Experimental Portraiture
Red Light Green Light
At first I was struggling to find an idea for experimental portraiture. It was hard to find any photographic styles that I was interested in and/or had the talents and knowledge to capture, e.g. using makeup or set design as means to provide an appropriate setting. However, I found my inspiration through Behance. Hira Arshad and Daniela Magalhães are artists displaying their art on this platform. They became my inspiration for this project. I wanted to try and emulate the type of photography they are doing which is known as long exposure.
I chose this style as I enjoy the spaced-out look it shows. I enjoy looking at and creating images that challenge reality like in Escher’s Relativity. People often are not who they present themselves to be whether that be through clothes, facial features, expressions, and body language. People often make assumptions about who they pass on the street. You cannot know my friend just by looking at them. Using this technique gives the viewer the sense that you have to look closer, to think about what you are really seeing before you perceive what, and in this case, who, it truly is.
I wanted to create an image that showed almost as a dual portrait. I wanted to do this with a base and an offset image.
I began with white and red spotlight lighting but the model was over-exposed and the transparent subject I wanted to create was under-exposed and barely seen which was not my desired result.
This challenge was not because of the exposure since the camera was properly exposed. It may be because of the stop differences. Which meant I kept trying with a different lighting setup, different light colour pairings, and different movement.
I found that the stop differences between red and white lights are greater than the stop differences between red and green lights. I took away the spotlight (white) and swapped it out with green lights. I then took a photo using long-exposure.
Once I got the lighting right I changed the pose so that my subject was first in red lighting with their head turned to one direction and then I had them hold the pose for ten (10) seconds. I then turned the lights green and had them turn their head the opposite direction and hold that position for an additional ten (10) seconds.
Although the red and green lights have differences in exposure, these differences are not enough to over or under expose the image to a great amount. Before I had such a bright light shining in the subject’s face that removing it and replacing it with darker lighting made it harder for the camera to adjust properly to get what I was looking for.
I learned In the end that if you want a “short” long-exposure, understand your lighting and use those that are complementary in exposure times.
