Project 2: Dance Film ENTRY 1

For my second concentrated study, I will be working on something slightly different: Dance film. Though dance film are not the typical type of photography, but it is still considered a photography nevertheless because it will focus more on expressing stories through lighting, costume, composition, movement, and many other things that would be applicable to the typical photography requirements. Also, because videos are generally many photos shot per second anyways, it should be no different than photography.

As of now, what I have in mind for this dance film are some kind of elements that would evoke relatable themes about phobias or some kind of social issues people see or feel on a regular basis.

Here are some of the examples I gathered that had inspired me. They are all from different places like music videos, dance shows, and actual dance film by professionals. Hopefully, I'll be able to mold these into one final piece that really speaks what I wanted to express.

"Painted" by Duncan McDowell

"Chandelier" by Sia

"Gravity" choreographed by Mia Michaels

Also this last video (it won't let me embed the link): Billy and Ade - Mad World Choreographed by Stacey Tookey

One of my biggest worries is finding a good location that would be more unique than just the typical stage. I absolutely love the setting "Painted" was filmed in, it's just that I can't seem to find any abandoned house that I can film or have good lighting in.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 7

Here are the final photos chosen after editing!

Here's the Flickr link.

Artist Statement: For this entire photo set, I was inspired by Hayashi to photograph normal pedestrian simply living their lives normally (Almost like her "Today's levitation" project she does where she did.), however, with a more supernatural quality and that is levitation. I chose to photograph my entire photo set in ISB's campus because it's a very common setting and had been a place I grew accustomed to so it would be interesting to make characters dress normal but has interesting levitational powers in their normal routine life.

Artist Statement: This photo above is different from the rest of the photo set. In post editing, instead of just adjusting the lighting of the image like what I did with the other photos,  I added more vignetting and over exposed lighting to tell the story of a student floating away from darkness towards the bright light in the corner of the hallway. I also made this photo black and white to give it that feeling as if though the photo was photographed with a film camera, only to see the subject after washing the film. It's almost like a symbolism of caged spirit finally flying away to freedom. The two sides of the hallway is also a great leading line towards the brightness in the center. One thing I wish could have been different would be the costume the subject was wearing.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 6 + More inspiration

Now that I am done photographing my models, it's time for me to edit my photos. Though post production would not do that much difference to how the flying aspect will look like, I still googled up some inspirational photographers anyway, in hope that I will continue to do more levitational photographies even after the deadline of this portfolio is due because this is very interesting.

This is one of the websites I can't help but to scroll through a few times twice.

The Art Of Levitation: 6 Photographers Who Feature Gravity-Defying Subjects

Hayashi Natsumi

Hayashi Natsumi is well known for her obsession for levitational photography. She dreams to be capable of levitation when she was younger, and bits by bits she fell into this routine of photographing self portraits (and sometimes photos of others) levitating in a normal everyday surrounding.

She advices that when taking levitational photographies, the subject has to look as though they're frozen mid time. Meaning that their facial expression has to be very well controlled.

This is her official website: http://yowayowacamera.com/pineapple1/

Something that bothered me slightly about the image above is that the subject's right foot has a motion blur. Hayashi could have used a higher shutter speed, nevertheless, the composition and the prop of the image looks great so it drew the viewer's attention away from the blur.

This last image is also another great one by Hayashi. The balance in this image is unequally exaggerated, making the viewer pay more attention to the lady to the right. Also, because no one seem to see the lady to the right at all, it makes her look like a spirit who lives her life everyday in a very crowded world, yet not  single person can see her wandering and levitating.

Her photograph inspired me because of how realistic she made levitation on a regular basis look like. With her great use of different settings and composition, the magic of her photographs were captured brilliantly and surrealistically.

Li Wei

Li Wei was born in a rural house in the province of China, Hubei. He later on settled in Beijing in 1989.  He studied at the East Art Academy in Beijing and later on combined a series where he mocks gravity through various mediums (performances, photography, video, installation) in 1997. He currently lives in Beijing.

View his official website here: http://www.liweiart.com/english/works_photo.htm

Li Wei's photographs inspired me because of it's subtle sense of humor. Something about the subject he photographs and the costume and position they were levitating in gives off a slight humor and sarcastic mockery to gravity. By looking at his photographs, I can tell the photographer has a great sense of visual humor, making his images more intriguing and fascinating than just a levitation photograph.

