Behind The Scenes: Mirror

The 28th round of the Photography Scavenger Hunt was the first one where I made all my own props and backgrounds.  This is a behind the scenes look of how I made the image for the word "mirror".

Then concept is simple, tho a bit surreal.  Deadpool stepping out of a magic mirror, with all sorts of dramatic light.  It is inspired by a movie poster I saw a while ago, tho I don't remember the movie (I never actually seen it).  The final looked like this:

This is by far the most complex image for this round, and done in two parts.  The first part is making the mirror.

I started making the mirror by cooking up a template of the complex shape of a Baroque style mirror in Photoshop, then using it as a template to cut out a thin piece of foam.  The mirror ended up being 4 inches tall.

I then cut out a second piece to thicken up the walls and add a back for where the "glass" goes.  Overall my cuts were pretty janky (I never claimed to be good at this crafting stuff). Then I painted them with some black paint and Mod Podge:

To get the mirror I decided to simply pour in some silver paint and let it dry flat.  This wouldn't lead to a super reflective or smooth surface, but I knew I just needed a hint of mirror, so it would do.  I took a page from physics and floated the foam in water so the mirror would be truly flat as the paint dried (which took almost 24 hours).

Once the mirror was finished, I put it in my light box.  I mounted it with some wire to hold it up straight in the air, over a floor tile to represent the floor.  I then aimed a Lume Cube at it to get the strong shadows on the floor.

Deadpool was more straightforward.  I simply posed him in a way that looked like he was stepping out of a mirror, and drawing his katana (ya know, for dramatic effect).

I then took multiple photos of Deadpool, shining light with a Lume Cube on various parts of him to get a complete coverage of dramatic light.

In Photoshop I started by merging all of the Deadpools together to get the right level of light that worked for the scene.  I then merged him onto the mirror, added a lot of light rays for more drama, and to give the "coming out of the mirror" effect.  It took a lot of finessing (like, hours), but I finally got it to the look you see it now.

This is my favourite shot of mine for this round.