample a colour of the hair (alt click with paint brush tool) and use the smudge tool to paint fake hair in, or use a specially designed brush for the purpose of drawing in hair such as the one at this link.
The thing I most love about using hair and dress flicks in my images is that it adds that extra element of magic to your story by bringing motion to a static image and turning your hair and dress into characters of their own.
Whenever I’m travelling and have time to kill in my hotel room I like to try and take a conceptual photograph because … well, that’s what everyone does, right? Finding private locations to shoot conceptual photos in is one of the biggest difficulties of this type of photography so it’s always a bonus to have a new location all to yourself.
The challenge though, is trying to come up with a concept in limited time when you’re unlikely to have fancy costumes on hand and the most inspiring prop within reach is some free body products and, if you’re somewhere REALLY ritzy, a pair of terry towelling slippers.
For me, the obvious choice in this situation is to take a ‘multiplicity’ photo where you lock down your camera, take photos of yourself posing all over the room and then combine them later in Photoshop. Taking cloned photos of yourself is about the most fun you can have with a camera, even if seeing yourself duplicated many times over is ultimately horrifying.
Since you’ve mastered masking after last week’s lesson, the post production for multiplicity images is pretty easy. It’s just a matter of laying all your photos on top of each other and using masks to reveal yourself in each photo, and because the camera hasn’t moved this is usually a breeze.
And for god's sake, don't be so stupid to photograph a multiplicity image in front of flashing Christmas lights that change colour.[/caption]
The photographs that make up my multiplicity image[/caption]
I shot my multiplicity image at a koala conservation park ten minutes from my house (they grow trees here to feed koalas, but there’s no koalas just hanging out, sadly). I can’t find any information about it on the Internet so it’s a bit mysterious. I live in a state whose slogan is “beautiful one day, perfect the next” (even though there’s a severe storm baring down on us as I write this) so getting the overcast light I like is damn near impossible. This was shot on a semi-cloudy day in a bit of a rush with my assistant (mum) pressing the shutter because I was too far away for my remote to register. I chose the idea of the clones playing hide and seek because I liked the idea of having them interact in some way without actually touching.
How to edit a multiplicity image
Add layer mask[/caption]
Make sure your main image is at the bottom of the layers panel and hold down Alt (PC) or Option (Mac) and click the eyeball of this layer so it turns off all your other layers. Multiplicity edits can get confusing so label your layers and work on a layer at a time. Turn the eyeball back on for the layer above and click the ‘Add layer mask’ button. This should add a white mask to the layer so it’s still fully visible. Then, as we learned last week press B to choose the brush tool then D to make it the default colours, and X to bring black to the front. Paint over the areas you want to hide in your image. If you make a mistake, hit X again to bring white to the front and paint over the problem area to bring it back. This can take a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to get right. As you work through your layers it might become easier to invert your mask (make it black) so nothing of that layer is visible (Ctrl+i / Cmd+i) and just paint back in the portion you need.
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Masks for multiplicity[/caption]
Because your background is static and only your subjects have moved your masks don’t have to be perfect because your surroundings should align perfectly. But for trickier overlapping clones you may need to work on fine detail with your selection tools. I won’t go into detail about this here because selection tools can fill a whole book but there’s plenty of great articles and videos out there to get you up to speed. Otherwise, zoom into your image and using a brush with a hardness that matches the edges in the photos, do some very precise painting around your clones. If you’re also finding colour changes between your layers I would add either a levels or curves adjustment layer and clip it to your problem layer (Alt or Option click between the adjustment layer and the layer you want to affect to clip them together so the change will only affect that layer and not all underlying layers) then change the colours and brightness to match the background layer. Levels and curves default to RGB colour but if you go into the drop down menu you can change this to be colour specific ie. blue/yellow, green/magenta, red/cyan.
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You can even clone body parts![/caption]
While multiplicity images are fun to photograph, I’m not a great fan of the results because I find it distracting to have so many subjects in my images. However, multiplicity is a really useful technique for duplicating objects which I’ll cover in a future tutorial.
Now I must go and prepare for this impending storm. If only I had real clones to do my bidding (no playing hide and seek on my watch!)
The majority of people with a functioning camera will at some point have snapped a panoramic photo—a process that involves swivelling the body from side to side while taking a series of photos to capture the full range of a scene so beautiful it can’t be contained. (That last bit felt like it needed to be in bold.)
