Mad Hatter

This is a two part story I worked on with my friend John. He showed me his work and I immediately thought of a way of photographing it. The hats have a very intriguing somewhat Victorian feel. I love the quality of the materials used and the shapes of the hats which John designs and creates his own blocks for. A lot of work, skill and artistry goes into a creation of a hat and I wanted to have that reflected in the quality of the image. First we photographed John in his studio at his desk sewing, choosing from pieces of felt, his studio and his work.

Then we put up the wallpaper and worked on my idea to photograph John wearing his own creations. Initially we looked for suitable designs and discovered, that we don’t have the budget to make it happen. Beautiful wallpaper is so expensive! As it should be! But we needed to think of something else. We were both looking for suitable background and a couple of months later by complete luck a friend of mine had some left over from doing a make over for a tv show.
I love those old Victorian photographs, I love the faces of the people, the expressions on their faces somewhat distant and uninterested, which was the result of a long and boring exposure where they could not do the slightest movement for several minutes at the time. It has a very interesting effect, but I also love the way some portrait studios would color their photographs in. Done right and it’s amazing, done wrong and it’s tacky. I wanted to attempt this look.
The wallpaper added a layer to the concept and photoshop helped to finish it. And since a lot of people asks me how much photoshop I do, I thought it would be easier to show it.

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First I adjusted the curves to add contrast and drama. The whole idea was a bit theatrical, which is something I love. Then I adjusted the color balance to cool the color of the wallpaper and adjusted the level of saturation in certain areas to add rosy glow to his cheeks and lips. I darkened the image around the edges to concentrate all focus on the face and the hat and create a little frame like those vintage little portrait frames with elliptical opening for the photograph. The photoshop is a tool I enjoy using, but there was a lot of thought that went into the poses and expressions as well as lighting to make it work the way I wanted it.