Creating Ghostly Images

I love to make wild, out-of-this-world illustrations in Photoshop, and there's no better month to go crazy doing that than in October! I had an assignment to create an image for a story on haunting enthusiasts and ghost hunters who travel to haunted hotels to try to catch a glimpse of a trapped spirit. Before I visualized what I'd do in the photo, I pinned down the title idea of "Sleeping with the Ghost" as a play on the movie drama "Sleeping With the Enemy." That inspired a vision of a man in a hotel bed awakening to see some poltergeist about to grab him:

The story is featured here: Haunted Businesses - AOL Money & Finance

Here's how I made the image:

1) I took a picture of an environment I wanted with "real" subjects. 

2) I took a separate photo of my "ghost" with a clean background. In this instance, my ghost was just going to be a hand grabbing, so I took a separate photo of an arm and hand against a white background. 

In order to create my dramatic photo, I had to work in layers in Photoshop. Over the years I have created many illustrations with ghosts and have come up with my own formula using layers. 

3) In Photoshop, I cut out my ghost's arm, then pasted it into my "real" environmental shot as the top layer. (It's very important to note that the best way to do a cut-out is with the Polygonal Lasso Tool with the settling on a feather of about 2 pixels.)

4) Now the fun really begins. Making a ghost requires making an object be slightly invisible, smoky, and downright eerie. It is quite an art and it takes patience. I personally go through an ever-changing mix of techniques that includes:

    - selective color

    - opacity levels

    - eraser

    - liquidation

    - blur tool

    - paint tool

 

Every picture needs a different ghastly direction, so it really pays off to play around in Photoshop with the various blend modes and filters available so your ghost shows up best.

 

Enjoy creating! (And take a look at a couple of my other eerie ideas below.)

 

 

 

Some other fun Halloween stuff: Halloween 2006 | Haunted Houses

 

- Cassandra

Tags: Halloween, haunted house

Pictures of the Week: Oct. 7-13

The image of the bicycling acrobats riding across a cable 3,300 feet above the ground at China's Chaibuxi National Forest Park caught my eye this week. It is a minimalist image, almost empty (lots of neutral space within the photo). However, the mountain top to the left gives us a sense of the height at which that this stunt is being performed, and the line of the cable guides our eyes directly to the acrobats whose red outfits and green banners pop with color in this otherwise gray image. It's simple, yet dramatic.

Check out all of this week's pictures, and cast your vote for the best photo: Pictures of the Week: Oct. 7-13

- Lee

Tags: Pictures of the Week, volcano, fall foliage, Amish,

"Flags of Our Fathers"

"Flags of Our Fathers," a new movie based on the people and the events leading up to Joe Rosenthal's famous photograph of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima in World War II, opens Oct. 20. The Warner Bros. movie, directed by Clint Eastwood, is based on the book of the same name by James Bradley. 

Joe Rosenthal’s Associated Press picture is one of the most reproduced images in the history of photography. He won the Pulitzer Prize for photography with this photo in 1945. The iconic image inspired postage stamps, posters, magazines covers, newspapers and even the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Va. For many years Rosenthal's photo wasn't credited as being the inspiration for the statue. A few years ago, however, a plaque was placed on the memorial acknowledging that sculptor Felix de Weldon based the sculpture on the famous picture.

 

The image depicts U.S. Marines raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II in February 1945. Rosenthal said about that day, "Out of the corner of my eye, I had seen the men start the flag up. I swung my camera and shot the scene. That is how the picture was taken, and when you take a picture like that, you don't come away saying you got a great shot. You don't know."

 

Proving the power of still images, there was a film also made that day of the same flag raising, but it's the single image that remains in everyone's mind.

 

Rosenthal died recently in August 2006. He was 94. In Rosenthal's New York Times obituary, Richard Goldstein praised the photographer’s most famous image. “The triumphant portrait, representing the first seizure by American troops of territory governed as part of the Japanese homeland, struck a tremendous emotional chord on the home front and resonated deeply as a symbol of the diversity in American life.”

 

Controversy has surrounded this image for many years questioning if it was a real captured moment or posed. Rosenthal also shot a group photo after the flag raising that day. Days later, Rosenthal was asked if he had posed the photo. Thinking the questioner was referring to the group picture, he replied "Sure." This confusion lead to the idea the famous photo was set up. In the decades since, Rosenthal repeatedly and vociferously refuted claims that the flag raising was staged.

 

What are your opinions of the image and its controversy?

