CHRISTOFFER RELANDER:
"My goal as an artist is to be true to who I am, and aim to create art that will stay around for its good cause."
Christoffer Relander.
Christoffer Relander was born in Finland in December 1986 and is currently based in Raseborg, his home town. Relander become interested in art at an early age and after serving in the Finnish Marines in 2008-2009 he fell in love with photography. Christoffer is now a successful, young, fine art photographer with work done for national as well as international clientrs. His work has been published in several notable publications around the globe; such as La Times, Oprah.com, Nikon Pro Magazine and Adncanced Photoshop and Digital Camera magazine.
Christoffer is most known for his multiple exposure images between man and nature, which he does in camera whist shooting with a DSLR. He uses a Nikon D800E with a range of prime lenses - uually a 50mm f/1.4 and a 85mm f/2.8 tilt-shift lens.
Christoffer is most known for his multiple exposure images between man and nature, which he does in camera whist shooting with a DSLR. He uses a Nikon D800E with a range of prime lenses - uually a 50mm f/1.4 and a 85mm f/2.8 tilt-shift lens.
This is the main style of image that Christoffer Relander produces by layering multiple images on top of each other to give this individual and original effect. This particular image shows a faint profile of a woman that has the opacity turned right down to allow the viewer to see the second image in the background: a forest of trees. The image is in black and white to allow the layers to combine together easily and show a seamlessly edited final outcome. There are many hidden connotations to this photo: I think that Reander is trying to reflect the inner thoughts of the subject through the various images he uses. Using the trees reflects how the subject may feel isolated and lonely, just like an empty and desolate forest that seems cold and bitter to an outsider.
This image was taken from Christoffer Relander's own webiste: http://www.christofferrelander.com/
This image was taken from Christoffer Relander's own webiste: http://www.christofferrelander.com/
PHOTOSHOP TECHNIQUE:
How to produce an image in the style of Christoffer Relander:
Open your "fill" image in Photoshop and go to SELECT > ALL then EDIT > COPY. Open your portrait shot and go to EDIT > PASTE to drop one image on top of the other. In the layers pallete select the top layer and change the BLEND MODE to SCREEN. Any overexposed areas will be blown out to white, allowing you to overlay the images without background interference.
Adjust the "fill" image: with the "fill" layer selected use the MOVE TOOL to position the "fill" image. You can also use the TRANSFORM tools by going to EDIT > TRANSFORM to scale, rotate and flip your "fill" image. To bring out the detail you can use a CURVES adjustment layer. You can also change your image to BLACK AND WHITE and change the COLOUR BALANCE to give a better effect to the overall finish of the image.
My Experiments:
Using the Photoshop Technique above:
Both of these images were made during my experimentation with different Photoshop techniques based on superimposition and the layering of images. I found it quite difficult to get two seperater images to blend in well together as Christoffer Relander does so easily.
Personally, I think that the image on the left looks much better then the image on the right: the shape and quality of the tree is much better and gives a lot more definition to the "fill" image. It also has a much more mysterious mood about it: the texture of the leaves hiding some of the subjects face creates a form of tension that is easily conveyed to the viewer. I do not think these images resemble the masterpieces that Relander produces: they are of the best quality and superbly edited compared to my experiments however I think this is an interesting technique to have learned and I may incorporate this into my personal project at a later stage. |