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'A Bridge Just Right' by Ryan Brenizer[/caption]
Then a cunning fellow named Ryan Brenizer started using this technique for portraits, but instead of just moving side to side he moved up and down and all around while using a wide aperture to create a very shallow depth of field, and stitched the photos together later in Photoshop. Thus, the Brenizer Method was born, while Internet forums went crazy with green-eyed monsters claiming to have invented the technique first. (Those people tend to call this technique ‘bokehrama’ or ‘panoramic stitching’ because agreeing on one name is apparently too difficult.) A Google image search of any of these terms will fill your screen with examples aplenty but this one by Ryan Brenizer himself seems to be the most common example. And damn right, it’s a stunner.
50mm f/1.4 Brenizer Method[/caption]
Let’s say you’re out shooting but you only have a telephoto lens with you. Then someone says “Look at this amazing sunset! Please photograph me in front of it so I can impress my Facebook pals!” With a telephoto lens you’ll only be able take a head and shoulders portrait and miss the sunset entirely OR you’ll have to move so far away from your subject to fit everything in that they’ll barely be recognisable. The Brenizer Method lets you keep your subject close and intimate but still include as much of the scene as you want.
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Same tree with wide angle lens - the subject would be further away[/caption]
And because you’re using a wide aperture the background will be lovely and creamy and blurry so the background isn’t competing with your subject but is still adding interest and context to the scene. If you’d just used a wide angle lens your subject would be farther away than this technique allows (which is what you were thinking right?)
Individual shots[/caption]
When you’re ready take your main shot and then start taking your surrounding shots using a 40% overlap. It’s good to get into the practice of shooting in a pattern, ie in rows back and forth, but if you’re like me you’ll just shoot all around and hope for the best. Shoot slowly and be careful to ensure you have enough coverage. Another really helpful tip which I always forget to do is take a picture of your hand before the sequence and after the sequence to make it easier to identify in post.
While you’re shooting your surrounding shots it’s best not to change the camera’s position but to swivel it up, across and down from one point as if it’s anchored to a tripod (if it’s not already). I made the terrible mistake of removing my camera from my tripod and stepping side to side then shooting above my head and down low. In my mind this made the most sense, like piecing together a puzzle. But in doing so my horizon line was changing which meant putting together my final image was a nightmare I intend never to repeat.
Layer mask button[/caption]
When this process is done you’ll get an image with white lines throughout showing you the stitch points. Flattening the image removes the lines but you want to leave this until the very end. They are quite handy guides to show you where a stitch occurred so you can follow it along and check you’re happy with the results. If you’re not happy add a layer mask to the problem layer with the button at the bottom of your tools palette and either add more or remove some until the seams look realistic (more on this next lesson).
You will likely come across areas where perspective shifts (areas that won’t line up) have occurred so you’ll need to select the problem spot and use the warp tool (Edit -> Transform -> Warp) to pull areas into place.
By swivelling the camera side to side you may end up with gaps at the top and bottom of each seam. You can fill these areas in using the clone stamp or content aware fill or just crop them out.
I worked on this shot for WEEKS to make the stitches look convincing, all because I hadn’t swivelled my camera and because I’d chosen such a difficult subject to stitch. I was also relatively new to Photoshop so everything took twice as long. If I can do it, so can you.
This is a technique I use in almost all my conceptual photos, although I usually use 9 photos or less and avoid using such a wide aperture because it makes it too difficult to find accurate focus for self-portraits. If you are interested in trying this technique I’d also suggest starting small and don’t make the same stupid mistakes I did! Taking one for the team. :)
Here's another example, photographed the same day:
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Final image: The Road Less Travelled[/caption]
How often have you looked at a photo and thought, ‘how did they do that?’ Among a sea of selfies and food shots some photographs are so intriguing or beautiful that they demand your attention and make you wonder. But what might be a fleeting interest for some, for me is an obsession. I don’t usually pull things apart to see how they tick but knowing the tricks the great photographers use enhances the magic for me rather than ruining it. And after years of studying these techniques I want to share them with you so that you too can appreciate the process of creation and not just the end product. And so the ‘Exposing Illusions’ blog will see me attempt, and no doubt sometimes fail, to reproduce a photography technique each week.
My journey with photography began in high school where I spent a semester studying black and white photography before quickly realising that spending time in a stuffy dark room with a bunch of unpredictable chemicals wasn’t my idea of a good time (nightclubs excluded). Besides, back then I was more a video girl, all colour and movement, a clunky VHS video camera glued to my shoulder which eventually led to a passionate but brief career as a video editor (and probably all this back pain).
