Day 65 - Evil Teddy

I saw, I lit, I shot.... That is, in short, what happened here. Or better maybe, I lit, I saw, I shot... New lights have to be tried out asap and I got a few new ones this week. After aiming one at wall for a little bit I decided to aim at this substitute for a model... Read on after the jump >>

Editorial Statements

A little while ago I was reading an article about Editorial Statements through lighting in photography, and then it hit me: That would be fun!

I didn't really have a clue at that time how I wanted to do this, but I reckoned it would hit me when I saw it. And it did, for this photo is not planned in any way, it was just luck.

Well, before I go on about Teddy I will explain what an editorial statement is. An editorial statement is deliberately creating a look by shooting your subject(s) in a specific way. And I can hear you thinking: Is that not what model photography is all about? And you are right. The thing is that we normally depict the model in the best possible way, or at least in the most favourable possible way. An editorial statement would be to depict the subject as you see him or her. For example: if you are a photographer and completely annoyed by G.W. Bush (either one will do fine) you can choose to use really hard, cold light and photograph him from below to give him a cold, unforgiven, authoritarian look. That is making a statement.

I did the same here, the teddy bear is not really the most evil looking of all creatures, but still he looks evil here. It's all dark around him, the reddish light coming from below gives him a nasty look, plus I photographed him from a slightly elavated position this increasing his "evil" look. It's actually a rather friendly bear to look at, don't hold my work against him ;)