Photographer turns garden into scene from X-Men
IT’S not every day your dad turns the back garden into a scene from an American superhero film.
But that’s exactly what happened to 10-year-old Nyamh when her photographer dad Rahim Mastafa turned them both into characters from the film Logan.
Using superb photographic ability, computer wizardry, and some really convincing Wolverine blades, 39-year-old Rahim set up the scene in his back garden in Llandaff, Cardiff.
“I like to have fun when I shoot,” Rahim, who runs Cardiff-based fitness and physique photography company Sugarbox Studios said.
“One day I was thinking about the subject of my next shoot.”
The 10th instalment in the X-Men film series, Logan is also the third and final Wolverine solo film and features Hugh Jackman as a physically enhanced mutant with blades in his hands.
It also features an 11-year-old girl named Laura who also has mutant powers.
“I have had people say that I’d make a good Logan so I thought ‘What the heck, let’s do it,’” Rahim said. “A friend of mine had a pair of really convincing Wolverine blades which I used during the shoot.
“I also thought I’d get my daughter to join in on the shoot to play the part of the girl in the movie.
“I placed my Sony a77 with a 35mm 1.8 Sony lens on a tripod and locked it off. I knew that the shot would be a composite.
“One shot of me, one of my daughter, as we only had one set of blades between us. And then we just had fun!
“I dressed up as Logan using clothes I already had and my daughter did the same.
“I directed her during the shoot in order to get some emotion from her.
“Once the outside shoot was done I headed inside and took more shots that would be composites.
“I then jumped into Photoshop and spent a few hours creating the finished images.”
Rahim filmed the entire shoot and posted the footage as a video blog to his YouTube page.
In the video the father and daughter can be seen laughing and joking as Nyamh excitedly shouts “My dad is so cool” and “This is so exciting”.
But this isn’t the first time Rahim has experimented with special effects and photo editing.
Some of his other projects also include amalgamating images of Cardiff’s past and present to document the changing face of the capital’s city centre.
By merging wonderful archived pictures with modern images, Rahim’s project brought forgotten parts of Cardiff back to life including St John’s Church, St Mary Street and Castle Street.