Lunar Rubbish Collection

[hminx]

This is an 11+ layer photoshop composite I hashed up a little while back. The Buzz Aldrin and lunar landscapes are from the NASA site which permits non commercial use of their images, the rubbish truck photo is mine though.
I was part of a small build team which built this electric powered rubbish collection truck. I also doubled as photographer a couple of which became my first magazine published photos. During the build it was suggested being electrical we could probably drive this thing on the moon, hence the idea for the image. This was just a fun pic and not used for any promotional work. The main reason for doing this was just to see if I could and perhaps learn a thing or two along the way.
I felt the main issue for getting the image to look anything close to realistic was to get the shadows as right as possible, this proved to be quite challenging and even now I feel they could be improved. There are plenty of images available so suitable terrain wasn't too difficult to find, thought in this case the foreground and background are from different images. I wanted the truck to look like it was parked on a back slope as it was photographed from near ground level and Buzz's image is shot at eye level, so on flat ground they would have looked a little odd together. Another piece of terrain was used as the wind screen reflection at reduced opacity.
The effect of sunlight on each of the image elements was purely guesswork on my part and what you see is what I felt looks about right but I'm open to any thoughts or suggestions on that. ( or any aspect of the image for that matter )
The small details such as the wheelie bin and its shadow reflection in Buzz's helmet visor were fun to do but time consuming. Even now I sometimes go back to this and alter aspects.

[armando_m]

Looks like fun !

did you have a flash right of camera ? that would explain the light hitting the rear green fender and inside the wheel

I think the white of the truck in the shade should match more closely the front of the space suit, and the highlights in the front of the truck , the high light of the suit

The shadows on the ground I think are very well done, same tonality and intensity

[hminx]

Thanks Armando
The original shot of the truck was taken with the sun almost behind me and the fender was quite well lit up as it is a much lighter green, the darker shading on the vehicle's right is a photoshop thing . I agree that the fender could do with being a touch darker as it stands out a bit.