Creating a Photo of a Radical Vegan Zombie Activist

It has been said that meat consumption should decrease by 90% in the West if we want to avoid dangerous climate warming. And because all of us should be involved to achieve this goal, I of course decided to invite zombies to join in the effort of combating climate change.

Surprisingly there are many vegetables that have similarities in shape and textures to our human innards, so the first thing I did when started this project was to find proper lookalike innards with a vegan twist in them.

My sister’s kitchen was the location that we chose to do this photo shoot.

And this kitchen came with two zombies: my sister and her husband. My wife did the makeup for both of them and I enhanced the details of the zombie faces in Photoshop.

All the stickers and posters were added in post as well, as was the light bulb above the table.

Here’s the light setup:

One deep parabolic octa on top of the table. Two snoots with flashes pointing at the face of each model. Two softboxes with grids on the left and right side of the models. A smoke machine was also used to spread the light and give the right mood to the picture.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes video:

Here’s the unedited photo that was shot:

And here’s the finished photo:

About the author: Juhamatti Vahdersalo is a commercial photographer. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. You can find more of Vahdersalo’s work on his website.