Salmon-Eye by Thomas Morel, Marineholmen – Bergen
Having worked a lot with the Bergen-based company GC Rieber, they approached us with the request to create a 5,2×2 meters piece of art for the entrance of one of their new buildings in the marine district of Bergen. The building is called Lanternen, and two of the companies who were to establish there were Lerøy and Cargill – two of Norway’s biggest companies related to salmon farming.
This image was going to be the first thing the visitors would meet when entering the building. It was also going to be visible from the outside, so I quickly decided that the best way of displaying the image was on a light-box, where the image would be printed on high-quality canvas, backlit by a large number of small LED diodes.
I wanted to get as close as possible to the animal, showing a detail of the salmon that you might not have seen before. To do this, I wanted to capture as much colour and depth as possible, so I naturally chose to shoot it with Hasselblad’s multi-shot technology.
To be able to capture the colours and dynamics of the salmon as truthfully as possible, I used the H6D-400cMS in 4-shot mode. In this mode, the camera shoots 4 images while moving the 100-megapixel sensor 1 pixel between every shot. By doing this, it manages to capture real colour data that truly show the salmon’s flamboyant coloured skin.
One of the challenges with getting so close to the object is that only a small area will be in focus, even if you shoot at such a small aperture as f/16. To put the whole scene in focus, I put the image together by 15 individual multi-shot images, where each image is focussed 2 millimetres further out. Then, later on, all captures are stitched together in Photoshop, combining all sharp areas of each image to create a final output image where the entire salmon is sharp.
The final result is a focus-stacked image of 11049×4233 pixels, consisting of 15 individual multishot images.
View a high-res version of the final image here.
Camera: Hasselblad H6D-400cMS
Lens: HC 120mm
Aperture: f/16
Shutter: 1/800
ISO: 64
Lighting: Broncolor Move with softbox
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thomasmorelphotography/
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThomasMorelPhotography/
Website: www.thomasmorelphotography.com
