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Photograph the Rabbit

Lesson 5 from: Using Composite Photography to Create a Fantasy World

Karen Alsop

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Lesson Info

5. Photograph the Rabbit

Lesson Info

Photograph the Rabbit

I think we're ready for the live rabbit, so what I'll do is I'll turn this layer off, so we're hiding him. I'll go back into Lightroom, and now we're ready. So we want our white rabbit to be over that cross area, but one thing we will need before we pop that rabbit down is some gloves, because this will actually make it easier to cut out the rabbit and add a bit of fur. So by wearing white gloves while he's holding this little rabbit, or big rabbit, (laughs) he's quite large, wearing the gloves will help us to blend. Don't run away little white rabbit. (laughs) Now I'll say right now I haven't photographed a rabbit before, so this is my first experience, so I'm not exactly sure what she's going to do. Ideally, what I want is the legs to be dropped down and we'll just do it kinda like that, and I think what I'll have to do also is a couple of shots of the rabbit. So the rabbit's feet I'll photograph, and then I'll have the top half of the rabbit as a separate shot so that I've got a few...

options to blend together that work. Yeah, so I'll do it on the count of three, and then I'll get you to hold up your rabbit and have the legs drop down, sort of like she's running. It's gonna be a quick shot, so back to where I was, and one, two, three. (camera clicks) (camera clicks) (camera clicks) Excellent, and you can rest little white rabbit. We'll have a little rest, have a look at what we've got. So it's important to have your planning well in place because you don't want to draw out that process, with an animal, with a child, whatever you're photographing, you want it to be nice an quick. Now this shot here's quite good I think, we've got the rabbit with one leg up and one leg down, which will work really well for the running. The top half of the rabbit, because we were holding the rabbit up is a little bit sort of squishy, so I'm thinking I might even take a shot with her sitting on you, or just with less, I guess what I'm looking for is just a bit more free around the top. We're going to photograph the costume and have the hands separately, so I don't actually need the rabbit's arms, what I do need though is the rabbit's head nice and free and kinda looking around. So that's what I'm attempting to do, but she sort of needs to have the head up. So let's see what we can do here. It's a bit of an unknown at the moment. (laughs) (camera clicks) So I'm gonna take quite a few different shots and (camera clicks) (camera clicks) (camera clicks) (camera clicks) (camera clicks) I need to get up slightly higher because now the rabbit is up a bit higher, but that's okay, so I'm keeping the same perspective that I had before, and you know, I can move around even if I need to. I find with animals that you can't control, you need to be flexible and move to get the different angles. (camera clicks) (camera clicks) Okay, let's review what we've got. I think I may have got something in here, I want to see the eyes, I want to see the ears up. So loading through, some of those last shots I believe were. That one's not too bad. Yeah, I think we've got a couple there that will work quite well in the scene. You've gotta use your imagination (laughs) because here we've got two parts to it, so we've got the top half of the rabbit, the bottom half of the rabbit, and we're needing to blend that together, and then add a costume on.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

The Story Art Journey eBook
Planning a Composite Video Tutorial (Large download - 1.2gb)

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Photoshop Brushes
Photoshop Hair Brush

Ratings and Reviews

Judy Mitschelen
 

I've found many great instructors at CreativeLive and Karen ranks right up there at the top! With her relaxed, thoughtful manner of presenting, I was immediately hooked. Her organization, clear explanations and demonstration, and on target response to questions are superb. This course covers an amazing range of skills and tricks of the trade. Whether you're interested in getting better shots to work with, better workflow at the computer, or better output at the end, Karen covers it all.

Endigo Rae
 

This was such an amazing class! Karen is so talented, inspiring, and such an amazing teacher. Very forthcoming and open about all of her techniques. I'm so looking forward to jumping into compositing, I feel like this is definitely something my soul desires to explore and Karen has made it so easy and accesible through her beautiful course! Thanks so much Karen and CreativeLive!

Kim
 

Karen is very talented and a great teacher and I enjoyed every minute of the course. But what I found to be the best part was seeing what an amazing person she is. The video of compositing the disabled children to make their dreams come true had me in tears. It has inspired me to use my talents to help others and not learn photo manipulation for self enjoyment. God bless you Karen.

Student Work

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