MARE (be as brutally honest)

[lordbaca]

Great idea.

First I did not read any of your post prior to viewing the images. I do this for an obvious reason. With a group like this I expect there to be a theme and want to see if I get that theme without being told.

I got image 1, 3 and 4 were supposed to be creepy/horror related and had no clue why the street lamp was there. It led me to wonder if this was a group of images for a book and would the context of the story explain the street lamp? At no point did I get a solid alien abduction feel.

Some things that may aid in pulling the theme together.

All of the Alien light sources should have the same colour temperature to help the viewer connect them together.

Don't show the street lamp. Find a street lamp that has the longer horizontal section to hang out over the street. Wait for or create your own (don't endanger traffic with a fog machine, find a safe place for this) fog to give that light cone that comes down to the ground and shoot that as your Alien craft. You don't need the ship to give the illusion.

Process the scenes in a similar way. Your first image (elevated feet) has a different colour feel than the last two.

Good call in the light cast. I didn’t even take into account the variation color casts

 

[smoke665]

For future reference in planning your shots, check out Dark Side Gallery here in the TPF. Be aware that some of them are pretty graphic. I wish I could remember the name of the member who used to post composites on here, that I swear I wouldn't look at before bedtime, because I knew I'd have nightmares. Point is there is a lot of good information to be gleaned from past posts.

 

[Tim Tucker 2]

You bring up a lot of good points but the point of the images is to represent what MY fears were as a kid. Though I didn’t explain it but these images were to show glimpses of scenarios that played in my head. It’s hard to make anything that will scare everyone. Just like scary movies, not everyone will be scared. But the point of these photos isn’t to scare people but to Tell a story, whether you get scared or not. Gregory crewdson creates these unnatural scenes and the viewer gets a sense that something is off, but they aren’t necessarily scared. That’s kind of what I was going for with these.

I totally understand what you're saying. It's one of the greatest problems. You can easily show images that show your fears, but to represent them as your fears you then have to communicate fear to your audience and the only way to do that is by resonating with their fears.

But as Hitchcock said, it's in the detail.

Consider, in light of making things look slightly out of context, that the light in the 3rd and 4th images is emanating from the ground and pointing up. It's not as weird as it sounds because although you associate alien attack from above both "War of the Worlds" films made considerable milage by having the martians attack us from below, they came out of the ground from under our feet. Many *un-earthly* lights from sheds in fields emanate upwards rather than the normal downward from a standard light fitting simply because it's not the normal or expected direction...

 

[lordbaca]

You bring up a lot of good points but the point of the images is to represent what MY fears were as a kid. Though I didn’t explain it but these images were to show glimpses of scenarios that played in my head. It’s hard to make anything that will scare everyone. Just like scary movies, not everyone will be scared. But the point of these photos isn’t to scare people but to Tell a story, whether you get scared or not. Gregory crewdson creates these unnatural scenes and the viewer gets a sense that something is off, but they aren’t necessarily scared. That’s kind of what I was going for with these.

I totally understand what you're saying. It's one of the greatest problems. You can easily show images that show your fears, but to represent them as your fears you then have to communicate fear to your audience and the only way to do that is by resonating with their fears.

But as Hitchcock said, it's in the detail.

Consider, in light of making things look slightly out of context, that the light in the 3rd and 4th images is emanating from the ground and pointing up. It's not as weird as it sounds because although you associate alien attack from above both "War of the Worlds" films made considerable milage by having the martians attack us from below, they came out of the ground from under our feet. Many *un-earthly* lights from sheds in fields emanate upwards rather than the normal downward from a standard light fitting simply because it's not the normal or expected direction...

Oh dang I never considered that!

 

[DanOstergren]

All of these are interesting, beautiful, and clever in my opinion. They each tell a story individually, but the series as a whole also tells a story. All of this is tied together with great moody lighting with clever use of colors to further enhance that mood, and well thought out compositions. Really well done.

Also, uh, we can all count to 4. No need to number them.

 

[lordbaca]

All of these are interesting, beautiful, and clever in my opinion. They each tell a story individually, but the series as a whole also tells a story. All of this is tied together with great moody lighting with clever use of colors to further enhance that mood, and well thought out compositions. Really well done.

Also, uh, we can all count to 4. No need to number them.

Hahaha thank you! I think it would have helped to number them for reference. I’m glad you appreciate the images but some other members have pointed out some minor things that could really help the images even more. But for a first attempt I feel pretty confident in these images even with the flaws.

 

[DanOstergren]

All of these are interesting, beautiful, and clever in my opinion. They each tell a story individually, but the series as a whole also tells a story. All of this is tied together with great moody lighting with clever use of colors to further enhance that mood, and well thought out compositions. Really well done.

Also, uh, we can all count to 4. No need to number them.

Hahaha thank you! I think it would have helped to number them for reference. I’m glad you appreciate the images but some other members have pointed out some minor things that could really help the images even more. But for a first attempt I feel pretty confident in these images even with the flaws.

Achieving perfection is going to sterilize your photos. Take some time to appreciate the flaws and try to see how they positively effect a photograph. At the same time, I will always agree that there is always room for improvement.

 

[lordbaca]

All of these are interesting, beautiful, and clever in my opinion. They each tell a story individually, but the series as a whole also tells a story. All of this is tied together with great moody lighting with clever use of colors to further enhance that mood, and well thought out compositions. Really well done.

Also, uh, we can all count to 4. No need to number them.

Hahaha thank you! I think it would have helped to number them for reference. I’m glad you appreciate the images but some other members have pointed out some minor things that could really help the images even more. But for a first attempt I feel pretty confident in these images even with the flaws.

Achieving perfection is going to sterilize your photos. Take some time to appreciate the flaws and try to see how they positively effect a photograph. At the same time, I will always agree that there is always room for improvement.

Dude you rock!

 

[Sil]

very very nice...