Ghosts of futures past

Assignment 2 Conceptual 

A number of years ago I shot a picture in Vermont that has subsequently been lost. My intent was to recreate the feeling of that photo. The photo was of a pile of old leaning windows in the forest. Between the panes were levels of plants some dead some vibrantly alive. I captured the ghostly reflection of my summer dress clad friend suspended in the panes. It gave the viewer a sense of a memory that is almost, but not quite there.

I first set out to recreate this by obtaining panes of glass, old wood and dried plants. These I took to a forest and tried to set up a similar feeling reflective setting. In the end the attempt was unsuccessful as the winter variables and built set came across as to contrived.

The mood board help here to make me realize the essence of that photo was of a vibrant active moment and its ghostly observer. Also the mood board had 7 photos of mine whose originals, like the Vermont one, had been lost to a corrupted hard drive. So I decided to become a future ghost interacting with these memories.

The setup for this, was to use prints of two photos place under glass and set in a window. For the first one I used the natural light to reflect my image at an angle off the glass into the camera. I used an aperture of f16 to retain clearer features. This created the needed contrast from the dark silhouetted figure behind. This was to invoke the sense of a man looking back on a memory. A shutter speed of 1/60 of a second was needed for the 70mm lens; so as to freeze any wobbles from the awkward crouching stance, which was needed to get into the right spot.  Which left an ISO of 640 for the proper exposure.   

The second photo used the same window setup along with a 300w Fresnel tungsten spotlight. Additional props of vintage brown striped shirt and Canon PowerShot S3IS were used. This time I used the spotlight at a distance to reduce my angled reflection onto this smaller 5X7 inch print. A shutter speed of 1/25^th of a second with a lens of 70mm helped slightly blur but retain the overall features of the distant cameraman trying to capture his younger self. The ISO of 800 was needed to bring enough exposure to dimly lit ghost in the background but retain the detail in foreground. Which left an f stop of 18 to round out and balance the exposure. The hardest part was to find the right angle and pose so as to be looking and photographing my younger self. (photo credit on original print Wai Man Ng)

I believe I captured the essences of the original photo with these two shots. But will attempt to recreate the original when wind chill and deep snow have left and green life and sunshine have returned.   

Mood Board

First photo setup

Second photo setup