The Struggle Is Within Us.

An image about the 2 sides of a person. Dark and light, right and wrong - inevitably linked together but often in conflict.Never perfectly equally balanced but ...
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An image about the 2 sides of a person. Dark and light, right and wrong - inevitably linked together but often in conflict.Never perfectly equally balanced but inextricably, as one.

Image was born out of a photographic curiosity to do a shoot in a rapeseed field and to photograph the same location, once in sunlight and once in the night. Turned out to be quite a complicated process which took 7 hours and involved building a scaffolding for Hannah to lay on top of. With this particular field, there was only a 10 day window when the flowers were in full bloom. My fingers were crossed everyday for clear blue skies that week as the so-called summer had been rain, rain, rain virtually everyday until 2 days before the shoot. By then, everyone was committed and we had to go ahead regardless.

This was pretty much the first time when a shot was planned from scratch with concept drawings shared with the team, scouting of location at different times of the day, getting permission by bribing the farmer with chocolates and biscuits, and then finding a group of people to help me with the shot. Lighting had to be setup outdoors and it was a long shoot from 4.30 pm till 10:45pm. Logistically, it was messy trying to secure the permission of the farmer to use the field as well as getting the scaffolding to fit in the car. Shooting late into the night, packing up in the dark, hoping nothing was left behind and then having to rush to the nearest train station for everyone to catch the last train was among the challenges faced.

Ultimately, the final image has changed quite a lot from the original concept which had hands rising out of the ground with chains linking the 2 worlds and a much more panoramic viewpoint... didn't quite work even though all the photography had been done. Most of the component images I shot ended up in the bin... after numerous versions, it was the fourth version which I finally settled on.

MODEL: Hannah Ridgeway
MUA: Aga Pro Makeup
ASSISTANCE: Adrian Farr & Nunzio Prenna
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