This image was originally supposed to be something completely different and shot for a totally different challenge. Expect the unexpected when it comes to shooting online assignments and challenges. I set out to come up with a shot for “Free Study” over at DP Challenge. The original shot I had in mind was that of a heart in a blender inspired by the song lyrics form the group Eve 6.  Mind you, this was not going to be a gory shot with the blender on and blood everywhere but a heartfelt piece. (oh the pun)

Wednesday evening while in my studio I made sure to stop by Fred Miranda.com as this is the day his new weekly assignments come out. I couldn’t believe it! The assignment was “Love”. I was so excited to work on a shot that I completely put off the blender idea for now as I had the chain and lock to shoot something right away.

My first priority was getting the heart prop to look a bit more realistic. When it’s a wet and slightly raw or bloody look your going for, it’s amazing what you can do with a little corn syrup and a couple drops of red and blue food coloring. It takes about twenty-four hours for corn syrup to dry completely and even when it's dry it still retains it's glossiness. It’s great fun for the whole family! :) Here are the shots of the before and after of the heart.

The chain I had was brand new and shinny. The padlock was worn and scratched which was perfect. So, in keeping with the continuity of the overall feel, I gave the chain some abuse. I shot a light mist of brown spray paint over the entire chain and let it set for a minute before beating it in the dirt.:)  This gave it the more natural appearance I was looking for.

Now, what to do for a background… Over black?..na, it needs more than that. I thought maybe if the heart was in a case of some kind, as if it were put away for safe keeping, this could force the story. I just didn’t have anything small enough that you would store a broken heart in. :) I did come across an old metal box I used to keep my RC car parts in, this might just work! It was bigger than what I would have liked but I thought if I corner the shot it may just work.

I proceeded to the setup. Drama is what I was after in this piece. Gee what a surprise! :)  A simple single swing-arm 100w daylight lamp with my makeshift snoot placed overhead and slightly forward of the heart and pointed towards the back of the box gave me a nice presentation and some nice light falloff from the top rim of the box. Due to the glossiness of the heart, I was getting some bad hot spots, but nothing a small piece of printer paper partially placed over the snoot for diffusion couldn’t fix.

Happy with the main setup, I put on my emotional hat and couldn’t help but feel a little sad for this little heart as if it were left without hope. Damn positive thinking!, I was almost done. hehe. OK, lets give it a way out. Cut the head off a nail and crazy glue it to the back wall of the metal box to hang the key from, that should solve this dilemma.:)

I am not the best at guessing F-stops so I took a few shots with varying DOF. Once in Photoshop I rechecked my color balance, levels, sharpness…etc. I was very happy with the results and I liked the feel of the shot at F/5.6. All a bit on the warm side but I decided to leave the color temperature as is. Now that I had a good base to work with, I proceeded to give it some edge by using a small amount of contrast adjust, a dodge here and a burn there. To finalize the image, I added a slight crisp effect layer using Topaz Adjust 4 to give it a slightly dirty look. The crop is a bit odd due to the nature of the large box and the framing I chose to present the subjects. I did my best to balance it.

Mike