Mirror Bride

I thought about giving this project a miss today what with it being the Christmas holidays and all that, but I needed to burn a few extra calories so I packed a bag of fancy dress and props to accompany myself and Tigerbelle Model on a hike down to the beach.


Mirror Bride

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
Model: Tigerbelle

Sometimes we scare ourselves

I took a few sequences when I worked with Rachelle Summers recently and hopefully over the Christmas period I'll catch up with myself.

Everything I'm doing at the moment seems to be about learning and I've noticed that although everything was constant between the two sets of images there are differences in the tones of Rachelle sitting, so I present this GIF as a work in progress. Hopefully I can work out what went wrong and I'll have learnt something new to take into future goes.




Rachelle Scares Herself

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
Model: Rachelle Summers

The Argument

I had a wonderful shoot with the model Rachelle Summers last week and had the foresight to take a series of pics that I could work on over the Mondays running up to the Christmas break.

I'm thoroughly enjoying making pictures with very simple camera trickery techniques. In keeping with this interest we worked on a series of double exposures that would work both as individual still shots and sequential GIFs.

It can get a little complicated at times, splitting the film into two, counting each step on the first so that it matches the second. Your mind can get lost in trying to work out the logistics on some of the more complicated attempts, but I think we managed to get there in the end and I'm looking forward to bringing the remaining work together over the next weeks and seeing the final pieces.



The Argument

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Model: Rachelle Summers

Metropolis

Ever in the search of something new to try I thought I'd attach my Macro lens and a 1.5 converter to the Monochrom today and try a bit more shooting blind.

A few problems presented themselves fairly early on in the process. Shooting blind is hard. Shooting blind incredibly close up is even harder.

I did however learn that a bag of liquorice all sorts makes a good bean bag support for the Monochrom.


Although the results weren't perfect 'as is', many of the pictures had graphic white reflections from the table lamp I'd been using and these intrigued me. Pushing blacks, whites, and playing with contrast I imported them into Photoshop and layered them onto a black background.

A bit of flipping, turning and manipulating later and abstract themes of chaotic cities started to emerge. Patterns of lights made me imagine sky rises, smog, rain and speeding cars. And thus, the Metropolis cityscapes began to take shape and although I was feeling a bit 'Meh' to begin with, once the pictures had spoken to me and I had found my inspiration and direction I ended up rather liking the experimental results.


Metropolis - Futurescapes

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The Christmas Tree

It's December tomorrow. I'm not sure where this year has gone and I'm sure time moves quicker the older you get.

I keep thinking about why I'm making GIFs and I just cannot think of an arty-farty long winded answer. They take a bit of patience to create, but they're fun to do and I can't stop looking at them once they're finished.

Set to repeat forever I suppose they'll exist until the internet stops... 

The Christmas Tree

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The Soul Departs

On Friday I attended the award evening for this year's BPOTY competition. It was an honour to be included in the judging process and although my social awkwardness kicks in amongst large crowds I thoroughly enjoyed the private view. Congratulations to all the winners this year. Very well deserved.



And before you know it, we're back to Monday. (This year is going frighteningly fast).



It's good to make mistakes, so long as you learn from them. This morning I made loads of them and by having to go back and correct them I learnt lots. I'm rather enjoying making GIFs and hopefully will continue to make them. They're relatively simple, fun, and offer a way of working in sequential imagery, allowing you to convey a passage of a story.

I don't always set out to make ghostly pieces, but when playing with double exposures the paranormal becomes an excellent subject to work with.


The Soul Departs

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The War

I initially had a light hearted idea in mind for today, but when I was going through items to photograph I came across my collection of measuring instruments. I looked at the calipers over and over again thinking they resembled soldiers with guns and in light of last weekend's events and the general inability for our species to co-exist in peace and harmony I thought I'd drag out the lightbox and make a picture about war instead.


Influences: Loosely inspired by the work of John Heartfield.



The War

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The Magician - Part Two

So you get these ideas in your head and you think 'you know what? I think I'll try that next Monday'.
And then you start to try and make your idea, only your initial idea won't work and you need to try a few things before it starts to come together. Then it's on your computer and again you're not quite sure how to do it so you go forwards and backwards all afternoon working out the logistics. And the clock keeps ticking 'cos your Mum's coming round for tea and you've got to get this finished by the end of today as it's a Monday project, right? and all work needs to be finished and submitted by midnight.

You also realise by mid afternoon that you don't like cutting out hula hoops! Why did you choose a hula hoop? Crazy fool. Must put aside some time to practise cutting circles.



So anyway.

A thick strip of wood, a brave model and some guesswork at where she was once that bit was sorted and as if by magic you have...





The Magician - Part Two


Copyright: Clayton Bastiani
Model: Tigerbelle

When at first you don't succeed...

