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"I love doing unusual and dramatic setups that make people wonder how it was done. I have many models available to me and each of those models excel in certain looks and moods. This particular model happens to be my hubby. He has the most gentle nature but with his Greek background he always does the harsh, severe look so well.
A competition was announced for Canon involving a tea light and whilst most of the entrants were aiming at the pretty and romantic angle, I decided to go in the opposite direction. My idea started with the tea light balancing on the tongue, but I felt it would be too cluttered, so I started building on the idea by incorporating a tribal style painting over him. I often shave his head for photos so once again, I had to completely shave his head. Then the question arose of how he, as a tribal king, would light the tea light. That's when I decided to bring in the matches and thus, solving the issue of attaching them to his head. I have previously used eyelash glue to attach screws to a models face, but I felt this would not hold so many matches for a long period of time. I decided to give superglue a try
Once I had the idea planned, the execution of the makeup, props and lighting only took about 30 minutes. The superglue worked well with the matches. Even my children got involved with the painting of his head. The tealight was blue-tacked to the tip of his finger. I had him keep the tip of his tongue close to the flame, he even ended up putting out the light with his tongue, hence the shining area on the end. I knew it had to have a dark background to match the mood, so I used one single light to the right of the camera and a reflector on the left of the camera provided the lighting to match the mood of the image.
The superglue didn't affect my model, except maybe in the clean up. My son tried taking the matches off real slow (I am sure this was his own revenge on his dad), but this only frustrated my hubby, so he quickly ran his hands over his head and matches flew everywhere. Everyone was in stitches. Unfortunately, he then had to endure the scrubbing brush on his head to remove all traces of the glue, but it did come off.
Very little editing was done to the image, mainly slight crop and sepia toning.
Whilst this image didn't make the Canon finals, it was very popular with other viewers. And now this recognition goes to show that just because your image doesn't do well with one website, doesn't mean it won't do well in other areas.
- Judi Liosatos
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Judi's fabulous prizes here!
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