This shoot I photographed Jordan who was a gamer. He had a gaming set up in his small bedroom. This was one of the most challenging shoots I have done, purely because of the lack of space. His desk was in a corner with walls either side and a tv behind it. This left me with very little space. Adrienne Salinger’s work has inspired mine for 2 reasons. Firstly visually, in this shoot I had to use some kind of external light as the light available was not enough. I would of avoided this before but it was effective in Salinger’s work so I was ready to try it. Secondly how she works with the subject, to keep it as real as possible she tells them not to change anything in their rooms. It keeps everything in the frame authentic.
The room was really dark as the bedroom lights were dim and there was very little natural light available. I had to put my shutter speed too low or ISO too high that the images were slightly blurry or grainy. In all my shoots I have always had an external flash light in my car just in case I really needed it. Ive always wanted to stick to the available light there to keep it natural and real. But in this situation I had to use it. It is a big light which meant the only angle I could take it at was from above the TV or a little gap on the side.
These are images that were unsuccessful. The first is an example of when I was using the lighting available, it just wasn’t possible. The second is from over the TV. The angle is too high. I also was using 24mm which is not effective. The subject does not stand out as much as I planned. The third was taken below the light. Again I don’t think the subject stands out from the background enough.
This is the most successful image. Considering the challenges, I am happy with how it looks. The constant studio light I used worked at lighting his face. The helps at making him stand out from the busy background. I do worry that the background is distracting but there was not a lot I could do to help that. Looking back I should of asks him to lower the brightness of his screen, this would of improved it. When I get to the editing stage, I could try for a way to darken the background.
Compared to Salinger’s work, mine is quite similar. A lot of them have got a lot going on in the background and it still works well. This makes me feel better about my images. I can not control what is surrounding the subject so I just have to be careful with how I choose to document it.
Lucy Davis 