Over the two previous posts, my primary concern has been on basic design and composition. While those two areas are of real importance, the issue always lurking within any image is emotional response. Something can be beautifully photographed, and still leave us feeling cold and disengaged.
Too that end, the next few blogs will deal with differing creative options that can elevate emotional impact. These options will include the physical properties of subject matter, creative decisions related to those physical properties, and introducing a concept into your work. When offered the option, I usually work conceptually.
The thing I really want to concentrate on in the short term is how to create visual surprise based upon the lighting options as they relate to the physical properties of our subject matter. While much of the world that surrounds us is opaque, a whole lot of things out there are either transparent or translucent. While opaque and transparent are immediately obvious, translucent is not so apparent.
When is the last time you looked at a sheet of paper or a tulip petal lit from behind, or for that matter, a page in the dictionary? This is the same mindset that blinds people to the possibility of using your cell phone or tablet as a soft, cool light source during a shoot. Always try to consider what else is possible with your tools and subject matter besides its' usual condition, form or function.
This leads me to the detail photo of the Coca Cola can above. While most opaque items can just be lit at will, reflective items really demonstrate how light really reflects off a mirrored surface. The usual way to light such items is for the subject to "see white", but in a case like this, which is so planar, that lighting would have played down the chaotic geometries in the crushed can. We would lose our Cubism! Accordingly, I used a slightly harsher lighting set up and then selectively toned it down in Photoshop. This allowed me to really be able to show the variation in color of the can, but also add very faint secondary colors in places by using pale tinted pieces of paper as fill.
The goal here was to take an American icon, and present it in a way that we rarely think about it to demonstrate the concept of PRESSURE. Critical to the concept was having the cubist like surface of the can read on an almost instantaneous level.
