Back in February, I created several self-portraits using only lights from around my house. I wanted an exercise in something outside of my current comfort zone and to challenge myself to get back to my photography roots.
This article is about how you don't always need fancy lights for photo shoots: I recently shot the outdoor nighttime fantasy photo above, titled "The SpellBinder" and featuring Kara Markley, using only the light from candles and iPhone flashlights.
One of my absolute favorite things to do in Photoshop is to play with lighting effects. Whether that be to make something glow, create a spotlight sort of effect, or set my hands on fire, I'm always so impressed with the many ways Photoshop allows you to alter lighting.
Because of the skills I've gathered for bending light to my liking, I no longer look at an image I've taken and think, "Oh man, I wish I would have brought some flash equipment with me so there could be light spilling through the archway from behind her." I now just think, "Wouldn't it be simply fantastic to have some magical light coming from behind her? Yes, yes it would... I think I'll add some."
I had kind of a hard time coming up with an appropriate title for this post... I'm still not totally sure if it conveys what I'm trying to show you today. As you may hopefully have guessed by looking at my new image, I'm going to be talking about how I made the shadow that the eagle is casting. The problem was I couldn't really call this post, "How to Create Long Shadows Cast By A Subject That Is Suspended In An Epic Beam Of Light." It's just a bit too wordy... So anyway this is how I did it!
Before I get into the nitty gritty details of how this piece came together, I would just like you all to take a minute to appreciate how very talented Mackenzie Johnson is. (She is the model for this photo, and happens to be a YouTube-singer-songwriter in case you were unaware.) Not only did she do her own hair/makeup/wardrobe and model like boss, but she even actually played and sang for this photo.
Staring into a mirror and taking a self-portrait with a camera is nothing new. People have been trying to find ways to take their photographs since the 19th century. As humans, we take an interest in ourselves - a curiosity with a dash of self-obsession. A photograph can acknowledge our existence and allow us to view ourselves from the standpoint of others around us. Here are a collection of mirror self-portraits from years passed.
Ok, let's just be honest for a second here: everyone and everything in the world looks drastically cooler with wings. Period. It's just the way it is.
In middle school when I was heavily into my "drawing magical fantasy creatures" phase (it never ended by the way... just ask my sketchbook), I used to check out this "how to draw animals" book from the library all the time. Really they should have just given it to me, I had it checked out so often.
Today, I'm going to show you how to create a dress from scratch out of something that was not a dress... at all. Here are five steps to creating a gown using Photoshop.
Selfie, schmelfie! How self-absorbed do you really have to be to spend all of 20 seconds pointing a phone at yourself and tapping a few buttons? But a process that requires up to 15 minutes of statue-still posing, exposure to hazardous chemicals and construction of custom camera? Now that's something worth bragging about.
So all hail pioneering American photographer Robert Cornelius, whose rough but certainly recognizable image, taken mere months after Louis Daugerre revealed his daguerrotype process in 1839, is undoubtedly the world's first photographic self-portrait and may even be the first photographic portrait of any kind.
In 1839, a year after the first photo containing a human being was made, photography pioneer …