How to Defy Gravity

“Gravity gets me down” reads one of the funnier t-shirts i’ve seen. And its true in sense. We all have a desire to be free sometimes, free from gravity .. free from things that would usually hold us back. Its the reason I and so many others love the zero grav scene in Inception so very much.

It wasn’t the first time i’ve felt fascinated by levitation though. My first view of levitation came from a photography magazine which featured a certain Miss Aniela who skyrocketed to fame through her amazing self portraits in Flickr using a mix of photoshop wizardry, artful composition, brilliant concept and a pinch of sex appeal. Some of my faves from her:

The Smothering

The Jitters

The Adjustment

As great as the above are, my favourite would have to be this one, simply called the Adrenaline.

This photo kinda blew my mind when i saw it for the first time. It’s just so unexpected in terms of the composition, the crazy array and blending of colours and in the overall randomness of the objects floating around the room. Aniela’s expression and body form is also just perfect to me. Here’s how she describes this photo on Flickr:

“During depersonalisation, people feel detached from their body and surroundings, strange and unreal. During derealisation, they feel grounded in themselves, but the world seems distant or strange, and they may feel unsteady on their feet”

All objects, again, are ‘as is’… including me, though I was a bit too heavy for the fishing wire, so I was instead propelled into the air by Mr. Wolfy himself on a mad ten-second timer dash. As with the last pic, alot of credit to him for this pic and idea.

Thanks to Stuck in Customs for the neon colour texture ‘Alexandria, Virginia – the electric hues of the remnants of the party’.

My mind somehow recalled this image when i was thinking up of a proper photoshoot theme for my friend Ratna. She’s just a gem of a person ( Ratna means gem in my native language lol) and when we were thinking of a fun photoshoot together i told her that i wanted to place her in a colorful and lively because that’s the sort of person she is and i wanted to show that in a photo. Luckily this photo popped into my mind then, which was perfect because if i could do this shot with anyone, it would be with her as she weighs only a measly 40 kilos and if Miss Aniela could be tossed that high by her boyfriend than i’m sure we could probably send Ratna to the moon ! LOL just kidding Ratna

So in replicating/imitating this shot or in making similar levitation photos in general, there are some things to consider.

1. Camera Angle

2. Colored Lighting

3. Floating objects

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1. Camera angle

• My house isn’t very big and its also quite stuffy, so it was tricky to find an angle that would work. The aim of course was to show a background that has an element of space and also clutter free. This is especially important because in this case, we’re going to make a few items to appear as though they’re floating due to the anti grav effect and if there were too many objects that AREN’T floating in the background, the effect of the ‘illusion’ will be seriously downplayed. Also important for the image to work is to include the element of height which can only be done by
• Due to the lack of space, focal length was an easy choice. Had to use my kit lens at 18mm. I wish i had a wider lens cos i think the distortion at 10 mm would make this image even better. Aperture is also fixed at f/8 for optimal sharpness.
• Experimenting with the placement of my camera (mounted on a tripod of course) this was the best angle i could find that met all the conditions i needed.
• With the camera finally placed, we then began taking the photos which can be categorized into 2 types generally; the scene image and the content images. The scene image refers to an image of the scene with no actual subject or content. The content images are the images which contain the subjects that we will mask onto the scene image using Photoshop (of course).

2. Colored Lighting

The Scene Image

• The lighting technique for the scene image and the content image is different. The challenge of the scene image is to create the concontion of colours that make the background seem so interesting and vivid. I imagine that one way to do this is to place multiple flashes using different colored color gels and to just shoot it in certain angles around the room. But since i have only 2 flashes, we (me and my friends who were super helpful btw) went for ambient lighting. So what we did was use the flash gel filters on every available light source in the house.. of course you could just use colored transparent paper and they’ll do just as well. After moving the subjects out of the scene, the scene image was tak
• The most important thing to note from now on is to NEVER MOVE THE CAMERA from this point onward. Else you would have to recapture the scene image and all the content images that you’ve taken once more.
• Ok now that you have the scene image, we can start adding content to it. For this we need to capture the ‘floating objects’ next.

3. Floating objects

• For this step, what we do is take pictures of individual objects ‘floating’ and then we add them to the scene image using the masking technique in Photoshop. The camera settings have to be set for capturing still images of objects in motion. For this we need to use a fast shutter speed (anything around 1/100) and also a flash. In my case i bounced the flash onto the ceiling to avoid any unwanted shadows forming. If you’re getting more advanced i supposed you can play with the lighting here to produce realistic shadows in your scene image.
  
• Of course, the trickiest part here is the floating girl. Miss Aniela was thrown upwards as her shot was taken but we just couldn’t pull that off here because my friend didn’t feel safe using that technique. So we opted for holding her up in the air which works just as well i think but would involve a bit more photoshop work to remove the hands upon her person. As a model, the most important thing here is to angle the body and limbs in an interesting and ‘floaty’ way. Also, the expression should also be interesting because as soon as the viewer sees the scene, he/she will straight away gaze at the subject’s face to see what her reaction to all this craziness is and any positive expression like surprised/scared would do.. just don’t look bored LOL
• After we had the girl afloat, we can just add whatever things you have available to toss around. Camera settings are the same, just try to make the objects seem interesting as they float. Whether it be the angle or the zero grav effect. Also plan the layout of the objects beforehand to avoid having objects blocking the view of the floating girl which is the main subject of the photo.
  
• You can see the content images here:

[nggallery id=8]

Once you have all the images you need, you’re done. Done with the camera i mean. Next you load the files you need in photoshop and do some layer masking to get the final image. I’m no photoshop wizard but i think my final output is pretty decent and personally i like it very much. And this wouldn’t have been possible without my great bunch of friends who were always filled with creative ideas and ready to help. Honestly, the idea and concept of these photos are simple and easy to understand but doing them alone would have been really tough and also boring Credits roll after the final images here, cheers !

1st Version

2nd Version

Credits:

• Faisal for additional photoshop editing, throwing of objects, helping to plan the shots and overall funny making throughout the shoot
• Ratna for being good at what she does; levitating and looking like she just belongs there in mid air
• Zhaf for being the strongman that night, tirelessly lifting Ratna time and time again
• Aidid for her help with the films to help block unwanted light
• Bobo for sitting in that chair and making us Maggi that night
• Shaf for being there that night and cheering us up with various songs on the guitar

Thank you all for everything really.. i really had a blast that night !

Edit: I made some changes after getting some feedback from viewers. The smaller fries makes it slightly better i think. Still cant do much about the shadows tho.