it’s pretty wild to think about the fact that just a few months ago, like as in september last year, i was only thinking about getting back into photo in a real way so i could start hooking up some new gear. and the only reason that was happening was because shanima essentially told me that if i wanted photo gear i was going to have to pay for it with photo work. six months later, i’m essentially doing something related to photo every day of the week.
last night i finished the edits of the movie poster i shot with jcut a few weeks ago. it wasn’t too major, but this was a case where i needed time with the images to really get into what i wanted the final product to feel like. there were two photos that i was tossing around in my mind, the first a tighter crop at a higher iso setting (6400) and the second at a lower iso (2000). in the end, jcut and his crew decided they liked the right crop better, and i agreed with them. it had a better overall feel to it. i put the photo from below with a softbox, giving it a dramatic effect, and the final product ended up having a sort of film quality to it that i think fits the feel that this image needs. i delivered three different edits for him to choose from, and he chose the third, which was color graded with a vintage feel that i also thought was the best of the bunch for this particular image. i was inspired by footage of the twin towers from movies made pre-9/11, before the digital age took over.
the challenge now is that he wants to print the poster in 16x20, which is a 4x5 aspect ratio, whereas the photo is currently in 2:3 aspect ratio. i may need to shrink the image somewhat in photoshop to make it useable. my options are to either make micro squishes to the top section of the photo to smush it down into the proper frame or to add width by stretching out the side of the image. it will probably require a combination of both. i just hope the edits don’t look fine on screen and then not so fine in print. i guess we’ll find out soon enough. of course the third option is to convince him that 11x17 is the preferred format for this poster…then i would only have to make the slightest of adjustments to make it fit the page.