Why so serious?

I did this one for a local comic store called Comix, my go-to store for any graphic novel needs in Hannover, Germany. The idea was to include their logo, or a part thereof, in a creative way.

The project was actually initiated by my wife (Holly of decor8) who saw drawings by various comic artists (like Don Rosa) on the shop’s walls – usually done during signing sessions, and of course always including their logo. When the owners saw my style of toy photography they were quite excited to see what I could come up with. I actually had the idea for this shot, as well as another setup, right then, right there. As an avid Batman fan I instantly pictured the stores mascot as a mask on Joker’s face. The iconic phrase “Why so serious?” was just a given in my head.

As I have my own studio now I am much more flexible with the setup. For this session I used one of my photos of downtown Hannover at night displayed on a 22 inch monitor. I then setup the figures in front of it and lit the scene with one blue, one red and two white LED flashlights mounted on mini tripods. I photographed the scene with a Zuiko 14-52 II mounted on my Olympus E-30, a fantastic combo for cinematic photography. I took about 200 pictures with slight positional and lighting changes, then narrowed it down to four that I felt were the strongest. I ultimately printed two of them (using my Canon PIXMA MP640 and Canon PP-201 photo paper) so that they could pick their personal favorite, which happened to be the top picture, but I am also including the runner-up below.

No related posts.