Several photos were to be taken for the autobiography of a German celebrity. For the cover and also for the inside of the book. The publisher wanted a classic portrait but we have been working together for many years, which is why we wanted to try something new.
The idea: Free hanging, only attached to the legs (that also fits the book title)
The problem: How and where do you hang someone like that safely and painlessly?
The picture also has to work upside down because the book on a table is also viewed from above. That is a problem because the blood immediately rushes to your head and the hole face skin moves up, it looks terrible.
We rented a gym and booked a stunt coordinator who took care of the hanging. His plan didn't work because of pain in the talnets ankles. Luckily I had a plan B with me. I had bought some ankle cuffs that you can use to hang yourself on wall bars. But they are very big and cover half of your lower leg and parts of your feet.
I have been working in advertising post-production for many years, so I knew which images I needed to get for perfect results.
The solution: We photographed him hanging and also photographed other components separately. It was important that everything was photographed in the same light, with the same settings, correct angle and height. That makes it much easier in post. So we photographed the feet/legs separately, as we had originally intended, i.e. just the bare rope around the ankles. For this, the protagonist lay on his back and stretched his legs up. Then we also photographed the head separately, kneeling, same pose as the hanging one, so that no blood rushed to the head and the neck muscle fits the hanging shot. I then put the elements together to create this final image. So technically he was really hanging there :)
Shot with: Nikon D850 50mm f8 1/125 ISO 500
There is a video of this shoot on my YouTube channel. It is in German, but you get a good impression of the shoot. If it's okay, I'll leave a link here. I hope this doesn't violate the guidelines: https://youtu.be/wiAVHmLOXCI