levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes

To wear a dead bird’s wings…

Welcome to my very first Behind the Scenes! “Broken Wings” derives from a summer’s day when I was taking a walk and my eyes got caught on these semi-decomposed bird wings among the leaves on the ground. And my instinct was of course that I had to wear them! Even though they would only fit a person 40 cm tall…

dead, bird, wings, decomposed, rotten

But since I’m a very stubborn girl I resisted the terrible stench reeking out from them, poked sticks under the “armpits” of the post-bird, and walked around the forest to find a good location.

Luckily it didn’t take long before I ran into this tree stump. The stump was big enough to fit me in it and also it provided a good spot for a levitation trick. Even though the wings were broken I had to at least try to fly with them.

Below, I’ll take you through both the SHOOTING PROCESS and the PHOTOSHOP PROCESS

SHOOTING PROCESS

So I needed three shots to be able to create a girl with wings trying to fly from a tree stump.

1) THE UPPER BODY AND ARMS I put my camera on my tripod, climbed the stump and flung around it in different positions, shooting myself using my Canon RC-1 wireless remote control. Climbed back down, ran to the camera to check on the poses and angles, and ran back to the stump to create better ones. This kept on until I felt like I had been through a tough yoga session and I had a shot I was happy with.

levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes
levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes

 

2) THE LEGS To create that levitation look I needed to lift my legs off the stump, not touching it at all with my legs. So back up on the stump I let myself into the same position as in the shot I had chosen, held my body up with my arms and released the legs.

3) THE WINGS were a lot trickier since they were so small (and also very fragile and risked of falling apart any second). Still having the wings on sticks, I first tried to get the correct perspective by putting the wings in the proper place behind the stump with the aim to increase their size later on. Although, I wasn’t happy with the details so instead I tried to lift them in front of and close to the camera. For this part it is very important to keep the same focal length even if the subject is moved around. I was happy with these images and I was done shooting.

levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes
levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes

 

Let me make a note that all this was going on with people walking by… looking like they were going to call the police for them to come get that crazy bird woman running around in the woods with wings, looking like she would need a strait-jacket…

 

PHOTOSHOP PROCESS

In Photoshop I combined the two images of the girl in the forest by using the first shot as a main layer, masking over “the wrong legs” and letting through the levitated legs from underneath with some modifications.

levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes
levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes

 

After that I cut out one wing at a time, pasted them on the forest image, corrected their positions and angles and let the arms and body of the girl in front of the wings.

levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes
levitation, self portrait, post-processing, Photoshop, conceptual, bird, fly, take off, forest, Behind the scenes

For me the story is sad and moody, so I wanted the tone and color of the final image to convey that feeling. I worked with blues and darks and decreasing the yellow in the greens. Some more tweaking and adjustments and VOILÀ!

BROKEN WINGS

Broken wings

A lot of work, full of aches, and marked as a crazy bird woman, but at least I got to wear a dead bird’s wings…

________________


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Comments

19 responses to “To wear a dead bird’s wings…”

  1. Erik Avatar

    Den här posten var riktigt bra – jag känner mig redan omkörd. Fack!

  2. FANTiM Avatar

    Very gross. But 1000 times worth it. The final shot looks so great.

  3. htc one sprint Avatar

    I have been looking around your webblog for quite a while and subscribed for your Really simply syndication feed, awaiting more updates!

  4. abhishek Avatar
    abhishek

    This was verry impressive can you please tell how did.you manage to get your hands above the winga when you pated the wings on he 1st layer

    1. jennyjacobsson Avatar

      Hello there abhishek,

      First of all, thank you for commenting! I’ll do my best to keep adding interesting work in the future to engage and inspire 🙂

      To answer your question about how I got my hands above the wings; I always work in Photoshop to edit my image. In Photoshop I put the image with the woman in one layer and the image with the wings in a second layer above the first layer. For that second layer, I added a layer mask and painted with a black brush in the layer mask to mask out the wings where I wanted the arms and body to be visible.

      I hope that helps. I look forward to more questions in the future!

  5. Kusum Avatar
    Kusum

    Amazing shot ma’am..really…a huge fan of your work..i am just a rookie in the world of photography..looking forward to learn a thing or two from you..thank you for sharing.god bless you

    1. jennyjacobsson Avatar

      Thank you so so much for your kind words. It warms my heart to hear that I can be of any inspiration to you. I’ll do my best to keep posting great content for you 🙂
      Cheers,
      Jenny

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