Portrait Photography Cork City
This is a really exciting project that I was able to be part of. Although I have photographed other performance art or physical art pieces, this was something quite different to those projects. The biggest difference was the change of medium. This project didn’t require me to only photograph, but it required me to film as well! 25 frames per second. That’s an excessive amount of pictures to me!
I’ll leave the explanation of the project to The Model Sligo, who funded the project:
“A collaboration between visual artist Nic Flanagan and musician / composer Owen Kilfeather. This 25 minute performance employs Irish mythology as a means of engaging with, and recontextualising folkloric dialogue in contemporary thought - specifically, the Hag of Bhéara, the ‘Queen of Winter’, a seasonal spirit whose stories are rich in humour, humanity and conflict.
She is said to rule the months between Samhain (the first day of winter marked on November 1st) and Bealtaine (the first day of summer). The performance on Saturday night, October 31st is a reawakening act. This performance/sound piece is a continuation of a collaboration established by The Model this summer.”
Initially, we were all supposed to meet in Sligo and film it in The Model, but at that time we were heading into Level 3. This would have gone against several of the new restrictions. So instead, we stayed in County Cork, where I filmed and photographed this project together with the artist, Nic Flanagan. It was then streamed online on Halloween.
I would have been happy to just photograph this performance in this beautiful scenery, but being able to film it too and being the creative DOP (Director of Photography) was fantastic. A DOP has a large influence, not on the content, but on the visual set up of a shot. Nic Flanagan was very open to my input and direction of the visual construction of each scene.
Some of these photos came to be as a result of this experimentation. I would ask her to go through some of the performance of the next scene that we were about to shoot. I then chose my angles and lenses to suit that specific scene. I would photograph them first, show them to her and we would discuss and chose the correct option. The remaining photos would be taken during filming. The camera would be set to a completely silent mode, that doesn’t make a single noise, as to not distract the artist. In this way I could take hundreds of photos, and audibly no one would know. Pretty handy tech nowadays.
Visually, I thought it best to go with a large depth of field, meaning the background is not very blurred and still very identifiable. To people who have a little bit of photography knowledge, this meant I was photographing and filming between f8 and f11 for most of the shots.
I also went for a low saturation, medium contrast look. Usually I love strong, bright colours. But this would have been most unsuitable for this setting.
Nic Flanagan and I then edited the film together, and once completed, we were able to send it to Owen Kilfeather so he could compose a fitting soundtrack to it.
Big thanks to both Owen and Nic for making this such an enjoyable project!
