02.16.13 Leaves

::Before And After::

This week's photo idea came to me one night as I was falling asleep.  I had an image slip into my head.  Dressed in a business suit, floating through the clouds, buildings rising from below.  It was a very peaceful dream, the kind of feeling you get right before you start dreaming.

I woke up and decided to create what I saw.  It's not exactly as I saw it in my dream because I would've needed to rent a hot air balloon to get the angle on the buildings that would've been needed.

I decided to include a before and after of this week's photo.

Completed Image

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Main Building Used

Composed Buildings

Extended Buildings

Falling Man

For the falling man I modeled myself.  We used the umbrellas and windows to create the light coming from in front of me.  We also used the lights in my apartment to guarantee that my back wouldn't be too washed out.  We tried using a fan at first to create the shirt flapping, but it wasn't strong enough so we ended up using string and photoshopping it out later.

Finished Composition
Before Crop and Color Removal

Final Image

Zoomed In For Detail

So something interesting about working on this composition.  During the time of this photo Japan and Russia are feuding over a few islands in Norther Japan.  There was originally a sign on the building saying that once Japan reacquired these islands Japan would have peace.  We decided to replace this with a custom haiku Risa Takeuchi wrote just for this photo.

舞い落ちる

木の葉は行く先

告げぬまま

-梨紗

Roughly translating to: Fluttering leaves don't tell me where they're going.