After
visiting the Henry Doorly Zoo this spring, Alice 's favorite animal is the penguin. She couldn't actually say penguin so she
calls them Guks. Her mother sewed a cute
Halloween costume for her so that she could be a Guk too. After seeing the costume, I decided that I
needed a photo with her in a snowy background.
My first
idea was to use a studio shot with a white muslin background and with sheets of
cotton on the floor. My second idea was to take a photo outside in
the snow. My third idea was to put Alice
in the snow with lots of other penguins.
Penguins
live in Antarctica. Last year Sports
Illustrated flew models to Antarctica for their swimsuit issue. It was a very harsh environment for models
and photographers. In addition, Alice doesn't
have a passport. Antarctica wasn't going
to be possible.
I used Google
to see if any other photographers had taken photos of a children with real
penguins. Apparently no one else has
been able to take a child to Antarctica either.
I decided to
create my own image as a composite. I
would merge a photo of Alice with a background photo of penguins.
Since I
didn't have a photo of penguins for a background, I needed to find one taken by
another photographer and get permission to use it. I was able to find a great free photo on
Wallcg.com. I took the photo of Alice in
the studio using a green background. I
used software to erase the background and replace the green with the penguin
background.
I created two versions of the photo. In the first version Alice is the same size as the other penguins. In the second, Alice is larger. I hope that Alice enjoys
looking at herself with the Guks.
