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How to make a silk purse with James Nadar


The Photographer: James Nadar - is a fashion and advertising photographer with over 20 years experience creating images for a vast range of clients. James’ understanding of concepts and design combined with his ability in post-production and retouching at the highest level, have given him a unique edge in the ever evolving world of image creation.


The Client Brief: Produce six high quality artistic pieces for a company supplying printed silks to many of the


UK’s leading brands. The images should deliver far more than you’d expect from a typical fashion shoot and must be engaging and interesting.


The Shoot: Venue: A large Manchester studio, plus Manchester-based models.


The Equipment: Lighting: 3 x Bowens Gemini 500 monolights with softboxes. Camera: Hasselblad H4D-40 with a 35-80 lens, backed up with a Nikon D3X.


“I have worked with photoshop for 10 years and in that time I have developed a process in my photomontage and composite work that has gained me increasing numbers of clients. My methodology also allows clients to save on production costs as many of the elements can be shot separately or embrace stock materials. This was quite a loose brief and although there were some


visuals, I had to envision the outcome and develop the final image from my mind’s eye.


We set-up a number of ‘establishing’ meetings - I like to follow this pattern of working on these projects as much can change throughout the shoot and the creative work process.”


The making of the ‘Mystic’ image - Stage One - Three lights, one on the background, one above the model and one main light in front of the model illuminated the basic shot. I choose to shoot on white and mask this out in Photoshop. It could have been done on a green screen but I like the way the white background when illuminated spills in a subtle way onto the subject and allows for a more balanced light.


The first stage is to cut out the subject from the background with channels and masks. Of course software can do this for you but I prefer to create my own mask in the blue channel from selections and painting. It is important that this remains editable whilst it is a mask, as this allows for either a subtle edge or something a little sharper. It’s a tricky process and can take some time but it is worth it.


1 www.bowens.co.uk 23


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