Norwegian Light

Updates. Monthly updates are in, aren't they? Kind of like National Geographic.

I've always liked the idea of trying to replicate the glow of fluorescent tubing and neon lights. There's something strangely comforting yet totally alien about the way it falls on things. Intense light in dark places. There have been quite a few films this year that have utilised this look to excellent effect, such as Spring Breakers and Only God Forgives, both I believe having been critisized on some sides for being more style than substance. A dangerous road to walk down.

I've done a some tests in the past using bounce boards to create the effect of natural window light, so I used this same technique, but with coloured gels to create that sort of night time street fluorescent glow. 

I'd arranged to do this shoot a few months ago, but my model pulled out at the mast minute and the whole test was mentally shelved. Luckily, a recent student at my work was keen to be involved in shooting some studio portraits, and so we did! Ingvild is a total natural infront of a camera, and we just had a nice day taking photos and talking about films and television!

So that's probably enough words, time for the pictures! We tried a real mix of angles and fills, and also tried throwing some more colour in there. It didn't work too well on this first one, which I think is a lovely shot of Ingvild but the blue spotlight behind her head seemed to create more of a neutral grey tone. We fixed that in the later ones though

Verdict = Success.

I know it's tempting fate to say I will be updating this more often, but I do already have a few more posts of work I've been doing over the last month lined up. So if you're the easily excitable type, you can look forward to that.