Pastiche No.1

I've chosen Robert Adams photograph called 'On Signal Hill Overlooking Long Beach, California' from 1983.

The manipulation of light in this photograph gives off a ghostly effect, utilizing the smog of L.A. and the choice of black and white film, makes the scene almost reminiscent of the horror genre.

He has set up his exposure to favour the shadows of the trees, in order to silhouette them against the white foggy background, so that trees appear to be more cut out of the fog.

The trees stand on thick black grass in the foreground, exposed so that you can recognise more the presence of grass and trees, instead of fully realised trees and grass, reinforcing this theme of death that the photograph generates. In fact looking at the slither of the grey city sandwiched in between black dead trees and grass, and an abyss of endless fog, Adams has transformed this hillside view of Los Angeles, into a scene depicting either the city of the dead, or some form of ghoulish after life.

Basically my first shots were totally crap. From 12 frames I just got one picture which is double exposed. I quite like this effect according to ‘ghost’ feeling coming from photograph which I’ve chosen.

I reshot my pastiche in the same location but closer to the edge. I tried different camera positions, setting and scale. 

I’ve chosen  picture which I think is the most similar to Adams’ photograph.