In May, Distant Era created character portraits for the Auxientia live action steampunk role-playing event in Dixon, Illinois. So far, our 2023 series has included Officer Prescott (Deana Vazquez), Robert Irons (John Kidd), Maren Tinker (Meredith White), Vyara Kayda Sudhāra (Simona Katsman), and Zsa Zsa St. James (Lottie à la West). I thought we’d finished our Auxientia series for the year, but as Yoda famously said, “There is another.”
On the final day—incidentally the day we needed to board a plane to Ireland—my dear friend CT requested a portrait session at the event with his sister Grace. As chance would have it, they’re in Ireland this month. I’m not saying Distant Era sessions will take you to Ireland, but I’m not not saying it!
At the end of a busy summer, CT selected his favorite portraits of his character and a few favorites with Grace.
Arthur Ignatius Worthfellow XXIII
For CT’s character concept, he chose a gentleman adventurer who’d traveled the world and come to the (typically) isolationist city of Auxientia with stories to tell of the lands beyond the valley. Full of pomp and bluster, his presence fills the room. Except… he’s actually an exile. Having been branded and banished many years ago, he’s returned to the city under an assumed name. There, he reconnects with his sister (played by his real sister Grace) and reclaims his true name, Hunter Hayes. This context is important for the photographs below, which show CT’s character in each of his aspects: Arthur Ignatius Worthfellow XXIII, his brand, avoiding paparazzi, and his true persona.
Photography and Editing
There’s not much to say that I haven’t said before about the photography for the other Auxientia portraits except that I got to do more of them, for CT ordered a beautiful boxed set of his portraits.
Editing is a different story. I employed a few tricks to clean up or add emphasis to these images.
The Face Swap
In one of the siblings’ favorite selections, CT had left his glasses on over his monocle. Fortunately, we’d photographed another shot slightly later at the same angle, so I was able to take his face from one portrait and place it in the other. I believe he’s ever so slightly closer to the camera in the second shot, but the difference is negligible. A face swap is an editing technique often used by wedding photographers to fix those big group shots that would be perfect if not for that one person making a strange face.
CT’s face in the edited image came from a different photograph.
Editing the Spotlight
The lighting was very specific in these portraits, so you’re either in the shot or out of it. In one sequence, Worthfellow is warning off the paparazzi, but by leaning back, CT was no longer in the light—yet the expression was a winner. So in the editing process we added a spotlight to the picture as though he’d been pinned down by the press at some big event. Also added in a shadow here in the direction opposite the spotlight.
The spotlight in the final image helps to motivate, or show the story of, the pose.
Light Editing, aka “Light Editing”
The scene where Arthur/Harper contemplates the brand upon his arm suggested a gentle, thoughtful, or sorrowful scene. I drew in some light beams to show the idea of that brand being revealed to the light at last and then filled in with some very light atmospheric haze.
Generative Fill
We photographed these images with limited time, as the event needed to wrap up and we had to be out of the venue. Therefore, I didn’t always have time to swap out lenses and lights as I might in a regular studio session. When Grace entered the picture, I had to make room for two subjects in the frame, but I continued to shoot with my favorite 85mm portrait lens. As a result, there’s very little extra space between both subjects and the edge of the frame. This doesn’t matter so much in digital photographs, but printed versions are slightly cropped, and after that the mat needs to cover part of the printed surface. Thus, shoot with too little space surrounding the subject and the mat will overlap with the subject’s body.
This is something I’ve struggled with editing previous portraits, and it’s driven me nuts. I’ve used a number of tricks to fix the problem, stretching sides of the frame or using Adobe’s Content Aware Fill, which populates an area of a photo with pixels Adobe estimates are similar to the pixels around that area. That last solution has helped, but Adobe’s newest one, Generative Fill, is faster, easier, and more accurate. To extend the background, all I had to do was use the crop tool to extend the borders, click generative fill, and hit enter. Voila! The background extended seamlessly, granting me a larger area from which to crop so that my subjects remain within the frame (and removing the softbox!).
In addition to all the detailed skin cleanup, dodging and burning, and color toning I do on each Auxientia portrait, as well as making both color and daguerreotype versions using overlays from Chris Spooner, these extra edits helped to punch up CT’s selections.
The Original LARP Patrons
It is always the greatest pleasure to photograph my friends CT and Grace. They were among the very first patrons of my work, back in 2017 when I photographed my first live action role-play experience, and I am grateful for their friendship and patronage. We shot a tribute to that first photograph at the Auxientia event, and I’ll leave you with that!
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