Juhamatti Vahdersalo
The long planned image finally came true when the right location and props were found in the same place. The restoration carpenter Ville Lammi’s workshop is a true treasure trove and, as a sincere helper, he offered not only to model but also offered perfect location and objects for the picture.
The idea for the picture was born a couple of years ago when we threw thoughts on various religious topics together with Ville. Here in Finland they call Duct-tape “Jeesus-teippi” which means (you guessed it right) Jesus-Tape. Rough sketch of the picture has also been done in photoshop long time before photoshoot so I knew that it will work as soon as the location and props are found.
Because the budget is limited and it is difficult to borrow large amounts of duct tape, I decided to make the rolls myself. These fake taperolls were created by sawing cardboard tubes to little pieces and wrapping a piece of tape around them, finishing touch for the top of the rolls I made in post-process. The Savior’s outfit with wig was purchased from a local shop selling mascot suits, and the rest of the items of the image was managed by Ville´s stocks.
In the photo I used two Godox AD360 flashes and a pair of Nikon SB24 hand flashes. Lightmodifier above the model was Godox parabolic 90cm softbox, on the left side of the model Godox 50 x 70 softbox with grid and from above directly pointed to models face was handflash with snoot. One flash is behind the model without a light modifier pointing to the hair. The smoke in the picture was done with a small smokemachine.
When the main picture was taken, I moved the tape rolls on the floor and took separate photos of them. This way I could easily increase the number of rolls by finally combining the pictures in Photoshop.
In post-treatment, in addition to general cleaning and adding more rollers, I also added sparks, glow and motion to spinning wheel, as well as labels on the sides of cardboard boxes.