I was especially inspired by photographers Todd Hido and Bill Henson for their use of twilight lighting to evoke an enigmatic and dynamic environment with the use of natural and man made lighting. I was especially intrigued by the juxtaposition of these two features which I have explored thoroughly in my work. I also looked at the photo book Twilight: Photography in the magic hour which explores contemporary twilight photography. I was very inspired by the simple layout and its use of high concept imagery. I also looked at the work of Ed Ruscha who studied photo books and was heavily influenced my using text and literature in his work, which i plan on using by using accompanying text with my work. I did a huge variety of different shoots, 6 shoots in total exploring night photography and how it could be used to explore narrative. I used these photographs to explore mood and narrative and how it could affect and relate to the reader with their own past experiences.
I was inspired by how Bill Henson used Latin in his books to add another narrative which is how I came up with the phrase ‘Carpe Nocten’ which translates to ‘Seize the day’, an interesting spin on carpe diem or ‘seize the day’. I used font Shruti in regular.
I have also created a variety of different experiments inspired my English photographer Hamish Fulton where he used text to elevate and add meaning to his photographs. I also experimented with different techniques such as HDR and long exposure to create a more dynamic image especially when working with natural lighting.
I started with the day photograph, I wanted to use a landscape to start to establish a sense of scenery and gradually build up on the character. I picked intriguing yet perplexing phrased with could build a narrative to the reader. I made them in small size 12 font as to not distract from the photograph.
I put one image to a page but some are double spread. this is similar to the twilight book I have looked at as they often use one image per two pages.
As the book progresses the images appear to get darker, evoking a more eerie narrative, making the viewer question he mental state of the character.
the images then progressively get lighter, suggesting the return of day, the book follows a fairly chronological narrative. the first image below I used a portrait photo of Ryan in his bed which is an important part in evoking the enigma that the character could have possibly been dreaming.
I wanted to finish the book with a closeup and picked a high contrast photograph. the book then finished with the quote ‘Carpe Noctem’, adding mystery to the viewer.
Link to my book
Below are the images I plan on using as final pieces which I plan on presenting as A1 images with white borders. I wanted an even number of portraits to landscapes to evoke the notion of contrast between nature and civilization which I discussed in my starting point. Thru ought have tried to explore a variety of different atmospheres and lighting to create a varied set of images.
