Last week, I spent much of my time shooting and re-shooting, me dressed up as a Viking but even whilst I was shooting that. My mind was wondering off down a rabbit hole, wondering, could I do a shot that was completely the opposite of the viking shot but in some ways very similar.

Idea
I very quickly thought about modernising the situation, instead of an old game, I would use a modern glass chess board (fortunately, I had one in the loft). I decided that the shot would be high key and colour. Instead of a gritty stare, I would go for a full on rant. I had originally though about smashing the chess pieces of the board but I was worried I would end up with broken glass every where.

Lighting
So setting up this shot was the biggest challenge. I decided to use an Octa with my key light, which gives a soft light. I also had 2 strip boxes as rim lights and 2 large white boards on either side bouncing some of the rim light back. I then had a diffused flash lighting a white background.

Framing and lens

I used my tried and trusty D800 to create the image. Initially, I put a 35mm onto the camera but I couldn’t get the shot to work. I then, tried a 58mm, which was even worse. I then remembered I have a 16-35mm lens (which I have never used) and decided to try that. In the end I settled on 24mm . There were a couple of big issues going wider. I have a relatively small studio space and I was at the edges of the white background (actually beyond, which I had to fix in post). Getting the right distance between my head and the camera for it not to seem too small.

The big advantage of a wider lens, is you can create an awkward looking shot. There is very little compression. So looking angry and filling the frame came down to how close I could get to the camera. This enlarged my head and hand in comparison to my body..

The pointing hand, happened because I wanted something close to the camera and I couldn’t get my head close enough. I had the hand pointing above the camera because you could see it better than just pointing it at the camera.

My hair is naturally, a bit chaotic and I kept having to try and fluff it out, to make the character look haggard.

As for the facial expression, I just imagined, I was shouting at someone. The drink was the final touch (and it is real whiskey (unfortunately, I don’t drink now days) but I thought that the colour of the whiskey would add something, as would the glass.

Post production
Editing, took over two hours. I was all about brightening the image. I also cropped a little from the bottom and added a small amount at the top. I played around with various settings, adding a little contrast and then did some masking, to bring up some of the shadows.

I then took the image into Photoshop. The first thing I did was to make the background all white, which was harder than you would imagine. Getting the edges right was easy but unfortunately, the top 10% was in shadow and created a line across the image, which I had to remove, with dodge tool. I then started working on the details, getting the skin tones right and removing anything odd looking. Again, I played around with light and contrast, as well as changing the colour tones slightly, giving the image a slight green tinge.

As you can see, the first image and the final image are very different, with the final image having much more of a artistic feel to it.

Overall, I have to say I am very pleased with the result. I always wanted the image to be stylised and I think it works extremely well.

*Update.

I recently entered the above image into the Master Photographers Association monthly qualified contest and came away with a silver. Which is very impressive considering that it was the first time I entered (and was qualified).

Contrast to create (Creating a stand out image)