A really simple setup: wear black jeans, a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, another black shirt over my head with a black hat to hold it in place. Take the picture with a flash so no background appears. Set timer, run up to railing, jump on top, get into position and try not to fall over the other side as there is some nasty shrubbery below. And try to ignore the worried glances from classmates.
Post-processing: use curves to send every near-black and dark gray to black (this takes care of most of me and the background). Then the usual tweaks (crop, usm, etc.).
A few people have been telling me to crop out more of the railing, but I think that giving my guitar with arms a context really makes the strangeness of the image that much more startling--the guitar is actually floating above the ground as opposed to merely being an abstract image. The railing itself looks strange and ancient in this context.
This was a rush job though and I really wish I had used
instead. It just works better with the streetlamp causing the guitar to cast a shadow on the pedastal, thus furthering the illusion that the guitar is floating and playing of its own accord. (Plus, in my submission, you can see that part of my left elbox got behind my knee). What happened was that I took the picture the night before the submission phase was over and starting the weeding and post-processing the next night around 8:30pm. Unfortunately, I live in California and the DPC server is on the East Coast. Thus the submission phase ends at 9pm my time instead of midnight. I agonized over my submission for about twenty minutes and then just closed my eyes and pressed submit.
seeing the full ellbow of the left hand looks like resting on knee -- and less of the right arm would have worked better for me.
But still a really neat original idea !
Great concept. I like it a lot. I think possible improvement would have been to wear a sleeve that came down to the elbow, and if it didn't blow the effect, a closer shot would be better IMO.
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