Studio Experimentation #1

For this shoot we as a class experimented with different lighting, clothing and backgrounds to create a story centered around the London Underground and with a stereotypical ‘thug’ like model. The model is wearing a hooded puffer jacket, has minimal makeup and is in a slouched position in order to create this atmosphere.

This is a gallery of the photos I took; you can see each adaptation of the lighting, position and facial expressions throughout.

I began the shoot with using a key light quite brightly in front of the model and I think this looked good and illuminated it in a way that resembled the underground but I wanted the temperature to be warmer and darker so it looked more like a ‘grotty’ atmosphere. I also experimented with angles and closeness, e.g for most photo I was a good distance away and her hood was up so I didn’t get a lot of the model’s features in the photos, it was concentrated more on the background and her clothing. After this she took her hood down and I positioned myself closer up to capture more detail. Some of these photos also have more hard lighting to show the shadows and relate it to the location. For the last part I stood further away but got still a more portrait type photo which included the background.

Best outcomes for each stage of the shoot:

In my opinion the photo above looks the most realistic due to the harsh above lighting which only shows some facial aspects so the gender of the model isn’t necessarily clear. I also like the shadow which has been created by the light and how the background looks like it could be genuinely taken in the underground.