Bear Portraits
I was going through some of my old projects in my Lightroom library today, and I came across this little gem from a few years ago. The idea started as a way to practice flash setups. Rather than rely on people who get bored easily to pose while you play around with flash ratios, I turned to some furry friends to stand in. After a few setups I realised that I was on to an interesting series. And so, in a complete roundabout way, my "Bear Portraits" project was born. In my other job as an animator, I often have to bring inanimate objects to life and it's great fun, so I decided to apply the same techniques to still imagery, and bring life to these otherwise placid stuffed animals. Anyway, it was all a bit of fun, but I love the result. After all, everyone loves a bear (unless you're Stephen Colbert!)
Here are a few of my favourite images from the project. They ended up looking like old paintings that you would find in some stately home!...
For those interested in the technical side of things, these were all shot with a Canon 5D Mark 1 (The original). There was a single off camera flash to the right through a home made soft box and a reflector made out of foam board and tinfoil on the other side as the fill light!
