Shooting Components

By Jim Zuckerman

I find myself shooting a lot of components now. By this I mean that I look for pieces of things that can be used later in composites with other images. For example, I shoot a lot of skies, roads, flowers, textures like marble and slate, trees, and so on. I never know when I’ll need them to make another photo perfect.

Before Photoshop, the darkroom allowed photographers to be creative up to a point. We were limited by the technology, or lack of it, but now the sky is literally the limit. So when I see a situation that isn’t exactly as I’d like it, I know that there is a very good chance that in post-processing I can alter the original to coincide with what I see in my mind.

Such was the case with this floral scene in a small village in France. The original set was attractive, but it wasn’t as good as it should have been – at least according to my sense of esthetics. In the final composite below, you can see that I replaced the cement floor with a cobblestone design that I found in my ‘component’ file, plus I replaced the painted cement planters with marble that I had photographed in St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican.

I also rotated the image counterclockwise because my original shot wasn’t perfectly parallel with the viewfinder, and I added a fallen flower by selecting one of the blossoms and then making a copy of it. I added a tiny drop shadow under the flower and then, finally, added some color saturation.