I first used the fabric Lycra. The fabric is stretchy and from my inspiration from Martha Graham stitch the dancer inside the fabric and asked her to strike a dance pose whilst pushing the fabric out, to symbolise she is trying to break free. Its about being free but the paradoxical restriction of the fabric. I first tried to light the dancer using continuous lighting and placed it behind the subject but you could see the lighting and the wires as seen below. Therefore, looking very unprofessional and did not have the same effect.
I put one light on one side and shone the light directly onto the back of the model, this allowed to fill the room but gave a harsh shadow on one side as seen in the image below and although the pose of the dance gave the impression she was trying to push the light away, the light was too high key and the fabric around her head is to loose. I may try and experiment with this image to improve on it.
I asked my tutor Andy Farrington how I could improve the lighting. He helped set up the lighting. There were two lights either side being reflected on a reflective board bouncing it onto the back of the studio allowing light to shine through the fabric. The boards boxed the dancer in allowing the light not escape and light the dancer. I set my camera to 100 ISO 1/125 shutter speed and would use my aperture to adjust the exposure of the image. Below is an example of the way the lights were set
The image below is one of my favourites and I wish I had turned my aperture down to expose the image more making it more high key. I mainly like the position of the dancers has her arms are flexed out but you can't tell without looking at the image closely as to where her face is making to look surreal.
I tried other styles of lighting, I added a blue gel on top of one of the lights to give it a different feel to the image but I tried to use one light and shown it on the reflective board but this just made the Lycra look blue and didn't have the same effect. Next time I will use different colours like blue and yellow to experiment and see if the back looks better but I feel it doesn't improve my images and distracts the viewer from looking at the shape of the subject. An example of the image below.
When I captured images of the dancer in Lycra, I wanted to try and edit the image so show that I have use some editing technique. I tried using duo tone and turned the image to gray scale and used added colours. An example of this work is below but I felt that it did not have an impacted on my work and there was concept behind me changing the colours. I spoke again with my tutor Andy Farrington and he pointed out that my technique was the lighting and the aim of me getting the image I wanted first time in the studio and not editing. I should try and capture the imaged I would like to achieve in the studio that would need hardly any editing as I do not edit my images to the extreme I therefore why should I do something extreme when it is not the type of work I do.
Before and after image using duo tone.
I tried to experiment with the fabric in a different way I tried to achieve the work I did in the studio the other day as practice shots with my friend Emma. I put the fabric up and stretched out and shown a light at the back so you could get a shadow. I then asked Sophie the dancer to go behind the fabric and strike a dance position but something that was contemporary. Below is an example of what I achieved. I like the image as it fits in as being surreal and the shapes and texture are interesting. It is different and yet similar to what I want to achieve so I do not know whether I will enter this piece of work in a competition
Another type of shot I was trying to achieve was to use the floaty fabric and create the effect of the fabric coming down on the dancer to symbolize it striking down on Sophie not allowing her to dance. Below is one example of what I captured that day
I have booked the studio to prefect some of my ideas but this is not that easy as fabric are like children you never know what they will do or where they will go and it is the same with the fabric. I could want it to be spread out but it could come together. I am to create more shapes with the Lycra and want to try an achieve an image similar to the one I did with the dance on the beach where her body was arched back and it looked like the fabric was apart of her
Below are contact sheets from the shoot that day.
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