Fear

There’s one specific kind of fear that I want to focus on and that’s claustrophobia an that’s for two reason.

Reason One is I think it can work really well with macro and editing walls to bend around

Reason two is that I have personal experience with claustrophobia so I know how to replicate the feeling

For this mood board I wanted to gather images that show the feeling and some triggers of claustrophobia , rather than getting direct images that just show what claustrophobia is

(insert spider diagram)

Lighting

Grey scale

Black lights

Colour gels

Low key

High key

Physical lighting

Elongated shadows

Edited lighting

Gradient lighting

Spot lighting

This is the contact sheet for my photos for lighting shots.

These photos above are examples of head on lighting, unedited and basic coloured lighting.

These photos are examples of gel lighting colours. I improvised the lighting rig with coloured markers on ripped up packets over a little camping headlamp.

Proposal

During the last few units I’ve always gone overambitious with my plans, as a result I’ve grown my skillset in fields I wasn’t all that familiar with. For example when I first joined this course I had a basic at best knowledge of editing skills, due to the things I planned to do and different workshops along the course I have a greater understanding of Photoshop and those skills are translateable to near enough any photo editing software. Another example would be studio work, before joining the course I had exclusively worked outside with nature so being in a studio able to control every detail I wanted was new to me and for the first half of the course I did avoid using the studio and sticking to what I knew. But as the course went on I started to take advantage of the recourses around me, experimenting with using studio equipment. One big takeaway from the last few units was that I need to start using the recourses around me to their fullest not just trying to make the best of what I personally own.

For this project I want to convey the feeling of claustrophobia. When we were given the brief I immediately started thinking of fears, more specifically phobias. I personally have many phobias arachnophobia Cynophobia mild Algaphobia but there was one that I thought would look the best, Claustrophobia. 

Now I used to have claustrophobia when I was very young, it’s one of my first memories, the walls closing in the fear that comes with it. However it’s one of those phobias that’s really only in your head and I thought trying to convey that through photography would be really interesting because although I don’t have it anymore I do very much remember what it was like.  

Now starting off I didn’t know how exactly I wanted to portray this in specifics, but I know the layout I want for the final image. One base image of an ordinary room and then one other image of someone looking distressed overlayed on top of the base one with warping around the second image to convey the feeling of the walls warping and shrinking around you. 

Another key reason I’ve chosen claustrophobia is because it can link with my chosen specialist practice that being macro photography. I think that I’m going to aim for maybe the opposite though, taking something usually big and making it small but still having that size changing property that macro photography is so known for. 

Now I think the best way to set up the shoot is using a desk, having a more confined space for someone to be huddled in and giving more of a reason as to why they’re feeling claustrophobic. I can then use the place where my model will be as a central point to warp the area around it. 

I’m also wanting to use colour gel lighting on the layer with the person in it, to invoke a more Panicked and intense feeling but having regular lighting on the base image to show that in reality nothings actually there 

For the evaluation process of this project I think the best and most logical method would be comparing my original plan and concepts to what I’m doing to see if I’m staying on track. Once the project is done I think the evaluation process I will do is seeing my skills I started out with before the project and seeing what skills I have at. The end and again seeing what my original plan was and seeing how well I was able to accomplish it. My hope is that at the end of this project I can look back and feel that I was able to accomplish everything I set out to do. 

Research

The problem with my idea is that there aren’t many photographers that focus on the feeling of claustrophobia, so I’m going to look into photographers that focus on 3 different key aspects inspiring my shoot, coloured lighting, macro photography preferably involving people and horror aspects.

This shot is a good example of what I’m planning to do wit both the lighting colour of the lighting for the shoot. The sort of distorted look to the photo is also something I’m interested in replicating, it gives an unfocused feel to the picture that I think could work very well.

This picture by Adam Martyn Ewings shows how I want the vibe and horror aspect of the piece to feel. Adam Martyn Ewings is a horror movie camera and electrical department worker who also uploads horror images to his various social media pages, some of them being dedicated to people. Now the thing about this shot that’s inspiring me is despite the state of the house there isn’t anything abnormal about it except for the person, that’s what I want to aim for a normal environment with the person being the focus on how they change the environment.

Now the macro aspect I’m going for is the warping of perspectives that comes with macro photography, the way that taking something small and making it bigger than it is like with this image, making two small pebbles seem like two islands next to each other, that’s the kind of effect i’m going for but in inverse, making the big things seem smaller than they are thus warping perspective.

