I had never heard of Levitation Photography until a month or so ago. I saw an article about it in a photography newsletter email, and was instantly intrigued! The creative possibilities are endless! This past weekend, I finally had a chance to get out and try it for myself. Here are the results! I'm going to share a little bit of the step-by-step process along the way.
First of all, you have to start with your camera on a tripod and ALL your settings on manual so nothing changes. Set up your model (in this case, myself) and try to make sure nothing is obscured by the ladder (unfortunately, I couldn't see that my hair was hanging behind it). You also don't want any part of the model or the clothing to look like it is draping over an object. For instance, if I had been sitting profile on the ladder, the way my skirt would have draped over it instead of falling straight from my waist in the back would have been a visual clue that I had been sitting on something.
Then, I pulled the image into Lightroom and did some preliminary color edits applying a preset and adjusting the sliders until I got a basic look that I wanted.
I copy/pasted all these edits onto a picture of the background. That is a key element - getting a picture of just the background after you take the picture of the model. This is why it is important that the camera be on a tripod and not move at any point. The two pictures need to match exactly.
Next, I opened both pictures (model and background) into Affinity Photo (a program similar to Photoshop) and layered them with the background being underneath. I proceeded to erase the ladders from the top layer, which showed the bottom layer underneath. For the technical details on how to do that, please refer to the articles I share at the end of this post.
Then it was back to Lightroom, where I used brushes to paint in some different color tones and adjust exposure, etc. I also added a slight vignette. I took it back to Affinity Photo one more time to adjust the too-straight edge of my hair where it had been cut off by the ladder. Hopefully my slight adjustments made it look a little more realistic.
And that was it! Here's the final product:
I want to give a shoutout to my awesome younger brother, Stephen, who set up the ladders and snapped the pictures for me. He's so sweet and patient to help me with my photoshoots! He did get some personal enjoyment out of this one -- he kept laughing at the neighbor's reactions when they would look over and see me laying on top of a 6 foot ladder. Haha!
If you want to follow my photography endeavors, be sure to "like" my Stacey Bradshaw Photography Facebook page!
If you want to learn how to do this yourself, check out these articles that I used to get inspired and learn the techniques for setting up the shot and photoshopping it afterwards:
1 comment:
No wonder the lighting matches! I thought you probably shot the model using a green screen and had to light it separately to match the background. Nice work. I may give this a try sometime. Thanks for the tutorial. -Virgil T.
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