This studio based project enabled me to become creative with lighting and get more general
experience of working in a studio. I had never worked in a studio before so it
was exciting, interesting and a great experience. I gained a good understanding
on how to set up the studio lights creating lighting aspects and atmospheres.

I wanted to create portraits where the subjects manipulated their faces with their hands creating un-normal facial expressions.

My first shoot was of
my friend Emily as my subject she used her hands to manipulate her face. It was
trial and error as I was not sure on what I wanted. I used some cut out
face features in some photographs, for her to place in front of her own
features. I felt they didn’t work as well, I felt its was not the style I wanted
to achieve.

When photographing Emily
I mainly used black and white, I think this brought across the contrast brought across a strong
dynamic in the photographs showing the viewer the details in the wrinkles
on her forehead when she pushes her skin
up. 

I then decided to work
with a male subject this was much easier as he didn’t worry what he would look
like in the end photographs. He achieved more horrific and gory faces than the
previous model.

In development of this
project I decided to do some self portraits I thought I would be more self conscious
when doing this but found I enjoyed the experience as I was able to achieve the
outcome that I wanted.

I wanted to add props
to the photograph to emphasises certain features of the face. I chose a
magnifying glass, as I was able to make it blend into the photograph and look like
part of the person even though they were holding the prop. On reflection these
photographs work equally in black and white and in colour. I was especially
please with the outcome.

I found this project
really interesting as it wasn’t a narrative but more subjective, experimenting
with portraiture of people distorting their face and changing their identity
and not doing a general pose towards the camera. I have shown one of
these photographs in the first year exhibition it was printed the size
of A3, I feel this was the perfect size as it looked good as a stand alone
photograph. 

This project really
gave me confidence in studio work and I wont be afraid to use the studio for
projects in the future.