How could this photo have been taken?

k.udhay

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Well this guy is extremely popular for covering weddings of most celebrities in Chennai. And he deserves this too. He has been my benchmark for a while now. I recently came across this photo taken by him:

Instagram post by Ashok Arsh • Nov 4, 2017 at 3:45pm UTC

And amazed!!

There are only two possibilities I could think of:

1. Using a blue gelled flash to light background (BG):
  • Still, how can he eliminate even its bounce to give the couple a blue shade
  • The couple don't get any rim light either
  • There are some non-blue portions as well in the BG
2. Dropping the WB to a cooler tone and lighting the subject with an opposite colored gel flash
  • Wouldn't that light have affected even a small portion of BG? (Or... has it??)
3. At any case, how did the BG become so saturated and soft edged - Is it only a matter or smaller aperture no. or any digital blurring?

Request your comments to my assumptions / questions / interpretations. Thanks.

P.s. - Most gel photography tutorials I find in YT are indoor. If outdoor, it is only to correct the skin tone of couple while WB is adjusted to a cooler or warmer temperature. If someone finds a video to give an effect like the Insta post link I have shared, kindly share here.
 
Will a backdrop give such a saturated BG look?

However, this also is a possibility that I never thought of...
 
The background could merely be a computer-generated one with the subjects digitally superimposed onto it. With such teeny images, it's impossible to see any details for clues.
 
In Lightroom, could put a layer over the background with the brush or grad filter tool, erase the couple from the layer with a brush (auto mask would help), then saturate the background with blue. I'm sure it'd be even easier in photoshop. If the photos are only getting shared on instagram or other apps, you wouldn't even have to do that good of a job, the small image size would hide a lot of mistakes in the masking.
 
haven't these very two images been posted here for analysis?

looking at his website, he absolutely edits the piss out of his backgrounds. But he also lights them with gels then over-blurs and oversaturates them -- that is, if he's actually shooting against them; he has TONS of composites on his website.

here's one that he did a poor job on: http://www.ashokarsh.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SouthmeetsNorth10.jpg
 
Last edited:
Why ask us? We didn’t take the photo we can only guess.

Ask the person who took it!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
espresso2x said:
Could it be a studio backdrop, like a graphic?

Yes, it could be a printed vinyl backdrop, sure. Or a painted backdrop. Or a composited image. It looks like he does composited backdrops fairly often.

To light the couple? medium- to large-sdie softbox overhead on a boom arm. A little reflector fill below them, from around waist level. Basic studio lighting on the people.

When one gels a backdrop, to avoid bounced-back light coloring the people, it helps to shoot the gel onto a somewhat dark backdrop: medium-tone gray paper works well, as does black paper. Shooting a gel onto pure white background paper can cause bounce-back quite easily, especially in a small, cramped shooting area. Of course, it pays to make sure of the power levels being used, and the distances and such.
 

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