THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION BEGINS TODAY!

THE THEME IS: "Levitation"

I know this may be a bit challenging, so below I have posted all the step-by-step instructions you need to create your "levitating" picture.  It's actually a LOT easier than it looks, trust me.

Ever since I began these photo competitions (almost a year ago already!) I was always too afraid to make a theme too challenging since I feared nobody would care to participate. Well I figure we've been doing these competitions long enough and would like to challenge all of you to something completely different. The winning prize? An 11x14 print of one of my own levitating pictures (both winners will choose their winning print in my "Self-Portrait" album on my facebook page) sent to your house completely free of charge.

Before I get to the instructions on how to create a levitating picture, I would like to say that I am still very new to this surreal/fantasy type photography myself, but having a BLAST doing it. I just discovered Flickr and the whole "365 Project" movement that has epitomized our generation of young, emerging photographers. I never even knew this movement existed until recently, and have greatly been inspired by "Flickr Famous" photographers such as Brooke Shaden and Chrissie White (Chrissie offers Photoshop tutoring, if interested email me and I will get you connected with her, she helped me a TON).

ANYWAYS, onto the instructions. Below I am going to post a couple of "before and after" photoshop edits, and give instructions on how I created these pictures. PLEASE FEEL FREE to use any of my ideas/concepts for your own levitating pictures. You can try and recreate my exact levitating pictures if you'd like, or come up with a completely different type of levitating picture of your own style - whatever works best for you!!


There a various methods to creating a levitating picture (and a lot of this stuff you can just find on google) but for now I will show you the way in which I have done it.                                                                                Things you will need: Tripod, camera, photoshop.


FIRST, find a cool setting to take your levitating picture. Now, set up your camera on a tripod. THEN, take a picture of JUST the setting without you in the picture (as seen in the picture below).

THEN, find something to prop your body on, such as a stool or ladder (in this case I used a nightstand, as seen in the picture below). After getting my body into position on the nightstand, I set the camera to "self-timer" to take the picture (or you can use a remote for your camera so you don't have to run back and forth from the camera -- remotes are only $9.50 on Amazon). OR, you can have someone take the pictures for you if that's easier. 

There, now I have my two images. The next step is to import them into Photoshop.  Bring up both of these images into Photoshop, and by using the 'move' tool (hit the letter 'V' on keyboard to activate the move tool), place the image of you in the picture on TOP of the image of just the setting. Then using the eraser tool on Photoshop, erase away at the nightstand and voila! It is now starting to disappear. This is why you need to take a picture of JUST the setting (without you in the picture) so that when you erase away the prop your body is on, the background will start to show through. The final result of this picture is below:

How I added in the sheet music: I took several pictures of me holding the sheet music to the camera, and then on Photoshop, individually selected each sheet of music and placed them within the picture. I wish I had screenshots of me holding the sheet music to the camera so you can see what I mean, but I deleted those pics already to save room on my computer (I think you get the idea though). I achieved the 'blurry motion effect' on the sheet music by waving them up and down really fast as the camera took the picture.  CONCLUSION: The above image is essentially 25 pictures in 1 picture. This is called compositing, a technique many photographers use.  If my instructions don't make sense (I know that I can be utterly terrible at explaining things), then google 'how to make levitating pictures' OR, email me at: mandynikon@gmail.com for ANY questions you may have. I would be happy to even edit your pictures together if you'd like. 

Here is the link to a GREAT article that shows 65 stunning examples of levitating pictures from other photographers + really great tutorials (seriously, I cannot express in words how MUCH this article helped me when first learning how to make levitating shots): 

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/levitation-photography/

BELOW ARE MORE EXAMPLES OF 'BEFORE AND AFTER EDITS.' I hope I was able to teach you something new, and hope you all go out and create some beautiful and creative levitating shots!! CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU COME UP WITH!!!

Before:

After:

*NOTE: I did not like how my feet looked in the before image, so, I photoshopped in different feet from a completely different picture I had taken during this shoot. Also, for the wallpaper, I took an image from the wallpaper at a hotel and photoshopped it into the walls of this picture (you can see the image below that I used) and then also added in some texture.

Before:

After:

Before: 

After:

*NOTE: I did not like how there was an open pocket of space above the fence in the 'before' image, so I used the clone tool to patch up the open space. Paying attention to little details like that really help execute your levitating image even more. When you are editing your image, really look at it and think 'Do I like all the areas of this image? What can I improve? What areas can I edit out? How should the colors look in this area of the photo? Etc.'

Before:

After:

*NOTE: As you can see, I used details from various different pictures and combined them all together. I circled areas of the picture I used for the final result. 

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

 I don't have the "before" pictures to the image posted below, but just wanted to tell you that it's basically 7 pictures in one. For instance, I took one picture of me flipping my hair, one picture of just my dress flying out, one picture of me jumping for the camera (then later used the 'Transform' tool to rotate my body to make it seem as if I were flying) and photoshopped those details and combined them all into one picture:

*NOTE: Just for the sake of not wanting to confuse you guys, many of my examples above don't have the picture of JUST the setting without me in the picture. This is because I deleted those long ago, wanting to save space on my computer. It is VERY important to get that first picture of JUST the setting, or else the levitation won't work! Hope that makes sense :)

Submissions for the competition begin as of today, Tuesday October 25th. I will give two full weeks for you to submit your pictures into the competition, and I will post the finalist album on Tuesday, November 8th. Voting will take place for the following two weeks and BOTH winners will be announced on Tuesday, November 22nd. How both winners will be determined: one will be chose by ME and the other by the most amount of 'likes' their picture has.

