Brenton Parry

The Prince - Before and After

Added 2020-08-06 07:02:41 +0000 UTC

Showing my work before and after the editing process is a daunting situation and maybe I shouldn't be doing it but I think it gives you an added insight into what happens with a photo shoot. Hopefully it doesn't kill the magic of the final images for you.

Two days ago I told the story of how this shoot came to happen. Now you can see what was shot on the day and how the final images turned out. Firstly I hired a battered old crown from a costume hire shop nearby and it turned out to be perfect. Not too pristine and a bit medieval looking. Then I took myself off to a fabric shop to buy a piece of fabric that was going to look expensive and luscious. I knew I wanted the image to look like a renaissance painting in it's colours but sadly the store didn't have the rich red that I was looking for.

As you can see in the unedited shots at the top, the lighting was very soft and shady but with some direction and not totally flat. For the final edit I added some more contrast, bringing the highlights up and adding a little more depth to the shadows. One thing I can be guilty of on a shoot is forgetting to set the right white balance. As you can see in the originals, it looks a bit cool with no real warm tones at all so I fixed that in the editing process as well.

The daunting part of the retouch was isolating the fabric so that I could adjust the colour of it. That is probably one of the reasons there is only a handful of images from that shoot. Had I chosen a different colour fabric that wasn't so close to Mitch's skin colour it would have made it easier.

You will also notice that I might have exaggerated Mitch's red hair a little. To me it added a little more to the image and the story of a prince whose pale skin and red hair have not seen the wilds outside the palace walls that he's escaped.

Overall I think I'm still pretty happy with the final images. The red of the fabric is possibly a bit too bold but I don't hate it at all.

Sadly I'm pretty sure it's the only shoot Mitch has ever done.