When I come up with a photographic concept, most times I can make it work simply because I’m the only person involved in the project. If I want to photograph a building, I will stand in front of it; I won’t ask the building to move to the other side of the street where the light is better.
But if I want to include humans in my photos… then I enter a new variable in photography. Candid photos are one thing; but some people get very nervous around the idea of posing for a picture. The same people who will make a kissy-duck face for an Instagram selfie won’t give a hard-working photographer a second glimpse for a great photo concept.
No matter. This is why I work with an amazing team of models; men and women with whom I have photo-captured in the past and who totally understand that my “mad scientist with a camera” shtick will, in the end, pay off with an amazing photographic concept.
During Competition Season 2015, one of my model-posed photos, Jessica: Instamatic Dichotomy, took a blue ribbon, the first stripe garnered by any of my photos that featured one of my models. So you know I’m going to try this again for Competition Season 2016.
I gave my model friend Lauren a call; Lauren, you might remember, posed in this photo called Her Stolen Heart way back in 2011.
//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js
When I described my new plan for a photo – to capture motion with my Nimslo four-lensed camera – she thought it would be a great idea.
On Sunday, we set up the photo shoot in a park along the Sacandaga River. I mounted the Nimslo four-lens camera on a tripod. Lauren would stand six feet away from the camera. She would toss the leaves into the sky, and as the leaves drifted into the frame, I would press the shutter button.
The film was developed. And I began the arduous task of assembling four images into one lenticular print.
I know this will work. Let’s start with this image.
This is what I’m looking for. Lauren is the pivot point; you can see the leaves in front of her; the river behind her. Aces.
Let’s do this again. Ready, aim and throw!
Better. More leaves in the air. But Lauren’s arms aren’t in a throwing position; it almost looks as if she’s trying to fly. Must try again.
We shot a few pictures alongside the river, and got this image.
We tried one more angle… and this time…
I got the image.
This is great. Lauren’s face is the “pivot point” in the image, the water behind her and the leaves in front of her give the illusion of spatial distance. And as an added bonus, the shadows on her blouse clearly indicate that the leaves are in the air, that I didn’t just put them there in some sort of botanic Photoshop chicanery.
That last picture – short pile for 2016, for sure. And as an added bonus … yes, Chuck is thinking WAY outside the box on this one – since this picture was taken with one dedicated “exposure” (and I have the four-chambered, one-shot negative to prove it), this might be an exploitable loophole that could get a lenticular print entered in the Big E Photo Competition.
Still, this may look great on a computer monitor… but the next step will be to contact my lenticular printing company (the one that did my previous lenticulars Vivaldi’s Pond and Fagbug and Vaudeville) and see if they can make this image dance.
That’s me. Always thinking three steps ahead.
And I definitely like doing that.
Chuck The Writer 
Beautiful Chuck! I love the expression on her face – one of pure joy. Fantastic photo, congrats.
LikeLike
Film??? Come on, really? You’d be much better off doing this digitally. Four angles is really not enough for a decent 3d lenticular. I use a minimum of 12. You’d have more control shooting the elements separately and layering them out in Photoshop. Then you can bring the layered Photoshop file into After Effects and place the elements at very specific points in space. Making adjustments is super easy then as well.
http://www.rrdonnelley.com/print-solutions/commercial-print/lenticular/
LikeLike
That’s interesting Brad, do you have a 12-camera rig you use?
LikeLike
There’s really no need for a 12 camera rig. Like I said, you can do pretty much everything right from a layered Photoshop file. The more layers the better. I even apply displacement maps to give elements volume. There’s some things, like fire, water, smoke, that look cool when shot with multiple cameras, but for most things I can make them look super 3d in After Effects. Plus you can add other effects, key frame them, etc.
LikeLike
I guess I don’t understand the whole concept then, unless you’re just shooting still lifes. This is all pretty far out of my wheelhouse, admittedly.
LikeLike
Just shoot a bunch of leaves separately, mask them out, put them on separate layers in front of your model. She’s on a separate layer from the background, as so on….
LikeLike
OK, I revise my previous statement, you clearly don’t understand Chuck’s intentions here.
I get what you’re saying and don’t have any fundamental problem with that process, if that’s how you want to do it. It’s so obviously antithetical to Chuck’s goals that the suggestion isn’t really valuable here.
Kind of like photoshopping people into a streetscape and posting it to the HSCP flickr group. Wrong audience.
LikeLike
I guess I don’t understand the intentions. Are the intentions to struggle to make a really dynamic lenticular that you have complete control over where elements are positioned in space? There’s no need to struggle when people who have been doing it for decades offer advice. That’s all I was doing. You want needless noise, dust, or scratches in your image because you used film? Fine. Enjoy cloning it out later. You want your images jumping all over because the film is slightly off in the x, y, and z axis inside the camera? Use it! You want the color slightly off from frame to frame? Super! Art doesn’t have to be a struggle. If you don’t want to take someones suggestions you don’t have to, but someone else might find it useful. It’s our duty as artists/craftsmen to pass on what we have learned.
LikeLike
No, I get what you’re saying, and your input is great for someone looking to make a very technical kind of digital lenticular. I’m sure it’s really helpful to others. It doesn’t take much reading of this blog to realize that working in film, especially in unconventional ways, is Chuck’s thing. Hell, it’s pretty far from *my* thing and I get it.
Like I said, just the wrong audience. Kind of like trying to sell Hot Pockets at the farmer’s market.
LikeLike
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. It’s not really about creating “technical” lenticular, whatever that means. It’s creating lenticular that works as well as it can, and knowing the variables/limitations up front so you know it’s going to work correctly the first time you proof it. We rarely need to make alterations. That’s because we’ve done the work. We know the “technicalities”. We’ve push the limits and found what works and what doesn’t. By sharing I hope to help others create great lenticular and push the medium forward. Too many people still think of Cracker-Jack prizes, trinkets and trash pieces when they think lenticular. If you know what you’re doing you can create dazzling images.
LikeLike