the shot is every bit an homage to one of my early influences Salvador Dali and his amazing piece Christ of Saint John of the Cross. i loved the way he used a reversed POV from that of the normal depictions of christ on the cross...a god's eye view. so with that in mind i had a little fun with my nickname and gave it a Godriguez's eye view
for the cross i bought 16' pieces of 2 x 8 lumber cut and screwed it together and then stained it. since i wasn't going to really nail myself to the cross i needed a way to have the illusion of an overhead view so i set it up horizontally on saw horses and then elevated my camera about 12' in the air facing down towards the length of the cross.
for lighting i wanted a controlled narrow light so i used an overhead strip bank for the key light. at the bottom of the cross i had a strobe aimed into a reflector to bounce a little light up under me just separate myself and the cross from the ground and illuminate my feet since i knew i needed to see them some in the final shot.
after a ton of tries and modifications to the lights and angles of elements i felt i had what i needed for the main shot. i then shot a few shots of an old rusty railroad spike i have that would serve as the nails for the final composite
next it was all brought into photoshop where i spent about 3hrs pulling it all together and adding things like dirt, blood, and trimming down my less then jesus physique down a little to give it a more desperate feeling
i originally was going to have my good friend +Samir Osman be my jesus and he would have been so perfect for it, but our schedules could not sync up on the day i knew i wanted to do the shot so i used myself as a backup. if you are wondering why i had to shoot this on such a particular day? because that particular day was Good Friday
...enjoy
.