Shoot 2: Studio Still Life
This shoot was very unplanned as I was lucky enough to get a studio opportunity on the spot. I attended a workshop with Mark Mattock, asking him for a few pointers on how to shoot my still life images of collected hair. I showed him the previous images I had created, with the dark background and the hair prominently sitting in the middle of the back paper. He suggested not to do anything to these, he thought that they were beautifully lit and looked very romantic. I commented on the fact that I thought I should play around with different coloured backgrounds to experiment with how the hair stood out on different colours and he reminded me that experimentation is good and often successful, but that if I was happy with what I had I shouldn't forget them as work, I shouldn't push them aside because I wanted to experiment with something new. This was great feedback, one because he actually liked the look of my images which really helped to push me forwards with continuously creating in this project, and two that I need to remember that the work I create throughout projects can also be considered on its own, whether it makes the final cut of the project its made for or not, it is still professional work created by me for others to see.
I suggested to Matt that I was interested in shooting the still life in a corner, after researching into advertising lighting, such as Amber Morghan's creative work. He stated that it was easy to shoot using a corner, either place the table in a corner of a room and use that, or build a corner using pieces of wood, and placing different coloured paper on it depending on choice of colour. After this feedback session, I was offered a studio and as I had the collected hair with me I went for it, lucky to be offered it at short notice. So therefore, the shoot was unplanned but from Mattocks feedback I had ideas to work on.
I suggested to Matt that I was interested in shooting the still life in a corner, after researching into advertising lighting, such as Amber Morghan's creative work. He stated that it was easy to shoot using a corner, either place the table in a corner of a room and use that, or build a corner using pieces of wood, and placing different coloured paper on it depending on choice of colour. After this feedback session, I was offered a studio and as I had the collected hair with me I went for it, lucky to be offered it at short notice. So therefore, the shoot was unplanned but from Mattocks feedback I had ideas to work on.
Within the shoot, I played around with the idea of shooting in a corner, alongside close up images of the hair itself as I was lucky enough to have a macro mamiya leaf lens. The images from this shoot were very varied in successfulness. I really enjoyed creating the marco images of the collected hair, I felt like the texture and shape of the hair portrayed a landscape within the image, as if it were landscape photography, but using the hair gave it a sense of an inferred portrait, so it was exciting working with these two mediums put into one image. These images were the first step in trying to look really closely at the hair itself, similar to Farmers marco microscope images of blood. The next step is to go even closer, looking at the hair protein itself under the microscope!
In terms of the images a bit further back, using the corners and different coloured backgrounds and surfaces, I don't feel like these went as well, mainly due to the fact that the angles were very difficult to keep straight as each line didn't sit straight with the other lines. This is defiantly something I need to work on on my next shoot, looking at how I keep each line at a right angle to the other line, because then the images will look more aesthetically pleasing, as well as more professionally considered. In terms of the colouring I used, I tried using the similar background colour to what I had shot my portraits against, as again like Farmers work, I wanted to make sure each image was visually connected as well as contextually, and if they all had a similar grey tone within them then they would sit well together. However, I feel the grey did not live up to the advertising lighting style that I was wanting to play around with, but instead created very subtle images that did not give off the sense of gross beauty that I wanted to portray for the collected hair. After this experiment, I want to continue playing around with this collected hair, looking at how once its off the head its considered gross, but I will try to use more advertising lighting and coloured backgrounds to play with this idea and try to ironically make this 'gross' hair beautiful, using glamorous lighting and coloured backdrops.
In terms of the images a bit further back, using the corners and different coloured backgrounds and surfaces, I don't feel like these went as well, mainly due to the fact that the angles were very difficult to keep straight as each line didn't sit straight with the other lines. This is defiantly something I need to work on on my next shoot, looking at how I keep each line at a right angle to the other line, because then the images will look more aesthetically pleasing, as well as more professionally considered. In terms of the colouring I used, I tried using the similar background colour to what I had shot my portraits against, as again like Farmers work, I wanted to make sure each image was visually connected as well as contextually, and if they all had a similar grey tone within them then they would sit well together. However, I feel the grey did not live up to the advertising lighting style that I was wanting to play around with, but instead created very subtle images that did not give off the sense of gross beauty that I wanted to portray for the collected hair. After this experiment, I want to continue playing around with this collected hair, looking at how once its off the head its considered gross, but I will try to use more advertising lighting and coloured backgrounds to play with this idea and try to ironically make this 'gross' hair beautiful, using glamorous lighting and coloured backdrops.