Somewhere Lovely (Kylie Woon)

Kylie was born in Singapore and raised in the United States and China. She is a conceptual photographer. She is not strictly a levitational photographer, but she's great at conceptual post editing. She's currently in Singapore and pursuing a degree in Digital Imaging and Photography at Nanyang Technological University.

This is her website: http://kyliewoon.4ormat.com/

I love the last image by Somewhere Lovely in particular because it gives off this feeling as if though I am watching the entire black and white horror film, but all in just one image. It's very very fascinating to see how the photographer incorporates post production techniques like over laying another image of the subject on top of the other. The vignette on the left side of the image really draws attention towards the subject.

Kylie's photographs inspired me because of how conceptual and creative her photos are. Almost all of her photos reminded me of dreams. She is capably of portraying each different photos very well because of the model's costume, prop, lighting, and digital editing.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 5

As mentioned in earlier posts, I really want to pay close attention to tucked and untucked clothes + tied and untied hair. One of the biggest issues I learnt from this photoshoot is that the flying looks unrealistic because when they jump, their clothes and their hair comes down or flies up when they're about to fall. What I did was ask them to tie their hair and tuck all of their loose clothes under their pants.

Here's a comparison between the two

Before:

In the photo above, the model's hair is raised up and the hem of her shirt makes her look more bloated than how she actually was.

After:

This is the image with her shirt tucked in and her hair tied up into a bun. The levitation looks more realistic.

Also, in this third photography attempt, I stuck to the same model and had them practice jumping a few times. Now the image looks more realistic with their feet parallel to the ground.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 4

Because my photoshoots on my previous posts does not look like the subject was actually flying because their feet were pointing down, I went back and photographed my subject again in similar environment, while paying close attention to the subject's feet. 

I had to let my model practice jumping a few times in order to understand how to raise their feet in such a way it would become parallel to the ground mid-pose. It was a very difficult thing to do but it worked in some of the photos.

Another problem I faced was also the hair and the clothes that were untucked. When jumping, their hair tend to raise up and the hem of their clothes rise. I had my model tuck her clothes under her pants and tie her hair up in a bun that would not move so easily when jumping. There is nothing much I can do with the face and the cheeks but to try to make their face as normally as possible and hope that in one of my high shutter speed image I will get one with their face looking normal.

The following photos are chosen unedited versions of the photo:

The lighting in some photos (especially the last photo in this set) are very poorly lit because I had to keep the shutter speed high. Meaning that I might have to give up to the ISO. In this last photo, I wanted to re-edit my photo through post production instead.

My next post will be a short comparison between how it's like to tuck clothes in versus not.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 3

I went back again to trying this project with a better camera (Canon 5d Mark 3) to reshoot this photoshoot with more controllable shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and lens options. Some of the results turned out.

There were a lot of error shots, here are some of the ones I selected. These photos are unedited.

True some shots are not artistic photos like the one with the subject doing the neck choking and the power blast action, but there were also some that I am very satisfied about. I believe after editing some of these photos, the photo will look a lot better.

Also, another big problem with this photoshoot are the feet, clothes, hair, and face. When the subject jumps, their hair and face tend to either go down or go up when they're about to fall down. Their feel are also pointed downwards. 

My failed shots can also be viewed on flickr.

Project 1: Levitation / floating photography ENTRY 2

Because I wanted to start my project by doing smaller photo shoots with my friends first, here are some of the failed result. (I used the Nikon 1 V1 that I borrowed from my uncle so I don't know how to manually adjust the shutter speed, tomorrow I will be taking another with my Canon 5d Mark 3 that I am familiar with.)

Aperture: f/4.5 Shutter Speed: 1/60

Aperture: f/4.0 Shutter Speed: 1/125

Aperture: f/4.0 Shutter Speed: 1/60

As seen on photo 1 and photo 2, the shutter speed is too low, thus causing a major motion blur on places like the subject's legs and hair. However, the second photo, because the shutter speed is faster (1/125) It makes the photo sharper and less blurrier. The second photo is the desired effect I am aiming to achieve, but with a higher, much faster shutter speed.