Evaluation.

As soon as I saw Gregory Crewdson’s Work I decided I wanted to create a Tableau for the narrative side of this module. It seemed like a challenge to build my own set, using props and lighting to create a scene, telling a story to my audience. I’ve learnt a lot of techniques and I think I have gained a lot of experience by throwing myself into something I haven’t done before. I decided I wanted to retell an old story through my image and arrived at ‘Little Briar Rose’ written by the well-known Grimm brothers. Although at first it was a struggle to find a location in which to build my set, I think the one I used to be perfect for what I wanted to create. It had a wall and was a small area almost imitating the intimacy I wanted from the room in the story. I found it enjoyable to buy props and find the perfect composition for them to sit as it allowed me to work closely with my photograph and create the exact image I had made in my head.

I love the style of my image from the smoke creating a mysterious, eerie atmosphere contrasted with the dramatic lighting laying on my model and shining through the tree in the background. A criticism I hold over my project would be, in future if I were to use a smoke machine again I would practise with it before using it in a final shoot. This is because it was difficult to create the lighting I wanted with the smoke exaggerating it or getting in the way. I think more practise with the machine would have allowed me to handle it better and experiment with different effects. Despite this, my image shows the famous scene from the story most people know and love however, more realistic with the overgrowing vines and cobwebs which is what I set out to create. I think I have been heavily inspired by the style of Crewdson and Disney with the ‘movie-like’ style I have adapted whilst shooting this tableau from the mysterious background to the dramatically staged foreground. Using of camera flash was a great challenge for me to learn from throughout as shooting outside was a new technique for me to learn. Using the flash on a trigger under the tree created the dramatic lighting in had studied from Crewdson and I think this was nicely complimented by the smoke in my final image. Using my test shoot I was able to evaluate my lighting and practise firstly creating a background light to add depth to the piece and then subtly lighting the foreground to allow my model to be seen without taking all the attention away from the background as well.

James Wan is well known for his unique style in horror films and specifically for his use of the colour red in his work. Most films he has directed such as ‘Insidious’ contain the colour red to allow certain things to stand out. Within my image I used purple flowers to imitate ‘The Briar Rose’, found in the story I’m retelling. Because of this, in post production I found myself changing the colour temperature of the photograph to a more purple tone. Not only did this emphasise the flowers, which were the centre of the story, but it also created more of an ominous yet beautiful atmosphere.

Overall, I think my image successfully shows the folk tale I studied and holds the atmosphere and tone I worked hard to create. I am very pleased with how my shoot turned out considering it was my first tableau and set I had created myself. I definitely enjoyed this project and because of this, I think it could be the first of many tableaus I create. I thoroughly enjoyed having control over everything in the frame and being able to show other people an image I created in my head. I think if I were to do another project similar to this, I would spend more time experimenting with the lighting of a scene and perhaps creating some really interesting shaddows in the background, perhaps an outline of a person to add suspense and drama to the image, foreshadowing action in the piece. I also enjoyed creating a blog to accompany the photograph as I think its much easier to share with people who are interested in my work and people can see the idea and development behind it instead of me just showing them my photographs. This is also something I will remember when embarking on other projects as I think sharing work is important to improve.