compositing = Photography + ai. sometimes.

The problem-solving usage of AI-generated imagery.

We knew we needed a series of images with a very particular look. However, the resources weren’t immediately available within the timeframe - so we thought we’d lean on a tech that has some industry people cringing.

AI has swept into our lives like a bully stealing our lollies. Many feel unsettled by its presence (or its invasion), and risk to the future of their hard-fought industry roles. Don’t do that. AI can simply be viewed as part of the creative solution rather than a merciless takover. The number of tools we use in our daily life that utilise this tech is astounding. Even my own editing process now heavily leans into streamlined methods that would’ve, a decade ago, taken 3x as long… and could saving YOU money.

With that said, this entry is about how I pitched the use of AI in my workflow as a solution to a logistical roadblock… However, it still required a well-designed plan, and the fine tuning of a human hand - AND it just made sense to use it.

An enviromental portrait of Eddie Rakanui • Photo: Chris Holloman

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THE BEGINNING:

Eddie Rakanui is someone you need to know. He’s someone who wants to know YOU. With a genuine light that most people often keep shielded behind all sorts of personal layers, Eddie’s managed to crack the code. He pours energy into those he meets throughout his day, embracing their stories as his own. I’m grateful to have been invited to work alongside Eddie as I learned more of his project, ‘Love Life More’.

Jumping forward 18 months, Eddie approached me about photography. With the goal to teach, guide and mentor people who want to adopt his philosophy on walking through life, we needed to build a library of images that would speak to this. A range of different facets from training, speaker engagements, one-ones and other interactive services, the offering is very specific. One series where we needed to target a different approach was the speaker images. Being a relatively new business, quality photo assets from past experience were hard to come by and phone snaps just weren’t going to cut it. So we started to brainstorm.

Locations soon popped into the conversation. These would allow us to photograph him in context and illustrate the presentation side to Love Life More. Classrooms, stages, seminars, etc. However, the logistics of getting in an out of various spaces and the scheduling of it all seemed a little daunting against our time slot, so we pivoted… and that’s when the winning idea landed.

I suggested to Eddie that we utilise a single location, multiple wardrobe changes and, for each of those, I’d modify the lighting arrangement to create a different mood/style. With this, I’d lean into the AI tech and create digitally-generated backgrounds, rendered to match each of the camera angles and lighting setups we’d already photographed in the original location. I’d then composite his poses into the blank digital background and finetune the scaling, depth of field, composition, colour grade and any other small details (logos on large screens, suggestion of audience, etc).

The reaction to this? it was clearly a win. lol.

First test background rolled off the computer and recieved good feedback:

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We got our location sorted and set the shoot date. The rest was cake...Almost.

THE PHOTOGRAPHY:

On shoot day, we went through everything we had discussed. With a couple of lav mics at our disposal (thanks to my friends at People With Ideas - you’ll hear more about them again), we mix and matched a few looks that best suited the ‘Eddie’ vibe. No fluff, no pomp. It all worked. As we swapped out shirts and mics, I adjusted lighting styles (using strobes would allow me to recreate the styling we wanted).

I had Eddie do some presentation mimmickry by just storytelling as if on stage; His focus on the back walls as if speaking to a large room. As I moved around with my camera, I was quite intentional, understanding the constraints of compatibility to what AI would render as a background. Keeping it simple was critical. Replicating positions that might be remeniscent of any realworld event photography.

Once the compositing series was complete, we ventured outdoors for another portion of images that touched on the teaching and mentoring. Thank you to Lisa who jumped in as our ‘client’ and played the role to perfection! As you can see, the results felt authentic. These too included strobe for a little extra nudge of styling. I wanted to keep these as natural looking as possible without going to editorial, so the strobes were primarily used as fill light against the backlit scene (as pictured below).

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THE EDITING + AI INTEGRATION

And here we go. It was at this stage that I had the raw ingredients to plan and style the digital environment.

Using an AI generator, I was able to write a detailed prompt that would surely render the perfect background for compositing. That’s a negative, Ghostrider. What popped up at first was the most horrendous looking image (I’m being nice). Not even close. However, being one who hates to fail, I tried again - this time including the first image of Eddie as a reference for ‘camera’ angle, scale and perspective.

Better. It was better. Just slightly better.

After feeling like a noob for a while, I simplified my prompt… and guess what! it was worse. Cringy as expected.

This is why I believe that AI will never ultimately become a perfect solution. It WAS a solution, but only from a location and time benefit… so I kept on.

FINALLY, with a handful of revisions to prompts and reading about best practices to land on less ‘hallucinogenic’ outcomes, I found the key balance. There seems to be a style to the sentence structure and tone that AI needs in order to not go off the rails.

I worked with both files and worked on finetuning scale and composition. For realism, I chose to add in the ‘Love Life More’ logo onto the background as if it was originally part of the scene (I can deeper dive into the compositing process in a later blog). The final secret sauce was to colour grade the overall image, creating a nicely balanced cohesive look to the final image. And that’s that.

Before & After samples…

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