Friday, February 1, 2008

The Mask of Narcissus


...was self-assigned - created as an entry for our local camera club's "closed competition" category of Special Effects. There are some minimal Photoshop touches to clean off dust spots from the scan and ensure color, but essentially, this is what is on the film.

I spent a day or so thinking about what to do; gathering props; assembling it; shooting tests and another day actually creating the final shot in about 7-10 minutes - and all done on a single piece of transparency film (120mm Velvia 50) at twilight on a porch of my home.

Good thing about the time factor - the setup outside my home (no studio space then) was made during the only two days in February that were warm enough. The morning after the shot, and just after I had taken the set down, a nasty freezing rain storm hit. In two rolls of film, this one shot seemed uniquely best - there were others, but only 4-5 "similars" which were acceptable.

I was sad to discover I'd be unable to attend the competition's meeting when critiques were rendered, but it must have been fate to spare me the indignation. Our judge for the competition, the senior curator of photographs at the local museum, completely passed it over - giving it no ribbon, modest points, and is reported to have said, "well, we've all seen this one a million times..."

- go figure.

It contains every special effect I could think of to incorporate into a single shot:
  • Levitation
  • Light painting
  • Multiple strobe pops
  • Multiple exposures
  • In-focus + out-of-focus/blur effects
  • Star-burst filters
  • Gradation filters
  • Motion blur
  • Off axis composition
  • Constructed set effects
  • The odd mask for a subject
  • ...and a surreal mythological concept - quite relevant to today's culture...
...or so I thought.

Aside from its brethren exposures on the role, I'd never seen anything like it...
...but I'll keep trying.



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