The truth behind the lies - floating images

I am going to experiment with fast shutter speeds to create an image that will tell a lie to my audience. A fast shutter speed will allow me to make a subject float in mid air inside the image, giving the impression that this is a natural thing.

Zhao Huasen is a chinese born photographer who made a series of images called floating. In this body of work he photographed hundreds of people going about their daily routine on bicycles and motorbikes. He would then digitally remove the body of the transport; leaving only the shadows.

 

I feel that these images are quite humourous. If the mode of transport was present then the subjects body positioning would look very natural however they look very odd and misplaced because they seem to be sitting on thin air. Huasen has very carefully used editing software to completly repair everything that was covered by the mode of transport to make it look smooth and 'normal.' This would have taken a lot of time, patients and skill. The only area that looks unusual is the contact areas between the wheels and the ground. They are a lot darker than the rest of the shadow, showing that there must be a point of contact there. However this may have been done on purpose to enhance the idea that there should be something there that they are meant to be sitting on.

A fast shutter speed has been used to make these images and it looks like the apperture was quite small as well because the focus is similar throughout the distances in this image. The shadow clearly show that these settings would have been possible unlike England at this time of year. I will probably be forced to use a high ISO to allow me to use fast shutter speeds.

If I were Huasen I would have tried to make images with more than just one subject. I would like to see what it would be like with several people floating all in one frame. Maybe when they pull up to traffic lights and they all line up on invisible transport.

I have used this as an influence to create my own piece of work.               

I have done many things to this image to give it a specific look. I have used a car as the transport that has disappeared so I thought that I could make it look similar to the sort of style that they use for the popular british show Top Gear. When they take a car down country roads they often desaturate the image and add a vignette so that is what I have done. The crop I have placed on it is also a widescreen crop (16:9); continuing the Top Gear look. The contrast in this image is strong and makes the subject stand out against the red of the car. The light on the model is also the same as the setting making it look more realistic and smooth with the surroundings.

To make this image I started with a plain image of the setting.

 I then placed an image of myself over the top sitting on a stool. Using a layer mask I was able to erase the stool leaving myself hanging in air without a car.

I then adjusted the saturation and added a filter layer to give it a blue tint similar to that of the Top Gear show.

I flattened the image into one layer and used the brush tool with a light opacity, coloured black to create a vignette around the image.

If I was to do this task again I would make grooves in the rubble to show the tyres of an invisible car. I might have also edited in a light shadow for how big the car was.