Over the past few months I have been working on some cover concepts for Isla's book. Combining a self induced lesson in composition and tailoring many props to work in what amounts to 3D Macro, along with refining a lighting style just for the images for the book. Composition wise, I went with basic rule of thirds, with Isla to the left but also with a narrative line running from the bottom right, round and then back up to the top right of the landscape. So the basic principal for this back cover concept is to portray the more folklore fantasy side of the story with Isla running towards danger. Searing through the stillness of night with her lamp ablaze and accompanied by fireflies. The pose was tricky, I spent hours looking through various sports looking for a good still pose that kept energy with a transition of direction, but had little joy until I stumbled upon a manakin in a childs section of a sports shop. The workers must have thought I was creepy as I took photo's of a child manakin carrying a rugby ball, but it was the perfect base I wanted. I did tilt Isla slightly further off balance and swung her arms more whilst also accommodating her staff and lamp too, with her left hand clenched too, not quite a full fist but not far off either. I wanted her expression to carry her determination and courage with gritted teeth and a quite firm glare as she focuses on the challenges that shadow her in this frozen realm. This area is a long forgotten and frozen forest where trees have long been stripped of all their leaves by chilling winds that rip through the region and what little life there is lives in the balance of an eternal state of deep freeze. Lighting was relatively simple, I used a deep turquoise as a base colour and offset it with a gentle blue haze cast by the moon and the light of her lamp set to around 2700k. I wanted there to be a quite stark contrast and battle between the light from her lamp and the natural ambient lighting where the battle between hope and despair plays out on her face. Contrasted with the determined expression as she races into the heart of danger and despair as the last bastion of hope for all that reside in the forest realms and beyond. I used my lensing system to give natural distortion and bloom to her lamp along with a soft gradient for depth of field as I wanted to have a gentle blurring of the foreground and background.