Monday 26 October 2015

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












Monday 19 October 2015

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






Monday 12 October 2015

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.









Monday 5 October 2015

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.