About the Image(s)

Description: sometimes we need a break from our usual stuff and experiment something new, and here it is. The image was taken in the Galleria Grande of the Reggia di Venaria (Royal Palace of Venaria) next to Turin. The Palace was one of the hunting residencies of the Savoy family and it is now UNESCO Heritage. It was built in the 17th century. I visited the location with my nephew Edoardo recently. We got an early entrance ticket in the morning as we wanted to take advantage of a mid of the week, low season day visit to get some images without the usual crowd. The Galleria Grande is almost at the end of the visit, but you can go back if you want so we just went there first to take advantage of not having too many people around. Indeed, we were able to photograph this amazing architectonic structure without anyone and with a great side light. However, once we have done the “usual” photography, we saw the opportunity for experimenting with the zoom technique. I thought that the geometry of the location with the diagonal of the pave would help to create an image that could give the illusion of Edoardo walking to another dimension. I have tried this technique other times, so I had some experience, but I am not an expert by any mean. Since you can’t use tripod inside the palace, I knew the most challenge aspect would have been keeping the camera movement to the minimum during the zooming. I asked Edoardo to walk in front of me in the middle of the location. My zoom lens was the Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8 and I choose f/22 to have as much as DOF possible. Considering I wanted to create the illusion for the main subject to walk in another dimension/time, I also thought that a wide angle was the ideal lens to create some converging lines. I focused on Edoardo and set originally the shutter speed at 1/10sec. However, this was not slow enough to create the effect I wanted. So I tried others shutter speed and at the end the 1/5 sec was the one that worked better for me.
I was also lucky to have other two visitors on the right side of the alley at the time I got the right setting. At first I thought to wait they walked away, but after reviewing the first attempt, I liked to have two faint figures on the side because in my opinion this element contributes to create the story. Indeed, I have other images without those figures, but they are not as strong as this one.

Post process of the image included a little cropping and opening the shadow. I also selectively pick up the red color of the jacket to create a colorful area to guide the eye on the subject and have sharpened a little Edoardo figure.

I am pleased by the final effect and curios to learn what the other members of the group think about.

Nikon Z-7ii, Nikkor Z 14-24mm f/2.8, 1/5 sec, f/22, ISO 64. The technique I used include starting zoom in before push on the shutter button.