I have long admired levitation photography – the almost ethereal photos portraying people or objects floating in mid-air. Last Monday, I attended a (rather disappointing) photographic club meeting, which was based on this subject. It didn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know, but it was enough to encourage me to spend this week on levitation photography.
Sunday, 02 August
Black angel – I tried to start out simple in terms of poses, doing a simple standing self-portrait which I made into a fantastical composite image. I shot the portrait against a white background (to make selecting it in Photoshop easier) and then pasted it on top of a cropped landscape image, adding small adjustments (Camera Raw filters, etc.) as I went. I then added the other layers.
Monday, 03 August
Chopped – I have seen so many images of ‘flying fruit’ but I still love the end result; clean, minimalistic, simple. I again shot against a plain white background. I held the tomatoes in place using a knitting needle, which I removed in Photoshop using a layer mask.
Tuesday, 04 August
The knife’s edge – When my mind went blank on Tuesday, I decided to default to a macro image. I placed a knife with a serrated edge on top of some white material (which, when in conjunction with a very shallow depth of field, created a soft-box-like effect) and then bounced a flash off the ceiling from behind the subject.
Wednesday, 05 August
Zen yogi – I love the images of people in yoga poses floating in the air, but when I saw Charlotte Hu’s image on 500px I had to try it. I sat on a step above a dark background, and then used undiffused, quite harsh side-flash. I cropped and removed the step in Photoshop.
Thursday, 06 August
Charlie – This is Charlie, a month-old guinea pig and the newest addition to our family. When I spotted him curled up inside a jersey of mine I just had to take a photo.
Friday, 07 August
On cloud nine – I wanted to create the illusion of a girl flying on horseback, above a horse walking on a cloud. The girl and horse were made of lego; the cloud of cotton wool, and the background of a pale blue blanket. I made the girl the ‘fly’ by using nylon threads tied to her ponytail. The cloud was taken in a separate image and added in later.
Saturday, 08 August
Zigzag refraction – This is another thing which I have wanted to try for a while; a simple image portraying the refraction of light through a glass. To make the image more interesting, I placed the glass on a little platform, which I then removed in Photoshop.
Enjoy the rest of your week!
Through the Viewfinder 
Love the first picture. Great concept and executed very well.