Saturday, 4 May 2013

How To Do Levitation Photography

By Luke Walker


You can get some very unique and funny pictures by playing around with levitation photography and it can be plenty of fun to do it with some mates. You'll probably find that you can get the best photos if you go out and have fun practicing this with a few different friends. Here are my levitation photography tips.

Setting Things Up

The set up is very straight forward. You should use a pretty fast shutter speed and hopefully a tripod, particularly if you are taking shots by yourself.

One thing that helps is that you have to jump into the air and pose as though you're floating while capturing the moment, which means the expression on your face has to be there as well as your posture. Some techniques that work well are acting confused, as if you're not exactly certain what's happening.

Getting a nice composition can go a long way, and you can spend some time to find somewhere interesting before shooting by considering what you would like to see surrounding the subject. Do you want people in the photos?

If you're not the shy type, you could do this in a busier urban area, and you will have onlookers watching you. This can add to the drama as well, because they too will be showing surprised expressions.

Another wonderful little secret tip is to pretend to levitate right outside a shop entrance/exit. As people leave the shop, they will really be surprised to see you launching your body into the air, and their natural dumbfounded faces, if included in the images, will add to the drama and uniqueness of each picture.

Clothing & Hair

Some factors can easily make your photos look obviously fake, like clothing or hair that makes it blatant that you are jumping in the shot. A good tip is to wear tight fitting clothes that can't escape from your body very much. Tucking your shirt into your jeans also helps.

To stop your hair from giving the game away that you are jumping, wearing a hat is a good tip. There's always the option of shaving your head too, but I'm sure most of my females won't be doing that.

The Best Timing To Click

The photos will be more realistic if you take the photo during the upwards motion of the jump, instead of when he or she is coming back down to earth under the planetary gravitational pull.

As I mentioned already, you will be using a very fast shutter speed so that you can freeze the motion of the subject floating. Try using a setting like 1/500 of a second, or even 1/1000 of a second.

Once your model had enough time to practice some convincing jumping styles and you have the right settings on your camera, the next step is to walk around and find some more interesting places to take the shots. Like I said, the spot you choose will help you to get some nice images.

Utilizing Props

Another great thing to do is to use an object and throw it slightly into the air while jumping, to make it appear as though the object is floating next to you. There are hundreds of objects you could use, but you shouldn't use anything that would be too expensive to break, for the obvious reason that you might drop it when launching off from the ground. If you really want to use something like a camera or a smart phone, you can get fake ones that look real enough for the shot.

So there we are. Levitation photography can be a very fun activity to do with friends, so go outside and floating in mid air with a perplexed look on your face!




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