Physical Attraction

Playing with the initial idea of positive phototaxis and being attracted to light in the natural world, I decided to create some form of initial response that would get my ideas going for my final piece. I have decided to choose the idea of phototaxis and experiment with the idea in the human world. Seeing what it would look like if humans suffered from this condition. Thinking about the moth idea, I grabbed a light and set up a studio to get some shots. Here I have created a series of photos to get an idea of movement towards the light without using a video camera as I feel using photos helps the viewer to pause on each photo and take more note of shapes made by the body in each of the shots.

Eadweard Mybridge was an English photographer, known best for his important pioneering work, with use of multiple cameras to capture motion, and hiszoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible perforated film strip that is used today. When producing this work it reminded me of the way Mybridge would present his work, presenting the photos as a series which shows each stage of the movement; almost like a dance. I used this idea to present this simple movement toward to the light to see the change in shape and composition at each stage.

'Series'

"Headspring"

I chose this still below, as it shows the best example of figurative movement. I wanted to experiment further with this idea so I decide to see what would happen if I put the full movement into one frame . For this I used a long exposure and a small aperture to capture the movement and see what happens. The experiment worked well after several attempts, as the skin tone created a warm brushed colour towards the light. The infrequent facial expressions help the viewer to make sense of the mass of colour. I experimented looking at how I could highlight these faces more; using a simple filter effect on Photoshop to enhance this idea.

"Still No. 5, From 'Series'"

Thinking of this idea, I thought it would also be interesting to experiment with the source of light. Changing the source of light changes the atmosphere of the picture. My dad happened to have a FlyKiller light. When thinking back to the moth idea, this linked into the natural world context, creating a sort of narrative in this image. Seeing as we know what will happen if I touched the light causes a sense of drama or tension, as if the viewer would either be willing me to not touch it or in some cases, may want me to touch it.

"Zapper"