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This could have been a cool shot, but I think the odd choice for lighting and the trick-room perspective backdrop really negatively affects the overall composition.
Huh. I really like the shot. 🤷♂️
Just to add: It’s all done with light on set, there’s no trick photography. Though that’s my opinion based on decades experience with photography, I wasn’t on set to see the setup personally.
I’m not saying it’s trick photography or a trick of the lighting, just perspective creating the illusion of depth in the background.
I could be way off base here, but the backdrop is meant to look like a hallway when in reality it’s maybe a foot or two deep set piece of two inscribed rectangles. The choice of the shimmering, underwater lighting effect highlights the hard lines on the backdrop(specifically in the bottom right) and ruins this illusion, for me at least. It also draws the eye away from the model as a focus in my opinion and the piece comes off as a bit busy because of it. I’m easily distracted though 😂
So, I’ll give my perspective. I don’t think this is a forced perspective shot. That’s the kind of shot you’re describing, which was famously used in films like The Lord of the Rings (in the hobbit scenes) and Honey, I shrunk the Kids and Fantastic Voyage. Still used somewhat in advertising. Here’s the Wiki on that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forced_perspective
But because there are no elements in the shot which we know are wrongly sized, like tiny hobbits (who are really normally sized actors), etc., it’s pretty hard to entirely rule out forced perspective. Who knows how big that painting really is? Or the wood beams and their relative angles in the foreground compared to the background. But if it is forced perspective, they’d have to have built a set to do that. And like, I doubt it. That’s some money to do.My sense is that this was shot in an actual hallway at night. The waving lights are likely lights projected through water tanks for moving specular highlights and shaped with flags. Several of them, at least four. That’s a nifty trick and was commonly used at concerts in the 60s and 70s before laser shows. And then there’s a bunch of shaped lights hitting the subject for key. And a bunch more fill lamps. And fill is where whoever shot this really blows my mind. Because the subject is in midground, not foreground. And the lighting keeps fill consistent from foreground to background, which is tough to achieve because the inverse square law. Meaning closeup fill has to have less light intensity than background fill to maintain exposure consistency across the frame. And you’ll notice a couple lights in the background for like the painting, just to make that pop in contrast. So foreground and background are consistently like -1.5 EV below the subject for separation.I mean, you don’t have to like this shot, fair enough. But the dude who lit this and shot it knew what the fuck he was doing. This is some technically amazing work.And I should shut up because I don’t want to shill for this submission. People don’t like it? No worries. But it impresses the fuck out of the photographer in me.
EDIT: You’re saying there’s a paper backdrop of a photograph on it for the hallway with the painting behind the subject. OK, let’s assume that’s correct. Then, the photographer still has to match fill intensity in the actual hallway against the photographed backdrop. Further, the photographer must match color temperature (which is warm, maybe 4800k here) of the backdrop with the lighting in the actual hallway, where the subject is bound and suspended. Assuming you’re correct on this, that’s also a technically difficult feat. And worthy of my deep respect.EDIT 2 I bet the counter to that is it’s a blue backdrop and the photographer merely composited in the backdrop and then matched color temp with color correction. lolI’m tell’n ya, I think this was was done analog, shot on actual film. It’s at least early-mid 2000s old.All this is speculative. Info on the photo and its photographer from the actual art exhibit where it was displayed is in the comment below.
I’m not a photographer by any means so generally I’m judging a photo based on overall composition and personal appeal rather than the technical ability in producing it. I have an observational astronomy background so I’m not completely ignorant to some of the technical aspects but a lot of the specifics to the shot setup are probably lost on me.
Don’t ever apologize for simply enjoying something that you’re clearly passionate about. I always appreciate seeing passion(within reason), even if I don’t necessarily always agree.
Thank you for the link clarifying the forced perspective because I was absolutely was thinking of that but could not for the life of me think of the term. I’m glad you knew what I meant because I genuinely considered drawing an optical ray diagram to try to illustrate.
I think using the second picture of the same model from a different angle does show that it’s probably not a temporary set at least and gives a better sense of the background coloring because they used a more neutral light color. It honestly looks like it was a shot in the upstairs hallway of someone’s house to me and there’s a wall mounted AC unit partially hidden in the background.
I think overall my main issue is with the harsh outlining of the wall corners with light to give them a neon-like effect is probably what ruins this piece for me. It’s a very intentional stylistic choice and the shot wouldn’t look right without it, but I guess it just doesn’t vibe with me. Looking over the rest of this same photographers scenes though they have got some awesome pictures and are absolutely phenomenal with their lighting overall.
Um. I found it in the wayback in defunct blog saved in 2011. I can try to find it again.
Reverse image search for the win!
The photographer is Lee Maitri and it was shot in Tokyo. Comes from an art exhibit in 2012. There are additional photos there as well.
