Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: Giovanni Gori’s, “The Legend of the Ghost in Love-Part Three”

Chris Gampat
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09/09/2013
3 Mins read

2013_haunted house2

Creating the Photograph is an original series where we interview photographers about a photo that they shot and how it was achieved. The results are some knowledge passed on to you. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com

Giovanni Gori is an Italian professional photographer and post producer. His work is about people: portraiture, fashion, glamour, editorial, advertising and modeling test books for agencies. His pictures have been published in various books, magazines, traveling guides and photography blogs. We found this beautiful photo of his on 500px. What we didn’t know though was that this is actually part of a series, but this photo by itself is strong enough to stand on its own.

We talked to Giovanni about how he created it. Here’s his story.

The Concept

I’ve called this series “The legend of the ghost in love”, and it’s based on a story that an old man told me about a beautiful girl’s ghost that seeks for her lost lover. The idea was to reproduce the concept of an haunted house and a believable ghost reproduction.

The Gear

-Camera: Nikon D700
-Lens: Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G
-Manfrotto tripod and statives
-Elinchrom Ranger RX speed 1200w
-Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX
-Elinchrom Octa
-gridded Elinchrom softbox
-snoot
-Nikon SB900
-Nikon SU-800
-Elinchrom Skyport speed transmitter
-lastolite reflecting panel
-Sekonic light meter

The Shoot

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The main light is made with Elinchrom Ranger RX speed 1200w with a huge octa to recreate natural light. There is a battery Elinchrom Ranger Quadra RX with a regular gridded softbox to give a hint of illumination on the right wall to reveal some details, a Nikon SB900 in a snoot to reveal details on the ceiling in the first room, one silver panel for the rim light on the ghost, one for details on the door, both reflecting the main light. As for triggers I used both Nikon SU-800 (on the hotshoe) and Elinchrom Skyport speed transmitter (on the syncro port) at the same time.

The day after the location scouting all the staff was ready to shoot. While the model was at make up I was composing the background pictures. There is a mixture of natural and artificial light. The final pictures are three, each one with different problems to solve. Basically I wanted to use natural light for a slightly underexposed background and strobes as accent light to add drama, and for the model illumination. The idea was to shoot a picture for the background, one for the model, and combine them together (see example)

With the ghost, the idea was to shoot a picture for the background, one for the model, and combine them together, softly erasing the lower part of the model. But in this picture I forgot it!! So I had to use the clone stamp tool in order to recreate a clear background picture, and then add the model, erasing the lower part.

Post Production

In order to keep high quality in the image, post production must be subtle and minimal, especially when it comes to luminosity levels. So I pay attention to make perfect pictures on camera. Later I just did a quick split tones to adjust the mood: yellow for highlights, blue for shadows. A little dodging and burning, a little cropping, a little sharpening.

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Giovanni can be found on, Flickr, On 500px, the Nikon photographer website, his Portfolio, Facebook and Tumblr.

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elinchrom Giovanni Gori lighting nikon Photography quadra strobist the ghost
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.