Levitation photography illusion

Written by Photography

I gave levitation photography a shot once, but this time I decided to do things a little differently. I shot in a more controlled environment and used a lot of post processing to achieve the desired result. I got the idea from the photography magazine floating on the top left of the frame. It gave a step by step breakdown on how to achieve this levitating effect. I didn’t follow it step by step, but used a lot of the ideas that were presented. This also allowed me to give my new tripod a spin.

The procedure:

  • Take a picture of an empty table. Use that as the background image. I used the picture of the rangefinder magazine as the base image. This preserved its shadow on the table.
  • Take each item and hold it in one hand. Set the camera on a 2 second shutter delay and guess when the shutter will release. Right before it releases you need to drop the item and catch it with the other hand. Make sure you release from the top and allow gravity to guide the item down into your second hand.
  • Repeat this for each item. Make sure the tripod is in the exact spot for each exposure.
  • Import each frame into post-production software capable of using layers (Photoshop or Gimp).
  • Carefully cut out each item and overlay it on the base image.
  • Perform any necessary adjustments pertaining to cropping, color, and overall look of the photo.