Presentation

Read more: Fear

Different shoots

Over this project I have been doing different shoots to expand my abilities and knowledge of both directing people and also experimenting with lighting like I had done previously

The two shoots above were done with one key goal in mind, figuring out what lightings worked best and how to properly incorporate it in the photos I was taking. I worked with studio lighting and flash lighting with colour gels over top. I concluded from the two flash lighting would be the best method to use.

These next two photoshoots were all about directing people, being able to convey what I want from the models I’m working with which is something I’m not too familiar with.

Final piece

I went through multiple different edits in this process, I was getting what I wanted but it always felt there was something off about what I was doing, I couldn’t get exactly what I wanted from the edit

While I am proud of these edits something felt off about it, the effect that felt most important to me just wasn’t there and that is the warping between the two images to make them feel more like a single image.

I then finally got this edit and it felt right for what I wanted, it was hitting all the right points that I wanted to get and the distortion between the two layers feels the best out of all the attempts I had made and the fact that the effects keep the edges of the bottom image intact just completes the “in your head” effect I was going for.

Evaluation

This project has been interesting for me, there’s been a lot of experimenting and new methods for me, stepping out of my comfort zone of what I do while working. Admittedly I was worried about leaving my comfort zone and focusing on new styles and focusing heavier on editing, however this fear soon became confidence.

When we were originally given the brief we had to brainstorm different fears, however as I had said in my presentation I had already figured out what I wanted to focus on. However I didn’t come to that conclusion immediately, when given the brief I was thinking about the different ways to interpret fear in an image, typically when showcasing fear in a visual medium you have the advantage of multiple frames as it’s usually in a video format however in this you only have one. So that lead me to think is it better to make something scary or is it better to portray the way fear feel. I concluded the best way to go about it would be representing the way the fear felt.

The way I wanted to represent the way fear felt was through a phobia and the phobia I had in mind was claustrophobia. I had two key reasons for wanting to do claustrophobia specifically, reason one was how in my mind it could link to my specialist practice of macro photography. macro photography is about warping your perspective to make small things bigger, however in my case I warped perspective to do the opposite. The other reason is more personal, I once had claustrophobia myself when I was much younger and that inspired me to take those experiences that I still very much remember and show how it felt to have it and also sort of dramatize it to make it more visually interesting.

During the research phase I had a little bit of a struggle because I was stuck thinking I could only research photographers that matched up with my exact ideas it’s always been my pitfall. However this project I wasn’t held to those constraints I wasn’t limited by my own misinformation and doing research to help inspire and guide me towards the final product I wanted, so this project has definitely raised my confidence for the part of every project I feel the weakest in.

Another aspect that I usually find difficult that this project helped me see in a better light was the proposal document, I’ve always struggled with getting my ideas formalised and structed in a coherent way that also reads well. But something about this project just made it clearer and I think that’s going to be a trend you’ll see in this evaluation that things that are usually a chore or hard for me to do became easier and felt right this time around, a trend I hope continues into other projects.

In most projects I have the feeling that I know exactly what I’m doing so head straight for the final product instead of stopping and trying out new things that can enhance the final product and make it better. This project I’ve learnt from my mistakes, I’ve done a ton of practice shoots testing out photo methods and some editing methods I would come to use in my final project and I’m really glad I did because it’s made me more skilled in these areas unsurprisingly as well as making shooting the final project a lot easier

Thanks to all the practice shoots the final shoot was a lot easier than every previous final shoot I’ve done thanks to all the practice I had a much easier time working on this final shoot, having a stronger understanding of lighting and directing people. I’m fairly happy with how the shoot turned out, it wasn’t in the exact location I wanted however I worked with what I had and got the end result I needed.

I’m proud of my final edit, it took me a long time and many revisions to get to the final result. At the start I was using my own editing software due to limitations of my laptop, despite that the edits I was making weren’t bad but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. So thanks to the advice of one of my tutors I made the correct decision to switch to photoshop and finally got the result I wanted.

This project overall has been a great experience for me, a good opportunity to learn new skills and get over my own self imposed obstacles. Comparing where I am now and where I started is like night and day, I’ve com so far in my process and I must say I’m very proud of where I am now and am very excited to see where my new found skillset and confidence will take me.