Photoshop montage – The Odd Ball

The Odd Ball

The Odd Ball is a comedy cabaret show taking place in Edinburgh on the 29th January – “dust off your glad rags and prepare to have your dance card marked in a night when the world’s most famous, infamous and imaginary partnerships battle it out for the coveted Odd Couple Crown.”

I was approached by the event promoter, who was looking for an image to advertise the show. I’d done some photography work for her before, so had a fairly large stock of shots of her performers in action. What she was looking for however was a Photoshop montage – an iconic image of a celebrity couple, but with the faces replaced by those of two of her star performers.

We bounced a couple of concepts back and forth, but settled on this shot of John & Yoko’s bed-in.

John & Yoko - original shot

The next step was to find suitable shots of the performers. In the original shot, Lennon is holding a flower and looking straight to camera. However, I found a shot of the male performer looking upwards with a blissful expression on his face: placing that on the orginal made it look as though he was sniffing the flower instead, and added to the humourous tone the promoter was after.

Further to that, Gypsy Charms – the female star of The Odd Ball – is not only a stunning performer but also pulls some marvellously comic expressions during her routines. She’s also a good friend, so I knew she wouldn’t mind me using a shot of her looking…well, a bit bemused is probably the best way to put it…! I also made her face slightly larger than Yoko Ono’s in the original: again to enhance the comedic effect.

Once I’d sourced the photos I wanted to use, it was then a case of cropping the faces in close, matching the tones in Photoshop then playing around with masks, grain and blending modes to put it all together.

The promoter was delighted and this image is now being used to publicise the show – which I also hope to shoot in a performance capacity later this month.