Surreal scenery

[Isiliel]

Hello, and greetings to everyone!
This is my first post, so I hope I'll do it right.

Here's my surreal scenery, a self portrait.
This is one of my first images with Nikon 3100.

18.0-55.0 mm f/3.5-5.6
40,0 mm
f/5,3
1/6 sec
ISO-200
No Flash


Heavy Reading (Updated) by |siliel, on Flickr

Is it realistic enough?
Any critique will be much appreciated.

[moomin472]

This is a great picture. Looks very realistic

[Krusty79]

Cool idea and execution. Looks realistic enough to me. I can even see the reflections of your shoes on the wood below. How did you manage that?

[BuddhaPi]

a how I took it tutorial would be great for this shot! please consider sharing your method..

[LeeR]

I actually think you have done a good job of combing these two images. The reflection of your shoes in the wood is quite convincing. However, if you were truly sitting under these books we would expect your upper body to be in a bit more shade.

[Isiliel]

Thank you all for your kind and useful comments.

Here's how I did this photo shoot:
1. I sketched the outcome I wanted to achieve in a piece of paper.
2. I took some pictures of bookshelves for my scenes, and some of me (model) in corresponding poses in front of a white background.
3. I isolated the model from the background and added it to the bookshelf image.
4. At first I added just a few shadows, but some days later I noticed the reflection of the books, and made the reflection of myself simply by copying the layer, and flipping it vertically. Then, I lowered the opacity, and added some Gaussian blur. (If the bookshelf was lighter, I would have blended the layer with "soft light" as well).

If you need any more details, I'll be glad to share with you.

You can see some more examples in my flickr account.
(should I post them here?)

LeeR, thank you for your feedback, I may have to try this.



(I hope my English is not too bad)

[commongrackle]

Very cool image!

BTW - You "speak" English better than some people whose native language IS English! So don't worry about that!

[Bruce A]

Originally Posted by LeeR

I actually think you have done a good job of combing these two images. The reflection of your shoes in the wood is quite convincing. However, if you were truly sitting under these books we would expect your upper body to be in a bit more shade.

I'm certainly no expert, but the lighting on her face and right hand seems quite realistic to me given the amount of light hitting the spines of the books and that her placement is more to the front rather than deeper into the shelf.


Great shot and idea.