Life .....

..... casting.

This evening Mr and Mrs P very kindly invited me around to theirs for tea ( dinner to those down south ). Mrs P and I had a lovely lasagne with a salad including lots of homegrown ingredients. Mr P just had the salad as he says he has to loose his belly before Mrs P loses her's ( mini Pea is due in just over two weeks, so he'll have to go on a crash diet ;-))

After the meal we discussed baby things whilst watching Mini P moving around like a scene from Aliens. We also talked about possible future light painting blip projects and the idea of this image as a possible blip for today. This is partly inspired by the stunning white horse blip that sarasmith posted earlier today. Using that photo, I was trying to explain to a work colleage earlier about the beauty of dark space in a photo and contrast and balance.

This is my attempt at braving taking a shot with lots of black space. As I dont have a white horse handy I have used a life casting I made of Mr P last year ( My friends very kindly tolerate lots of strange requests from me, in the name of art ). Life casting involves pouring dental alginate over the sitters face ( whilst they breath through straws up theit nostrils ) and then making a plaster bandage shell over the alginate. When it is all set after about 10 - 20 minutes the alginate mold is removed from the models face and then filled with plaster of paris to create a perfect reproduction of their features.

This life casting is lit using a keyring LED torch, with black felt as the background to absorb any stray light on the 15 second exposure. This probably isn't the most flattering lighting ( sorry Mr P ) but I think as a first atempt it's passable. I've life castings of quite a few friends faces and they should come in handy to practice lighting setups for portrait photography.

As I dont have a white horse, today's blip is Mr P's.....


..... Life casting.