The levitating portrait is something of a classic and for good reason: it's effective at catching the eye and holding the viewer. In this video, watch a full breakdown, including behind-the-scenes footage, of how the shot was achieved, from start to finish.
I had always rather liked the levitating shot, even if it wasn't particularly original. It was on my to-shoot list for a while, and then a friend of mine came to me with an enquiry for an album cover for her upcoming release. From time to time this happens, and I couldn't be more appreciative when it does, but I knew exactly what I was going to do as soon as she told me the title, "Eye of the Storm".
I wanted to have the model in the middle of a storm, levitating, and that's exactly what I did. My methods were slightly different from Karl Taylor's in this video, and the image was to be part of a composite, but the premise was similar. With having my subject levitating, I did not more cheating than Taylor. I took a shot of the scene, a shot of my model balancing on a stool, and then another shot with the model balancing on the opposite leg. I then used the first two shots to have my model levitating, but used the third to attach a pointed foot rather than the half-flat one that had been on the stool. If you have a large trampoline available, that sounds good too though!
