The fun fall

[texxter]

My children wanted me to take a picture of them jumping from the second floor.... I felt it was too dangerous, but they insisted so much that I let them do it. Kids, don't try this at home! (unless I am there to take a pic!)

EDIT - added more realistic motion blur.

[texkam]

What the *%#@ ....... Is this legit???

[texxter]

DISCLAIMER: Neither children nor floors were injured in the production of this photograph

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by texkam

What the *%#@ ....... Is this legit???

I'm thinking composite. A very convincing one at that.

[texkam]

I never know what Paco has up his sleeve.

[Photogdude]

Originally Posted by texxter

DISCLAIMER: Neither children nor floors were injured in the production of this photograph

Only the photographer
Fun shot

[groovyone]

Nicely done. Have you shown your wife?

[texxter]

Originally Posted by groovyone

Nicely done. Have you shown your wife?

Yeap. Momma not happy

[morganh]

love the picture!

[sbp]

nice like it.

when I was kid I jumped from second story for fun and got good at it. I even put my hand in running ceiling fan to stop it few time.

[texxter]

Originally Posted by sbp

nice like it.

when I was kid I jumped from second story for fun and got good at it. I even put my hand in running ceiling fan to stop it few time.

[Fireball]

I can see why momma isn't happy, you're crazy Paco! Tell me this is a joke.

[texxter]

Ok, here is the scoop. Of course I would never ask my children to do something like this - it's a composite that tried to achieve a certain level of verisimilitude. I had the camera on a tripod and I first took an image of the scene without the children. I had to use a long exposure to capture the weak ambient (tungsten in the living room and fluorescent in the kitchen) - I ended up doing an f/10 1/2 sec exposure for my image canvas. The additional light was a big WL3200 strobe pointed to the wall behind the camera filling the place with diffused light. The strobe had a full cut CTO gel on it to mesh with the available ambient, which wasn't much. I kept the same lighting and exposure for the three exposures that took to create the final image. I ended up with ambient contributing 20% of the light you see and strobe giving the other 80%. Because flourescent light rendered green with the camera set to Tungsten, I had to do some color correction in the kitchen to keep it looking natural.

The trick to make them look real was to let them climb a ladder and (carefully) ask them to pose as if they were falling, facial expression included. Then I removed the ladder in postprocessing. The children were exactly in the position you see them when I capture their frames, so it was a simple matter to selecting out and eliminating the space around them with the ladder metal. Simple but a bit time consuming. There are problems with the image because this was just for fun and not a highly planned effort - my daughter's hair should be flying a little more, one shoe should be in the air for more interest, and I am not sure the motion blur is good enough. But the important thing for me was the planning and the time I spent with them creating this imaginary scene.

All the credit goes to my children for thinking up the idea and being willing, patient collaborators. They got a small gift in exchange.

Thanks for all the comments!

[texkam]

The motion blur is unrealistic for it is blurred in only one direction (vertical). In real life blurring would also occur from arms and feet flailing, so would be be from many directions.

[Fireball]

Thanks for the above-my-head explanation Paco! Love that you're always coming up with ideas and sharing how you achieved them.