John Miseroy
An extremely talented guitarist who's on a path for eventual greatness. John regularly plays with national acts such as Chris Kuti (of the Christian duo Chris & Conrad), yet he's humble and spiritually centered enough to be a mainstay in his local church band. If you haven't heard of him already, you likely will in the very near future.
John came to me with a rather intriguing concept for a promotional photograph-- basically he would be falling forward while extending his arm out for a guitar that was just out of reach. The photo needed to convey a sense of tension and urgency, and still maintain somewhat of a "fun" vibe. After several failed attempts to capture all of this in a single frame, I soon realized that we'd need to shoot John and the guitar separately, and merge them together in Photoshop. I've done a number of digital composites in my day, but I knew this would be one of the easier ones I'd ever attempted, since it was being shot on a plain white background. So I asked John to ditch the guitar for a few minutes while we concentrated on his "fall".
Even this proved to be a fairly significant challenge, as we soon discovered that it was pretty doggone tough to fall forward just enough to look good for the photo while still avoiding personal injury. So we found ourselves at yet another fork in the road, and once again I decided that Photoshop was the answer. I decided that I'd just digitally reposition his limbs and exaggerate his pose in Photoshop to make it appear more dramatic.
By comparison, capturing the guitar was super-easy....I just had John stand there and hold it, knowing that I would simply remove him (and his hands) in Photoshop. I just needed to make sure to avoid glare from the strobes, and make sure that his fingers didn't cover any areas on the front of the guitar (the part facing the camera). Easy peasy.
You can see the final result below, but you really oughtta check out the "Before & After" photo to see all the Photoshop trickery that was required to pull it off.
Here's another promo image I shot for him-- this time I blended in a texture to give it sort of a worn, grungy appearance. But check out those piercing eyes!
