Halloween Scream!

From a photo meetup yesterday. The pumpkin was shot a few weeks ago at Borgholm's Castle, while doing location scouting for the Alice: Demon's Gate project.

Alice: Demon's Gate, a new photo comic project is in pre-production. The comic will be set in the same world as A Rift in Time, but several hundred years earlier.

We, i.e. the Rift core team, has started a new blog for Alice: Demon's Gate, and other photo comic projects.

Here is a link to a blog post about the picture above.

Photo Exhibition in Borgholm

I am in Borgholm on Öland. Three of my friends, Petra Brewitz, Julia Reinhart, Petri Olderhvit, and I have a photo exhibition.

As you can see, we got some unexpected visitors. 😊

Out of the Frame - Skill vs. Creativity

There is a tension created by our desire to be creative, and our desire to build high levels of skill.

Being creative means to do new things. When we do new things, we are beginners. thus, creatives keep returning to the state of being a beginner, over, and over again.

Skill, on the other hand, is built through a cycle of repetition, introspection, and making small changes, over and over again, often many thousands of times.

Creativity means to take different bodies of knowledge, breaking them apart, and recombining them in new ways.

Building skill means to refine your understanding of an existing body of knowledge.

How do you hit a balance between the two?

In my case, screw the balance! I'm going for the fun stuff!

I often learn a technique first, and practice it until it is a part of my tool kit that I am comfortable, or at least familiar with. Then I start exploring the creative possibilities.

The T-Rex picture above is a case in point. It is a fun picture, but it is not really creative. At this point, I am learning to use the technique. The creative part comes later, when I have practiced, probably just barely enough, to bring off using the technique in a new context.

That is also why I skimped on photo-realism. I already know how to make a T-Rex model look more organic. That is not what I was interested in here, so I skipped it. When I am comfortable enough with creating the 3D-break-out-of-the-flat-surface look, I'll bring other techniques back in, to create more creative work, with a bit more finish.

What is your approach? How do you handle the tension between being creative, and building enough skill to do good work?

Repetitions and Variations: Dana vs. a T-Rex

Dana vs. a T-Rex. Model: Petra Brewitz

In a previous blog post, I published Dragonslayer, a quick-and-dirty, but fairly nice looking, picture of a woman facing off with a dragon. I promised to write a bit more about the picture, and how I made it. I also promised to publish a few variations on the theme.

The finished version above, Dana vs. a T-Rex, features Dana, one of the main characters in the A Rift in Time photo comic. Dana was played by Petra Brewitz in the comic, and she also modeled for the pictures in this article.

We did not start out doing a Dana picture. Petra and I had been discussing doing something with a medieval theme. That takes a lot of preparation, and quite a few props, so we decided to make something simpler, just to try things out.

Technical details: The picture above was created by applying the Painted 2 + Border filter in Comic Life 3. This filter creates a painted comic book look that works very well for many illustrations.

The original inspiration for my picture came from an illustration by the Fantasy artist Joe Jusko. 

If you compare Jusko's image with mine, you will see that there are a lot of differences: Mine is, how shall I put it, more modest, his is in portrait format, mine is in landscape format, his has a medieval fantasy setting while mine is urban Science-Fiction, and so on...

My picture started out being more like Jusko's. I planned to use a dragon, and I planned to shoot vertical. As I worked through several iterations, my picture diverged more and more from Jusko's. A good thing, because those differences are what separates being inspired by, from plain old copying.

Let's look at how I built the basic composition. The picture above is built from three photos.

I photographed Petra in a parking lot. She, Julia Reinhardt, and I took a photo walk after a planning meeting (I'll tell you about it in a future blog post), and since I just happened to have a toy gun in my backpack, we took the opportunity to shoot the picture when we found a fairly clean background.

I used a single hotshoe flash placed under my camera to light Petra and eliminate unwanted shadows.

I shot several photos of Petra, with both portrait and landscape orientation, and with different lighting.

The reason I switched from portrait to landscape is that it allowed Petra to take a wider stance. A wider stance leaves more space to show the monster.

I shot the background after shooting Petra. This is usually a bad idea, because it is difficult to get the angles right.

