Reflections

After wrestling with this image for a while I figured it deserved a little commentary.

The reflection was a bitch to manipulate. It was also the first time that I post-processed a reflection into an image artificially. I tend to not like to do these things in Photoshop because it takes time. While working on the image there were lots of little details where I feel the reflection failed. With that said, I can't see those details from anything less than a 50% view.

The challenge with this image was that I wasn't directly in front of Lyz. Her body is actually a little slanted in the frame from bottom left to upper right. In order to manipulate the reflection properly, the mirror image must line up where her body touches the floor. Then masking in a gradient of the mirror and of course the blur to make it realistic. These were all first-time challenges that I've never dealt with before

Light-wise, I always like lighting from the top even when the subject is on the ground. It just creates more natural shadows. So essentially I light the model however I'd like her if she were standing up, but rotated 90º. That makes for better post-processing because the highlights and shadows are in the same places they always are.

B&W was a natural conversion/outcome although I originally thought the skin tones made for good contrast, the image just looks better in B&W.

Here's are is a comparable image without post-processing: