Fernand Hick has enrichen 1x with many wonderful photos. One of his most popular styles are his nature scenes, where the blurry surroundings creates the feeling of an impressionistic painting. Today, Fernand will tell us how they are made.

500 mm fixed f/8.0 mirror lens

CONTEXT

This image has a long history; it's a combination of two photos. Both original images are color slides, digitalized through scanning and kept in files...waiting for inspiration. The landscape was photographed on a spring day in 1991 with a 500 mm fixed f/8.0 mirror lens, having a very shallow DOF. It was taken at ground level trough low branches, full of spring blossoms (time release of 2 secs on). I so created some blurry areas giving this impressionistic touch, which is part of my vision on the beauty of nature. The blue area (the sky) on the other hand invites you to enter the image. 

I do like this image a lot; it's as a poem of nature, full of dreams. It's that feeling I want to convey trough my images. The scenery around us is so beautiful; we just have to take the time to look and to enjoy it. I love to make this kind of images. I put them in files, which can be later on a source for inspiration. The other photo dates from 1991: two young girls (one is my oldest daughter), singing full of joy.

I got the idea to combine both images and to put the two girls right in the blue spot of the landscape. I did like the result immediately. But still something was missing. I wanted to extend the joy of the two girls to the surrounding landscape. So I created this partial rotation in the landscape, concentrated around the two girls.

I am very satisfied with the end result. This image expresses for me perfectly how young people enjoy life in a world, full of carelessness and happiness for them. I hope that people looking at it get the same feeling.

PROCESSING

All processing was done in Photoshop CS. I made a selection of the two girls. Copied and pasted them into the landscape using the transform tool on the layer of the two girls to create the right perspective and dimensions. Then applying a mask to that layer and make final retouching with the brush tool to create a perfect and smooth fit of the girls in the landscape. To create the movement in the landscape, the layer was copied.

A selection was then made, feathered strongly and a radial blur filter was applied in "spin mode'" making sure that the centre of the rotation was in the middle of the girls.

BIOGRAPHY

Fernand Hick is a curator at 1x. He refers to himself as an "atmosphere photographer". In his images he tries to transfer the feelings he is experiencing while shootings to the viewer. He is extremly versatile and has created wonderful work in many different genres. You can read more about Fernand Hick here.