What's for dinner? :: Surrealism practice with Ansel

Surrealism is on the horizon for my advanced/AP photo class. I wanted to practice some shooting and editing techniques, so Ansel helped me out with a quick test today.  Disclaimer: The idea is 100% not mine--I saw something just like this on the internet today while browsing and brainstorming with a couple of my AP students.  I just wanted to see how easy it could be to combine images when they are shot from the same angle and in the same light.  I also wanted to do something Ansel would find silly.  We literally did this in about 5 minutes.  I composed and took the main shot of him at the table, held still while asking him to put the silverware out of the frame and pose for the "head on plate" shot, took that one, did a quick edit and that was it.  I masked out everything from his chin down in the second shot, and because everything else remained the same it looks pretty seamless.  I was showing him how I masked in Photoshop, and was doing so while very zoomed in.  When I zoomed back out to show him our final product he laughed out loud :)

Channeling Daniel

While at the beach this past weekend I saw a scene that instantly had me thinking of one of my student photographers--Daniel F.  It was just a pier with some people fishing off of it, but I felt inspired.  Daniel is a master street photographer.  It's not something I taught him; it's something he's just naturally good at.  He's bold.  He shoots whoever he wants and captures some really interesting people in the process.  Recently he's been working on these amazing photos of his mom cleaning a fish, so that may have contributed to my aha moment at the beach.  I am not a street photographer.  It makes me super self conscious to approach a complete stranger with my camera.  But I had to give it a shot; I wanted to step outside my comfort zone.  Ok, so I cheated and used my telephoto lens, which gave me a fair amount of distance between me and my subject, but he still caught me shooting him.  I'd say I'm happy with the results--the photo itself and trying something new.  I feel very fortunate to get to work with creative minds every day.  I'm certain I've said this a million times before, but I have the best job.