So
recently a lot of people have been asking me if some of my more
depressing shoots have been based on Roy Schatt's Torn Sweater series
featuring the late actor James Dean. The photographer Roy Schatt often
shot portraits of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman and James
Dean. The series itself was designed to show Dean's more disruptive
manner. I hadn't actually seen any of the images from the Torn Sweater
series up until a few days ago so I wasn't sure whether or not I'd like
them. I also thought that I had finished with all my portraits for my
project so I wasn't really keen on the idea of going back to do another
series of portraits when I'd already planned a series of still life
shoots to get on with.
However,
when I researched Schatt's images of James Dean I could immediately see
how they would fit in with my project's intention as I was trying to
show a depressing and moody side to my character. Below are a couple of
my favourite shots from the infamous 'Torn Sweater' series.
One
thing I really love about these images is how anxious and tearful James
Dean appears in front of the camera. The soft lighting also makes the
image seem more delicate I think and it makes the series of images a
more emotive so I was really enthusiastic to get in the studio and
create my own take on these images.
I
think it would be better to go through things I found slightly
difficult about the shoot and the editing process before I show the
final images. Firstly, I think the final images would look amazingly
more impressive if taken with a film camera because the images I have
from my digital camera look too clean I think so I will be doing a
re-shoot at some point next month. Secondly the lighting is incredibly
important for this shoot because you need to get the right balance of
light on the model because these images have extremely strong shadows
which help make them look so emotive. The lighting is definitely
something I didn't get perfect because you can see that there are
significantly less shadows in my images compared to Schatt's images.
Finally
although I decided against making this shoot a pastiche shoot, I did
decide to mimic some of the body language James Dean displays in the
images above because I felt that they showed exactly the same emotion
that I wanted to display in my images.
Hope you all enjoy my take on the 'Torn Sweater' series! (Starting with my favourite!)
As always thanks for reading!
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