I spent this morning with tiny torches strapped to me fingers, practising at light drawing and continuing from last week's attempts. Although my methods worked I just wasn't very keen on the results. It's very frustrating when this happens but it's par for the course.

Not wanting to finish today empty handed I picked a couple of the better shots and played with them, pushing buttons and sliders to see how they would affect the picture.

It's quite hard to let go completely - you're constantly fighting all the voices in your head telling you that a photograph needs to be this or that. It's quite therapeutic though and comes highly recommended :)



Influences:

The experimental work of Brassai (Transmutations) which I saw in Germany about twenty years ago and had a huge impact on my photography at the time.





Transmuted Finger Lights

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Disco Time

I've had a fantastic week since last Monday, catching up with old friends and then helping B+W Photography Magazine pick this year's Black and White Photographer of the Year and category winners. Not an easy task by any means, but a fantastic experience.



Today it's back to Monochrom Mondays and I thought I'd continue practising and experimenting with slow exposure photography and a pair of revolving disco balls...

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

The Ghost of Eleanor-Mae

The ghost of Eleanor-Mae
Wanders the earth
Both night and day
Her killer to haunt
Forever more
Until his death
Doth close the door





Influences:

Early spiritual photography. Check out The American Museum of Photography for some examples or check out the book. Photography and the Spirit by John Harvey (Reaktion Books, ISBN  978-1861893246).

BBC's crime drama New Tricks



The Ghost of Eleanor-Mae

Shooting Blind

I thought my Man Flu had passed but it decided to freshen up today.

Feeling a little under par I decided to pass the reigns over to the Monochrom and let it do most of the work for me. Using a Nikon 85mm lens, I decided to shoot blind - only making adjustments to ISO and aperture (generally playing with very shallow depth of field) and using the distance reader on the lens to establish focal points. I forced myself to stop looking through the viewfinder and tried my best not to check all the results on the display screen for focus and composition.

I then set about walking around the garden in a dream-like state and pointed the camera in the general direction of anything that caught my eye. I had almost no idea as to what the end results would look like and couldn't wait to get them downloaded and see the outcome.



Shooting Blind...

Towards the end of the experiment I thought I'd shoot blind with the Bulb setting and whilst standing still and pointing the camera I gently span the distance reader from its closest point to infinity, releasing the trigger once I'd gone through all the focal distances.

Spellbound

I've always liked fantasy and science fiction films and artwork. I used to annoy my Dad every evening - he wanted to watch the news and I wanted to watch an old back and white sci fi film on the other channel.

Throughout the year I love looking through ImagineFX magazine and at Christmas I always ask for a copy of the latest Spectrum Fantastic Art Book , pouring through awesome illustrations until the holidays are over.

I wish I was better at drawing and painting (I can doodle an idea, but it comes accompanied with writing to explain what it is I've drawn). Corel recently brought out a Photoshop plugin called Particleshop and since I'm getting into fantasy photography after a little break I thought I'd give it a go on this week's Monochrom image.

Stories come into your mind when you're working on pictures like these. In this case I started to imagine a witch out gathering ingredients for her spells. 

Wisps...

Model: Helen Diaz

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Influences: Now the summer's ended Christmas is in the pipeline. The latest copies of Game of Thrones and Spectrum Fantastic Art and I'll be a happy man.

Light drawing

About a year ago I made friends with a chap down here on The Island who had started up a studio nearby (Studio2). It's been a long time since I used studio lighting, I tend to use natural light wherever possible. I would never profess to being an expert at using flash, but I'm slowly getting better and after a period of closure the studio will soon be open and I'll get to practise again. 

I've found over the last year that I tend to create small projects. It helps to give me a sense of purpose and direction and it's a good way to create an environment whereby you can explore creative options. Feeling a bit intimidated by the whole studio set up I started bringing alternative lights to the shoot, handing models lights and torches that are easily found in hardware stores. Once the model has the lights in their hands, the studio lights get turned off and over the course of the shoot we work out a direction and see what we can come up with. 

The Monochrom Project has let me both sides of the camera so I thought it about time I picked up the torch and had a go myself...

Influences:

Decorating, decorating, decorating, trying to get some bedrooms up together before Christmas. After so much painting I thought it apt that I pick up the torch and do a bit of light painting.

Film: The Green Mile, and the bursts of energy given out by John Cofey when he performs his miracles.

Travels with my Leica

Upstairs is out of bounds for a few days whilst paint dries and we're all playing musical rooms, moving mattresses and boxes along a room at a time.

I haven't had a chance to get out the tripod and Monochrom today, (instead my arms are covered in white gloss) but I did grab an hour after tea to look through some earlier shoots to see if I had missed anything...