Storytelling

A lot of my commercial pictures end up being used on book covers around the world. I'm not always working to a brief so I have to guess a final use for the picture and consider how it might suit different genres of writing, whether it be adult fiction, teenage fiction, crime, non fiction etc...

Although the photograph I take represents a single moment in time it's my job to create enough information to let the viewer complete the story - this may or may not be how I personally would have continued the scene but it is always interesting to see your work applied to somebody else's imagination.

It doesn't matter what subject we choose to photograph, be it weddings, fine art, sport, the yearly school photo... as photographers we are often immersed in telling stories.




Once upon a time...

Copyright: Clayton Bastiani

Stormy seas and big adventures

A Happy New Year to you all.

I always get excited by the turning of the years - new beginnings and all that. I never expected 2015 to be quite as productive as it was, but in all the years I've been doing this full time I have to admit that was my busiest year yet and I hope next year will continue this trend.

Here's to 2016 and all its new adventures...

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

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 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

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.

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.