Experimenting with light

I put these two images together to see how the contrast in lighting would change how the image is shown and how the emotion is emphasised. In the first image there is no lighting used, apart from the main room light which was on at the end of the lounge. This image has a lot less light bounced on to the face however the face looks full and is not distorted. In comparison in the second image the flash gun was used and the light has only captured the face and slightly lost the neck and hair. However I think this makes the image more effective, it makes it seem as though I am outside rather than with a staged background and the darkness is so prominent. The lighting clearly plays a major part in how the image is seen and how a model would need to change/emphasise an emotion in accordance to the lighting.

These two images again show off how the use of light can change the way the photo is perceived. This is seen because of the emotion, I think in this image.However the positioning of the lighting layers up the picture as seen in the second of the two. The use of red light also sets of different signals. Often red is resembled with danger or lust or love and these two images both have different perceptions with the use of the colour red.

My project is focusing on portraits and the mechanics of a portrait ie emotion, lighting, set and model, however now I think my main focus should be light. Obviously the emotion impacts the image but the style of lighting can change the whole perception of an image also. I now need to experiment with different forms of lighting. Firstly I think I need to use simple forms like matches and lighters which will only give off a small amount of light and show what impacts these make. Also the use of lighting such as headlights on cars and street lamps can change the image and the story the eye makes up. I also want to try a brighter studio set up using a white background and full lighting to see how I can develop my skills of the placings of lighting and techniques. Finally I could also think about how projections onto backgrounds can change the layering of images.