Composite Photos
While training to be a professional photographer in Kelowna, we have been learning about composite images. A composite image is a picture made up of multiple images with different elements put together to look like one image. It is used in commercial photography and advertising.
We started by talking about what composite images are, and by looking at examples of photographers who do composite images professionally like Brandon Cawood and Erik Johansson.
After we had discussed composites, we went into the studio and set up the equipment to shoot our subject. We set up the lights with two strip boxes at 45 degree angles behind the subject and a large octobox in front of the subject. We directed our subject to pose, and then adjusted the lights accordingly.
The next week, we learned how to shoot backgrounds for composite images. We started our second composite class by discussing what we were going to shoot for our background, and what we were looking for in a shot/frame, and how it was going to fit together with our subject, who we shot the week before.
We went out and found a few locations. The first was a covered parkade with light shining in from the back and a few fluorescent lights above us. Harvey Bremner, our instructor, talked to us about height, angle and lens choice. We set up the camera and the shot. We located where the lights were coming from in the room; there were two artificial lights in the back/top of the frame and natural light pouring in from the back of the parkade. Light was also coming in from the right side and from behind the camera.
The second location was in front of a wall of vents, with a bunch of horizontal lines. There was light coming from basically all angles except from behind. Ultimately, we used the parkade shot for the background in our composite shot.
I have done some simple composite work myself for some drink advertisements. It doesn't have to be grand or complicated; it can be done with a plain coloured background or something simple and clean. Composite photography allows you to add creative elements to your final image. The range of applications are endless and the creative possiblities are only limited by your imagination.