promo poster pics

[gpphotos]

hey folks.

One of my profs at school asked me if i'd shoot the promo poster for the augusta state opera workshop production of "Dido and Aeneus" I'm a music major and i usually have a role in the school's opera production (besides being the photog)

She told me that she wanted something classy but with a kind of sombre, ethereal feel that reflects the sadness of Dido's story.

The first thing that popped into my head was the the history walk on campus with early morning light...i ran the idea by her and she liked it, so we picked a morning to shoot.

It was difficult finding an angle in which there were no cars, trash cans, modern buildings, people, ect...we had a beautiful sunrise so i tried to get some of that in the shots since the 7am light was pretty flat. unfortunatly there's buildings in the way of the sunrise...i'll reshoot if someone tells god to have the sun rise from the west instead of the east where there's no buildings :rofl

the person who designs the poster will pick which photo will work best for the poster. at the bottom i'll post the poster that she made for last semester's production. C&C welcome


1.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131152066-M-1.jpg

2.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131152405-M-1.jpg

3.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131152712-M-1.jpg

4.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131153306-M-1.jpg

5.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131153842-M-1.jpg

6.
http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/131154161-M.jpg

and here's the poster from last year's production.

http://gpphotos.smugmug.com/photos/99588394-L.jpg

[GeorgeT]

First of all I think you are on the right track. When I first glanced as the photos I thought you had flames coming from the top of the pillars. That would have been tremendous. However, the overall darkness is a bit distracting. Bring up the white levels while maintaining the yellow in the background. Also, show her face. Shots of her back do nothing for me. It would have been nice if you used some soft reflectors or flash to bring up the foreground. Good start.
GT

[gpphotos]

she wanted back shots for the poster, so i did both...i would have shot more front but it was about 35 degrees outside and our model was very cold, heh. also, i made it darker (no flash) on purpose, so the poster designer can add some fog and whatnot in pp. the lady that does the posters for the school has a degree in graphic design, she's much better with photoshop than i am, so i usually just give her what i have right out of the camera, unless there's something obviously wrong.

[thegreenegg]

I love the idea for your shots and think they work very nicely. I also understand why you didn't play with them much. For me I was imediately inspired to play with them. They have great potential in them and lots of wiggle room for getting a certain feel.
Good job.
Ashley
P.S.- As I said couldn't help playing with one of them.

[Van Isle]

They're all great! Except for #1: colours are a little too flat, and there seems to be some modern stuff in the BG. You've shot a range of options, and the poster designer has great images from which to choose. Especially if you can help him/her out with some PP in PS for the "perfect" one.

Good stuff.

VI

[gpphotos]

thanks for the comments guys.

ashley...did you do a curves adjustment or something more?

i agree that the location could have been better, but we did what was quick and easy for both of us. i shoot school stuff for free, so i didn't put a whole lot of planning into it (have lots of other stuff...like actual schoolwork :cry)...you'd think some of the art students would be chomping at the bit to shoot these types of things, but its not really the case at my school.

[thegreenegg]

Oh, golly don't worry about it.
My school isn't even big enough to ask for a photo shoot of up coming productions.
I did it in like five minutes, the conversion, so its very easy.
1) Took out the rust spot on the column.
2) Made a second layer and made it black and white using the 'virtual photographer' program('highkey', I think). I don't have the link to that but you might be able to look it up or do it a simpler way--- all you really need to do is copy and paste it as a new image convert it to black and white and play with the levels until you like them, turn it into RGB again and then paste it back into the other color image as a new layer.
3) Played with the opacity of the black and white layer so a tad bit of color came through on the girl.
4) Erased the black and white sky.
5)Played with the curves in the color layer until the sky 'popped' the way I wanted it too.
Ta-da. Sorry if that is too quick or un-simple an explaination to follow but I'm writing in a hurry just before class.
Ashley

[gpphotos]

rockin. thanks ashley!

when i have some time on my hands (maybe during spring break) i'll go back and do some PP.

[salazar]

A link to the free "virtualPhotographer" PhotoShop Plug-in:

http://www.optikvervelabs.com/

[gpphotos]

excellent! thanks for the link...i dabbled around with it a tad, i already like that plugin!