"We had to travel light due to the long walk we had to do trough the forrest. I brought in three small strobes and a larger Godox Wistro to do the lighting. This particular image is part of a personal project. The story is made to grow over the years, I want to add photos in the upcoming years to tell more about the person and why he's on his quest.
I would like to see how my photography will grow with every image I add.The image came forward out of a short storyline me and my friends made on a warm summer evening last year. one of my friends owns a house in the north of france near the town of verdun, during the first world war the whole area was fortified with big fortresses some which never saw battle. the fortress where we did our shoot was an hour away from the civilized world on the top of a ridge south of the city. The fortress didn't saw much fighting, but over the years nature took over and it formed a ruin. It definitely isn't the most safe place to do a photoshoot.
There is quite a lot of post production in this image. When I took this photo at the end of the day I knew I wanted to give it a morning feel. The sun was low and I knew I had to do a lot of processing to get the feel I wanted. One of my strobes was positioned behind the model with a warm filter which lights up underneath his head and jaw. The second one was positioned right next to me to add a bit of light on the back of him. I didn't want him to be a silhouette. The fog, lens flare and large lions where added in post. Furthermore I did a lot of dodging and burning. The whole feel of the image was intended to feel post world war, and of course I had a fair bit of Indiana Jones inspiration.
This particular image was taken at the edge of the fortress, the green foliage you see on the side are actually treetops. Unfortunately it was the middle of the summer, so you can't tell much of the depth. Fortunately you can see bridge which lead to the main gate, one of the most prominent parts of the fortress what isn't covered in trees on the outside. We had a lot of fun making this series. I think that is the most important thing when making you own editorial work. If you feel right this will show in your images.
The image was shot on an Nikon D800 with a Tokina 16-28mm. I shot it ad 20mm with a aperture of F.8.0 with a shutter of 500. ISO speed: 800. Afterwards I edited it in Adobe photoshop CS5.
For lightning I used three SB-900's, various reflectors, gels and light modifiers where used.
The full series can be found on my website: www.javelinphotos.com
The series and behind the scenes can be found on this Facebook page:
A very short behind the scene can be found here: https://vimeo.com/77827077" -Jasper Verolme