Category: Children

Another 30+ hours labor of love is ready for showing the world.

MostlyReal are our top product for children photography.  They are incredibly difficult but also fun to pull off because creativity can run wild, and while for our wedding and regular portrait work we use photoshop sparingly in a “you won’t even know it was there” kind of way… MostlyReal portraits allow me to really push the envelope and experiment in ways that are quite frankly the equivalent of leaving a child in a candy store.

With no further ado….  The Fantastic Four:

Yes, that is the same child in every one of the four characters 🙂

This was by far the most ambitious MostlyReal portrait I’ve done as it involved four “characters” rather than the more common one.  That being said, it was a blast to make from start to finish.

We shot on location under a covered area while rain was pouring all around us.  Francesca was fantastic.  I set duct tape on the floor where I needed her to stand for her various poses and she nailed the foot placement, hammed it up like there’s no tomorrow and was an absolute BLAST to photograph!  I was very, very impressed!

Here are a couple of out-takes from the pre-production shoot:

1.  I guess she thought “sexy model pose” meant “show your tush!” … ha ha ha!

feisty firedude she nailed on the first try… she can certainly do feisty all on her own:

Finally, her initial interpretation of “the Thing.”  I loved her expression and all, but the arm placement wouldn’t work with my planned outcome, so I had to go with a less inspired, but more close to plan shot.

For those curious about how the shots were taken… well you can obviously see the shoot-through umbrella.  Opposite the shoot-through I had an unmodified speedlight to act as a kicker/hair light.  The shots were taken with a Canon 70-200 2.8 IS on a Canon 5D mounted on a tripod.  Lights were triggered remotely with Cybersyncs and everything (camera/flashes) were set in Manual.

Once pre-production was complete I took the images back, culled and selected the best shots for the composite.  The Thing and Invisible girl were given their own Smartobject setup… The thing was a LOT of work.  It started out very cartoonish, and then layer upon layer upon layer he got a bit more rock-looking…

Here is what the image looked like once all the masking/cutting of the characters was complete… and I started working on the special effects.  Notice the Things’ legs are still normal-sized …

Below you can see what the image looked like half-way through post-production.  Compared to the end result noticeable differences should be:

The thing is still very cartoonish and is only minorly affected by the fire next to him.  The fire is igniting mid-body without the flame starter at the bottom.  The Fire dude and Ms. Fantastic (far right) still have their suits very bright, the suits don’t have decorations.

Once again, the final result (for those who may want to compare it to the shot above)

If you’re interested in having a Mostly Real portrai done for a special child in your life, please contact us with your idea so that we may brainstorm it together and see what needs to be done to make your vision a reality.

Special thanks to Nadia for helping with adjusting the lights and directing Francesca, and to Lisette for hair styling.

Note:  This entry was actually published on October 17th, 2009.  I’m backfilling the blog with work that I had never gotten around to adding to the blog.  I dated this June 15th simply because we had taken some time off in June and most of july due to the birth of our baby Marco

Two hours of photography, countless hours of Photoshop… and Little Devil is here.

Like Little Angel before it, Little Devil is a ManyManyMoments Signature product for childen’s photography.  While we’re happy to make creative portraits of your little ones in the great outdoors, or in your home or any other special place, MostlyReal Portraits do hold a special place in our heart as they allow us to blend together the delicious gorgeousness of your little one with the fantastic world of imaginaton.

Unlike Little Angel, which did not have specific preproduction photography, but rather was based on a “found image” (shot by us of course), Little Devil was the first MostlyReal portrait that were conceived from the very beginning in most of it’s final detail and that therefore had specifically planned preproduction photography.  Of course children being the unpredictable beings that they are means both that the end result is not going to be exactly as planned, and also that it’s going to be better.

For instance in the case of Little Devil, the little Devil holding his own tail was NOT planned ahead of time, but rather the result of our fabulous model putting his left hand in that position when we simply asked him to hold up his right (for the planned flame).

Here are some shots from pre-production:

I don’t want to sit.. I want to crawl!  I love to crawl!!!

 Yet more proof that when we let the model be himself the result is much better.  Here he was essentially copying the pose I was suggesting to him.  Mouth expression and all.

But notice… seconds later… on his own… hand as I suggested, other hand ready to grab the virtual tail (all on his own)… and an expression to die for, which made the Little Devil the adorable image it is.  And yes this is the image that would eventually become Little Devil.  Shot in natural light, many thanks to the cloud cover for the fantastic shadowless wrap-around light.

