The Making of the Courtney Love Grunge Series

I've attended hundreds of live shows throughout my life and on occasion I experience a moment where the performer pulls me into their world and it feels like we are the only two people on earth. I'm sure many of you have had that moment at least once. I really wanted to see if I could pull off that moment in my photography. My goal in this series is to show the performer in that one moment as I experienced it.

I went to see Courtney Love here in Los Angeles and I experienced so many of those moments at her show. Fortunately, the venue has a very lax camera policy and I was able to shoot the entire show with my nice Nikon. While I was editing the photos I thought she would be a great subject for my idea. I decided that in order to amplify the moment I needed to isolate Courtney and once I did that I was able to build the world around her as I saw it that night.

I used a few techniques to accomplish this and I've provided links to tutorials below.

First, I applied the grunge effect on her. This effect really pulls out all of the highlights of the subject and gives it almost a 3D dimension. Here is a link to a Grunge Effect tutorial by Manniphoto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja2hfC2MUJ4

Second, I pulled Courtney out of the Canyon Club by extracting her from the photo. Whenever I am working on a composite photograph I use the quick mask masking technique because it's much cleaner than using the lasso tools. Here is a link to a Quick Mask Masking tutorial by Michael Herb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZY_vVlomkY

Third, I used flowing light effects to create the world. It's a cool technique that can be used in so many ways in different projects. Here's an awesome tutorial by Andrei Oprinca: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNqt4Urw__c

I'd recommend subscribing to all three of the above Youtube Channels. Those guys are awesome!

Each photo took roughly 3 hours to create and the entire series took a month. I'd love to hear your thoughts and send me links if you guys are out there creating cool stuff. Would love to see your photos!

Here is a link to my 'Making Of' Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2u29LRs4sE

Click 'For More Information" below to see the full photo series.

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Thanks for reading!
Natasha