Research:
Christopher McKenney is a photographer born in Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania, specialising in surreal and avant-garde photography. His work often features ethereal, dream-like concepts and fantastical settings. McKenney is also a talented graphic designer and illustrator.
In these images, it looks like the artist has photographed someone standing underneath a piece of fabric in a wooded area, removed them, and then taken the same picture of just the background without the model in the frame; So the two photos can be seamlessly edited together to create a single final image.
I am fascinated by his work because it kind of reminds me of those sort of scenes in horror movies where a character sees something that is not really there. When looking at these pictures, I can imagine what the rest of the figure could look like even though they can’t actually be seen in the photos.
It looks pretty obvious to me how these images were created so I am going to attempt to produce my own pictures in a similar style. I am also thinking of taking these sorts of photos twice, both indoors and outdoors.
Plan:
For the shoot indoors, I am planning on taking pictures from angles where the camera is peeking around a corner, almost like someone is looking at the subject of the photo from a hiding place. The things I will use for this shoot are a digital camera, a thin sheet of white fabric, and a tripod. The tripod is necessary as I will need to keep the camera completely still in between taking photos with and without the model, to make post processing as easy as possible.
For the shoot outdoors, I am planning on using a wooded area, just like Christopher McKenney. I am also going to take photos from the exact same position and angle, with the subject progressively getting closer to the camera. I feel this would make my images even creepier than McKenney’s, as it could show the viewer that my photos were taken to mimic the perspective/feeling of someone being haunted or chased by something.