Last night Aloyse Blair and I headed out to the forest on her fathers beautiful farm in New Jersey. Sunrise was at 5:30am, so we had a 4am wake up call and were out in the forest by 4:20. We had scoped out the forest the day before and found a few sights that we thought would make good locations. Finding them in the dark was actually easier than we thought, avoiding the poison ivy as we went.
We ran into a few problems right off. First, I need to get an actual tripod for this work, using my Gorilla Pod just does not give me the flexibility I need to get the shots I want. Some of our locations really didn’t look very good without the elevation a tripod would have provided. Second, there is currently no moon and the forest was so devoid of ambient light that it was almost impossible to get anything done with out using alternate light sources. Tonight we are going to take some old kerosene lanterns out into the forest with us, which should provide an interesting light source and potential creative aspect to the images. Third, as usual, I really need to figure out the best ways to deal with focus issues, between focusing in the dark and being able to stop down the camera. I feel some of these shots might have been quite successful if they had been in focus. As the sun came up we were eventually able to use the dawn light, but it felt rushed, and to be honest, a bit uninspired. Aloyse and I have been doing this type of work for years now and it is easy to fall back on what we know. I am hoping over the next few weeks we will be able to really push things to the next level.
Given the absolute darkness, I felt very rusty out there and unsure of what I wanted to accomplish. I am working on exploring the aspects of location and self, but I am still having a tough time deciding what this means. I feel pretty confident in my ability to create strong images technically, but establishing solid content is proving to be more difficult. I need to spend more time on the ‘who, what, where, why, when,’ aspect of this project. Part of the beauty of these images lies in the spontaneity, but I also really need to get out there and be able to direct the scenes. Thankfully, Aloyse has a great natural feel for this type of performance work and we were able to get something accomplished before the sun rose.
After all was said and done these were the strongest images from last night. I personally feel the last image works best, but I include all so that you can compare and see how the project comes along over the next few months.
