This year in my Photography 2 class, we were assigned independent projects for which we had to come up with our own themes and focus. I spent a lot of time thinking about mine, and I struggled to come up with an idea that I felt was different than what I usually shoot and would challenge me as a photographer. Then, my sister found a list of the best young photographers, and I fell in love with their images. Several of them had a very surreal, almost creepy style. I figured that not only would it be a nice contrast from my usual style, but it was also just in time for Halloween!
The idea started out very differently than what it ended up becoming. Initially, I wanted to make very innocent, pretty images that looked normal at first, but had something just a little bit off about them – bloody hands, disconcerting stares.



 






However, a few Photoshop tutorials later, the project quickly morphed into something much darker and more surreal.

    Creating the floating pictures was probably my favorite part. I did this by putting my camera on a tripod and taking a picture of the background without anything in it.

 
Then, I had my model stand or lay down on a chair and took another photo.
In photoshop, I was able to crop out the chair or platform and replace it with the background from the first image, draw in a shadow, and smooth things out a bit.
This is probably one of my favorite collections I have done so far because it’s such a stretch from plain landscapes or studio portraits. It’s interesting to play with different styles, exercise my creativity and create more provoking images.
Thanks to all my great models: senior Margie Crosby, senior Sury Rawat, college student Marissa Stewart, and junior Shelby Yount.
By Madelyn Stewart