Fear

Heyo brilliant humans. For my cinematography class I got forced assigned to take a photo that describes the word "fear".

Originally I had wanted create a scene using a couple of "ghosts" and candles. I have these figures made out of a really floaty material, and they just hang from wherever I put them, being all floaty and ghosty, it's quite eerie and haunting, really. It's at this point in my blog where I would like to share this track with you. I had an idea to pair them up with a couple of candles, and to fiddle with the colour so the candles create not such a warm light, to create a scene where you would see the white ghost like figures appearing out of the darkness, alongside candles flickering.

It's the kind of things that you have nightmares about, both as a child, and as an adult. You feel as though you are alone, perhaps not lonely... But just.. Alone. Solitary. It's dark, but not the night. It's cold, but you don't notice. There's a breath of a wind that has not felt life in many a year, ruffling the hair on your forehead, but you don't feel it, you don't even acknowledge it's there. What you do notice are these... Things. Beings, of sorts. You could not say what they are. They're humanoid, but unlike any humanoid figure you've ever came across. The world around you is completely silent, save for the sighing of the wind that you've become accustomed to so much that you fail to hear it. The figures float towards you on wisps of the unknown, they do not seem to touch the ground. They do not seem to walk, either. Rather they just.. Move. They get closer to you, but you just stand there, you're in some sort of trance, struck by awe at these creatures that you have never met. Your dreamlike state shatters when a sound behind you alerts the fight or flight senses in your subconscious. All at once you finally comprehend your situation. Something doesn't feel quite right. What are these unknown figures? Danger. Fear. Run.


I failed to create the scene in my head onto the visual representation that is photograph. I blame the fact that I really don't know much about photography when it comes to white balancing, aperture, ISO's etc. F-Stop I know even less about. It's ridiculous, and quite frankly, it bothers me.

I had candles sitting on my xbox box (isn't that a fun thing to say), and, well, you can't really have big huge XBOX. KINECT. words splashed around when you're trying to be all candley and ghosty and scary. I did realise at the time I could have found different materials and boxes to put them on, something black would have come in handy.

Candle light. I had wanted to be able to fully see the ghost like creatures but if I had the camera set to anything lighter than this you would have seen the junk lying around my room, not to mention big huge XBOX. KINECT. words. I suppose xbox is scary for a playstation fanboy. Perhaps I should have gone with Console Wars as my fear photo. Just grab a frikken Southlander and pair them up with someone from Manawatu and then like Auckland or something and have them bashing xboxes and ps4s and nintendos and computers on each other's heads. Violence is scary. Console violence is scary because it's pointless, they all play games, so just be happy. Isn't the story of the game the most important thing? 

I've gone off topic, I do apologise.

My flatmate had stuck these coloured lightbulbs in the chandelier outside my room that morning, and it immediately created a eerie sense. After my failed attempt at the ghosts, I remembered about the newly acquired creepy light right outside my door. Taking my camera in hand, I stood underneath it and clicked away at a bunch of different settings and angles to create something that I believe is really quite haunting. It sort of plays on the same ghostlike sense that was I was trying to achieve in the other photo, but in much a different type of ghost.

Test shots. Too light, too bright, too dark, too weirdly framed.

This is the one I chose finally as the one I submitted to the class. Although, for some reason, it's not looking the same in my photo album on my desktop as it is here. This is wayyy brighter than it's supposed to be. You can't see the ceiling in the original photo, but you can here. This is bizarre. It's the same file. I have not done anything to it. Don't tell me Google is doing it's stupid photo edit thing it does automatically. I don't know how to turn that off, if I can even.

Anyway, I'll just pretend it looks like it's supposed to. It's not so bright, but not so dark at the same time. The chandelier is just appearing, and it feels like it belongs in some kind of old fashioned horror movie where there are ghosts and jump scares. You are creeping down the stairs trying your best to find your way out of the nightmare house you found yourself in randomly, but you don't want to pass under the chandelier because it just feels wrong. It sends shivers down your spine.

Good night, beautiful people. I hope you acknowledge all the love and wonder in the small happy things around you, because they are always there, and they want nothing more than to dry your tears and make you feel safe.