I imagined what an “Organ Trade Market” might look like and made a photo of it

A surgeon at a meat market. An absolutely ridiculous and simple idea, so it had to be done for real! I am very lucky to have so many great friends with massive storages of strange stuff that they are willing to lend. I remembered that one of my friends had a stretcher so I only needed meat counter with innards and a couple of models.

As I was talking about this project to another friend of mine, he then figured out how to get models, meat counter and innards at once. One call and all was set, photoshoot next week. What a great feeling to have these kinds of contacts and people around me!

As always I first did a very raw sketch drawing using photoshop. This way I know what we need for the scene and does the idea come through the image. Then we figured out the costumes for the models. The surgeon’s scrubs we bought from a local costume shop, the butcher only needed an apron and luckily one of the models had one so the last thing we needed, which was the patient’s “item” that we got from a very friendly vet.

The photoshoot happened in a large garage. And as usual, large garages have lots of stuff in them, so we didn’t have much space to play around in. Well, too much free space is a waste of space. So, we figured out that if we move the counter so that it is angled towards the wall, then I could frame my camera so that all unnecessary items wouldn’t be in the photo.

As the set was built, I began to make the lighting setup.

I used one Godox AD360 with a Godox P90L parabolic softbox on front angled 45 degrees down. Two 50 x 70 gridded softboxes, one on each side of the scene, with Godox AD360 and Godox V1. One snoot on a Nikon SB-24 lit the butcher’s face, with a Selens 60 x 90 softbox on another Nikon SB-24 on the left front side to open shadows.

In post-processing, I added text to the old ads we placed on the scene and also the broken window on the wall.

About the Author

Juhamatti Vahdersalo is an amateur photographer based in Finland. He likes to tell stories through his photographs and work. You can find out more about Juhamatti on his website, follow his work on Instagram and 500px, or reach out to him through Facebook