The entire inspiration for this photoshoot was really a question. Can we build a tiny set that feels like a massive set?
Instead of constructing a huge fullsize photography set, we wanted to play with forced perspective. So we cut out a bunch of circles, stacked them together, and placed the mini set right between the camera and the model.
When we posted the behind-the-scenes video on Instagram, it unexpectedly went viral, hitting over a million views. What surprised us even more than the numbers was the massive debate it started in the comments: creating physical sets vs doing things in post.
A lot of people couldn't understand why we went through the effort of building a DIY foreground element instead of just adding a circular frame or blurring a graphic in Photoshop later. For us, there’s a tactile magic to shooting things in-camera that you just can't recreate digitally.
You can watch the exact video that sparked the whole debate right here.
Shifting from Comical to Intimate Portraits
When we started shooting, the photos were really comical. They were fun, but they weren’t saying much.
So we changed our camera positioning. We moved closer and started making more intimate portraits. By shooting through the center of the stacked cutouts, the miniature prop started to feel immersive and that completely changed the mood. It proved to us that you don't need a massive budget or a giant studio to make high-impact, creative photography work.
Speeding Up Our Culling Workflow
When you're experimenting with creative photography ideas like this, you take a lot of shots. We used Narrative to cull the photos so we could quickly remove all the flops and misfires. Streamlining that part of our post-processing workflow gives us more time to focus on what actually matters. The emotion.
If you want to experiment with Narrative yourself, you can try it for free here and see how much it speeds up your culling process firsthand.
The Power of Body Language
At first glance, these two images looked almost identical.
But the body language is completely different. In the first, her shoulders are tense. In the second, her body is completely relaxed, but her gaze is intense. And because she’s framed inside the circles, it almost feels like you’re spying on her or witnessing a private moment you weren’t meant to see.
The combination of the relaxed body language and intense gaze really made me wonder whether or not she felt comfortable being observed. There is alot of ambiguity in her expression, that made me sit with this image a little longer. It feels much less straightforward than the other similar frame.
We’ve learned that if a photo feels too perfect or too straightforward, it’s usually not the one. The images worth turning into art are the ones that make you pause…
And that’s why this photo became the image that we decided to print, frame, and show as art.
