Asteria Shoot 2

After deciding I wanted to incorporate the scenery around me into the body of my images more, as well as base my images more on classic paintings created of the Goddesses i'm impersonating, I headed to Holywells park to shoot the titaness Asteria, who controls the fallen stars and nightly oracles, once more.

At first, I headed to a place that I had found during my location scouting walk, however my own lack of organisation due to not wanting to miss the light (we did anyway) meant that I had forgotten a towel for my feet, which would have had to walk through the shallow river to get to the island. Instead, I decided to walk back and shoot somewhere else that caught my eye upon entering the park through a different entrance to last time (marked with the X on the map below). It was a bit of land curving around a larger part of the river, where I could envision mimicking the scene from John William-Waterhouse's The Charmer.

To set up, I had the Nikon D810 with a 24-70mm lens attached, allowing for my assistant to change how close the image was to me at ease - which was important because the tripod it sat on was on the edge of the river and wasn't overly manoeuvrable.
For lighting, I used a nikon speedlight that was attached to the hotshoe of the camera. I chose the speedlight as it's easily portable, easy to set up and creates a good contrast at night - something I noticed in the painting by Waterhouse (below).

In terms of costume, I attempted to follow the basics of what I feel Waterhouse tried to put across; for example I wore a blue dress, went barefoot, used a metal piece on the upper arms, and held a lyre. The lyre I bought has birds and leaves engraved into it, which I felt matched the story of Asteria turning into a quail and turning into a greek island.
Instead of having black tied up hair, however, I decided to use my own hair as this is often my stand-out feature, and what people associate with me.

Image 1.

original:

edit:

          For this image, in order to replicate Waterhouse's painting, I first flipped and cropped the photograph. The original was rather far away due to where the bank of the river was, and having not actually planned to shoot at this location I didn't have a lens that could get close enough to me. Because of this, next time I will shoot with a 70-200mm lens rather than a 24-70mm. Because of this cropping, the quality isn't where I'd like it be at, with lots of grain and pixelation. I would like the image to be even closer to get more accurate to the painting, however I didn't want the image to be of such a low quality.
The pose and angle aren't directly mimicked, however I believe a strong connection to Waterhouse's painting is present. An example of this is through the lyre, while being held at a different angle it still represents both her story (through the engravings) and the story Waterhouse depicted. The dress also isn't the same as I found costuming on a budget and with a limited time frame rather difficult, and so picked something that was also blue and represented Asteria's link with birds (through the gold detailing  on the shoulders), however the image has been edited to look more painterly in the dress, and to lighten the colour to match the painting a bit more. I attempted to drape the dress in a way that looked similar to how Asteria in The Charmer had her dress to increase the similarity. I consciously put my foot close to the top of the water, while looking down into it, which also is shown within the painting. So while the image is shot at a different angle, has different costume and different parts of nature around the subject (plants rather than rocks), I'm still happy with how the ideas of Waterhouse translate into my own photograph. The differences that are present show a modernity and reality to the image and it's context.
In terms of colours, I tried to replicate those of Waterhouse's  The Charmer within Photoshop. The Nikon Speedlight that was attached to the top of the camera helped give me the contrast that I needed and so it was just a matter of colour correction. In order to do this, I used many hue and saturation layers to balance the coolness that I could see in Waterhouse's painting, with the warmth that I could see in the skin he painted. As my skin is cool toned rather than warm toned, and don't support changing skin colour for an image, I brought in the yellows through the plants instead. I also used two gradient fill layers to help with this. On a whole, however, the photograph is slightly cool toned to match how I see The Charmer.
In order to reduce how noisy the image looked due to me cropping in so far, I used the paint brush tool on low opacities to smooth the skin out, as well as used a blue on the dress to cover the grain, and later used a curves layer to regain some contrast.
Overall, i'm really happy with this image and if the quality was better I wouldn't be hesitant to use this as one of my final images.