 

Links: Watch Movie Trailer | Photo Gallery | Official Movie Site

 

- Dave

Global Breast Cancer Survivors Day

I had a chance to photograph for AOL the AVON Foundation Global Breast Cancer Survivors Day Press Luncheon on Thursday in New York City. Luncheons don't exactly yield great photos, so the night before I came up with the idea of making portraits of the survivors with words or phrases they would write on pink pieces of paper. In the end, a clipboard, a marker, and some pink paper helped to make these portraits more interesting: 

 

 

To see more portraits and to read survivor stories, see the Avon Walk Gallery.

 

NEW YORK – Breast cancer survivor Ms. Rebecca Musi, of South Africa, poses for a portrait during the Avon Foundation Global Breast Cancer Survivor Day lunch, held at the New York Historical Society on Central Park West, Oct. 5. The survivors are holding pink signs they made for the portrait with words and phrases related to their feelings and thoughts about breast cancer. Avon brought together over 30 women from around the world to meet with scientists, including Jorge Gomez, M.D., Ph.D, chief, Organ Systems Branch, National Cancer Institute, and to participate in the walk this weekend in NYC.

 

Personally, I think attending this event really brought home the idea that this disease does not discriminate. 

 

With October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, AOL will help spread information throughout the month. The Avon Foundation Global Breast Cancer Survivor Day honors survivors from around the world and international breast cancer scientists, many of whom are in town for the second annual Walk Around the World for Breast Cancer. 

 

Check out these sites: Think Pink | Think Pink Blog | The Cancer Blog | Survivors Gallery

 

- Sam

Pictures of the Week: Sept. 30 - Oct. 6

Lancaster Tragedy

I gave a lot of thought to the tragic events that occurred in the Amish community of Lancaster County, Pa. The contrast of such violence in such an idyllic setting is staggering. 

 

 

The event received blanket coverage, and I saw many images move across the wires, but the image that I selected to include in this week's gallery seemed to me to capture the intrusion of the outside world on this insular community as the two Amish gentleman look up at a departing medevac helicopter with police crime scene tape behind them.

 

As a father of two daughters, it breaks my heart to imagine the horror of what happened inside that schoolhouse.

 

Check out all of this week's pictures: Pictures of the Week: Sept. 30-Oct. 6

 

- Lee

Tags: Pictures of the Week, Amish

A Photographer's Life: 1990-2005, by Annie Leibovitz

Annie Leibovitz is in the news again with her new retrospective of her own life and work from 1990-2005. Her just-published book includes very personal and intimate photos of family and friends, including the life and death of her own father and close friend Susan Sontag. But also in the book are many of her famous images as she goes back and forth between her public and personal life's work over the years. The new book is published by Random House.

 

Leibovitz is best known for her iconic images of such famous celebrities as John Lennon and Yoko Ono (laying side by side in the nude for Rolling Stone magazine), her famous photo of a pregnant Demi Moore that was on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine, as well as recent images of Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes and their new baby, Suri, also shot for Vanity Fair.

 

Here's a review of the book by the New York Times:

From Annie Leibovitz: Life, and Death, Examined - New York Times  

 

- Alan

Tags: Annie Leibovitz

Photojournalist James Nachtwey

From the Photo District News online (pdnonline) article:

 

"Photographer James Nachtwey has won the 12th Annual Heinz Award for Arts and Humanities, the Pittsburgh-based Heinz Family Foundation announced today. The award carries a $250,000 prize.

'I was totally surprised but very honored and very happy about it,' Nachtwey says. 'I have a lot of ongoing long-term projects that I work on and I think this will facilitate them. … I'll definitely put [the prize] to good use.' ”

 

James Nacthwey (right) riding with troops on a Humvee in central Baghdad.

 

Anyone who has seen the movie, 'War Photographer' would likely make the assumption that James Nachtwey is somewhat unpretentious in his approach to photography. After attending a VII conference and listening to him describe images in his soft tone, I realized (myself being a young photographer and therefore not disillusioned quite yet) that he epitomizes a heroic photojournalist -- not because of his bouts with mortality or incredible imagery -- but because he unpretentiously cares about making the emphasis of his work visual tragedy, and not his persona.

 

It's beneficial that young photographers see such a talent whispering about his accomplishments -- eschewing personal success -- and placing the emphasis on the vital issues he captured. So, I congratulate Nachtwey for the prize, and wholeheartedly believe that he will put the money to great use: accentuating stories, and not himself.

 

- Rachel