I met photographer Andy Kruczek two years ago at the Focus on Imaging 2008 show in Northampton, United Kingdom. Andy is one of the nicest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting during my time here at onOne and his photography is incredible. You can read a short bio about Andy on our Pro Corner page here.

However, Andy recently sent me some new photos for his pro corner page and I thought it would be cool to post them here as well.

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This first photo [  {1} ] was shot as personal work for Andy that he used in his workshops at the SWPP conference in January. Andy used Mask Pro but in quite a subtle way. As you know, using a wind machine can be rather unpredictable, so he used Mask Pro to take sections of hair from other frames and combine them onto this final composite you see above.

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This above photo [  {2} ] is from the same shoot. No masking in this one, but Andy used Genuine Fractals 6 to blow up a section to 3 feet x 3 feet at 300dpi. The size increase was around 1300%. The image was used on the Broncolor stand at the Focus on Imaging exhibition and will be featured on the Broncolor web site. [  {3} ]

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In this final image, Andy tells me that this was a new departure for him and something that has come directly out of his association with onOne Software and using Mask Pro. The shot was commissioned for the English Rock Band The Beautiful Deadly Children and features lead singer and composer, Paul Steventon-Marks.

The shot was done in Andy’s studio against a plain white background and Mask Pro was used to cut him out (the Steampunk accessories were real, the arm came from America and cost around £800). The background was constructed from various stock shots (landscape, balloon, submarine and cloudy sky) and then enhanced with “snow” and more “clouds” created in Photoshop.

Andy told me that the image of Paul is actually constructed from a number of elements, his left hand and left eye, for example, came from other frames (using Mask Pro to isolate them). Lots of manipulation in Photoshop to stretch the fingers of the left hand out, put the reflection into the goggles and so on. Mask Pro allowed Andy to remove his actual arm around his right elbow and make the steampunk arm look more surreal. Finally the image was toned before being put through Genuine Fractals and output on a HP wide carriage printer to 34 x 49 inches.

All images copyright Andy Kruczek.

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  1. Model Catherine [↩]
  2. Model Clare [↩]
  3. Photo Credits:
    - Hair by Nick Malenko at Royston Blythe Salon
    - Makeup Artist: Jessica Nurse
    - Wardrobe: Rachael Sadler
    - Assistant: Sander Jurkiewicz
    - Lighting courtesy of Broncolor
    - Gear: Canon 1Ds Mark II, Canon EF 100mm Macro, Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L [↩]

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