CREATING A WINNING IMAGE

RICHARD LUXTON ARPS

Richard’s image Drowning in a Whirlpool of Colour was awarded Highly Commended in this year’s Creative Eye Members’ Exhibition

Experimenting with the combination of altered perspective created using ultra-wide angle 8 mm – 16 mm and swirling fabric has opened up creative possibilities to create a painterly like images with echoes of the Pre-Raphaelite and Renaissance painters.

The primary image is taken with the model lying on a “background” of fabrics and also under another layer of fabric. The use of shiny, sheer and colourful fabrics will reflect light in interesting ways creating the swirling patterns. Studio lights or direct sunlight can create strong highlights with interesting shadows in the fabric.

The picture is taken using an ultrawide angle lens (8 mm – 16 mm) on a Canon 5DMkIV. The camera is positioned between 50 cm and 1 m above the model depending on the focal length being used and the desired effect and image being created. Post-processing is using GIMP and the associated package G'MIC both open source software similar to Photoshop. The first stage in producing the final picture is to crop the image to give the desired framing and then a clone tool is used to fill any spaces without fabric around the edge of the image. When this base image has been created it is copied and used to create a further layers to add the desired effect. By adding a mask to the layer the effect is modulated by revealing areas of the base image to varying degrees. In the picture “Drowning in a whirlpool of colour” the first layer is blurred using a Gaussian blur and then multiplied with the base image to created a smoothed, dreamy saturated effect. By using the layer mask details of the base image are revealed. The saturation is adjusted and this now becomes a new base layer. This is copied and a new layer created to which further effects are added. In this case a radial blur filter (G'MIC) is used to create the whirlpool effect and a layer mask allows detail of the lower layer to be revealed creating the desired effect. The final stages are to adjust the contrast and brightness using curves and then to add subtle adjustments to the hue.