Local band and Behind-The-Scenes Gif animations

Dubious Drewski · Feb 25, 2009

So a band in my town saw the cheesy portraits I did with my buddies a while back and they wanted the same thing for themselves. They're rockers, so the idea of having cheesy serious portraits as their album cover/ promo poster is hilarious. I got them to dress in knitted sweaters and scarves. My landlord just happened to be renovating a room in my house on the day I had planned to shoot these photos, so naturally, I jumped on that opportunity!

I also included a couple of animated gifs to show my workflow. I want to show you guys what I start with. It ain't nearly as pretty as the finished product.
1.

The process:

2.

The process:

3.

The Process:

4. Just for fun. I was shooting for a serious pose, like that one of Queen. But this ended up being the best shot of that attempt. Why not, it's very expressive.

So how does my workflow compare to your guys method? Do you guys rely as heavily on the post work as I do?

Big Mike · Feb 25, 2009

Nice idea with the animated before to after GIFs...I'm surprised that isn't more popular on tutorials and Photoshop sites etc.

I don't think your editing it too intrusive...the only thing I saw that I would even consider heavy editing...is changing the color/tone of their shoes. The rest just looks like basic adjustments and a little dodge/burn. For the style of shots that you creating...I think your process looks pretty good.

adamwilliamking · Feb 25, 2009

wide angle + bald guy in the middle = conehead

i like the horizontal shot of the guys heads, but the lighting is too hard on the left guys face

Dubious Drewski · Feb 25, 2009

Well Mike, I agree the "shoes" were a noticeable change. But the reason they were changed was because they weren't shoes at all, but socks! Socks didn't look so great in the photo, so I blacked them out.

I agree about the gifs: I wish more people included them when they posted photos, it would be so educational.

Adam: Thank you very much for the feedback. Well that last shot was sort of inspired by this famous photo of Queen:

So the lighting is just how I wanted it. And the wide angle/distortion was their request, they wanted a funky look, so I shot it at 10mm. So the conehead look is not a problem.