The Old Masters, Grapes and a Personal Project

     I've got a personal project coming up. Been putting it off for a while because it's going to be kind of traumatic. This will all reveal itself in due course. It seems to me that personal projects, otherwise known as "massive jobs that take ages and you don't get paid for", are the creative backbone of all things photographic. No one is ever likely to pay you for the stuff you really, really feel compelled to do. Unless you are totally driven by fashion maybe. But if like me your interest is in animals things may be trickier.

     I did a job last week at Crufts for Marie Claire. A dream gig. Getting paid for something that I would do anyway given half the chance. This is not the norm. But this job came from a personal project. I'd spent a year and a half making a book on dogs. The picture editor saw it, liked it, and decided they wanted me to do some stuff for them. This is the upside of the personal work. No matter how hard it is to justify the time and lack of money involved, just do it, because at the end you will have more work for your portfolio and if what you have created is any good it may just spin off into other, paid work. 

The other great thing about personal work is the total lack of constraint. You can do whatever you like. It is the one massive bonus. Total artistic freedom and the knowledge that if you fail, nobody even needs to know.You don't have to justify your work to an editor who will likely choose the stuff you didn't want to use anyway. No ones going to tell you what you can and can't or should and shouldn't do. You  just have to find the motivation, be a bit pushy, and the world is your oyster................... Did I mention that you don't get paid.

As a result of my impending work I have been deciding on a lighting style. I like to do this. I like to be prapared. I'd been looking at lots of old paintings in the National Gallery. My background is painting so I often like to go back to basics for inspiration. What seemed perfect for this new idea was the the lighting style of the old masters. All those funereal, dark images. Every one of them telling a story. Always literal in their use of symbols. Lots of dead stuff. After a bit of experimenting in the studio I kind of arrived at this (below). One of them is a straight forward set up with two lights, reflector etc. The other is a five minute exposure and is lit with a mag light and a blue gel. Probably go with this one.

It's really good fun experimenting with still life. You have all the time in the world and can really tweak things if they aren't working. Plus, if you use grapes, oranges etc. You can eat them as you go. The perfect crime. I'll upload all the images from this series as soon as I find the cajones to start.......

Lighting experiments for an upcoming personal project influenced by old master paintings