De-Construction of original image:
Photographer: Hugo Ahlberg
Year Taken: 2017
In my chosen image for this assignment there were two different sources of light used, a key and a fill light. As well as this, both lights had a gel attached to it. The key light was positioned on the left side of the model (picture right) and had a blue gel attached to it, whereas the fill light was positioned on the right side of the model (picture left). For both lights I used a monolight with a soft box and the necessary gel colour attached to it.
In terms of the image composition, the image is quite symmetrical with the two different coloured lights being split directly down the middle of the model’s face. This gives the image some aesthetic balance and makes it quite easy to look at.
The reason that I chose this image is because as soon as I saw it, I knew exactly how I was going to approach the recreation of it, given the tools that I am provided to do so. I also really liked the aesthetic of the image. I also aimed to use gels in my image as it is something that I was interested in doing.
The photographer himself originally found inspiration for the image by searching up ‘Blade Runner’ on Pinterest. He used an 85mm lens with a Sony α7R II. The camera that I used for my recreation of the image was a Nikon D5300 with an 18-55mm lens.
To achieve the aesthetic that the photographer was aiming for (Robin Wright’s look in Blade Runner 2049) he combed back the model’s hair and put some wax in it. As seen in the lower part of the image, the model also wore a coat similar to the character played by Robin Wright in Blade Runner 2049. The image below shows the aesthetic which was targeted by the photographer during this photoshoot:
Re-creation:
In order to recreate my chosen image, I set up my key light on the left side of the model’s face (picture right) with a blue gel attached to it and my fill light on the right side of the model’s face (picture left) with a red gel attached to it. I set up my model by getting him to sit on a stool facing directly towards the camera. The flashes were set up at a 4:1 ratio, with the key light reading at f8 with the light meter and the fill light reading at f4. My ISO was set to 100 with a shutter speed of 1/200 and an aperture of f8. For the recreation of the image, I didn’t use any makeup or specific wardrobe changes for the model as I didn’t think this was the main source of the aesthetic of the image. My main focus was on trying to get the lighting right and as accurate as possible compared to the original. This was due to the short amount of time which I had to take my image as I was the last person to take photos during the time slot for which I had booked out the photography studio.