Gandalf Photoshoot with Andy Green

On Saturday I met with Andy Green to photograph him. When asking him which fantasy/fairytale character he would be, he told me Gandalf, The Hermit or Obe Wan Kanobi. I quite liked the idea of styling him as a Gandalf sort of character and used this as the theme for my photoshoot. 

We had already set up a snow scene for Andy to use in a future shoot so I decided to use this. I quite liked the background we had made, as it looked like a series of mountains in the distance. Andy had the actual sword that Gandalf used in the film and so we used this as a prop, and a old sheet as his cloak. I did a few test shots as (shown below) in the contact sheet to decide on the lighting and positioning. 

Testing before final shoot. Initially was going to use the whole lighting set up but it didn't create a dark magic atmosphere. Decided to go with single light instead. 

I used a single light, with a fine honeycomb filter to create a dramatic, harsh effect that I felt was appropriate to the Lord of the Rings theme. After a couple of shots I asked Andy to put the cloak over his head and switched out the sword for a staff he had. 

I found that he got much more into character this way and also looked more like a wizard. On reflection, the images of him with the sword did not evoke the dark, magic atmosphere that I was trying to create. The presence of the Christmas tree and also the fact Andy doesn't have the cloak over his head, creates a much friendlier atmosphere than I had anticipated. 

The images of him with the cloak over his head offer a lot more mystery and drama to the pieces. I am happy with the lighting however, I didn't shoot in RAW and unfortunately a lot of the information in the highlights has been lost. There isn't much I can do to recover it however I will use this a lesson for future shoots - always shoot in RAW!

When I got home I took the images into Photoshop, initially experimenting with the sword images. I wanted to see if altering the colour balance and other aspects would help recover the atmosphere I was trying to create. I began by increasing the contrast and using the 'Levels' tab, to create deeper shadows yet still allow some of the mountains to be visible.

I altered the colour balance, introducing a lot more blue which I liked. Unfortunately I still didn't like the overall image and began editing the staff images instead.

Experimenting with different colour balances - the right has more red and the left more blue

 I applied the same techniques to these images, and played around with colour balance a little more. Surprisingly I prefer the image on the right, with more of the red introduced. To achieve this dusky effect, I took the image on the left, saved it, and then added more of the red on top.

The colouring feels more authentic to the Gandalf theme and I am very happy with it. I also applied it to the image below.

Possibly my favourite image?

These will be my final images for the project.