This amazing custom black-and-white Santa Claus costume was made by Brody S. for San Francisco SantaCon 2009.
Grey wig, fabric, contacts, and Kryolan body paint were used to create the illusion of the Desaturated Santa.
[photo credit: Russel A. Daniels]
[photo credit: Burning Man blog]
[photo credit: BrodyQat and BenZero]
[photo credit: Andy Thomas]
Dan
SHOPPED.
Dec 30th, 2009
Jamface
No Dan, just…No.
Dec 30th, 2009
AO
Dan, do you read the discriptions?
“Grey wig, fabric, contacts, and Kryolan body paint were used to create the illusion of the Desaturated Santa.”
Dec 30th, 2009
kuswanto
She looks stand out, like a bleached Santa.
Dec 30th, 2009
GustaveCo
Conceptually pleasing.
Dec 30th, 2009
Bob
truly amazing. New ideas overflow!
Dec 30th, 2009
Karen
thats pretty darn awesome.
Dec 31st, 2009
RL Creative
Awesome :) This photographer can finally truly say: I didn’t use photoshop, all is 100% real :)
Great idea, so unusual to see desaturated santa :)
Dec 31st, 2009
amu-ka
I love the idea! I’d love to saw desaturated santa in my town…
Dec 31st, 2009
ukee
dan…dan…it’s not.
Dec 31st, 2009
enkay
Big deal, This is just basic Photoshop.
Dec 31st, 2009
Zunny
Interesting concept- in photos anyway-
I do not believe the skin was this well blended in reality.
It appears PShop was used in these for consistency.
Dec 31st, 2009
Brody (Desaturated Santa)
@Zunny- thanks for the vote of confidence! I’m glad it “appears” that way. It was indeed this well-blended in real life. It’s professional-quality body paint and rigorous color-matching on my part.
The photos come from different sources, it’s not like I’ve brainwashed random strangers into all photoshopping their images before posting on the web.
Dec 31st, 2009
Joffrey
Whaha, funny idea!!
Give me some ideas for next carnaval, thx!
Dec 31st, 2009
Cory
@enkay, look at the third picture. she just did a very good job so it looks photoshopped.
Dec 31st, 2009
Arkwright
I think Dan’s reaction was suppose to have some degree of sarcasm, because this is literally incredible in terms of its quality.
Dec 31st, 2009
Karin L. Stewart
UGH!
Dec 31st, 2009
doc
it’s a fake… “skin spot” on neck collar isn’t on the same point, it’s different on every shot.
second, you can dress anything are grey, BUT every color interact togheter, so, if you put a grey item nearly a red item, you can have some red colored reflection over grey….it’s an old trick made by photoshop and came from ’90 years
bye and Happy New year!
Doc
Jan 1st, 2010
Morty
Guys, stop feeding the trolls. Leave doc, zunny and dan alone and they’ll take their crap somewhere else.
Jan 2nd, 2010
cchana
great effect, definitely looks photoshopped, but clearly not!
Jan 4th, 2010
MochiPu
COO~L!!! photoshoped or not, it doesn’t matter. the idea just great XD
Jan 4th, 2010
Stephanie Horn
I love how she’s standing out from a sea of red! I’ll choose to ignore the naysayers.
Jan 4th, 2010
kate
I have a friend who is a make up artist and I have seen amazing things with airbrushing… I would not rule this out guys. This is amazing. I guess some people are just stuck in the disbelief that this could ever be possible to accomplish.
Jan 5th, 2010
Mithra
“I guess some people are just stuck in the disbelief”
Like many people, they confuse cynicism with intellect.
That they consequently fail to correctly decode the clues in the image just adds to the hilarity.
This was simply brilliant.
Jan 5th, 2010
Chris
Wow her eyes even look gray – I guess they’re really blue but still…
Awesome idea phenomenally executed.
Jan 5th, 2010
Daniel Jay Edwards
You’ll probably find that the naysayers have never even used a copy of Photoshop to a professional level anyway.
You can see from ink blocking on her neck that it is face paint and the pink tint in the corner of her eyes.
its great how even reality is fooling people now!
Love it and very inspirational…
Magic Dan
Jan 5th, 2010
Ray
LOVE the tongue…………..LOL
Jan 5th, 2010
martin
Meh. If nay sayers want to argue here instead of taking it up with the people who took the photos (not the photo credit links) they can. But really, not much credibility to their arguments.
Jan 5th, 2010
been
can no one read the photos credits?
Jan 5th, 2010
Mike
Maybe the kewlest thing of all is that it so completely fools people into to thinking it is shopped …. It is pretty high art to make reality look so not…. Great Concept !
Jan 5th, 2010
ZachP
Incredible effect!
Jan 6th, 2010
Beardy
Genius. What fun.
Well done!
How did people react in the flesh? Obviously the effect looks Photoshopped when you take a photo but how did people react to what the SAW?
[m]
Jan 6th, 2010
Beardy
How did she do the hair?
Jan 6th, 2010
Critical Eye
The first large picture was enhanced. Look at her eyes… in this photo they are devoid of all chroma. In later pictures you can see that they are blue, and the pink tones in the perimeter.
Jan 6th, 2010
Katie
Critical– according to the photo credits, the first large photo is an AP photo. Are you accusing the Associated Press of altering their photos?
According to the girl’s Flickr page she is wearing grey contactlenses.
Jan 6th, 2010
Critical Eye
Ah… well, gray contact lenses would explain the lack of chroma in her eyes, but one would expect to see some pink.
Regarding the AP… are you suggesting that they are above altering their photos? They are most definitely NOT above this.
Jan 8th, 2010
Timothy
@Critical Eye
Look at the corners of the eye. Also, if you look closely at the eye, you can see that is actually blue and not grey.
Apr 16th, 2010
Tom
Should have eaten some black jack liquorice sweets, and the tongue would have been the correct colour.
Nov 28th, 2010
Adolfo
Doc, zunny and dan: I live in San Francisco, I went to Santacon, I SAW this woman and couldn’t believe her costume. And, of course, I have pictures to prove it.
Give up, she’s REAL.
Here’s my picture of hers:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/casanuevasf/5237714701/
Dec 6th, 2010
zahid
so what i thought was correct, except i thought of a face mask, while it was body paint, clue to look at the limbs? i still think it is that her left hand is NOT black and white
Feb 5th, 2011
AzISeeIt
When I first saw this (as another site) I thought, “No way — it’s shopped. You can’t get it that good in real life.” Now, I’m convinced I was wrong. This is VERY well done! Congrats!
Used to be we’d look at a photo that was well-Photoshopped and say, “That looks totally real!” Now we look at a real picture and say, “That looks totally shopped!” We are so screwed!
Apr 4th, 2011
Angela
You can see where the makeup is absorbing. I have that problem every single time I use cream grays, without fail. In fact this has inspired a project of my own, I can only hope mine comes out half as nice!
Apr 13th, 2011