How to create a tableaux vivant in under two hours from scratch...

When your Photoshop skills are sorely lacking and you have to fulfil a brief in almost no time at all and the giver of the brief is cackling away in a corner, knowing that you have no Photoshop skills, do you:

a) panic and fake your own death, or

b) panic and share the task with other, similarly Photoshop-challenged people?

Yep, I chose b) as I had plans the following weekend and I really needed a night out and also, death seems, well, final.

Between four people we had to agree on an image to recreate, shoot it, props and all, edit it and present it.

Challenge 1. No camera. I know, stop laughing. Four photographers and not one camera between them is shameful, but after a lot of faffing about we obtained a camera.

Challenge 2. What image to recreate? There was so much to choose from but we had to take time constraints into account and the fact that someone was going to have to edit it afterwards. I suggested a Caravaggio painting because I like Caravaggio and the high key style backgrounds might make editing a little less traumatic. We agreed on Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist (1609 or 1610).

Salome receives the Head of John the Baptist (1609 or 1610), Michelangelo Merisi de Caravaggio

Challenge 3. Who would do what? What props do we have? Can we pull this off*?

It seems my little group of four (we shall call them E, J1, J2 and I) worked together really well when under pressure. E agreed to edit the shoot (hurray!), J1, took the shots of a disembodied J2 (well volunteered, J2), J2 then took the shots of E, J1 and I. I scouted, okay, scavenged props and suggested ideas as to how to make it all come together.

I located a gold plate for J2's head to rest upon and some fabric for the rest of us to drape ourselves in.

Challenge 4: We had no lights and no backdrops, so we had to improvise.

J2 popped his head through the heavy black studio curtains which were then clipped together above and below his head. J1 then took several shots, reviewing each one to ensure it was in just the right position for editing later.

The next step was to shoot the remaining three people, which was done rather quickly.

Shots all done, the images were uploaded onto J1's laptop then emailed to E for editing.

Despite having three pairs of eyes on her and the clock ticking (we were a little past our deadline by now but there were mitigating circumstances Your Honour) E was calm and edited pretty quickly, assisted by some of my notes from a practice Photoshop session I had earlier on the week.

Editing complete, the image was passed on to the Cackling Brief Giver for reviewing.

After a vote, it was decided that my group won, despite some very creative and inventive entries, all of whom would have faced similar challenges as us.

The winning entry:

L - R: E, J1, J2, me

While our little recreation isn't going to be hanging in The National Gallery anytime soon, I'm rather proud of it.

The taste of victory

The prize. They were delicious.

*Yes, we totally pulled it off.

See the real Caravaggio in all its glory