The Magician

I love taking pictures and to be honest if I haven't for a few days I can feel the grumpiness kicking in. Like many things though there are times when we simply lose our mojo for a while and enthusiasm, passion and creative energies appear to take a dive.

I'm rather liking my Monochrom Mondays Project. It's giving me the chance to be a bit silly, experimental and have some fun. At the end of the day it's helping me to reconnect with photography and remind me of what a wonderful expressive medium it is and why I love it so much.

The Magician

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Influences:

Film: I'm still obsessing a bit about early camera / film trickery. This week I re-watched The Mirror Sequence from Jean Cocteau's Blood of a Poet.

The Student Becomes The Master GIF

I had some issues trying to attach a video of the sequence to The Student Becomes The Master, so I thought I would try again at making a GIF and upload that here instead.

The Student Becomes The Master

In a few weeks time my son will start studying GCSE photography. In two years time he will have more qualifications in photography than I will.

For this week's post I wanted to portray the student overtaking the master and what better way to do it then messing about in the spare room once again and pretending to be characters from Star Wars?

I really must stop taking pictures upstairs and start concentrating on decorating.

Not just yet though.

A sequence of 40 pictures taken with the Monochrom, played about with in Bridge and Silver Efex and then several hours applying glowing lightsabers to each shot using very simple Photoshop techniques. 

I've made a short video of this sequence but I am having difficulty attaching it to this blog post.

Please feel free to check it out over at YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcWyIFTQjH8

Influences:

Real Life:

A conversation with Paride, who suggested (after racking his brain about video                   production) that I should experiment and have some fun.

Converastions with Tom and Debbie about science fiction films and wanting to own lightsabers.

Being a child in the 70s, running around the playground with my mates acting out space battles and wishing our parents had been cool enough to call us Luke or Han

College trips to London and gravitating towards the MOMI (Museum of Moving Image)

Films:

George Lucas' Star Wars

Fritz Lang's Metropolis (I really need to watch this again soon)

Animators:

The Brothers Quay

Photographers:

Eadweard Muybridge

The Student Becomes The Master

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Seeing Double

I had two shoots booked during August and it rained both times. In a way I was secretly pleased as it meant I could spend the afternoon of each shoot experimenting up in the spare room.

The following pictures were taken with the Monochrom during my wet afternoon with Lulu Lockhart. As well as making short time-lapse/animation sequences we worked on a set of imagery where Lulu would split herself in two so I could bring them together today for this Monday Project instalment.

I like experimenting with my photography. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but that's all part of the learning process. When it does come together the results often surpass your expectations and lead you to want to do more.



Model: Lulu Lockhart

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani



Influences:

There isn't a specific influence this week, more a general collection. I've been thinking a lot about early cinematic techniques / trickery and when we worked on the time-lapse series it was hard not to remember all the childrens' animation programmes that had been a huge part of my childhood television experience: Morph, Chorlton and The Wheelies, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley to name just a few,

The Magic Box

The universe has this strange habit of steering you towards different ideas, away from those you may have planned. I've learnt over the years not to fight this natural current and let go and see where it leads.


I got up for sunrise this morning in order to work on today's picture. Hoping for a lovely, still, sunny start to the day I was instead given thick, cold, damp, windy fog.

Oh well. C'est la vie.

After getting a little lost in a field of cows Tigerbelle and I decided to head home and I spent the morning trying to come up with a Plan B.

Several hours later (without as much as a whiff of any serious inspiration in all that time) I noticed a small empty cardboard box sat next to the torches I've been using recently with some of my photos.

And that is how the universe conspired to ensure today I would make...


The Magic Box.





Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Model: Tigerbelle




Inspiration:

Real Life: An ongoing project of mine, taking photographs lit with alternative lighting easily found in hardware stores.

Film: The mystical suitcase from Pulp Fiction

The Sudden Wave video edit

The Sudden Wave

If it's not fun you're doing something wrong. 

Still thinking about narratives and sequential work here's a little improvisation involving an empty room and a roll of cellophane.  

The Sudden Wave

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Influences:

Real Life: Taking my wife to the boat this morning.

Book: Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. (My first attempts involved a journey across the cellophane water but I couldn't get it to work this morning).

Film: Almost everything by Georges Melies

Photography: Duane Michals, Francesca Woodman