So, as many of you lovely readers may already know from my Facebook posts (www.facebook.com/tayleephotography), I've been fiddling around with levitation photography as of late. The whole concept really intrigues and inspires me. And that is probably mostly due to the fact that I have a crazy amount of flying dreams - all the time. It's probably one of my most prevalent types of dream (besides my dreams based on fears - but we won't get into that now). So far I've just done a couple self portraits, but I have a lot of ideas running around in my crazy noggin.
I started out "practicing" with this awesome app called "Levitagram". It uses a similar format that I use in photoshop to make my images. You should totally go download the app - it's tons of fun. Here are a couple 'practice' runs I did for fun with the app.
I started out "practicing" with this awesome app called "Levitagram". It uses a similar format that I use in photoshop to make my images. You should totally go download the app - it's tons of fun. Here are a couple 'practice' runs I did for fun with the app.
Fun, right??
My boyfriend is such a good sport. :)
So, this app really helped get my creative juices flowing and got me thinking of what else I could do with my camera and photoshop and what other 'themes' or ideas I wanted to get out to the world.
So I was sitting in my office on this very computer and thought, 'I wanna do a levitation portrait right now. Right here in the office - where a lot of my ideas have happened in the past.'. And that led to this photo. My first levitation portrait done without an app.
My boyfriend is such a good sport. :)
So, this app really helped get my creative juices flowing and got me thinking of what else I could do with my camera and photoshop and what other 'themes' or ideas I wanted to get out to the world.
So I was sitting in my office on this very computer and thought, 'I wanna do a levitation portrait right now. Right here in the office - where a lot of my ideas have happened in the past.'. And that led to this photo. My first levitation portrait done without an app.
I wrote "dream..." on the chalkboard because I wanted to convey the idea that if you can dream it, you can do it. After I did this rather simple seeming portrait, it gave me the inspiration to continue on this path and try something a little harder - a little more challenging. Something outside in nature (where the lighting is not always cooperative and is ever-changing).
It proved to be more difficult than I thought - taking me about a month to edit it in a way that I thought felt 'right'. Making this next portrait really taught me a lot about what I like and don't like, what photoshop skills I need to work on, how to better prepare the shoot site, and that sometimes the muses may not speak to you when you want them to, but rather, when you need them. After I shot this next piece, I worked on it feverishly, and frustratingly, for about 3 days and I kept hitting dead ends. I thought to myself, well, this just isn't going to work - I'll have to do another shoot later. But 3 weeks went by and I reopened the photo - and it just came to me. Three inspired and focused hours later, this was my final product.
It proved to be more difficult than I thought - taking me about a month to edit it in a way that I thought felt 'right'. Making this next portrait really taught me a lot about what I like and don't like, what photoshop skills I need to work on, how to better prepare the shoot site, and that sometimes the muses may not speak to you when you want them to, but rather, when you need them. After I shot this next piece, I worked on it feverishly, and frustratingly, for about 3 days and I kept hitting dead ends. I thought to myself, well, this just isn't going to work - I'll have to do another shoot later. But 3 weeks went by and I reopened the photo - and it just came to me. Three inspired and focused hours later, this was my final product.
This final image is a compilation of about 7 different shots - in one photo I liked my face, in one I liked the cape's movement, in one the doll looked best, in one I liked the left foot, in the other I liked the right, etc, etc. And then I had to add the sky, some little strings of hair, the color changes, and edit a couple distractions out of the background. It was an involved process, but looking at the final product makes me happy. It's not as perfect as I would want it to be, and if I had more experience, I would have gotten more of those posing elements in one shot rather than combining a bunch of them, but all in all, I'm happy and proud of my first complicated dream-like levitation photo.
I hope to make more and more portraits (both self and of others) and to continue improving on each one. All we can do is dream and try to live up to those dreams. <3
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