I was quite keen to start getting into this project so I drew out some shots that I could use different light sources eg floodlights and headlights from a car (in previous post). As I also wrote about in a previous post, I wanted to trial some colour gels or cheap ways I could achieve a similar look. Over the weekend I started to shoot some of the shots I planned:

After my last initiative post, I really wanted to try and see if I could effectively do backlighting. This was my first attempt at backlighting, just using the street light as the light source. For a first attempt I think this is quite an interesting shot, and I believe it embodies a sense of mystery which was the initial reason I wanted to use backlighting as it kind of puts a barrier between the subject and audience, because you can’t see much of them.

These were my second attempts at backlighting, as I wanted to try it with a different source of lighting, in this case being the headlights of a car. This worked out quite well because I wanted to see a clear silhouette which is shown in both of the positions. I prefer the staging of the first shot more but I really like the shadow that is casted in the second, but perhaps if I had of used the high beams the shadow would have been more distinct in both.

I only did one shot using natural lighting because I wanted to really focus on artificial light sources initially, but this week I have been really noticing how interesting it really is when lighting hits a subject and when I was at a friends house I really liked the lighting and just thought I’d do a test shot.

I always find this bus stop near my house really creepy at night because it seems so isolated but I thought it would be interesting to see how this fluorescent light worked on a subject, and it is a much colder light as opposed to natural lighting so I think it suits the somewhat isolated setting.

For this trial I wanted to use red lighting, but because I only used floodlights I couldn’t use actual red gels so I just used red cellophane. Because I haven’t worked with exposure on my camera (not sure if it even has that function) so I just changed the shutter speed in these three different photos. I think in the first shot, there is too much light and I think this is really ineffective in created a mood so with the second shot being less light, there are more shadows and to me it just looks much better. In the third shot, there is almost no light, but this actually looks interesting because nothing in the background is lit so the subject is submerged in this red light and it looks kind of nightmarish.

In one of my last posts I described this sort of shot with having a red light which is supposed to be from like a Motel sign or shop sign. Because I couldn’t situate the floodlight at the height a sign would normally be, this shot was certainly a bust, but I’m glad I tried it out so I wouldn’t plan to do it later and be mid shoot and realise it really does not work.

 

Instead of light coming from the outside of the car, I wanted to see what it would look like with the light coming from inside. I am really happy with these shots because as soon as I look at them I just get this eerie feeling that someone is watching her from outside the car and she is unaware so I think this could be interesting to explore further.

This is quite a simple light source but it definitely works well with lighting the subject and keeping the background somewhat in darkness.

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After doing this shoot, I have mixed feelings if what I want to continue doing it. One of the thoughts I have with exploring some of these techniques and ideas further is that I could possibly make a series of short 1-2 minute scenes. This could work really well for me because I have never really considered myself a writer or anything so if I kind of force myself into it then maybe I will feel more comfortable with it.