To follow on from my previous A2 Photo shoot ( Entitled "Shaken Not Stirred"), I decided to explore the use of model cars further. I was inspired by the work of Frances Glessner Lee to try and create a miniture crime scene that was convincing enough to pass off as a real photohgraph at first glance. She is not actually a photographer, but a founder of Havard's Department of Legal Medicine who was made famous through her series of models titled 'Nutshell Studies of an Unexplained Death'. She created replica crime scenes to scale which were then used to train new detectives in the police force. It was these tiny yet intriguing scenes that inspired me to create my own.

 

 

I begun this photoshoot by making a small set, using the same Aston Martin DB5 model that I used last time and printed textures to make the walls and floor. For the lighting, I experimented with using a snoot to create a very harsh light source which would give me the contrast I wanted for the scene. I also tried using coloured gels in front of the snoot to give a number of different atmospheres and change the mood of the images.

 

In a real situation, light rarely comes from one direction or is of a consistant colour, so I felt that by using multiple light sources I could make my photos even more realistsic. Though I liked the images above,  I feel they could be made more dynamic by utalising different coloured gels to imitate neon lights or street lamps above the car. In order to do this I set up a tripod and took a number of images, varying the angle of the snoot everytime as well experimenting with using strips of card to throw interesting shadows. Here are just a few of the images I took, showing the range of exposures and hues that I captured.

I used Photoshop to digitally ovelay  and merge some the images above to create more realisitic final images. The three I produced are shown below - each one took between 3 to 5 different lightings to produce something that I felt could look like a photograph. I really like how they turned out, and the contrasting colours across the car gives the impression of bright bar lights shining down on it, further enhancing the element of realism as well as adding dramatic effect.