1. Take pic of model against a blank wall (this blank wall part is important, because of what happens next), with high contrast between the light and shadow sides of the model (think Caravaggio).

2. Photogrpah your background. I used a piece of leather (yes, the background to the Ratana pictures is a piece of leather). You can also use leaves (close-ups of leaves from your garden would be good), or indeed anything, although you’ll quickly learn what works best.

3. In Photoshop Layers, make a copy of the model and use blends to find tones that you like. If you want, you can do this multiple times and combine later. The add the background above the model. Then use the Clone tool to merge that part of the background which is above the model – this will produce a rich, uniform tone corresponding to the are of the model, who will start to appear through the cloned background.

It will take a little experimenting.

I sold Ratana’s photos to a magazine, and they printed them and never paid me! So I gave up doing that sort of thing. Poor Ratana never got any money out of it beyond the little “modeling fee” I paid him.

Are you a professional photographer/s?

All the best

AM