We’re trying out a new feature here at Nice Photo Magazine: Photo of the Week. Every week I’ll try to get an image up with at the very least an explanation of the thought process behind it. The why-to it took to make it. Some weeks I’ll even manage to get a lighting diagram up if it’s not a straight forward natural light digital capture.

The first few of these photographs are going to be images I took. However, I would LOVE to post images by readers of Nice. If you have an image you put some thought into before you took it and would like to see it as one of our Photographs of the Week, send a copy of the image no larger than 500 pixels in any dimension along with a 1-3 paragraph explanation of what your thought process was behind making the photograph.

Here are two articles that might help give you an idea of the kind of images we’re looking for:

1.Symbolism a Tool for Taking Better Photographs
2.Keep It Stupid Stupid 5 Steps to Creating Photographs With Meaning

editor@nicephotomag.com

And now… The Nice Photo of The Week

“Trunk”

The Idea:

Trunk is an image from a series I’m working on that are inspired by the feature film look. Before I take any image for this series I think up a moment where the main character is about to do something that will change their life forever. There is no going back to the way things used to be. Then I come up with a scene. In this case it’s a man about to take something out of a trunk. I told the very talented, Max Koch, that there is a person in the trunk, a person who did something they shouldn’t have done. Max’s character has gotten himself into something that will forever alter his life. I knew I wanted to use this location, the dead end with the chain-link fence, but I wanted another element. I wanted something that would add more texture to the story. That’s what the teddy bear is hopefully doing. What does the stuffed animal imply specifically? Well, I know what it implies to me, but more than anything I wanted it to imply something to the viewer. It doesn’t matter specifically what it implies to them, to you, as long as it helps build a story. That’s the point of this image for me, to have the viewer imagine a film or a moment that lasts longer than the 1/200 of a second that it existed in reality.

The Tech:

“Trunk” was taken with a Canon 5D and 17-40 f4L at 26mm f6.3 1/200. Though I tried a few different setups lighting wise, this shot was taken with two 580ex II flashes triggered by Pocket Wizards. Here’s the lighting diagram:

I made sure that the angles were all akimbo from the fence to the car to the subject, hopefully creating a sense of unease.

Let us know if you have any questions. Just leave a comment below. Don’t forget to sign up for Nice updates by email over on the right side of the page. We don’t spam!

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