Dreaming about you

Of course, many questioned the validity of this photo, as it looked “pretty obviously” a photoshopped one! But, this is the photo straight out of the camera (converted to black and white). So, here are the steps to duplicate this photo

• This was taken in a totally dark room (absolutely dark)
• The camera was put in Shutter-Priority mode i.e. a mode where you can control the shutter speed and the camera handles everything else.
• I used a shutter speed of 10 seconds. This can be anything based on the effect you want.
• When the room is dark, Vidhya goes and sits on the sofa. Then, i click the shutter-release button (basically, take the photograph).
• Then, a light (preferably a powerful one located such that it doesnt put Vidhya in a shadow) is switched on for a fraction of a second and immediately switched off. Because of this action, the room (including Vidhya) are exposed on the camera.
• Then, i go into the frame, position myself. Then, the light is switched on and off (like the first time).
• Here is the logic behind the photo: Since i and the background behind me got exposed during the 2 times the light was on, i appear to be transparent in the photograph.
• Few things to get this photo right: Vidhya had to be dead-still during the 10 seconds. Otherwise, her changed position would get exposed when the light is switched on the second time. Get a background which can covey the transparency well.

We took a lot of attempts to get this right. First, Vidhya was not happy with my position in the photograph and complained a lot about my posing skills. Then, we moved around the props in the room till we were satisfied with the overall composition.

Sometimes the switching-on-and-off action was too fast resulting in a dark picture. In other cases, the switching on happened a little earlier than expected resulting in my movements getting exposed in the photograph.

At one point i got bored with the same pose i was giving and we wanted a different look to the picture. Lokesh and Sarvesh posed for us and it turned out to be a great photograph. We wanted to submit this photograph calling it “Nightmare”. It was a tough call for us deciding which one to submit for the competition.

This technique can be used to produce some very interesting pictures if you think out-of-the-box! Look at the picture below where Lokesh posed and then i went into the scene with a keychain light and drew the horns on him.