Recently, my Cinematography class was given an exercise which was to take a photo which instilled the emotion of 'fear' in the viewer. While taking the photo we had to keep lighting, framing, and location. The photo was allowed to contain one human if the photoraph needed it but the human subject had to wear no expression.

I began with my planning stage by making a brainstorm of different words and objects that came to mind when i thought about fear as an emotion. This can be seen in the work below. I then listed options for locations and things that could link to the words and ideas in the brainstorm which could have been available to me.

From there I scouted out a few locations with a cell phone camera just to get an idea of what each of the locations could give me and that helped me to settle on using the bath tub and a suicidal/loneliness concept.

To create this I dripped fake blood all over an old bath with clawed feet. I used diffused natural light from the window and I placed my female subject into the bathtub without clothes on to give a feeling of not only coldness but also of being alone. Then I put more fake blood over my female subject concentrating particularly on the wrists to blend her into the scene a bit. The last touch she needed was some dark eye make-up smeared down her face as if she had been crying intensely.

With my set dressed I began to work around it with a D60 Canon starting from further back. This is what I had first imagined with the scene with my view coming through the door, down the length of the bath, to the subject. But as I went through the process of photographing the scene I found the angle I had first thought of not very compelling. It distanced the viewer too much from the subject, lessening the blow of her sorrow and not allowing them to really feel the weight of her.

So I decided to move closer to the subject and from a different angle. This I felt was a lot more intimate to the point of uncomfortable for the viewer, giving them a front on and close up view of the girl. I chose to take one shot at eye level with the subject as well as above. Upon taking these I decided the prior was superior because when the photo was taken from above I felt as if I had more control and authority than her. From her eye level I felt equal to her and therefore more vulnerable to what was happening to her, and therefore more fearful of the situation.

I then moved to another angle for variety and found a shot I liked from the opposite end of the bath tub than my subject. I focused on the patch of blood on my end of the bath which made the 'victim' completely out of focus. I liked this shot because it drew the viewer in slowly to the subject using leading lines angling inwards to the subject in the distance. Her being out of focus assisted with this because it didn't distract with a strong face and body shape in the background which would demean the leading lines. The darkness of the blood in focus drew attention straight away with its contrast to the white bath.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the process of the photo shoot to inspire fear. I found that instead of looking at my pictures and just thinking, "that looks okay," I began to really analyse what the photo was saying to me and how. This will be a process that I will be undertaking in the pre-production process of creating my films as I think that it will help me to understand how my character's are being interpreted by the audience.