Three In One

[Hill Country Hack]

I had an idea for this week's assignment of the Beatles and I was not sure if I could pull it off. I have never tried this before. My model (wife) was very patient with me as I set things up. We collaborated on posing and props.

It took four run thoughs over an hour and this is the best of the bunch. I wanted to try again, but the wife was done indulging me. I would have loved no movement in the image of the dove in hand, but asking her to hold still for 10 seconds proved to be a bit much.

I never used my brain so much to get this shot. The down and dirty was to set pieces of tape to mark the proper spot to move the chair, turn out the light, pose, start exposure while painting (10 seconds) with a flashlight wrapped in plastic bag to cut back on amount of light, replace lens cap, change pose, remove lens cap, repeat painting, replace lens cap, change pose, remove lens cap, repeat painting, close shutter. I was a sweaty mess when we finished.

So how dose this photo make you feel? I was looking for the transistion from sad to hope. Was the use of going from left to right the best route to go? I was also trying to go from darker to lighter from left to right (not too successful with that). I'll take any tips from those who have done this type of photography.
F8
ISO-100
focal length- 29mm
Bulb exposure- 172 seconds total.
No flash

[BigFuzzy]

HCH, I gotta be honest and say that it's hard for me to feel anything about the image when I can barely see anything.
Her face in the left two images is simply too dark for me to get anything out of them. I can't tell her facial expression at all on the left, and the middle one seems gleefully laughing.. so i totally didn't get the shift of emotion thing, sorry.

Were i to do this I would have used a flash that I triggered when needed by hand. This way you could have frozen the action (it's really blurry, I had no idea that was a dove before reading) and gotten better exposures. Alternatively, a way brighter flashlight would help.

I do like what you're trying thematically, but because of the lighting issues, it just doesn't do anything for me. I hope you keep trying though!

[Hill Country Hack]

Fuzzy-

I do appreciate the feedback. As stated, this was my first attempt at "Artistic" photography. I am trying to stretch myself into areas I would not normally go.

I have yet to obtain an off camera flash and I wanted to play with light painting. I know I was asking a lot of the model.

I chose the f8 to have enough DOF to maintain focus for any changes in distance from the camera with the horizontal changes in the photo. Is that good thinking?

I am somewhat satified with my effort as I learned a lot about what NOT to do. I will revisit this when better equipped.