Creating depth is at the forefront of my mind when I look to compose any shot. How do you give depth to a 2 dimensional picture? We're not shooting stereo here, so what tricks can we employ to fool the mind into thinking this world (a flat screen) is somewhat similar to ours?
There are a few. Depth of field as the name suggests, plays a huge role in , you guessed it, "depth". When one thing is blurry and another thing is sharp, our brains instantly start building a world that isn't flat any more. The space we had to shoot this scene wasn't exactly filled with objects or shapes that would help us perceive a difference in size (depth perception is also enhanced by this comparison), so I decided to use the mirror as a layer adding prop. With Rosie Noone's (amazing actress and joy to work with) shoulder's reflection left of frame, the image is beginning to shape up. The out of focus background element (actually, a reflector...it was a fashion shoot you know) helps carry this idea even further, because now there are three planes of focus, the middle one, Rosie, being "in" and the foreground and background ones, Rosie's shoulder and the reflector, being "out".
To further sway this illusion of depth I decided to use colour contrast to separate these planes. Daylight balanced down lights illuminate our actress's (or is it PC to call everyone an "actor" these days?) while the un-balanced tungsten lamp from the rear warms up and gives edge to everything else.
For more lighting diagrams, click on the LIGHTING link at the top of this page :) Thanks for visiting!