Image 2.

original:

edit:

   I also experimented with the poses in my images in case I didn't want them to follow the reference painting as closely. In this image, Asteria is relaxed, laying down with her lyre and reaching up to the heavens. While still holding those links with Waterhouse's painting such as being with the body of water, the dress colour and the lyre, it's not as recognisably related.
I chose this pose as it seemed appropriate for her character; a Goddess who's name means 'of the stars' and who rules the 'nightly oracles' (perhaps dreams), her reaching towards the sky seemed natural for her to do, while also showing her elegance.
In terms of composition, I don't like the branches that reach in for a lot of the frame. While on one hand it emphasises the distance between Asteria and the viewer by having something between the two, and offers a viewer a sense of watching a private, intimate moment without the subject, Asteria, being aware and therefore creating more of a sense of awe and immersion, it is also rather distracting. The flash bounces off the branches making them rather bright, and in combination with the pose almost looks as if she's reaching for one of them. I find them too obstructive. Cropping the image is again an option, however apart from losing detail, you'd also lose that greater sense of isolation that is caused by having that space around her visible. In terms of editing, I used a liquify filter to make the hair bigger and the dress a bit flowier, and then added a gradient fill to make the image a little cooler in the middle part of the image. Then the hue ans saturation layer to bring out the yellows, as I did for the first image, and then a second one to brighten up the dress. After this, I used a curves layer to add more dimension back into the dress, and then dodged and burned areas around the subject. I added a final curves layer to reclaim some contrast, and then finally I clone stamped some mud off my hand and the hairband on my wrist that I had forgotten to take off.
I'm certainly not as keen on this image as the first one, however this is largely due to the branches obstructing much of the scene. I wouldn't hesitate to try a pose like this again using the 70-200mm lens and at an angle where the branches wouldn't get in the way as I think it feels very ethereal.


Image 3.

original:

edited:

This is my least favourite of the three, but I will include it as to learn from what I do not like. Within this image, I attempted to make it look even more painterly by going over my face and arms with the paintbrush tool. The paintbrush tool removed a lot of the grain and pixelation which was an issue I was facing, however it just looks too fake and soft due to the extent of how I did it. As this would have been very difficult to accomplish in the grass and greenery around me because of the changing tones and textures, the contrast between smooth and grainy is only emphasised. Because of this contrast, I had also attempted to smooth out the hair but this didn't
seem very natural. I originally chose this image because of the clear reflection in the river below, I thought it added more dimension and interest into the image. I still believe this, however because the angle and composition was chosen for the main subject, me on the ground, and the reflection happened to be a coincidence, the reflection doesn't have enough space from the top of the head to the bottom of the image. This means that the image isn't framed very well, and the reflection actually becomes annoying to the eye.  I would have much preferred if the line where the land and water met were in the middle and the physical and reflected versions of myself were equal distances apart from the edge of the frame. I could have cropped it like this of course, however that would have left the physical version with also too little space and also becoming an irritant. The branches are less of an issue in this image however still not my favourite element as I still find them mildly distracting, especially as one o the branches seems to visually 'touch' the subject. In terms of editing, I first used a curves layer to brighten the water area of the image, making the reflection more visible. After all of the skin editing, I then used a gradient fill later to add both some cool tones and warm tones to the image, and then a curves layer to get the contrast to how I felt was appropriate.


Overall, I'm happy with this shoot as I think it's a large step in the right direction. I will reshoot it as to just get a bit closer so I can retain detail while keeping my references to Waterhouse's The Charmer. Other than this, I am happy with the equipment used and now know how I would like to edit this set of images. My photographs, while still offering something very mysterious and a sense of escapism, also inhabit the world in which it came from; they display a intertwining of two world - make believe and the real. This creates a tension within the images as they are pulled neither to one side nor the other, but in a middle ground of reality and social distance. The painter, Waterhouse, would have used a female subject, and took influence from the world around him. His painting is too a mix of both worlds, only mine is more modern and perhaps more prominent in a way that my medium, photography,  can only offer. Photography is a very recent technology and medium in art comparative to painting, and while painting was an art form available to the Greeks, who conjured the idea of Asteria, photography was not. Also, the act of using a real life painting, something that exists physically somewhere, emphasises this contrast of worlds.
I think that my images reflect the pre-raphaelite element to Waterhouse's image, as they often used redheads as their models, along with pose that shows movement and activity, the colours being earthy and being very connected to nature.

As Waterhouse's painting is originally painted at a size of 97 x 61cm, I would also like to print my image this size. This will enable a closer representation of the painting.