P#24: This Girl Swinging is a Little Shot of Paradise

Know What You Want and How to Make it Happen

Scott Stulberg: The next image is of a girl swinging on a swing in Thailand. We were talking about this before. I walked on this beach and my taxi was waiting for me. I was looking for a hut. There were these huts up on the mountain. To get to this hut, I had to walk along the beach.

I saw this swing. It must have been 30 feet up in the air hanging down. No one was on it. I stopped, looked at it, and said, "I am going to be shooting on this swing." I just knew it. That's what I mean when I talk about pre-visualization -- I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to put a beautiful Thai girl in that swing and shoot against a gorgeous sky. (click the image to see larger version)

I did it the next day. I found a beautiful Thai girl and I had my friend come with me. He would push her as I shot, then I would push her as he shot. I would shoot telephoto, out of focus, wide angle. We did all kinds of different things.

In Photoshop, I cleaned all of the seaweed off. There was a lot of seaweed in the image. I cleaned up all the seaweed and ended up with this image. My agency absolutely loved this image. This is just pre-visualizing what I wanted to do. The swing by itself meant nothing. A girl swinging in it, pushed out towards the water meant a lot more.

Audri Lanford: Absolutely. This is just amazing. This was a wide angle, right?

Scott Stulberg: I shot wide angle and telephoto, and this is wide angle. I shot some telephoto ones where I made her out of focus and she's blurred, which would be really good for an ad somewhere -- to make her an all-black silhouette and blurred, like you're thinking about a travel destination or something like that.

Many times, I shoot things where the main subject is out of focus but you see the scenery itself and you know where you are. This is kind of a different way of thinking. There's so much you can do with your photography. I do all kinds of motion shots, all kinds of camera blurs, silhouettes, and people out of focus or scenes out of focus. It's kind of a different way of shooting.

In Closing

Some of the best shots happen when you pre-visualize your shots and use creative ways of shooting. That's exactly how Scott Stulberg managed to create this amazing photo of the Thai girl swinging near the water.