BOEING MH-6 “LITTLE BIRD”
In the case of the “Little Bird”, the client was not able to source any suitable images, so a collage had to be created assembled from two different sources. The dust storm background was sourced separately to create this wonderful scene
BOEING AH-64 “APACHE”
A complete rendering of an Apache chopper which affords a far more aggressive perspective. The idea here was to instill a sense of ‘surprise’, as this highly competent war machine approaches flying at very low altitude with stealth, yet at great speed. The final image was perspective wrapped to accentuate the sense of speed and add a feeling of imminent ominous drama. The Apache is not the most handsome craft, but its rugged looks can be presented to great advantage when viewed from this angle.
BELL UH-1Y “VENOM”
Another fine example of the most recent generation of the famous “Huey”. In this image captured flying through a valley in Northern India, whereas in the original, the helicopter is stationary outside a hanger with a colorless sky as the background. The reworked image adds drama and action to this great looking helicopter. Since the craft is now airborne, a pilot had to of course be inserted, and new matching reflections to all window surfaces.
AGUSTA WESTLAND 119 “KOALA”
Night scene over Chicago; Another highly complex image of this popular executive helicopter. As with the other “Koala” image, this rendition took 17 hours of painstaking work to complete. With 55 layers in the final composite, there were many elements required to make this result look credible; here too, the original image was reversed, and the tail rotor had to be moved to the left side of the helicopter. The client commented this scene looked like something out of a Bruce Willis action movie.
BELL 419 “GLOBAL RANGER”
Fish-eye-effect image of an executive Bell 419 “Global Ranger” flying over Miami Beach, Florida. This image has a wonderful dynamism about it, as though the chopper is literally flying out of the photograph. Taken from a stationary wide-angle image, the revised composite was dropped into a panoramic of the famous beach with a fish-eye effect applied to the surrounding landscape, so the perspective is held true to the original photograph. As the original image was cropped and not complete, the nose of the rotocraft had to be created as well. The green color was chosen to match the corporate id of the client.
AGUSTA WESTLAND 119 “KOALA”
Highly complex image of this very popular executive helicopter. This rendition took over one day to complete. With 68 layers in the final composite, there are just too many altered features to list or mention, including the female pilot, warping of the cityscape to create a super wide-angle fish-eye effect with matching helicopter reflections, or the tail rotor moved to the opposite side as the original image was reversed. Overall, this image is a remarkable example of the very high standards which can be achieved with the right skills and a eagle eye for very fine detail, resulting in a very effective ‘realistic’ photograph.
BELL UH-1 “IROQUOIS”
Dramatic transformation for the iconic ‘Nam chopper. In a fitting tribute to its work-horse capabilities, here in a rescue operation during an intense forest fire in Northern California; a considerable departure from the original image!
BELL UD-IY “VENOM”
The original image of this renowned helicopter was taken by the British MOD during a training session. The client wanted something more festive to celebrate the incoming New Year. Besides the requirement of matching the night scene highlights and shadows, a lot of work was required to illuminate all the instrumentation panels. As a final touch, a hula-hoop gal was added on the dash for fun.
BELL AH-1 “SUPER COBRA”
Dramatic reworking of a very good image of a pair of “Super Cobras” flying through mountainous terrain. The reworked image started out as a battle scene, but the aggressive element was later abandoned and replaced with the idea of a ‘looming storm’. A lot of painstaking work was required to create the bright highlights over the various surfaces of the rotocraft. Notice the cloud and lightning bolt reflections in the windows.
PVE RESIDENTIAL ELEVATOR
In this example, the client wanted the woman removed from the image. This required quite a lot of creativity, since much of the elevator was obscured. This meant recreating shadows, textures and reflections. The image also required to be extended to the left so as to fit the web page format. A table with a large flower arrangement were added in to balance the image.
CESSNA AT-37 TRAINER
In this example, we wished to convey the sense of speed and maneuverability of this famous little jet trainer aircraft. When creating such pan-motion images, extra care must be taken to create a realistic motion effect, since in reality the distant objects ‘appear’ to move at a slower pace across the frame as compared to those closest to the observer’s point of view. Thus the flat image must be broken into fragments so the most distant objects have less blur applied to them than those closest to the field of view. A slight blur has also been added to the aircraft, since in truth it is near impossible to follow fast moving objects photographed at slow shutter speeds; capturing a pin sharp image of an object in motion would require a perfect pan-sweep at exactly the same speed as this very fast moving object. So it is even these smallest of details which help to achieve highly credible results.
BELL 419 “GLOBAL RANGER”
Executive Bell 419 “Global Ranger” flying over Miami Beach. The revised composite was dropped into a long shot of the shoreline with a graded blur added to enhance the helicopter. The green color was chosen to match the corporate id of the client.
STUDIO
MARINE
WINDOW DISPLAYS
