Yes, she really is lying on top of a canvas covered balsam wood frame biplane wing. The plane’s owner was clever, though, he brought a wood platform for her to lay on. It nearly disappears with the red strap we used to hide it.
There is no digital work on this image.
To light this image, we placed a flood light inside an empty gasoline barrel with the lid off, then hoisted it to the rafters of the aircraft hanger. No scrims to soften the light. The lighting under the wing is from the light reflecting off the floor. You can tell the light is not straight above, by how the shadow falls a little back from the front. This is how we got the light to bounce back up.
This is shot on tranny film, 400 ISO with a long exposure. Each time we took the shot, Denise had to take a breath and hold it very still. Breathing would have blurred her face and chest.
Denise is one “do the job” girl. She is not a model, though, but a client. To get the shot, we had to wait to 11pm until the ambient light had vanished. To get the perspective with the lens, we had to open the hanger doors, letting the cold Spring air flow in. I was shooting this on a 6×7 camera outside the hanger with a 200 ml medium format zoom lens.
Inside the canopy is hiding a very short helper triggering a gelled flash every time we yelled for it. Without, it the clear canopy just vanished. So this could be considered a mixed lighting setup.
Powerful images can come from the simplest lighting setups. You need to pause, though, and consider how to approach the image, envisioning the end result.
