Real Life Horror Movie

After looking at different photographers I decided to take photos of my own. How photographers create atmosphere in there photo is something which I find interesting as it takes a lot of consideration of aspects such as lighting, pose, editing and composition to create just the right atmosphere in a photo. I chose to try and create a spooky atmosphere in my photos to create a scary movie type of feel to them, to do this I used a number of techniques.

I put all of the photos in black and white to emphasize the contrast and to remove any colour, so the main colour was black, which is the colour of all things scary. 

Firstly I looked at portraiture and how lighting could be used to create an atmosphere of horror. It's a well known thing that placing a light under your face makes it look scary; We've all been at a sleepover as a kid and told scary stories to each other in the dark with a torch in one hand lighting up our face. Except when you're a kid it doesn't quite look this scary. It's something about the way you can't see the eyes properly, because the eyes are what most of us find comfort in being able to see when someone is talking to us. 

To create a darker spin on a childhood memory I used a brighter light which was placed on the floor to cast more of a shadow. Because the desk lamp I used was the only light in the room I had to set my camera aperture wider, so I set it to a lower f.stop of f/5.6 to let in more light. After taking it, I then processed it in Adobe Photoshop to put it in black and white, as I thought taking away the colour of the skin would make it look less human. I boosted the contrast and brought down the brightness to give the background it's blackness. I like how dark the shadows of the face are, as it creates the effect of the darkness swallowing the face up, like there is just a floating face receding into the darkness. 

After seeing paintings by an artist who paints the sitter's face blurred, like they were shaking their head, I decided to play with the shutter speed to recreate something similar with my camera. After setting up the camera to a tripod and using a lamp to get the correct lighting, I set the shutter speed to 2 seconds to allow time for enough movement. After much persuasion my mum agreed to be in the photo and I asked her to move her face side to side, horizontally, not too fast but still allowing for her hair to swing. I had expected the face to come out in a blur and did not expect the two faces to appear. I like the final result of the two faces either side of the head because it reminds me of Janus (A Greek god with two faces on one head) and in some strange way it looks a bit like she's been possessed and her shaking her head is an attempt to get rid of the second face. It is because of this that I think it looks scary.  

My mum was starting to get a head ache from shaking her head from side to side, so I decided to give her a break. Still with the camera set to a two second exposure, I decided to see what movement I could make with my hands that conveyed a scary look. With my hands in front of the lens I made claws with my hands and shook them. The result looks like the hands are coming at the viewer, which make the photo quite direct and the motion blur makes it look like the hands are  moving towards you, out of the screen.

I decided to look into landscapes too. I took this one on a night where the moon was looking particularly spooky. I ceased the moment and took the photo before the clouds moved away. With the camera set to a wide aperture and high ISO speed to pick up the light on the clouds and the moon, I took this without a tripod, standing in my garden. I boosted the contrast on this to make the moonlight more luminous and atmospheric. If I weren't so late at night I would have walked to a more open place to take this, so there weren't trees obstructing the view.  

This photo was taken outside the front of my house on a rainy evening. What caught my attention was the street light reflecting off the rain on the pavement and I wanted to capture this. I think the weather in the image as well as the path way trailing into the distance and the amount of negative space created by shadows gives the image an eerie air. I like this image but I would prefer it if were taken at a lower angle and if I had moved further down the street to make the street lamp the focal point. Making the lamp a focal point would have allowed me to focus on the rain falling in the light.