STUDIO & ABSENCE/PRESENCE - GO BEYOND

(Group Work: Alex, Michal, Peter, Silvio & me; London 2009)
(Sitter: Michal; London, 2009) - My first trial 'heroic'

(Sitter: Michal; London, 2009)- My second trial 'heroic'

Our assignment was to take 5 shots portraiture in studio single light (modelling, spot, softbox, controlled by Elinchrom Classic 3000) by Hasselblad with Polaroid. Alex, Silvio, Michal and Peter in my group. The five themes are sinister/mysterious, soft even beauty, heroic, classic and backlit. Equipment not that complicated than it seemed, though I was still bit nervous. I directed the heroic one.

I had been considering which one of the absence/presence idea to follow so I printed contacts and showed to Ulrike. She verified what I expected. Sometimes, I have some thoughts but in vague and not sure, and it is nice to get someone’s comment to strengthen those ideas. Yes, she said that human/nature idea was quite literal which I thought exactly the same. She seemed kind of prefer that shopping window project, well, it is my favourite as well. However, I really need to make some theme. She suggests I might need to get cooperation from shop to make the model more real. This is something dodgy. How can I get help from Harrods?? Regarding the billboard traces, she thinks there is potential. The camera one, it is too literal now – with many photos of camera, though the topic ‘surveillance’ is quite a good one with space to explore. I am really grateful for her comments which are like some light in the darkness. Next step is to improve the current shooting.

For human/nature, scrap it. Lucky that I scrap now otherwise have to go to Canary Wharf to take urban landscape tomorrow, unlucky spend hours last week shooting rail roads and Richmond. For window, need to develop some theme and make it more real. How? For billboard traces, need to find another angle to go beyond the common visual experience. For camera, really need to make it more conceptual not taking literal cameras of cliché. Hard! Tomorrow need to shoot, but tonight has no clue what to do. Seems all previous plan need to be changed. How to go beyond the meaning is the key to photography!