Don't quite know what made me think of this but I thought of it fast. Did a little research in some of the DPC tutorials and tried out my first double exposure type shot.
I set up a black sheet in my garage for the backdrop. The white bar down the middle is some leftover pvc pipe from making our lightbox. I used a 20 second shutter speed on a timer shot to allow for me to move and for the flash to recharge. My wife held and fired the flash when I needed her to. The first fire was for my profile shot and the second fire was for the full face. I had little glow in the dark stars on the floor to tell me where to place my feet as it was pitch black between flashes. I got this on the 6th shot or so. I was quite stunned at the clarity of the shot.
Post processing - rotated, layer masked everything separate - heads, shirts, middle pole and signs. Each layer has a variety of burning, sat & desat, dodging, sharpening, and cloning. Gaussian blur on the background to soften any wrinkles in the sheet. Cropped and bordered, dodged the pole again, save for web, NeatImage (I am too cheap to pay for the full version so I NI the websize shot)and unsharpen mask again.
I wanted to have height markers but decided it would be too tough. The numbers on my id marker are my DPC user id number, the date I joined DPC and todays date. I will probably just go ahead and send this in first night to get validated. I dont want any low votes because they think I cheated. I dont expect to ribbon but I do expect a handful of comments. This was a fun experiment.
Here is a copy of my original.
Statistics
Place: 66 out of 236 Avg (all users): 6.2526 Avg (commenters): 7.0769 Avg (participants): 5.8779 Avg (non-participants): 6.5714 Views since voting: 2764 Views during voting: 607 Votes: 285 Comments: 54 Favorites: 1 (view)
Very clever setup... and little glow in the dark stars so you knew where to stand... brilliant! Great double exposure shot! Thanks for taking the time to share the setup with the rest of us! Well done! :)
Camera Work/Technical: Very creative, one of the most creative of the challenge. This is a wonderfully executed double exposure, and it scored pretty well due to that fact.
Lighting: The flash looks a little harsh for the image on the left, but near flawless for the right hand image.
Composition/Content: Again, very interesting and very creative. Great job with post-processing to finish with a very nice image.
My Opinion: I like it. I think that it scored pretty close to its potential, and you ended up with another well-deserved 6+.
This is a great double exposure, very creative and technically very good despite the difficulties of the double exposure, especially wrt lighting. The expressions are priceless.
The only criticism really is the skewed label in the top left of the left half. OTher than that, its pretty much perfect imho.
Trading post...
I thought you did a great job with this. Very clever too! The lighting was great, I figured it was a double exposure or it would have been DQ'd. I really like your expressions.
I wasn't wild about this shot, but now reading what you went through to get it, it deserves a better score than the 5 I gave it. The left photo flash was a bit strong giving too much reflection off your face and neck. (but here again, it's terrific for what you went through).
Clever use of PVC pipe. I can't wait to see what you do with Duct tape.
Trading Post comment
Pretty durn clever! I love the idea of the glow in the dark stars to find your spot to stand on. I'd figured out the member number thing - also very clever. I appreciate you including the original shot and the info on all the post processing - it's very interesting to see just how much that adds. In this case, it gave a richness and depth to the picture, in my opinion. Finally, as a self portrait it tells me you're a fun-loving, quirky kinda guy with a great sense of humor.
I THOUGHT this was you dude! Love it! Such a great expression. Terrific use of lighting to establish the mood too. HA Great job! Man, you are on a steep learning curve!
don't stress man...mine got 21 votes 4 and under and it came in second. There's no point trying to figure that stuff out...it'll just make you crazy. the good news is it happens to all the images, so it all kind of evens out in the end. like you said...anything over 6 is a good score, so be pleased that you did that with a really creative image.:)
The validated thing is important on this one :} I love the idea and the expression! I suppose on of these is a photo already unless you somehow block the sensor on one side. Interested to see how this was done :) 8
Man, looks like you're on a roll! This is funny and creative. The bg might be a little darker than I'd expect to see on a mugshot; but I'm amazed that you were able to do this with a single exposure. Keep up the good work.
you really should not have your true DPC id number on the sign as it breaks the anonymity that we try to maintain here. Cute idea. Hope you didtn use two images to make this or it'll get dq'd
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