Expulsion
Jul, 2015Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
I took this photo in my front yard in Tucson, Arizona - I was just really starting to learn about photography, so I didn't have any space to actually shoot in.Time
This was taken at 10:18pm in May of 2008. I was still working full time at a corporate office job, so all my shooting had to be at night or on the weekends, so I was shooting at night A LOT. This was some pretty intense make up and we were still learning a lot about it, so that pushed the time back even further than we expected.Lighting
The lighting for this shot was very deliberate and touchy, but because we painted the subject white, it make it a bit easier. I had a cheap shop light from Home Depot that I was using as a continuous light source positioned to my subject's right (my left) and made sure to keep him as far away from my yard's fence as I could to light the fence as little as possible.Equipment
As far as camera equipment goes, this was taken with my Canon Rebel XTi (Canon 400d, I think), 50mm 1.4 lens, and Home Depot work lights with a scrap of muslin fabric draped over them as a diffuser.Inspiration
This photo was inspired by a nightmare that my hunny (and MUA) had. His nightmare was much more complicated, but we worked to streamline and simplify the concept and give it a more universal appeal.Editing
Yes! Although not as much as people usually assume. I increased the contrast in the photo and then also pulled down the shadows more, which brightened my whites and eliminated the background completely, plus brought out the shiny highlights in the black goop. I DID digitally create the eye-black because black-out contact lenses are just SO expensive and, at the time, hard to find. We didn't quite paint white grease paint far enough down on the model's chest, so I also had to extend that a little bit - it's visible, but it looks like a change in make up texture rather than bad digital editing imo.In my camera bag
I have ALL my equipment in my bag! Except a couple of reflectors because I don't need to carry them ALL with me all the time - but I really don't have enough equipment that I need to pick and choose. I own 4 lenses (18-55 kit lens, sigma 70-200, 50 1.4, and a lensbaby), my camera body (a Canon Rebel T2i), spare batteries, a battery charger, a light weight travel tripod, several lens filters I nearly never use (polarized filter, uv filter, graduated filter, a couple neutral density filters), colored plastic gels that fit on a flashlight I used to own that ALSO fit nicely over my lenses if I want a tinted look, a bunch of cords, the manual for my camera, and a ring light flash. Oh! Business cards, pens, folding hand fans, and a copy of The Photographer's Rights, just in case.Feedback
With horror photography, simple is better than overly complex. You're communicating with people's lizard/primal brains and our primal brains are not complex. It's easy to want to create a complex scenario with a long drawn out story, but viewers aren't going to untangle all of that. I think the only reason that this photo works as well as it does is because it has so little editing, comparatively. The goop really IS coming out of his mouth like that. The goop really IS black (it's chocolate syrup!), his face REALLY looked like that when he was spitting it out (we really had to coach him on how to hold his face and how to allow the goop to come out without projecting or dribbling it), we REALLY painted him white and we used a blender to try to eliminate streaking. I didn't change the lighting in post, I only heightened/exaggerated it. There was about 100 takes of this shot to get it exactly how we wanted and I think that the REALNESS of it helps the horror.
