My experience using a projector in a photoshoot

July 15, 2022

I was looking at Shadow Clones photoshoot by Linus and his camera and it made me wonder how we was achieving that look. Not only does he shoot film, he was using unique colors, shapes and patterns in the shadows. I was astonished! I dabble with film photography and will admit its very difficult to nail focus and exposure, so to see him doing both while creating this type of work, my jaw dropped.

I decided to do some research on how to achieve this look but I wanted to make it unique to my style. After a few days of reading some blogs, looking at videos and buying a projector; I decided to put my own spin on this concept!

I reached out to Dia Smith because we’ve worked together in the past for the Pink Project and she did amazing. I told her that I wanted to do a very experimental photoshoot concept, showed her a few photos that we could possibly create and she was definitely interested.

On the day of the shoot, Dia brought 5 different outfits that we could use. She brought mostly black shirts, jeans and even a body suit which would give us plenty of variety. After going over the outfits, I showed her a few of the photos we would use. Since it was my first time doing something like this, I made sure to have a nice variety of photos we both would like. Each of the photos that were used were found on google that were labeled for reuse. I would not want to use any copyrighted photos and risk being sued.

During the photoshoot, I found it challenging to get the full projected photo to cover Dia. Finding the sweet spot to place the projector was the key to getting exact composition I needed for each photo. Turning the projector in portrait orientation was helpful for full body photos and switching it to landscape was better for photos of her sitting down. Since the projector was a few feet away from Dia, the light wasn’t as bright so I had to compensate in camera by using a higher ISO setting.

Another challenge I faced was that each photo had different patterns / shapes / colors so I had to use my iPad (which was plugged into the projector via HDMI cored) to zoom and had to move Dia to a particular position to create the look I was going for. Some patterns would cover her eyes so she had to move left or right, also I had to direct her back to the position because she couldn’t see what was being projected on her since she was essentially the canvas. After a few hours of trial and error, constant photo swapping and corny dad jokes, we came up with these photos:

Thanks again Dia for helping me create the vision I had in my head, you are the best. We’ll be creating again soon.

Tools used:

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Projector Behind-the-scenes Studio-Photography