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: