No Peanut Butter, Just Jelly

I took my two-year old son to the Aquarium of the Pacific (Long Beach, CA) on Wednesday. It was an opportunity for me to try and carry out an idea I've had for a few months now in the form of an 8x12 print for my office. I'm going to spend some time on this image on Sunday and tweak it out a bit more before sending it off to get printed. I'll probably ditch the selective coloring as well.

The first image was of my son looking into the sea lions' tank (f/2.8, 1/60, ISO100). The second image was of a tank that was home to some beautiful jellyfish (f/2.8, 1/30, ISO800). Both images shot with a K10D + DA* 16-50 and combined in Photoshop to create what you see here.

Cheers!

[Peter Zack]

I like this a lot. He's looking in the right direction and the jellyfish have an almost 'alien spacecraft' appearance. Great PP work. I'd crop the bottom bit of floor that looks like gravel but the rest is great. How does it look if he's left in colour?

[deludel]

Thanks for sharing the before & after - well done, and you've given me some ideas. I'm sure the print will be amazing!

[Venturi]

Nicely done! A bit of an homage to "The Abyss".

[Oceanic]

Gorgeous. Jellyfish probably make for the absolute best photographs of anything on the planet, aside from a beautiful woman =]

[dugrant153]

wow, I had no idea they were combined as I looked at the pictures first!

[desame.one]

Originally Posted by Peter Zack

I like this a lot. He's looking in the right direction and the jellyfish have an almost 'alien spacecraft' appearance. Great PP work. I'd crop the bottom bit of floor that looks like gravel but the rest is great. How does it look if he's left in colour?

Thanks. I definitely will crop out the gravel-looking section; it didn't occur to me until I uploaded the image to my server and viewed the image again. I don't know what it would look like with my son left in color because my original plan was to make the finished product black and white. I wasn't really planning to work on these tonight but was curious enough to see if I could pull it off with the few images I shot on Wednesday.

This was basically a pilot run for me, but I think I can come up with a frame-worthy 8x12 if I invest a little bit of time on the concept.

Originally Posted by deludel

Thanks for sharing the before & after - well done, and you've given me some ideas. I'm sure the print will be amazing!

Thanks. I'm hoping the print looks good as well. This breaks away from the portrait-type images I have posted up at work.

Originally Posted by Venturi

Nicely done! A bit of an homage to "The Abyss".

Hahaha. If you're talking about the James Cameron flick from the late '80s, I agree.

Originally Posted by Oceanic

Gorgeous. Jellyfish probably make for the absolute best photographs of anything on the planet, aside from a beautiful woman =]

I've been wanting to do this shot for a while now. Every time my son stands next to my aquarium in the living room, he stares through the acrylic window and just zones out. That was my main motivation to go to the Aquarium of the Pacific the other day. The second reason was for him to have fun. Hahaha.

Originally Posted by dugrant153

wow, I had no idea they were combined as I looked at the pictures first!

I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks!

[daacon]

Wow now that is cool. Very well done. Thanks for sharing.

[lithos]

That's an awesome composite.

You've managed to avoid one of the biggest gaffs when making composites, and that's having the two with light coming from different, impossible angles. I honestly thought the second one wasn't edited at all.

[song_hm]

You have done a superb job merging the two images, the merge areas are very credible. I especially appreciate delicate cut out around his right fingers. Composition is nicely balance.

I notice inconsistency in the lighting direction. The shadow behind his feet and face suggests a directional lighting from 2 o'clock and deeper behind the glass. The brightness pattern on the jelly suggests lighting from above and close to the glass, i.e., the nearer jelly is brighter than the farther ones. Perhap flipping the jelly fish direction horizontally?

[SCGushue]

Nice work and PP. I agree with Peter though that the bottom portion of the floor tha contains the rug needs to be cut out at a minimum. It is a very big distraction.

If you take it a step further though, you might want to darken the entire floor that remains so that it minimizes the remaining distraction.

The concept overall is excellent and I'm sure will it will be a treasured image.

Stephen

[desame.one]

Originally Posted by daacon

Wow now that is cool. Very well done. Thanks for sharing.

And thanks for looking.

Originally Posted by lithos

That's an awesome composite.

You've managed to avoid one of the biggest gaffs when making composites, and that's having the two with light coming from different, impossible angles. I honestly thought the second one wasn't edited at all.

Thanks. It's not exactly perfect, but close enough to how I had imagined it. Combining multiple exposures to form one image isn't something I do often or at all, but this is one I have been wanting to do for a while.

Originally Posted by song_hm

You have done a superb job merging the two images, the merge areas are very credible. I especially appreciate delicate cut out around his right fingers. Composition is nicely balance.

I notice inconsistency in the lighting direction. The shadow behind his feet and face suggests a directional lighting from 2 o'clock and deeper behind the glass. The brightness pattern on the jelly suggests lighting from above and close to the glass, i.e., the nearer jelly is brighter than the farther ones. Perhap flipping the jelly fish direction horizontally?

Thank you very much for the insight. I will try flipping, rotating, and manipulating the image of the jellyfish to make the flow of lighting more realistic. I think I'm going to have to darken some regions as well.

Originally Posted by SCGushue

Nice work and PP. I agree with Peter though that the bottom portion of the floor tha contains the rug needs to be cut out at a minimum. It is a very big distraction.

If you take it a step further though, you might want to darken the entire floor that remains so that it minimizes the remaining distraction.

The concept overall is excellent and I'm sure will it will be a treasured image.

Stephen

Thanks. That bottom part is definitely going to disappear in the final image. It just didn't occur to me until I had uploaded the image to my server.

[davemdsn]

Awesome image.

[desame.one]

Originally Posted by davemdsn

Awesome image.

Thanks. I truly appreciate the compliment.

[vievetrick]

Great work. Welcome aboard.