Levitation Creativity.

Had an opportunity to do some amazing creative photography work for a model friend. I got to explore taking, "Levitation" style photos for a whole day. My friend Jenny, reached out to me about a few weeks before the shoot date and she wanted to try some of those photos after seeing one of my posts from a recent Instagram meet up in Hawaii Kai. I had a little inspiration from Christopher James, who is a well known photographer and also has done those types of shots before, he also was the e meet up and gave us a demonstration on how to do Levitation photos. Prior to this, I did these photos before but it was more of an experimenting idea and just to mess around on photoshop with. I never had anyone to do these types pf shots with and didn't feel like it was necessary for me to add to my skills

We traveled to China Walls for the first set of photos, then later on we headed down towards Kuliouou Beach Park for the last half of our shoot day. Both these places worked well for the idea and images I had in mind. These places are also perfect backdrops for portraits as well, often you'll see people taking photos here, especially before sunset hours.

I will go through the process and magic behind how to get these insane and creative photos. Levitation photography has been around for sometime now and if you look it up on google, you'll find so many unique poses, styles, and themes. For me, we did a more casual and simple style during our shoot. Jenny had more than three different outfits to use throughout the day and we used two locations to stage our backgrounds. Take a look at these photos, it will give you an idea oh what I wanted to capture.

The lenses I used for my shoot was the Canon 16-35mm f4L Wide Angle Lens and Canon 85mm f1.8 Lens. Both these lenses are my preferred lenses to shoot with but each lens or whatever lens you use will change the way your subject is floating or the angle you want to action to show. The photo above was shot with the 85mm lens. This lens is a great portrait lens but in order get your subject floating over the area, you have to be from a certain distant, then focus your lens on the subject at the same time, and you'll achieve something like this. Shooting with fixed focal lenses can make creative Levitation Portraits or give it that, "Focused" look.

In these photos, I used the Canon 16-35mm wide angle lens. Using Wide Angle lenses are mostly ideal for achieving the levitation look. In fact, most photographers who do these types of work will say that wide angle lenses are suited, only because of the angle and area of the action that is going on and what you're trying to cover. There are ways to position the camera, but the trick is position it as low as possible to achieve that true floating look.

One more from the 85mm lens, I like how I captured Jenny through this image.

This is the magic process of how people float, there are many ways you can make people or objects float in mid air. The most common method that every photographer uses, is to have the subject placed on a chair or stool. You'll also need your camera on a tripod in order to have stable image, unless you prefer to take it in one shot. From there you can either get your subject in focus first as the first image, then take the second image without the chair and subject, or you can switch it the other way around, or if you prefer a one shot image and the clone stamping it, thats another way.

This is a breakdown of how a levitation shoot would look like. My first photo, I placed the stool wherever I felt would match, then ask Jenny to work on the poses. Sometimes I had to assist her for safety reasons and use my wifi on my phone app to take the photo of her(Later I would photoshop myself and the chair out). This photo would set the base for the rest of the sequences, having my model already focused and the background in view, now I can go ahead and take a second separate shot.

This is the second shot without the chair and model, just the background itself.

With a little work through post processing and photoshop, this was the final image for this particular look. You can do a wide array of photos and merge in all kinds of things. Theres really no limit to what you're looking for in levitation photos, just get out there and have fun and make it as creative as you want it to be.

Here are more examples to the behind the scenes of the actual final photos.

Taking a break between shots was much needed for Jenny because after balancing on that stool for countless numbers of photos, your back or what ever part of the body you lay or sit on, gets pretty sore. She almost fell a couple times too. I caught her enjoying her drink and got some candid shots, I guess were trying to get sponsored by Starbucks haha.

Now onto some of my favorite and final products. Since this was a simple style levitation shoot, it turned out real well and the way I took these photos and edited them made it more surreal and magical. I used just about everything I had with me that day. We both loved how these shots came out and Jenny was glad I was able to make this day work for her.

The time of the day and outfits she chose, worked really well for this day. They key to having levitation photos that pop, is having your model or subject wear clothing that flow or can blow around in the wind. The time of the day I recommend is early morning and right before sunset or afternoon time. Blending this together with your equipment creates a great composition.

These two images pictured here are a few of my favorites and I made sure I used the Hawaii Kai carnival as the background for this magical look. I also even photoshopped a moon I took at this same place from a recent moonrise shoot, just for the special effect.