PHOTOSHOP
Visualising commercial assignments using layers

Here is one way to work out if all visualised elements of a planned shoot, fit the scene.
The concept here was to create a crime scene for a police story in a magazine. An accident had occurred in an urban environment involving water. So there had to be all the elements in place; search and rescue, forensics, police photographer, officers from different departments, police air wing, divers, medical and water police. So here is one approach to visualising a proposed shoot using one subject over many layers to create a scene in order to work out future angles, lighting etc. Then we marked out spots on the ground for the people, this lets us see where things may overlap.

From an initial sketch, we had to work out the camera angles, lighting, positions to see that it would all fit into the planned location.
I used our graphic designer as the model, and with the camera locked off on a tripod, I photographed her in all the poses required. Then in Photoshop I arranged the composition. It is a lot easier going with a plan like this for a location shoot, rather than simply trusting to chance that it will all work. There were a lot of assets at work here, so it all had to fit. Once we could see that it was possible within the limited space available, we then set the shoot for around 2:00am with the boat and helicopter set as separate shoots for composition later. Unfortunately I can’t show the actual finished poster, but this gives an idea of the processes involved.

All photographs and information © Jon Davison 2022

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