I came across an image like this the other day and started thinking about how to achieve this result.

There were some hints that they started this project with a light box and a camera. Well, I had both, so off I went on a project of discovery.

It really wasn’t as hard as it looks. Probably the biggest hurtle here is the light box. I had one from some watercolor class projects I was doing, and this one works great. It’s light weight, portable and stores easily. I’ve been really happy with it. Here’s the page from Amazon.Com for the light box for tracing that I have.

The one thing I did find to be annoying with my light box is because it is LED, it has a thousands of little black dots in front of the light, creating an irritating background for the photography project. This was easily solved by taping 3 layers of translucent tracing paper to the top of the light box, and the black dots were no longer visible in the images. Then the fun begins.

I went on a tour of my back yard and snipped a few flowers and then started to create some “photo bouquets”.

In this case, I was using my 90mm 2.8 lens, but you could use a 50mm or a zoom that has a range from 24-70mm or so. My settings on my camera were aperture priority F8, mounted on a tripod. I used a 2 second delay just in case I hit the tripod as it was leaning over the desk to get this viewpoint.

I took 3 pictures of each composition using exposure composition +1, +2, and +3 respectively.

Once I had the pictures, I loaded them into Lightroom Classic CC and added sharpening and lens corrections. Then, I combined them in the HDR function in Lightroom Classic CC.

In the Develop module, go to Photo/Photo Merge/ HDR - Then it will combine the 3 pictures together giving you a preview of the composite image. Hit Merge, and the new composite will show up. Then you can add any saturation, sharpening, vibrance or saturation that suits you.

And that’s pretty much it! Fun and easy photo project if you have some basic photo editing skills.

If you are looking to sharpen your photo editing skills, contact me, I have some learning options for you. I offer both one on one coaching as well as an online class, available on demand.

Most importantly, have fun with your camera, and keep learning!