The image of astronaut Buzz Aldwin standing on the moon is one of the most easily-recognizable photos from the first moon landing in 1969. It is an iconic photo. The American flag highlighted on his shoulder represents the victory that America had won in the Space Race. We were the first to the moon.
Though not nearly as world-changing for everyone, another small step that was a huge victory for me was my baby’s first small steps. What better way to celebrate her giant leap than reenacting Armstrong’s and Aldwin’s?
It took some planning DIY-ing, three assistants, and an adorable model to make it happen, but the results were one astronomically cute picture.
The Set-Up
I had two main challenges with the visual design of the image. One was creating the negative space. This was solved with a blanket and a costume cape. The camera had to be set close enough to the cameras to not include anything outside these two objects, so the white blanket needed to be pinned up to create the illusion of a large background.
The other challenge was lighting. The best lighting was from a window in front of the set, but it provided too much light to the background. We remedied this with a flattened cardboard box. Assistant One held it so that it created a shadow over the top half of the background. This also helped to create an illusion of space.
We put other blankets and kid toys under the white blanket to look like craters. A box became a makeshift tripod to keep the phone camera steady.
To make the space helmet, Assistant Two held a Mason jar lid ring by a string in front of our model.
Assistant Three held our model up until I was ready to photograph. Then he quickly moved out of the way. Our model stood on her own while I snapped photos. After a few seconds, she got bored and toddled away.
Edits
The photo had to be taken in a hurry, and I was only able to get a couple of shots before our model moonwalked off. So I made a few edits to the photo to create the right mood:
- Cropped the photo edges to get the right amount of foreground.
- Adjusted the white balance to make the whites cooler.
- Removed the red-eye effect.
- Added a vignette effect to the edges to copy the shadows of the original photo.
- Used the retouch tool to remove as many of the stars on the background as I could. (This matched the original photograph better and created more negative space.)
- Decreased the brightness and the shadows.
The Lesson
The key thing I learned is that for every lighting problem, there is a solution. I was particularly proud of the solution to our issue with too much lighting. All it took was a cardboard box. The lighting is what made the picture, which is a lesson I’ll be taking with me in all my future photography endeavors.