83/365 - the diver

83/365 - the diver
Originally uploaded by ddiemont

so there goes one perfectly good piece of posterboard...

the original idea for this shot was that it was going to be a diptych (or maybe more than 2 shots) to shot the diver jumping off the diving board and into the cup of water. in the end i felt like it worked pretty well as a single shot... so here is how it's done.

First things first... draw all the background elements onto your ghetto lightbox (don't sweat it, posterboard is like $0.79). i would suggest drawing in pencil first and then going over top of that with a sharpie or something dark.

now it's time to light up your lightbox and take your first shot. better throw the cam on a tripod and trigger with a remote at this point because we want minimal movement between the shots... my first shot was set at f/14, 1/6sec exposure at 200 ISO (all shots were taken with my 50mm lens). The main purpose of this shot is to get the stick man's image as he is diving into the water...

The second shot is same type shot, but now with the glass of water in place (water had 2 drops of food coloring in it for dramatic effect). same camera settings for this shot as the last one, focused on the rim of the glass this time.

Now it's time to start droping objects into the water for the splash... this is a combination of camera settings, timing, and luck. The camera settings for this shot were (f/2, 1/800sec, ISO 640). Then I started dropping coins into the water and getting shots... the 6th or 7th shot turned out the best (hence the puddles of blue water on the base of the posterboard).

Now, clean up the mess you've made and head over to the computer. I imported the shots into Aperture and adjusted white balance and exposure such that the shots matched. I then exported the three shots into photoshop. The base layer being drawings along, the next being the glass sans splash, and the top layer being the splash. I made sure all the shots were lined up properly and then started doing some erasing. If I knew then what I know now, I would have probably tried to accomplish this with masks... I made sure to put a bit of a soft edge on the eraser so that it wouldn't look to harsh in the transition areas.

once i had everything looking ok, i did some blurring on the diving board to give it a sense of motion... then brought the shot back into aperture for some final touch up work, then posted to fickr... so there ya go... not so bad, just takes a bit o' planning ;-)

thanks for stopping by,
Derrick