Shoot one

For my first shoot I plan to develop the idea of my first experimental shoot. I intend to explore nightmares and fears; this first shoot is to explore the fear of the dark. This shoot is going to be very similar as my experimental shoot; shot at night, in the woods using a digital camera (Nikon D3100) and a flash gun.

I am going to capture the fear of dark by using a teenage girl as a model; who’s going to have the appearance of a young girl, created by the way she dresses and how her hair and makeup is done. I will also include two props in this shoot; one being a small teddy bear that I used for my test shoot, representing the child, and the other being a torch, representing that she’s scared of the dark. The reason for this is because I am trying to capture her unconscious fear of the dark that she had as a young child.

This shoot is inspired by Joshua Hoffine’s ‘Horror Photography’, exploring unconscious fears and creating scenes.

Contact sheet:

In this shoot I experimented with different poses and methods of capturing the best shot to portray a child’s fear of the dark.

These are some of the shots that I captured in the first shoot. I shot in RAW format rather than JPEG so that I could then edit as much as what I needed to.

The idea was to create a sense of loneliness and vulnerability and to portray the childhood fear of being afraid of the dark.

 

From this shoot I have decided that the shot below is the best shot that I captured from this shoot, I have decided to use the shot below for one of my final images for this project ‘Fears and Secrets’ where I've explored the fears of ‘Nightmares’. I have decided to use this shot below because I believe it captured the fear of the dark, loneliness and vulnerability which is what I aimed to capture.

The photograph was captured the same way in which I captured the photograph in my first experimental shoot. However I adjusted the aperture to allow the photograph more light.

The image is as how it was shot without any editing, the image is a RAW image. The settings used to capture this image were:

Aperture: f4.5

Shutter speed: 1/200

ISO: 400

Another shot that I believe captured the aim of this shoot is the one below, the shot is of the model walking away into darkness of the woods. To capture this shot the flashgun was positioned next to where i was taking the shot from; the reason for this is to light up the model and the area around her, however to also create darkness infront of her where she is walking into. 

This photograph has been edited on Camera Raw to desaturate the image creating a darker and colder feel to it.

The settings used to shoot this were:

Aperture: f22

Shutter Speed: 1/200

ISO: 400

Shoot two

In my second shoot I am planning to also capture a nightmare like image. I am going to shoot in the woods, the same as my first shoot shooting at night. The reason for being shot a night is because it offers better scope for creating artificial light effects using my flash gun.

I will create a nightmare effect in this shoot by using Halloween props, lighting effects and manipulating shots in the Photoshop. The Halloween masks used are to resemble the monsters that appear in childhood nightmares.

This shoot is inspired by Joshua Hoffine and Danielle Tunstall 'Horror Photography'.

For this shoot I am going to use models wearing dark clothing and test out using multiple Halloween masks.

Contact sheet:

When shooting I experimented with different types of shots; long shots, mid shots and close ups.

From this shoot I believe that the shot below was the best shot that I captured on this shoot. The shot is a close up of one of the models wearing a Halloween mask. I then edited the shot on Camera Raw to add a slight vignette and also to desaturate the image.

The original shot used the settings:

Aperture: f7.1

Shutter Speed: 1/200

ISO: 400

Shoot three

My third shoot is also inspired by Joshua Hoffine’s ‘Horror Photography’ and Danielle Tunstall’s ‘Portrait’ photographs. I plan to create a horror effect using a close up shot of a teenage girl and using Photoshop to manipulate and transform the image to create a zombie look to her, such as skin cracking and falling off. This shoot is an improvement of my second experimental shoot that I have already done to learn techniques on Photoshop of creating this effect. However I am going to use multiple textures to overlay on top of the portrait.

Portrait shots captured to then overlay with layers:

I have chosen this portrait shot to manipulate and overlay layers creating the horror effect because I feel the lighting I used from an angle creating a dark shadow over one half of the models face giving the image a mysterious and creepy feel.

I am going to overlay the portrait with multiple images creating textures; I am going to use images with cracks on walls giving the effect that she is falling apart; and also images of rusted metal to show she’s also falling apart and rusting.

As well as this I am going to experiment with other textures to try and create the best effect.

The three images below show the three results I got with three different attempts with three different textures trying to create the best effect that I'm looking for.

fd