Q&A: Sebastian Magnani combines humans and canines into hilarious “Underdog” photo portraits
posted Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 5:16 PM EDT
Swiss photographer Sebastian Magnani isn't exactly sure where the idea for his wonderful "Underdogs" series came from but it may have been divine inspiration.
"It was the flash of an idea, like the beginning of the universe," he told us about his anthropomorphic portraits, which combine dogs and their owners into a fantastically furry, new creation.
Magnani, who started off as a graphic designer before becoming a photographer, has been creating Underdog portraits since 2009 and has split his whimsical project into two parts. He says he has twelve more Underdogs left in the series for Part 3, and then he's going to move on to something else, including more traditional portraits.
To create an Underdog photo, Magnani captures an image of the owner and an image of the dog, and then combines the two layers in Photoshop on a Wacom tablet until a human-dog composite is created. As you can see from the images, he keeps the owner's clothing while using the face, neck, and chest of the canine.
Based in Berne, Switzerland, Magnani is a devoted Canon shooter, using a 5D Mark II and Mark III along with a Canon 24-70mm, f/2.8 lens. As for what the future holds for him and Underdogs, he remains philosophic. "Nobody knows where the end and the beginning are when we are growing up," he says.
To see more of Magnani's work, visit his website and his Facebook page. If you like these shots, you should also check out photographer Morten Koldby's human-like animal portraits here.
(Via My Modern Met)
(All images used with permission of the photographer.)
