2am... Still no idea what to shootby
TygerrComment by Tygerr: A lot of people have asked how I did this one...
The basic idea is quite simple. Take a long exposure in a dark room, and use flash lighting to briefly expose the subject in various poses within the frame.
Executing this idea takes quite a bit of time though.
I planned the poses by taking numerous short exposures with the lights on (remotely triggered), so that in the test shots there is only one pose per image. Then when I was happy with where I had to be standing for each pose, I did the long exposure with the lights off, by moving from position to position and triggering the flash whenever I got into the correct pose.
(Moving around in the dark can be hazardous. See my comments on this thread)
There are certain factors that make the task easier:
1.
A vary dark room. Any ambient light will cause the background to shine through, and will also cause 'ghosting' of the main subject.
2.
Flash lighting. The only light must be brief flashes of strong light. This is what causes sharp, bright, well defined subjects (i.e. no motion blur). I used my SB-600 speedlight, handheld, pressing the "Test" button to trigger the flash. (You can see from the angle in my shoulder in the top-left pose, that I am holding the flash pointing down at me.)
3.
Focus and DOF. The three poses are at different distances (the top-right being the closest, about 3ft from the camera), so DOF becomes important. I focused in on the closest pose, and selected F11 to give quite a wide DOF. The narrower the aperture though, the less strong the effect of the flash lighting is. So F11 was a good compromise to keep the rear pose in reasonable focus, as well as allow enough light in from the flash.
The remote trigger also helps, especially whilst setting up the poses (in fact, it's probably vital for most self-portraiture).
Photographer found comment helpful.
