Leica Workshop
On the Friday before last, I went on a Leica workshop. This one wasn’t like the other ones from this year. This one was about portraiture. So I was really being taken out of my comfort zone. This was led by portrait, editorial & advertising photography Cat Garcia.
On this workshop, we had a 25 minute shoot with an actor called Luke Ward-Wilkinson who has appeared in Wild At Heart. This instantly gave me a device to build up a rapport with him. I could also further build the rapport by mentioning about my cousin who’s trying to make it as an actor in New York.
Before the shoot however, we we’re asked to show ten images of our work. I said in my opinion it was tough to pick because sports photography can be very repetitive. When looking at both my sports and my events work, Cat felt that with my portraits I should try to evoke emotion from Luke. To which Julian said he’s good at if you let him know what you want yo create.
Next Cat spoke to us about her style of work. She feels that all of her work, whether it’s commissioned or personal is a collaboration. A portrait is a joint effort. Cat is a massive fan of natural light. The image on the left is one of my favourite. Her work also requires loads of preparation. Cat said she’d been waiting for the light and shadow to be in the perfect location to match the position of the face. This image wouldn’t of been the same if it was shot with flash.
So now onto the shoot itself. I decided to shoot with the Leica SL system with the 24-90 f2.8/4. I was the first up and if I had more time to practice. I probably would’ve taken a chance with the Leica M rangefinder. However I only had 20 minutes to practice. I’m really happy with the shots that I came out with.
I decided to go with a mixture of natural and staged images. Feedback of the set was good as well. My peers really liked the colours and poses that I created with Luke. My only regret from the shoot is that all the shots we’re taken in shade so there isn’t as much light in the eyes of Luke that I expected.
The Leica workshop was a great way to end a fun 1st Year at Ravensbourne.
My first idea was a spin off of Planet Of The Apes and since then I came up with some strong ideas which include:
When I pitched the idea in the first tutorial, I myself felt like I was lost at sea with the narrative. Matt really encouraged me to push the narrative, why would Lavazza be the the rescue.
Chris was very happy with my portraits. He said they we’re very good as standalone portraits. Matt liked the expression of the final portrait that I used.
This project was a massive experience in being patience. This was need to be able to cut out the Titanic realistically. Not only for drawing the paths with the Pen Tool but also using the Magic Wand tool to remove the areas inside the ladders.
I wish that I did more research into composite photography. It probably would’ve led to some more creative ideas. I don’t think I did enough research. I think I relied too much on my uncles Annie Leibovitz books to which her portrait work is very different to her composite photography for Lavazza and I didn’t really take much from her.
Seeing on how my Lavazza comp is now officially finished. I’ve decided to do a blog post layer by layer to explain how I got to this image.
My first port of call was to change the sky. Chris and Matt believed that this image had to be day for night.
Now it’s about comping the ship into the water. This folder only has one layers, the ship. The folder also contains two sub layers which are there for light sources on the ship. These we’re created using a small 
brush of yellow paint. Said layer was duplicated six times to give the bright punchy feel which adds depth to the image. [Note: Inner shadow was experimentation with blending options, make no difference to image but forgot to disable them] The folders in this group are the same in Group 3 Titanic Stern.
Next was undoubtedly the hardest part of my comp. The reflections. This is the bit I struggled with the most. This group also involved the use of displace filters which I had to create a displace PSD file previously, thanks to a Youtube tutorial.
The next group was the one that held both my portrait and my cup. This section was tough to get the colour temperature right. After much trial and error I finally managed the match the cup and the portrait.
The important layers are smart objects, so I opened the PSB file and browsed through the Nix collection. To which I decided to use the Monday Morning filter on Nathan. It initially looked B&W so I put the opacity down to 39%.
The final group of my comp is the stars which we’re painted in with a small brush of white paint. Said paint was duplicated several times and lifted to the top of the comp to become more prominent. I applied motion blur to two of the layers to give a twinkle to some of the stars. Finally I painted out a few areas where the moon glare was, so the darker stars we’re more brighter.
I’m gonna do a detailed blog post about the specific retouching I’ve had to do, from the retouching of the Titanic to the Day for night background. There are 11 groups which comprise of 51 layers. The master file is 383 mbs
Today I had my seventh and last tutorial for my Digital Darkroom submission. Todays talk was fully about the comp. Before I had a chat with Chris I decided to have a look through the Nix collection. I really liked the mood that the Duplex filter created. It gave an orange tinge, a feel of the sun setting off of the frame. I did however think it was too strong at face value, so I decided to lower the opacity. Chris had a look at it and liked the following was suggested:
Chris decided to prow through Google to find an image of smoke which I could use as a basis for the smoke in my comp. Chris felt the image on the right would be a good basis. He felt it would make the smoke look sad. Look like the last breaths of the sinking Titanic.
So after the crit I did a test print. I’m really impressed with the colours. Now that I have seen it in print-form I now have a very good idea of how to perfect this comp.
the horizon. I must admit, placing the ship on the horizon was a bit of a cop out. It’s a straight line so I only have to have the water as a new layer and I’d already be on my way to having the Titanic sinking. However by doing it lower than the horizon it’s a bigger challenge to make it look plausible but it brings back a sense of depth to the image, the ship was too far away when on the horizon, by making the cup look like it’s closer to the ship adds to the narrative of he has only just escaped. Mentioning the narrative, Chris felt I should keep adding light to the ship. To make the ship look alive and make us think that our model has only just escaped.
I decided to search up some Youtube tutorials. I came across 
This is where my comp was when I spoke to Chris. He said I was “definitely on the right tracks” he also felt that the sky should be darker on the left side of the sky. After this Chris gave me an insight into how to add light to the Titanic. He suggested do a levels adjustment then layer mask it over the windows. Then using the paint brush with a warm yellow colour, I should paint it in. This is something that Matt doesn’t fully agree with. I also said to Chris that I’ve had to reshoot my coffee cup because Matt pointed out that the table could be seen in the coffee cup, to which Chris agreed.
When Chris looked at them he said some of these work as “stand lone portraits”. I think this is the portrait I’m going to go with for the shoot. I just feel his pose matches the odd satistfaction I’m trying to show of someone who has survived the Titanic thanks to the coffee cup.
Ben Peters Digital Photography 