Here is the image, shortly into post-production… cut away from the background, tail, wings, wing structure in place, beggining to work on the clouds behind his back but in front of his wings.

Finally some detail shots to show you just how detailed a MostlyReal portrait is (this one was printed as a 20×30 but would look awesome even at twice that size)

Delicious little feet:

Detail of the tail – and yes the texture on the tail was painstakingly copied from the scales on a snake.

The fire: special effect actually shot during post-production (one of those outdoors torches to keep away bugs), most of the smoke was added in post as a series of special effect layers.

Finally the bits I’m most proud of: the horns and the goatee.  In order to make them realistic I spent a good 15 minutes examining my own hair and facial hair.  Eventually I determined that the only way to pull this off in a way that would look totally real even if inspected much more up close than you see here… was to paint by hand every single strand of hair, constantly sampling the color of my model’s real hair.  I believe I managed to accomplish my goal.

One more time the final image:

    

Note: this image was not created on 6/1/2009.  I am slowly backfilling our blog with content that we had on our previous site and didn’t want this to show up as the latest work.  Plus we were off for a perior of time around June 2009 due to the birth of our baby Marco.

Introducing our very first MostlyReal portrait.

You have been able to see it in our galleries for ages, but this is the first time we show what it looked like before post-production and show some of the images along the way to the final Little Angel.

Here is the final image:

 Unlike later MostlyReal portraits, Little Angel did not have  a preproduction photography session purposely scheduled to create it.  The starting image was a “found” image (shot by us of course) taken while she was playing with her grandmother.

Here is a shot immediatelly before the shot we used in the portrait:

And here is the image that was selected, mainly due to her smile and the reltive ease (compared to the previous image anyway) to separate her from the background.

 Here you can see that I’ve separated her from the background and added catchlights in her eyes.  The funky background was just a way to see if the separation had worked.  I think it had 🙂 … for those unfamiliar with masking in photoshop… few things are more daunting than masking thin strands of hair.  Yeah this one took a LONG time.

Later in post-production she already has wings and the beginning of the cloud she’s sitting on.  The sky is very flat, there’s no halo, her face hasn’t been brought-out with Post-processing and the diffused clouds are missing.

Once again, the final image, for those who might enjoy comparing it to the intermediate step above.

If you would like us to create a MostlyReal portrait for a special child in your life, don’t hesitate to contact us with your vision and we’ll discuss what would need to happen to make your vision a reality.

Updated on 10/17 with significantly larger image and behind the scenes images.

MostlyReal are our top signature product for children photography.  To be blunt they are expensive as heck, compared to a regular portrait, but those who have seen the results in the flesh agree that the money they invested in this lifetime keepsake is more than worth it (and you can rest assured there’s a lot of time poured into these labours of love).

Itsy Bitsy devil is one of the MostlyReal portraits we feature in our portfolio, it never ceases to get compliments.  Of course only the 20×30 print does it any justice.

Today I finished the latest MostlyReal portrait where I painstakingly turned one innocent little 2 year old into Spider-Man, in a New-York setting.

This was a great project which nearly resulted in my getting murdered by Luca’s mom.  In order to get him to match up perspective-wise with my vision of what the final MostlyReal would look like, we had to shoot him, on location in downtown Hollywood using the stage they have set up there as his standing spot, with an umbrella in front of him and a snooted strobe behind him.  Well… the platform looks low enough when you see it from afar… but by the time you plop a 2 year old there you realize he’s well over 6 feet off the ground.  Oh, did I mention there’s no form of railing or anything like that?

Photos taken at ArtsPark in Hollywood, Florida

And now for some behind the scenes…

No, you’re not Superman Luca… no flying off the ledge!  … note the snooted speedlight behind him meant to backlight the right side of his hair

Here’s one that shows the lighting setup:  Large umbrella very close to him used as a shoot-through, and the snooted speedlight you saw above to accent his hair.  No, he wasn’t supposed to touch the umbrella of course… had to rescue the umbrella while making sure I could still catch him if he decided to go for the 6′ jump.  Ah the excitement!

Here’s proof that photography does not in fact capture reality as we often seem to think.  Indeed look at him:  the pure definition of innocence… ah if you only knew the truth of what went on during the shoot!  He is adorabe though, I have to give him that!

The image selected for the MostlyReal Portrait

Below is the image half-way through post-production, the building in the background is missing, the ledge hasn’t been cooled yet to match the ambiance, gloves haven’t been fitted, the outfit’s colors haven’t been boldened and a few other atmospherics are missing.

And once again, the final image, mainly for comparison with the image above.