Both winners will be announced Tuesday, November 22nd on my facebook fan page: www.facebook.com/nikonphotography

Good luck :)

"Melancholic Town"

Today I entered a photography competition.  This was the first time I ever paid money to enter a competition, and spent $50.00 to enter 5 images into 2 different categories: (1) Spontaneous Moments (2) Travel Portraits.  As I was writing the caption for one of images, I became really nostalgic and realized how much this story meant to me when putting it into words. Below are the 5 images + captions I entered for the http://www.worldinfocuscontest.com competition.

Caption: On a recent cruise down the Amazon River in Perú, our boat stopped at a village called "California" alongside the river. When our boat docked and we walked into the village, I felt like an extraterrestrial invading unknown territory. The children curiously looked at us, and nervously hid behind the backs of their older siblings. There was almost a melancholic vibe in the town. I was wondering why I didn't see any adults in the village until our tour guide told us they had no choice but to leave the children by themselves for a week. It is against the law in Perú not to vote so they had no choice but to leave and vote in the political elections. I started to speak Spanish with the children and asked them to show me around their village. Then I went picture crazy, snapping away and showing the kids the pictures I was taking of them. The mood changed and they began to giggle hysterically when they saw their faces appear on the screen in my camera.  Within 15 minutes of being around these children, I was literally holding hands with four young girls in the village, skipping through a field of butterflies.  Since I didn't have enough arms to hold everybody's hand, the other 30 Peruvian children followed closely behind us in one big huddle. I can only image how silly we looked. By the end of the day the children were hanging onto me trying to get me to live with them and not go back onto the boat. I can't say I wasn't tempted.


I chose to enter this particular image into the contest because I feel it is a visual summary of the day I spent with these children. The expressions in this image convey an array of emotions that I felt in this town that very day: fear, joy, anticipation, optimism, sadness.. above all, melancholy.  Although these people are suffering from extreme poverty, they run around and laugh and be silly like any other kid in the world.
(Title of Image: "Melancholic Town" - Category: "Travel Portraits")

Caption:I took this image in a very poverty stricken village in Peru. While I was playing with all the children of the town, in the corner of my eye I noticed this girl curiously watching us, while hiding from the window of her house. I wondered why she wouldn't come down to play with us and quickly went in for the picture. She saw me taking a picture and hid back into the darkness of her house and never came outside.

(Title of Image: "Lonely Girl in the Darkness" - Category: "Travel Portraits")

Caption: One day I decided to take my camera with me and visit a beach I had never been to before. I discovered Victoria Beach (located in Laguna Beach, CA) and was inspired right away! I noticed this young girl having a special moment with the sand. She stayed like this for awhile, letting the ocean wash past her body and hair. I feel very fortunate to have stumbled across such a secretive, emotional moment.

(Title of Image: "A Secretive Moment" - Category: "Spontaneous Moments")

Caption: While hiking through Yosemite, I came across this young girl. She saw me blowing bubbles and asked if she could try it also using my bubble wand, but all of a sudden a huge gust a wind came by and she was unable to do so. She kept trying frantically to blow bubbles but the wind seemed to keep getting stronger and stronger. She gave up and we went our separate ways.

(Title of Image: "Loss of Innocence" - Category: "Spontaneous Moments")

Caption:Through photography, I attempt to convey the relationship between form and pattern through composition. Compositionally wise, I am aesthetically pleased by the pattern of repeating wood in this image. Although, my eye keeps going back to the handprint above the boy's head, and I am left wondering the story behind it.
(Title of Image: "Handprint" - Category: "Traveling Portraits")

Summer Internship with Victoria's Secret

(This was written 8/2/2011) 
I just moved from New York to California 5 days ago after interning for Victoria's Secret in New York.  During my stay in the city, I got the opportunity to photograph Rob Zombie and Slayer at their concert in PA. At first they wouldn't let me into the venue due to the misspelling of my name on the list, which read: "Mandy Russell" instead of "Mandy Rosen." 

About 3 weeks prior to this event, while standing in the check-in line at the airport in Perú, I turned around and noticed four men in line behind us that did not seem to be on your typical "family vacation." Based off their interesting demeanor (tattooed heads, ridiculously long facial hair, and black jackets and pants) my sister and I couldn't help but wonder who they were and what they were doing in South America. Our questions were answered when a Peruvian man approached us in line, and in his broken English tells the four men that their band is kick ass and  he loves their music. As the four men are signing autographs for the fan, I turn around and ask what band they are with. After telling me that their band was "Slayer" and that they were currently touring through South America with Metallica, a little light blurb turned on in my head and I knew I had to leave the conversation with an invitation to photograph their band.

We continued our conversation with the band throughout the entire airport. Dave Lombardo was pissed that he didn't get a chance to visit Machu Picchu while on tour in Peru.  While showing them some of our video clips from the trip, people kept taking pictures of the band and asking them questions. "Are you guys with a rock band?" asked a lady in line next to us. "Actually.... we're teachers."

Photographing their concert was one of the best times I ever had taking pictures.  You can see some of these images on my website www.mandyrosenphotography.com

Slayer and I at the airport in Perú

Behind the scenes of Victoria's Secret with Adriana Lima and Chanel Iman

Behind the scenes of Victoria's Secret with Alessandra Ambrosio

Chatting with Victoria's Secret photographer Russell James

Trip to Monterey, California

I just spent the last week in  Monterey, CA.  Little did I know how beautiful northern California really was. During our stay, my mom and I drove around for hours, stopping at cute places alongside the road to take pictures. Bellissima!!