Hello!
Welcome to my first blog post on my new website!
I am going to tell you a short but funny story about the… well story behind this photo.
So, it all started with levitation photography. I was seeing ALL sorts of amazing photos being shared, and of course what do you think I wanted to do. Try it out of course! I had a good idea of what post I wanted to achieve and when I wanted to do it. If you are wondering my “desired” pose, look up “sara underwood levitation.” Daaaaaaaaamn right?! Yeah that’s what I thought. I decided that I WAS going to get this, no doubt about it.
I ended up breaking my foot riiiight before I was home and had time to experiment, but decided to say “fuck it” and do it anyways. I waited for a nice clear summer day and set out with my “goal”
So my goal was the Sara Underwood pose set with a backdrop of blue cedar trees that lined my backyard. I wanted lush green grass and basically to be levitating amongst the greenery. I knew that I needed to find something to pose on, but could not for the life of me find this stool I was looking for. Finally I remembered an old wooden chair that was downstairs, I hobbled my way downstairs in my giant air-boot and hauled it outside. I ended up having to lock both dogs inside as they would both not leave me alone! haha
So, now I am outside, chair, camera, tripod, remote shutter, pretty dress, makeup. Check, check, check. I set up everything and hobble over to my chair and take my air-boot off and throw it across the lawn to be out of the frame. I lean my back onto the chair and try and arch my back. OW! Hurts like a motherfucker. The sharp edges of the wooden chair dig into my back as I try and hold myself in the air. Knowing that I need a specific pose I set my timer for 10 seconds and press the button, drop my remote and assume the position. CLICK, the camera captures my pose and I slide off the chair and crawl my way across the lawn on my hands and knees holding my broken foot in the air. I eagerly get behind my camera to see that I have NOT acquired the pose at all. Fuuuck. But! I am determined.
I continue on crawling back and forth between my chair and camera and end up taking 8 shots all not getting the post I am looking for. I can either see my entire ass and underwear, or I am capturing my hands desperately trying to lurch my back into the curved position while balancing on a brick.
Finally, I decide its time for a new pose. There has to be another way. I keep on crawling back and forth and after 36 shots over the course of a couple hours, I get this. YAY! This will do. I am so excited that I grab my tripod and take my camera off of it and go through all of my attempts. Then… I suddenly realize that I forgot to take the blank photo with no chair and just background for editing purposes. Fuuuuuck I laugh at myself.
I set up my tripod again and crawl over to my chair and haul it out of the frame. I end up taking several other photos trying to recreate the exact position that my camera and tripod was in before. After too many attempted shots, I give up. I grab my air-boot and hobble my way back inside hauling all of my equipment and hobble-run to my office. I import all of my photos into lightroom and scan through them.
Yup, this is the one. I do some minor tweaking and import it into photoshop. I then spend the next hour clone stamping out every portion of this wooden chair that I can see. As I am editing, I dearly wish I could have found the stool and not hauled out the biggest and thickest wooden chair that I could find. Nevertheless, I am almost at the finish line. After the entire chair has disappeared I scan the image for any other imperfections that might need to be taken care of and then zoom out and stand back.
Wow. After all of that, not bad.
So, ladies and gentleman. Here is my first ever levitation shot. I hope to try many many more in the future when I have healed bones and maybe someone to press the shutter. (oh and maybe a different chair)
-Emma <3