When digital photography came along I was gifted a point and shoot and proceeded to point it and shoot snaps of every willing subject. It was then that I discovered I had an eye for the vaguely interesting and this, really, is the essence of good photography - immortalising the interesting.
Now I’m the kind of person who struggles to be good at anything because I’m too impatient and if I can’t be good right away then what’s the damn use in trying. And if you’re one of these people too, I suggest you pick up a camera because cameras today are clever enough to do the hard stuff for you, which you’re not going to get from a painting or an instrument. All you need is an eye for composition and the ability to press a button and hey presto! you can trick your brain into thinking you’re already good at something and then it’s only natural to want to improve.
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The first ever photo I took with a digital camera in 2006.[/caption]
When my dad outgrew his first DSLR it became mine (cue heavenly music) and like many I was content for awhile to use my camera on full automatic mode. Even though some photographers would disagree, I believe that using your camera, whatever it may be, in auto mode is an important step in learning to hone your vision without getting weighed down by the technicality of your camera. Honestly, my non-technical brain screamed in pain every time I made efforts to understand the exposure triangle or depth of field and these concepts rattled around in my brain for years before they eventually clicked and made sense. If I’d had to understand these concepts before I ever picked up a camera than I would have given away this photography lark eons ago.
Most people are content to stay in auto and that’s perfectly fine for documenting personal events and pretty scenes but I started to get REALLY annoyed by blur and poor focus and so I put myself in the hands of the professionals and took a couple of half day beginner photography classes to learn how to control my camera manually and it was then that I became utterly hooked.
If this were a film, it’d be here you’d see the montage – me pouring over every photography book and magazine I could get my hands on, trooping around the backyard shooting everything in sight, pages flying off the calendar as I scoured the Internet and YouTube for anything vaguely photography related, crying over my bank balance when I see how much I’ve spent on photography gear (that point and shoot is a gateway drug – you’ve been warned), ending in me staring at a blank Word document wondering how to put all this passion into words.
I’ve shot it all - weddings, portraits, events, landscapes, bands, wildlife, macro, travel, street - and 95% of my photos have never been seen by another human because I’m too much of a perfectionist to share them.
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But it’s conceptual photography—the art of using models and props and lighting and Photoshop—that truly thrills me because it’s no longer enough for me to merely document; I want to create, and make magic a reality, even if just in photographic form. Each week I hope to get better and wiser and pass on what I’ve learnt to you, so I can give back to the community that’s taught me so much. And, if nothing else, I learn by making mistakes so this could potentially be a very amusing experiment.
And thus, the ‘Exposing Illusions’ blog is born. *cut the red ribbon – cue applause*
Are you ready to peek behind the curtain?
While it’s currently the height of summer in the only hemisphere that (supposedly) matters, where I live in Australia it’s so cold that the state I live in saw snow for the first time in 30 years. When faced with the prospect of driving 2.5 hours to photograph said snow OR hibernating under blankets, I […]
Photoshop brushes are a brilliant way to add interest to your photos but did you know you can use brushes on layer masks? Say, for example, you want to create a bird made of fire, you could take a picture of fire, add a black layer mask to it and then using a bird-shaped brush […]
One of Photoshop’s coolest features is the ability to customise and import different brushes. Until now you might only have used Photoshop’s standard round brush to paint masks that hide and reveal layers. But if you spend some time with the brush panels you’ll discover that using different brushes not only makes your work easier but will give […]
A little known fact about me is that I’m a bit obsessed with miniatures. There’s just something about dioramas, terrariums and the work of artists like Thomas Doyle, Slinkachu, and Lori Nix that thrill me beyond explanation. Because of this I went through a fun phase of photographing Smurfs and other toys around my house. But […]
A few week’s ago armed with my camera, my mother (who was convinced I was going to get murdered) and a $20 piece of fabric I disappeared into a forest to try and build a dress. But we got there too early and the sun was all wrong and I had to shoot all […]
Whenever I’m travelling and have time to kill in my hotel room I like to try and take a conceptual photograph because … well, that’s what everyone does, right? Finding private locations to shoot conceptual photos in is one of the biggest difficulties of this type of photography so it’s always a bonus to have […]
The majority of people with a functioning camera will at some point have snapped a panoramic photo—a process that involves swivelling the body from side to side while taking a series of photos to capture the full range of a scene so beautiful it can’t be contained. (That last bit felt like it needed to […]
How often have you looked at a photo and thought, ‘how did they do that?’ Among a sea of selfies and food shots some photographs are so intriguing or beautiful that they demand your attention and make you wonder. But what might be a fleeting interest for some, for me is an obsession. I don’t […]
