Here we go with authority; The Seat of Authority. It's a bit off the wall I know, but I wanted an exercise in lighting and PP, and this subject was perfect for it. The alternative would have been beams of sunlight through the trees and chair, but fat chance of that!
The composition isn't quite what I had in my head, because that was dictated largely by the undergrowth, but the effect is exactly what I had in mind; kind of a Blair Witch stylee
First the finished result:
W19 - Seat of Authority.jpg by
MarkBerry1963, on Flickr
Then a bit of explanation, because I found it very interesting (and frustrating!) to do:
It's made from three images, with my only off camera flash pointed at three different parts of the seat:
W19 - Seat of Authority Originals.jpg by
MarkBerry1963, on Flickr
I overlaid the three, and erased parts of each layer until I had light over the whole structure, then merged the layers. This was inspired by Andy's stacking last week, but is manual as Pixelmator doesn't have an automatic method.
Next, I cloned out my flash because it was visible in two positions in the shot; you can see it in the triptych above, by Mandy's feet in the first shot, and on the front corner of the seat in the other two.
Then, on to the bloody fence :bang:.
Note to self: TAKE THE TIME TO MOVE THE DAMN FENCE, EVEN IF YOU DO THINK THE WARDENS MIGHT SHOOT YOU!
I used a combination of the clone tool and the heal tool in Pixelmator to remove every single wire! It took ages, though it would have been quicker if I'd realised earlier on that you can draw straight lines by holding down the shift key
Here's the result of the fence removal, before the next step; not perfect (I've missed a bit at ground level behind Mandy for one thing), but not bad I think. A lot of it would have been lost anyway when I darkened the shadows, but I'd have known it was there
:
W19 - Seat of Authority Minus Fence.jpg by
MarkBerry1963, on Flickr
After that, it was just a case of adjusting the levels and the colours to get the effect I was after, and adding the boarder.
Can I have my weekend back now please?