Model is Svala Jónsdóttir, some of you might recognize her from a while back as I have submitted photos of her before.
Hundreds of years ago the laws here in Iceland were very different and at Althingi, that was then held at Þingvellir, several women were drowned for no bigger "crime" than having a child out of wedlock, some others for witchcraft. They were tied into a sack and thrown into Drekkingarhylur or "The Drowning pool" wich you see there behind Svala.
Idea behind the shoot was to make Svala into somewhat of a witch and shoot her at this location. Makeup and hair by Henný as usual. Lighting was one bowens monolight with a 75° softlite reflector. Those little black spots on the photo is not sensor dust, it was swarming with flies and considering the feel of the photo, there was no way I was going to clone them out even though I am sure I´ll get comments about me "forgetting to remove them" during voting.
Realized as I was processing this that I took it during friday the 13th, wierd huh?
Editing was somewhat but not as much as you would think. First I did raw conversion where I set contrast, WB and saturation, then I made two files out of one raw file and blended together to get more dynamic range, mainly darken the sky and brighten the dark parts of the photo, such as her dress and cliffs around her. Almost desaturated her as I wanted that gray skin tone to make her seem more like a witch, added some vignetting, curves for contrast and finally sharpened after resizing.
Statistics
Place: 15 out of 651 Avg (all users): 6.8366 Avg (commenters): 7.8667 Avg (participants): 6.7120 Avg (non-participants): 7.3929 Views since voting: 3733 Views during voting: 378 Votes: 153 Comments: 26 Favorites: 12 (view)
You are absolutely right, I should have asked Henny to make her up like a barbie doll, now THAT would have fitted really well with the theme of the shot :P
effing fantastic. I assume those spots in the sky are intentional, but I wish there were even more of them or none at all. great work though, this better get in the top 10!
Great picture. Very sharp. The colors of the model match well, but not so sure about the heels and dress as well as the not wind-blown but with a few strands somehow flying out hair. Still an 8 for a very dramatic picture. I wonder why the title isn't in bold.
Are those dirt specks in the sky? I am surprised you did not clone them out. A very unusual photo, my favourite part is the sky (without the dirt specks).
YES!!!!! I just saw this in your flckr album and was completely baffled as to why I hadn't seen this in a challenge yet. Personally I like the one where she is in the water better, but still this is PHENOMINAL! as usual I love your lighting and I also really liked your back story on the myth associated with this place. The makeup is cool but I think it looks better in the other picture where her face is a little darker. so yeah, definitely going to have to give you a 10 on this one.
Great job with the lighting here, i actually am about 99% sure this is Larus' shot, you know you're good when people can recognize your work during voting, great shot, 10 from me
Well done Larus, though I must admit, I didn't know what the drowning pool was before reading your description over on photo.net. I hope for your score's sake the other voters are smarter than me :)
Wow, this is a powerful image. Even down to the way the wind is whipping the water in the background. Well done here except for the small balck specs. Dust on the lens? Or something flying in the air. Either way it takes my vote of 9 down to a 7.
Edit. Seeing that those are flies around her, I am bumping the score back up to a 9 where it belongs.
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