I have to admit, I like to think of myself as pretty good at being able to deconstruct a photo; How it was lit, how it was shot, whether compositing was done etc... But this series by Jasper James has left me confused for months as I have tried to sort out how he does this. He claims this is all in camera. Check out the examples here:
So... how?
How does the reflection of the photographer not show up in the images?
What do you think the positioning is in terms of where the photographer is, where the subject is, where the background is and where the glass is?
For the haters that don't like deconstructing other people's shots, we've heard your voices. I just love this technique and am so perplexed at how it is done.
I'd guess he has a big sheet of glass that he uses to reflect the light of the bright sky back into the camera but it's tilted so that human subjects (standing between the glass and the bright sky behind/to the side of the camera) block the bright reflection from washing out the city composed beyond the glass. Looks like it's done on rooftops.
This is done on film, but is now finally available on the 5DIII and 1DX. The best way is in-cam. PS results usually suck. Doing it in one take with glass is usually next to impossible... unless you are really lucky to find the perfect timing and circumstances.
On the MKIII you can turn on HDR mode and it will compose these in camera. i imagine if you set it to do the exposure to catch the window and then the couple and then the camera merges them as it does, this would be pretty possible.
They look like a fairly long focal length, at least 200mm probably. That might help positing the camera effectively right out of frame? But yeah, who knows!
@fotojennik It seems obvious to me, I would love to use this technique with couples. The fact that the first image is of a couple seemed a dead giveaway.
Seems like double exposure is the most popular suggestion, yet another reason I need to pick up the 5D3...
I have a very hard time believing those are a single exposure, even at f/32 I don't think you could get the subject and background both that sharp, especially at the focal lengths that look to be in use.
Double exposure. First shot is the subject (couple, baby...) and second shot is of the city with subject is out of the way. Second shot has to have decreased exposure since you're exposing twice for the area where there is no subtext in first shot. That's why everything is blown out. This is definitely cool and something I never fooled with having been a Canon shooter. Need to add this to the bag of tricks.
Just my 2 cents. I fooled around with it real quick and got it to work using the monitor as my city. Tony do tell how you can do this without double exposure and PS. There's always more than one way to do something.
‘The images are made in camera with just a basic adjustment in contrast and colours but no retouching. I’m currently planning exhibitions of the images and looking for an interested publisher.’