In this case, I had measured the distance between the ground and the camera when I shot Petra (1 hotshoe flash height + 3 fingers), so it was easy to replicate the angle.

I used a 35 mm lens, and f/14. I wanted to keep everything in the picture, from Petra to the portal, reasonably sharp.

The woman sitting on the bench? I cloned her out. Quite easy to do.

Oh, perhaps I should mention: Originally, I intended to use a different, more dragon friendly environment, and something much more like Joe Jusko's original.

I had shots from a pond that I had shot for another different picture. (You may remember the brachiosaur picture I published awhile back.) I thought I would be able to use one of them.

As it turned out, all of them were shot with the camera too far from the ground. I could have gone back to the pond to reshoot, but a combination of impatience and laziness made me change my mind. Instead, I shot something close at hand, which turned out to be the brick building.

Oh, the dragon... The wings look fairly good, but the rest... I just had to try anyway.

Sometimes you got to try, even though you know it won't work.

As you can see, the dragon is truly awful. The only part that works reasonably well, is the tip of the wing in the window to the left of Petra.

How do you save a picture like this? I could put in a lot of effort in an attempt to make the dragon look more organic. An easier way is to reduce detail in the entire picture. that way, the viewers expectations change, and something can suddenly be perceived as better.

Dragonslayer

I added a quick and dirty paint effect with Prisma's Mononoke filter. The filter removes a lot of details, and hides what is wrong with the dragon.

I wasn't happy though. I wanted something a bit more realistic. There was a model I had wanted to try out for awhile, a snake, made by the Schleich toy manufacturer.

The snake version looked quite good. Technically, it is the best version of them all. I did sharpen the teeth a bit in post, and I ought to have replaced, or fixed, the tongue. Nevertheless, the picture works, except for one thing!

The story! What is the story? Why is there a giant snake in something that looks like a factory? (The dragon had the same problem, but the model was so ugly I never had to worry about the story.)

In this version, the protagonist is aware it is weird that a giant snake appears in a doorway. She expected a T-Rex, so there is a bit of a twist left for the viewer to wrap herself around.

Here is a useful storytelling trick:

When there is a completely illogical gap in your story, make your protagonist aware of it!

In the version above, the protagonist didn't expect to be face-to-face with a giant snake. She expected a T-Rex, so the viewer may still not quite get what is going on, which is intentional.

Viewers familiar with A Rift in Time will be in on the secret: It's a time-travelling T-Rex! They might also guess that the person facing off with the T-Rex is an RRC operative, and they might even recognize Dana.

Just in case you were wondering, this is what the Schleich snake model looks like. It is less than five centimeters high (about two inches).

Once I got this far, it was natural to simplify the story a bit. What would it look like if Dana encounters the T-Rex she expected?

Dana vs. T-Rex, photo version

In the version above, the T-Rex looks pretty good, but it is not photo realistic. I have solved that problem before, by adding organic textures, but I decided to go the easier route, and make a comic panel.

The T-Rex

The final version

And here we are again, with the final version...or maybe not. There are still plenty of variations I could explore.

Dragonslayer

Dragonslayer. Model: Petra Brewitz, Photo: Henrik Mårtensson

Here be dragons! My friends and I have discussed how to shoot dragons, and some other interesting creatures. The picture above is the first in a series of experiments.

Brachiosaur Lake – Where do these ideas come from?

I had planned Dinosaur Lake, or as it turned out, Brachiosaur Lake,  for several months. I've had the background shot for more than a month, and this weekend I finally got the time to shoot the brachiosaur and finish the composite.

Before delving into the technical details, let's talk about how you come up with an idea for a shot like this.

Here is the basics:

• I shoot things I am interested in.
• I combine my interests.
• I work with people I like (and who usually are much better than I am, at least in some areas. It means I really have to push myself to keep up.)
• I do research. I read because I am curious. When I have a specific problem, I study to learn how to solve it.

I am interested in Science-Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Detective stories, thrillers, techno-thrillers, science, management and leadership (!), systems thinking, complexity thinking, queueing theory, psychology and neuroscience...and a host of other things. That gives me ample source material from books, movies, and ideas my friends and I come up with and develop.

