Dissection 010
Fighting against the shoot
Original post: Inside—with a splash of red
This is a post about frustration and how emotions can influence our results.
I’d had very specific pictures in mind for over a week. I could see them in vivid details when I closed my eyes—something that usually leads to more or less basic execution, once the time comes to actually capture. I wanted masks; I wanted Cynthia and the kids; I wanted to use the Edge 80; and the entire series would be in black and white—I could already see the processing as well. I even knew what the lighting would be and my setup was ready: a single strobe with 30º grid and barn-doors, to provide just a sliver of light across their faces.
The post would be about disappearance—because isolation, because lockdown etc. But you know what they say about best laid plans...
This is a Godox AD400 Pro, fitted with an Elinchrom adapter to house an old reflector and grid kit. The barn-doors screw onto to edges of the reflector.
First, the timing didn't’ work: everyone was busy, and I didn’t want to bother them. So I figured I’d do a self-portrait series instead...even though I’d be blowing up the entire purpose of the shoot in the process.
Shooting self-portraits always means three things:
Using Fujifilm’s remote app to both control the camera and position myself in the frame.
Setting the camera to AF in order to tap-focus in the app.
Getting the lighting right through trial and error...moving and guessing and usually moving again a few more times.
The Lensbaby is not only a manual focus lens, its entire design adds a whole layer of complexity when you have to be both behind and in front of the camera. It’s not just focus but tilting as well. So that was fun. But then, as I was finally ready to try and shoot some images, the app froze. I got up. Turns out the X-Pro3 itself had frozen. We’re talking pull-out-the-battery-frozen-because-the-power-won’t-shut-off (1).
Tried again... same. After three times and a few choice words I decided the X-Pro3 wasn’t loving wireless shooting with the Edge 80, so I went back to the good ol’ method: a 10-sec timer. From here it all devolved quickly: I’d shoot, get up, realize I was barely in the frame, do it again, get up, wrong focus, get up, no light...ugh.
Outtake
After maybe 15 minutes of this nonsense, I’d had enough. I imported the images—the few that somewhat made sense—and went to work. Most of it was complete crap. A couple were just eery enough to maybe provide a subtext. I started in black and white (as planned) but quickly realized colour would at least provide a few elements for the eye to hold on to. In black and white it all blended to the point of...well, no longer having a point.
I looked at the images and returned to the idea of disappearance. I was barely there at all, so what if I removed myself completely in the end? I slipped the card back in the camera and shot the last two images: mask and sunglasses on a very red wooden stool. A red that swallowed its own world.
...
Text always comes after the images, often as a reaction. The story as well, usually: the subject will appear on its own, separate and yet linked, somehow. But here, it’s a diatribe—and hardly, at that. I was pissed: at the shoot, at the past 10 months, at the schools re-opening despite the severity of our situation. I was pissed the app had crashed and that none of my plans had gone the way they were meant to go.
Reading the words again, I now realize I wrote that the images had been shot “on a whim”... they weren’t. But at that point it felt like it. In reality, the words were the whim.
The real pictures, as you can probably tell by now, have yet to happen.
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This brought back memories: V1 of the original X100 was notorious for doing exactly that. Ok, so did a few more after that…on a few other cameras as well ;)
