Inspired by a car wash.

Inspired by a car wash.

I recently took some self portraits in front of the most colourful carwash in the universe at night time. My outfit for that shoot was ok, nothing special, needless to say, it wasnt the most planned shoot i have ever done. I better fix it!

In January i bought a lovely blue dress with a hologram effect to it, very reflective and quite eye catching, something very different. I then bought an almost identical dress in case the first one wasnt up to much. Turns out they both have their plus and minuses, dress #1 being very roomy, thick fabric, a bit plasticy, what with the thick vinyl coating on it. Dress #2 is very tight, with a lesser quality fabric. When i say tight, i mean, its TIGHT!!!

I have used the dress in a shoot already, the first dress at least, and the images were just ok, thats it, not spectacular or fancy, just ok... Ok, maybe a bit dull really. Sooooooo, i have decided to use one of these dresses in a shoot that involves that colourful car wash again. The look i am aiming for is futuristic, Blade Runner for the rave generation!

Now, Blade Runner, the directors cut, is one of my favourite movies, it is almost the perfect film, but the thing that really makes that movie is the lighting, which is almost entirely back lit, using reflected light on the actors. Of course there is a lot of colour in certain scenes, specially those on the streets, And that is where I will be shooting. Key lighting with coloured gels are used a lot, but these gels tend to be very warm ones, or either very cold ones, depending on the scene and context. I will be using gels, but not yellow ones, most certainly pink and blue gels, but perhaps not for the key lighting. Usually on outdoor location shoots recently, i use one light, simply for ease of use, carrying more than one light and stand along with a camera and tripod is a pain in the back! But for this shoot, more than one light will be used, in fact possibly up to 5 or 6 lights, not all on me, some will be purely background lights, with gels on obviously.

I appreciate that a blue dress is hardly futuristic, hologram look or not, so i have ordered something that will really make the outfit look a bit more unusual, which should arrive within the next 4 weeks, in the meantime, i need to think about other elements to create a Blade Runneresque look to the shoot. In the movie in outside scenes, passers by can be seen holding umbrellas which have a light for a handle. The lights are a boring white colour, possibly so not to make them look like light sabres from star wars, maybe, who knows, but the rave generation thing i alluded to earlier will come into play here, along with my outfit, i will be using neon glow sticks for the brolly light handles, which can be found easily online, the longest glow stick i have seen is 12 inches long and rather thick. Which colour to go for? I think either purple or green, green would contrast wonderfully with the glow from the carwash.

Now thats the outfit and brollys sorted, what about makeup? I did initially think about doing Darryl Hannah's look in the film as Pris, the white face with black raccoon style eye band, but honestly, i am not sure that is a look i could carry. But the panda eye look she wears in her first scenes is most certainly a look i can do, so thats that sorted.

I do need rain. Possibly smoke grenades too... we will see...

I am not aiming to directly copy a scene from BladeRunner, simply to pay homage to a great movie, inspired by a car wash.

Tags: Photography Self portraits