I recently wrote about creating mood boards for my photoshoots, and I really like that idea, and have made some of my own for the upcoming photoshoots I’m planning. One of these mood boards that I shared was for part of my element-inspired photoshoots, fire.
I wanted to take this photoshoot in a direction that I feel like fire isn’t normally perceived: innocent. While fire often symbolizes danger or destruction, it can also symbol rebirth. And in that rebirth there is a certain innocence: It’s the look you see on a child’s face when they’re watching fireworks or a campfire. Fire can symbolize warmth, and so I really wanted to play on the warm tones in the pictures I shot. Lastly, I really wanted to capitalize on fire being the only lighting source in the photo– trust me, it was painful with how careful I had to be given a lower shutter speed was needed in order to still capture enough detail, but I really wanted to try.
While I had planning this shoot for a while, I actually acted upon it kind of spur-of-the-moment. I knew I had to shoot it late at night after the sun had completely set in order to truly get the sort of lighting I wanted– What’s the point of turning off the lights if the sun is just gonna come in from the windows?– but I ended up shooting this concept nearing midnight in my household. I had already showered, so while I was pretty set on minimal to no makeup for the look, I really had to commit to the no makeup vibe. I did use some vaseline for the lips and eyes, but overall it was going to end up being subtle anyway. Hair was wet-but-drying, so there wasn’t really a point in styling, and I was going to hope for the best. As I began thinking more and more about the shoot, I started to become a little bit worried about how similar it might look to the concepts I had come up with the water element photoshoot. However, I had already committed, so that was that.
Backdrop wise, I still had my yellow construction paper taped all over my wall from a yellow monochromatic shoot, and I didn’t really feel like removing it, so I just hung my new backdrop over it. I actually used a fall shawl I have as the backdrop, to contribute to the light academia/warm aesthetic I wanted to go for. I actually ended up using two clothespins and a bunch of masking tape (my favorite set tool) to hang it up in a more drapey-way, rather than just stick-straight. Wardrobe wise, I went for a complementary tan sweater dress with elbow patches.
I started out with what has become my normal self-portrait style: fairly close up, but not too much. After a few shots, however, I realized that that wasn’t going to cut it with this style or mood, and I needed to zoom in much closer to really pick up on the detail the lighter was revealing. I zoomed in more, added a prop book, tried changing where I was holding the lighter, put my hair up– but nothing really seemed to (excuse the pun) spark. I decided that it was the lighting, and despite all I was doing to try and get the lighter to be the only light source in the photo, that simply wasn’t going to work. At that point, however, I was tired from a long day and unexciting results, so I waited until the next day to get back at it, deciding to devote the bulk of the day to different photography tasks. (Included below are some of those unexciting results, by the way. While I liked a few of the photos, they were so far from what I had set out to achieve that I didn’t get further inspired by them, and even would go so far as to say I was becoming uninspired.)
The next time I shot, it was a couple days later. I started shooting in the evening, around 7 pm. While I still had the same vibe in mind, I decided to change a few of the elements in hopes of better inspiration. I changed the background to black, and donned a black mock-neck as well. I still kept hair and makeup rather natural, however. The sun was still completely set, so keeping in mind my lighting problems from before, I decided to keep my closet light and bedside table light on, allowing for a bit more light. This allowed for more light for the photoshoot, while still making it seem as though the shot was lit only from the lighter. I took a couple test shots before getting dressed for the shoot, and they turned out pretty decent composition-wise, so I decided to proceed:
While the vibe wasn’t necessarily exactly what I was going for based off of my mood board, I was still pretty happy with this second round of photos, especially considering the fact that it was a self-portrait shoot. The “innocence” factor really isn’t there, let’s be honest; but, the pictures are pretty cool. Below are some of my favorite shots I ended up with.
With fire over, the next element photoshoot I’m planning is for water. Stay tuned for a mood board for that photoshoot, and you can check out my fire mood board here. As always, you can view some of the final edited pictures on my Instagram. Until next time!
EAC Photos 