Some time ago, I discussed shooting locations with Lotta Odelberg, a model whom I have photographed a couple of times. We had discussed a fantasy themed photo shoot for a long time, and we had decided it was time to just do it.

In the end, we went with a location Lotta suggested, but I did a bit of scouting on my own. Several years ago, I lived near a small lake, well, more like a large pond, Björndammen, outside Gothenburg. I thought that could be a good location for the shoot with Lotta.

I had also been thinking about shooting a toy dinosaur, a Brachiosaur, that I have had for a couple of years. My friends and I used it when we shot the A Rift in Time comic book.

Two comic book panes, that was all. Pretty dark to boot. You can see why I wanted to do something more with the brachiosaur model.

So, when I did a bit of location scouting for the shoot with Lotta, I also had dinosaurs on my mind.

As it turned out, Lotta knew of a much better location for the Fantasy shoot, but I thought the shot above, with the lake framed by trees and bushes, would work nicely as the setting for a Brachiosaur shot.

I hused a home made light box made of polystyrene sheets to photograph the brachiosaur. As you can see, the model barely fit. I shot the brachiosaur from a low angle, to make it look large in the final composite.

The model I used, from Schleich, is a good one. It still looks a bit plastic though, so I used a photo of elephant hide as a base, and overlayed it with a desaturated version of the brachiosaur to get a more organic look.

Compositing in a creature standing in water is a bit of a challenge, so I studied photographs and drawings of things standing in water. That helped a bit. I need to practice a lot more, but at least I think I am on the right track.

When I had made the final composite, I also tried out a couple of comic versions. This is something I do more and more often, partly because I like the look, and also because I am preparing for making more adventure comics. You can never practice too much...

So, that's it. You might wonder about the shoot with Lotta. Well, that will be the topic for another blog post. :-)

Big!

 Big! is my latest composite. I've had this image in my head for quite some time.

I created the composite in Pixelmator, and toned it with the Vintage Iris effect.

While I was at it, I made a comic version using the Paintoscope filter in Comic Life 3. I like the Paintoscope filter a lot, and am considering using it for a comic project.

I made the composite from three different photos.

The elephants feet are from a photo I took in the Museum of Natural History in Gothenburg.

When I took this shot, I had the finished picture in mind. I did not know exactly what it would look like, but the general idea was clear.

I did a bit of cut and paste to take the foreground and extend it into a background plain.

 The man and the shadow, well, that is a shot I took for another composite some time ago.

It is a selfie. I put my camera in a tree, and used the 10 second timer to delay the shot.

Unfortunately, part of my shadow is blocked from view by a car, so I did a little bit of repair work on the shadow for the final picture.

The third photo is an old environmental shot I took ages ago. I used the mountains and the bleached out sky.

Something wicked - Comic pre-production agony

Horror from Above – Petra Brewitz looks up, and something wicked looks back.

When I wrote the manuscript to A Rift in Time, the time-travel action adventure comic, I planted a few seeds for new stories.

Petra Brewitz, Petri Olderhvit, Julia Reinhart and I have started kicking ideas around for a sequel. That means we are in the oh so agonizing pre-production stage, the pre-idea stage really, when we try to come up with new ideas, and connect them to each other, and with some old ideas, without making a total mess of it.

Comic version of Horror from Above. We want a look similar to the first Rift adventure, but with a slightly more realistic look.

A project like this starts out pretty messy, and that is perfectly okay. Actually, it is a prerequisite for making something really good. The trick is to have the right kind of mess, and to narrow it down to a logical structure in the end.

Something Wicked.

What you will see in the final comic may, or may not, resemble what you see in these prestudy sketches.

When we will be done? I have no idea. We are doing this for fun, in our spare time, so it will have to take a back seat to just about anything that pays the bills.

In addition, we are deliberately planning to make things difficult for us again, setting goals way beyond what is reasonable. Creates headaches, but also makes for a wonderful learning experience.

Geek Pride 2016 - A Photo Comic

Gateway!

Gateway! (Model: Malin Wennlund, Photographer: Henrik Mårtensson)

The picture above is a composite made of three different photos.

