A Lot From A Little

Robert Cornelius July 25, 2014

Whoa dang, look! This guy is covered in barbed wire, crazy right!? It must all be Photoshop magic you're thinking, because by now I know you've all discovered that I'm a big fat photo-manipulating cheater and nothing is real. But shoot, this looks like it's really on that poor guy... Must be some fake barbed wire that isn't sharp, right? Nope. That's as real and sharp as they make it. Also, yes we really did put it all over him. Sorta. ALL of this wasn't on at one time, but we did actually put a fair amount of this gnarly stuff on him. Then I used some sneaky shooting and editing techniques to get lots more wire on while still totally selling it as real...at least I hope I did.

5 Compositing Tips & Tricks

Robert Cornelius July 13, 2014

Take a good look at this picture. (Cool thanks!) Believe it or not, this image began as a picture of a girl (my delightful friend Molly), sitting in the studio against a black background. No lake, no sky, no seaweed, no need for an underwater camera housing and certainly no fish. To some people, including my past self (let's call him Past-Bert just for fun), would look at this picture and think, "How the heck did they do that!? I could never take a picture like this!" Past-Bert saw all kinds of crazy composited images back in the day (somewhere around 2008-ish) that just blew his poor little mind to pieces (small ones). He was thoroughly enjoying photography, but Past-Bert hadn't even dipped his toe into the compositing pool yet. Now I like to think I often scuba dive in the deep end. Allow me to let you in on a few of my dirty little tricks that help bring my composites to life!

But I Didn't Push The Button...

Robert Cornelius July 4, 2014

Hello internet friends. Allow me to paint a little picture for you. Let's say that you want to create an image of yourself all tangled up in a ton of ropes, floating in a dark, dusty, endless abyss. (Well then you must be a crazy person ... or me). "How," you might ask, "did you take that picture while all tangled in ropes?" Well I'm glad you asked ... I didn't. Yes that's right, I did not actually push the button on the camera that caused this picture to exist. So, am I still the photographer?

Selecting Your Best Final Image(s)

Robert Cornelius June 26, 2014

Being mainly a composite photographer, I tend to snap about 42,000 shots during one of my photo shoots. I know that AT LEAST once during editing I'll think to myself (or curse the heavens out loud), "Why didn't I take one like fill-in-the-blank-here!?" So naturally I've developed a habit of taking more pictures than I could possibly need. This is good for me and my brain, but might make you crazy. I'm by no means saying in order to be a good photographer you must take TONS of photos. Some photographers get everything they want in just a couple of shots (and I majorly respect that), but I'm not one of those people. I want options for days. Once I have an obnoxious library of images to work from, I must then embark on the daunting task of deciding which one is going to be my final image. WHICH ONE!?