Photo Credit: © Hugh Kretschmer The Hasselblad and two of the lights were mounted on scaffolding 16 feet above the large set. The wide-angle lens helped establish a sense of depth.

ASSIGNMENT: This self-promo series was designed to garner an editorial fashion assignment. Directly or indirectly, it worked.

CHALLENGE: The concept was to create a series of images that convincingly depicted people floating on air, as if carried by a strong wind, hence my title, "Blustery Day." I at first considered taking a more realistic approach involving outdoor settings, but costs and liability issues stood in the way. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with an entirely new approach, focusing instead on a series of studio shots. The new concept would involve people lying on the floor while we tricked the eye into seeing those bodies floating—all with the use of body postures (one of the most challenging aspects of the shot), lighting, exaggerated perspective, and an inventive twist on set design.

GEAR: Hasselblad H3-series w/35mm lens (rented from Samy's Camera in L.A., www.samys.com); Speedotron lighting (5 packs); Epson 13 x 19-inch printer.

EXPOSURE: f/11 at 1/125, ISO 100.

SET & PROPS: I fabricated the clouds, kites, flowers, and mountain range myself. I made the clouds out of foamcore, fiberfill, yarn, and muslin, and the kites from balsa wood, wire as string (to make it easy to shape), and tissue paper. I didn't intentionally make those clouds into recognizable faces, but I see them now that I look back on the shot. The mountains were made of folded fabric, à la folded napkins, with a dab of white paint on the peaks to simulate snowcaps. I photographed flowers around the neighborhood and made prints, which I then cut out. The majority of props came from Omega/Cinema Props, whereas the liquid was digitally added in the wine glasses. The blue background was a painted canvas backdrop, which came from Schmidli Backdrops. The grass was an Astroturf-like material rented from Green Set. I shot this at Lightspace Studio in Culver City, California.

© Hugh Kretschmer

CAST & CREW: On set I had two assistants, Jacob Rushing and Peter Bohler, along with stylist Heidi Meek, makeup artist Isaac Prado and producer Lynn Campbell. Dylan Borgman was my digital tech. My producer did a casting with various L.A. agencies. We had the talent on set for two sessions, 30 minutes each. For the most part, we did two shots a day, six hours or so per shot, including prep. I also worked with the talent individually.

SOLUTION: Highly stylized sets and period garb helped reinforce the campy nature of the shots in this little fanciful world I'd created. There were five different scenarios. This one is entitled "Kite Flying," where the man is made to appear as a kite being flown by a lovely young woman, whom we imagine to be his wife or girlfriend.

The stage was enormous: 40 x 30 feet or more. We had to rent scaffolding to get the camera to the right height: 16 feet, looking downward at a slight angle. The scaffold would also support a couple of lights, which is why a ladder or ladder-pod alone wouldn't do.

Photo Credit: © Lynn Campbell This set shot shows where everything was relative to the camera's position atop a scaffold.

As you look at the finished shot, keep in mind that nothing is as it appears. It is, in a sense, inverted, with the floor as wall and the wall as floor: The camera is overlooking the grass and peering down onto the sky. The mountain range helps to establish a horizon line. The wide-angle lens and the flowers in the foreground helped to establish a false sense of depth. Later in the shot we elevated the clouds on apple boxes or pieces of wood to give them added dimension.

As mentioned, body posture was a key element. To be a convincing kite, the man's arms had to be stretched out straight and at just the right angle relative to each other and to her, with, of course, the body assuming a straight line as well. As I was looking down on the set, I'd direct him to move an arm just a bit here or there for proper alignment. And it was equally important for him to maintain that expression throughout the shoot. His hands held the kite string as the crossbar in a kite would normally do, while the tail (also fashioned from wire and fabric) was attached to his sneakers.

Our main light, creating a wash of light over the entire scene, was a 20-inch dish at a height of 6 feet, aimed into the shot through a scrim positioned 5 feet behind the set. I used a cutter low to the ground to flag off the light and even it out across the set. We still needed to highlight their faces, so I added two grids, one from left shooting across the set at his face, another at the right, coming in on hers. The light on the left was closer to the rear of the set, whereas the one on the right was more midway, with each positioned just off set and close to the ground. The last two lights were the scaffold lights, again with 7-inch reflectors, but this time bounced off foamcore flanking the camera. This light provided fill.

Hugh Kretschmer operates out of Los Angeles and specializes in photo-illustration.