The first picture is the photo of the model Malin Wennlund. Malin is a Steampunk enthusiast, and made the dress herself.

It was easy to mask Malin out in Pixelmator.

The background is a sunset shot from Partille, just outside Gothenburg.

I shot the wall and gate in Halmstad. As you can see, the shot is very bright. I did take a couple of photos at different exposures, but in the end, this was the best to use. 

It looks pretty horrible, but it was pretty easy to darken the whole thing. The initial step was to just reduce the exposure. Then I copied the image, and changed the blend mode of the top image to Hard Light. That gave me the late afternoon, saturated look I wanted.

The Witch!

The Witch!

I am sticking with the Fantasy and magic theme I began to explore with Sword, Rose, and Hexagram.

This photo is from a photo shoot shoot with Malin Wennlund. I enjoy collaborations, where everyone contributes ideas. Malin knows her Fantasy and Science-Fiction very well, so working with her is very, very fun.

Sword, Rose, and Hexagram – A Quick Deconstruction

Model: Anita Pecaver, Photographer: Henrik Mårtensson

I shot the model in the picture above, Anita Pecaver, some time ago during a photo meetup in Photo Meetup in Gothenburg. I had arranged an Angels & Demons themed photo & coffee meetup.

There is a distinct shortage of castle ruins and scorched plains in the Gothenburg area, so I had to do a composite. I'll walk you through the parts.

The model: Anita, with a sword and rose

Anita Pecaver

I shot Anita in a café, during a photography event with about 30 people, and chaos everywhere.

These events are fun, but also cramped and chaotic, so the shots are rarely studio quality. The idea is to have fun, meet people, and learn things, not to take perfect photos.

However, we often manage to create quite interesting pictures during these events. The chaos forces everyone to be creative, and to use a minimum of resources in new and unexpected ways.

It was Anita herself, and another model, Peter Markusson, who asked me to take a shot of Anita with a rose and a sword.

Note the angel wings. I removed them from the final picture, because they did not quite fit. I considered replacing them with a much larger set of wings in post, but I'll save that for another day, and another photo.

The Ground: Scorched earth, and a hexagram

The lawn in the photo above is the basic ground in the picture. I masked out the buildings and the sky, and removed the trees and other things.

The ground looked a bit boring. I wanted to make both the color and the texture more interesting, so I added...

A photo of one of my notebooks. I like the color, and also the fake leathery texture.

I removed the pattern, except for the hexagram in the middle. When I composited the images, I changed the perspective, and used various blending techniques to bring out the color and texture.

The Castle: A Ruin Most Sinister

I didn't have a real castle handy, so I went out and bought one! To save a bit of petty cash, I made do with a model. I bought it in a pet shop.

The Mountains of Madness: Hellboy Would Feel Right at Home

I shot the mountains from the third floor of an apartment building in Partille. This shot looks utterly uninspiring, but I did not shoot what it actually looks like. I shot the picture I had in my mind.

Actually, the picture in my mind wasn't exactly crystal clear at this time, but I knew I wanted something in the background, to help me transition from the flat plain, to the sky.

The Sky: Now You See It, but Mostly You don't!

The sky sucks where I live! Most of the time, it is a uniform, grey, 100% cloud cover. It is like living inside a giant softbox! Not only does the sky look boring, it also kills all shadows, because the clouds spread the light. It also mutes the light.

A couple of years ago, when I bought my DSLR, I thought it was broken at first, because the light was so bad. Now, I have learned to live with it, and to always, always, bring a couple of flashes with me.

On the rare occasions when there is a break in the cloud cover, I shoot anything even remotely interesting, just in case I will need it later.

Compositing: Just Do It!

When I had the pieces, I composited them with Pixelmator while sitting in a cafeteria at a local Laserdome. My son was invited to a birthday party, and I decided to bring my own fun.

I finished the picture later the same evening.

One useful little trick:

I match the light in the composite photos by adding a white layer on top of everything, and setting the blend mode to Saturation. This turns the picture black and white.

I can then change the light in each individual part, to roughly match the other parts.

Then, I match colors in a separate step, and add shadows where necessary.