Piss Christ - Andres Serrano

'Piss Christ’ by American artist and photographer Andres Serrano was taken in 1987 and depicts a crucifix suspended in a glass of the artist’s own urine. At the time it was extremely controversial due to the blasphemous nature of the photograph, and was even attacked with a hammer by two teenagers in 1997. The overall colour is an orange glow and the photograph is taken from slightly below the crucifix, almost as if you were looking up at it. The scale of the photo isn't clear at a first glance, without knowledge of the context, and initially I believed it to be a full scale crucifix in the ocean. Once the viewer becomes aware that it is actually suspended in urine, the reaction completely changes. Andres Serrano was raised a very strict Catholic, and for Catholicism this piece of work would be considered extremely offensive. However, Serrano, who is now a Christian, has claimed that this work was more of a commentary on the state of the church and humanities attitude towards the sacred nature of the cross.

Gel Pre-shoot - Colours

For this second shoot, I wanted to focus more on the editing. I only used one filter for this shoot, as I really liked the way the red looked in my previous pre-shoot. I didn't worry too much about how the colour looked in these photos as I was going to edit them afterwards. I again used a black background for that contrast. 

To change the colour, I used the 'adjust hue' setting on Photoshop to completely change how the colour appears. I experimented with a lot of colours in this way, and below are the results.

Some of these photos appear slightly too bright which is something I'd change if I were to do this again. I like the colour purple and blue, as they are complete opposites of what the face normally looks like.

Gel Pre-shoot

Inspired by Christian Oita, I used red and yellow filters over lights to cast a colour over my models face to create a more dramatic effect. I switched between using just one light with a filter, to using two filters and I liked both effects. I chose a black background as it wouldn't be affected by the gels like a white or coloured background would, which wasn't the effect I was after. The black contrasts nicely against the red and yellow being projected onto her face, which I like.

To edit these photos, I increased the contrast, and decreased the brightness so they wouldn't appear over-saturated.

Wonderland - Christian Oita

Christian Oita was originally a writer, born in Romania and raised in Germany. He then became an artist, and voiced his disdain for the art of photography, claiming it "is basically a lazy way of creating images with no original outcome whatsoever." It was only a few weeks later that he put down his paintbrush and picked up a camera.

He specialises in male fashion photography, but he occasionally shoots females for magazines such as this Emma Watson Wonderland cover shoot. He's used coloured backgrounds and gels and editing to create a hazy wonderland effect. The pastel colours are reminiscent of a candy scene, but he doesn't go as far to cast a colour on his face.

I will be taking his use of filters and colours in my next shoot as an experiment with portraiture.

Gel

These photographs I found on pinterest are reminiscent of Christian Oita's Wonderland shoot, but with a more dramatic effect. The filters and gels are used on the models faces as well as the background and the colours add a dynamic to the face without distorting it. 

Here the use of multiple gels from different angles is something I'd be interested in replicating in a shoot. The yellow light acts as a highlight, whereas the red light is used more to cast a coloured shadow. The blue light is used more for emphasis and seems to be pointing nearly face on at her. I will be experimenting with the placement of lights as well as the colouring.