My first ribbon this year. I thought there was a curse on it! But maybe the curse is on my top scores - I thought that a 7.6+ could be enough to win, but I was wrong.
At the end of the first day I almost had 100 votes, so my 7.7+ score was not due to early voters. I was lucky to be away so I didn't consume the update button. After 20-30 votes the score has never gone under 7.50. Very few hours before rollover my score was 7.67 and then it dropped just a little but enough to lose the first place.
This is one of the most difficult images I've ever done. I thought of this shot for the entire week. A few hours before rollover I had no idea how I can do it. I had the lights set up, the model (my niece), the canvas (it's a photo I had taken in Seville a couple of years ago) and the general idea, but I couldn't find a way to convey the idea of levitation without using expert editing ruleset.
Then something changed. I suddenly understood how the Japanese photographer got those images (or at least I found what I was missing): that kind of shots was impossible with a simple leap – the face can't be relaxed and above all the feet can't stay in that position for a long time and during a regular jump. She uses double exposures, or if she doesn't, she uses magic :)
But what interested me was the position of the feet. So I assumed that the only way in advanced to get it, was having her on a chair. All was covered with a black background and behind it there was Davide, her boyfriend, who helped her to stay in equilibrium.
This was not enough. Doing everything in black was easy but it couldn't work. I needed something to convey the concept of depth. So I thought of the baseboard. It's not on the wall – it's fake. It's between the tripod with the canvas and the girl. So there's a sort of optical illusion that works in deceiving the viewer. I should've used this concept for the Fool the viewer challenge (where I used the same model).
I wanna thank Alessia and Davide – we needed 3 hours to get it and it was very late at night! You're great! ^_^
Statistics
Place: 2 out of 86 Avg (all users): 7.6364 Avg (commenters): 8.8750 Avg (participants): 7.0870 Avg (non-participants): 7.7816 Views since voting: 7912 Views during voting: 585 Votes: 220 Comments: 40 Favorites: 5 (view)
Great work Alessandro! I knew I'd see this on the front page. And buried in one of the threads here and also on Natsumi's site is an explanation of how she gets her shots, and from the sounds of it she only does one capture. Mind it IS tough keeping the face relaxed while jumping, but it can be done :-)
Thank you Susan and thank you everybody out there for commenting and voting and congrats to Mike for the blue :)
I'll search for the explanation of her shots. In any case my shot was almost impossible with a leap. It could be dangerous for her, for the canvas and for my house (and for me after the return of my wife ^_^)
Great work Alessandro! I knew I'd see this on the front page. And buried in one of the threads here and also on Natsumi's site is an explanation of how she gets her shots, and from the sounds of it she only does one capture. Mind it IS tough keeping the face relaxed while jumping, but it can be done :-)
Well, now I am truly glad I did not enter as that I had an idea similar to this. Congrats on the ribbon! Fabulous work and hat's off to you with the patience and persistence it took to get the shot. The colors, the lighting, and the mood of the this shot is just pure art.
Your hard work paid off Alessandro. Very well done with planning and taking the time to understand how to execute the process. Congrats on a great score and ribbon!
One of your very best work yet, Alessandro! Love her expression and pose. There is a great flow in this image. It was such a close finish that I think a tiny thing like the background's wrinkles not being ironed out may have cost you the blue here.
This looks like in the style of tanguera. A bit too dark on the near side of her face - maybe even overall. Wish the red in the picture popped a bit more. Very nice positioning of the arms / hands & legs / feet.
Great shot, addresses the challenge wonderfully. I love the rich colour provided by the painting, and the dramatic lighting. One of my two 10s, hope to see it ribbon.
Lovely capture. If you did this by jumping only, I'm very impressed. You've got a very talented jumper. I'm guessing you used a suspension of some sort to get this one? Very nice illusion. This will do well.
The Flying Paintress
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