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Creating the Photograph

Creating the Photograph: Manu Cabañero’s “Splash Wars: Darth Vader” (Slightly NSFW)

Chris Gampat
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01/14/2016
2 Mins read

after

Creating the Photograph is an original series where photographers teach you about how they concepted an image, shot it, and edited it. The series has a heavy emphasis on teaching readers how to light. Want to be featured? Email chrisgampat[at]thephoblographer[dot]com.

Earlier on, the Phoblographer featured the work of Manu Cabañero, who did the Splash Wars series of images. Manu drew his inspiration from the great Jaroslav Wieczorkiewicz and his Milky Pinups series. The idea: to create clothing on models out of milk–but to make the milk hit in shapes that resemble a specific look. In this case, we’re talking about Star Wars.

Manu was kind enough to walk us through his creation of the image that resembles Darth Vader.

The Concept

This was my second attempt at milk splash photography. The first time I did it the milk was used to create a fairly simple dress. This time I wanted to recreate Star Wars characters turning original male characters into female characters and using the milk as clothing. In this case I focused on Darth Vader.

The Gear

  • Canon EOS 7D
  • Three Canon Speedlite 430 EX II
  • Tamron 24-70mm f2.8

 

The Shoot

diagram

The shooting is based on maintaining a model with a pose for a couple of hours. To get a smooth workflow I keep in mind the idea of what will be the final result.

before

After deciding the pose, we set the lights considering that the model will hold a lightsaber (created in 3D). I used a standard light setting; a main light, a fill light and a red backlight for the lightsaber.

Once we had the pose and the light was time to prepare the milk! I used food coloring for the black milk. In fact was light grey milk, but I pushed it to black on photoshop. To trigger all the flashes at once I put all the speedlites on slave mode and I used the built-in flash of the 7D as the first flash to activate the others.

To create the costume of Darth Vader I had to cover the body with milk. For this, I took photos on every splash, covering part by part all of her body. Then I created the cape. The cape was a succession of trial and error to finally get the shape I wanted.

the-mess

And the funniest part of all, cleaning up the mess.

Post Production

milk-cape

The post-production part was a matter of patience. First, I cut the model and removed the background and I did the same on the splashes.

04

Once I had all the model with the costume, I modeled a 3D lightsaber, and then I created a red glow to finish the light effect.

08

For the background I used different colors and shades to match the light we had initially set.

Manu Cabanero Photography post-production shoot Splash Wars
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Chris Gampat

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.
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