Research Points for Assignment 1

In my attempt to keep the assignment 1 word count down to the advised limit, I failed to include enough information on where my ideas originated and how I worked on them to produce the submitted images. My tutor advised me to include more details on what I was thinking and what my influcences were.

I decided to use the opposites of heaven and hell or demon and angel to support the principles of opposite. Being influenced by the front cover of the Black Sabbath album, I wanted to produce two distinct separate images, I could as the album image portrays did it in a single image but I wanted to enforce the two separate images principle.

For the Demon I first started with the traditional idea of a crone witch; I did not want to do a traditional witch so went with something closer to a Gothic witch. The first idea was to have the model with a large lace head covering, with the covering going from hear forehead and falling away at the back and sides over her shoulders. Her face was to be dual coloured running in a gradient with it changing too pure white just at her eyes.

I was attempting to obtain a other worldliness without going to Halloween, however the idea failed as the head covering did not look right and I was using a lens with a ring flash which itself was cropping into the picture reducing the available frame.

When I was reviewing the images I took, I then thought of the idea of a demon, but again I did not want to produce a cliche cartoon Halloween image. I decided that I would go with a mode modern look which was as otherworldly as possible but try to stay away from the ethereal. I wanted the demon to be as striking as possible. I then went with the influences of Japanese and Korean horror films, such as “The Ring”, “Ju-On The Grudge”, “The Eye” and “Kairo”. In these films the ghosts and demons have a stylised, mainly din plain pale colours with dark hair and ringed dark eyes. 

However I wanted the model to wear dark clothing to help isolate her face and unlike the ghost spirits of “The Ring” I did not want her hair draped over covering her face.

I used these ideas with the model by using black and white face paints and having her put in black eye contacts to cover the blue of her eyes, I then had her darken the top part of her face to enhance the darkness and give the impression that she was part of the darkness that surrounded her. I then pushed in close to her face with the camera using a prime 50 mm lens and the ring flash to get a close up without getting the ring flash highlight in her eyes. I shot her looking into the camera to show that she was aware of being photographed and that she was making direct contact with the viewer and unsettle them slightly.

Having captured this image, I then turned to the Heaven image. At first I examined the idea of using a modern angel, but I did not find the results satisfactory; the simple descriptions I came up with were too cartoon and almost Christmas like. After discussing this with my wife, I went back to the drawing board again with the idea of again making the image opposite by going back into the history of art and looking for a more renaissance influence but without the wings and the halo. My first idea was to draw together elements from different images, such as the hair from Leonardo Da’Vincis  “Head of an angel” and the dress from Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis “Angel in green with a Vielle”.

While I was reviewing these images, my wife showed me an image taken of Dame Gladys Cooper,

I then started to use this as another influence and looked at photos of Mary Pickford especially the Roses portrait and 

and images of English Victorian Actress Mary Fealy.

All these images were then again influenced by the work of Julia Margaret Cameron.

Pulling these ideas together I decided that I wanted a more natural image, based on the combination of both renaissance and Victorian imagery. 

I had the model style her hair up framing her face with a crown of flowers to represent her oneness with nature, I also shot against a large hedge in natural light all to show that the model was in a natural environment. I took the final image and recoloured it with sepia tones as I thought that monochrome was too stark. I had the model look away from the camera lens while being bare shouldered as I was influenced by the renaissance artists and I wanted her to be viewed more of as a subject while not making the image voyeuristic. I wanted the viewer to see her as nature as a desirable state or entity rather than see her as a female subject of desire.