Like the rest of the world we have also retreated back to our safe place, home. Home being Colombo, Sri Lanka. On March 18th 2020 a strict curfew was put in place throughout the country, so we have been indoors for about 2 and a half months. We have been sadly watching the scale of the Coronavirus Virus Pandemic escalate around the world and feeling helpless to control anything outside of our little home environment we decided to focus on something creative that we could do together, indoors. We have 2 children and during curfew we have spent a large amount of time home schooling and trying to keep them entertained and occupied. The urge to let them watch TV or their computer in another room is strong but we resist on a daily basis, this project was a great opportunity to make some memories and while away so of our abundant free time.
I’m in the Film & TV industry and connected to 100s of creative people on my social media. Watching and reading what people are doing during this strange time has been very inspirational. I thought I should do something myself that involved the whole family. I came across a picture of a family all wearing the same colour and normally I hate the idea of matching, but this time it meant more than just a fashion thing. I explained my idea to our daughter Satya and we came up with, ‘The Curfew Colour Challenge’. We are in this together and colours provoke emotions and feelings. Each colour in art represents a meaning. Red being excitement, love, danger etc. The family responded to this immediately and loved the concept. To my surprise it turned out that back in the UK they had started a campaign of a ‘Rainbow’ showing support to the NHS for all their hardworking and sacrifice. Having family who are currently working for the NHS or retired from the NHS means a lot to us and adds a little more significance to the project too.
CAMERA AND SETTINGS
I used my trusty Canon 5D MK V
Canon 24 - 70mm lens set at anywhere between 32 - 43mm
1 x Manfrotto Tripod was 9.5 ft away from the family and 2.4ft height to the centre of the lens. I prefer the low height of the shot as I was compensating for the various heights of the poses throughout the shoot and just in case I needed to do any compositing.
ISO 200 @F2.8 with a speed of 125 and bracketing my shots by 2 stop either side to get the full dynamic range.
It was tricky as I would consider this quite a low light setting. We made sure we didn’t stagger ourselves too much to compensate for shallow Depth of Field. There are a couple of shots I had to increase the ISO to 400 as I needed close down 2 stops to 4.0/5.6 just get the DoF deeper. I experimented as I went along trying to get away with F11 @ 40 but the ISO needed to be nearly a 1000 and Jai wasn’t able to keep pin sharp still, being a 5 year old boy and all that. I did give it try though.
I knew I would be extending the background so kept it a little wide at 32 - 42mm so I could sample and adjust the background.
I did the all the quick lighting adjustments in Lightroom before going a little deeper with the edit in Photoshop.
LIGHTING
Being a photographer I love looking at light, composition and colour so this was so exciting to take on. I didn’t want to use strobe lights as I knew the space we have would be limited with all the clothes and props. So, having loads of lights, stands, defusers and cables all over the place would make it that much harder and not so safe. I took a couple of shots with natural light streaming in through the window and it was fine.
I liked the first few shots but felt it needed a little refining to add a little drama. I started by blocking the light hitting the back wall by attaching thick black cloth in front of window left gaps for the light to stream in. I’ve studied Vermeer and Rembrandt and this was common technique to darken the background whilst allowing a corridor of soft daylight to stream in on your subject. It sounds obvious but if I didn’t read about art I wouldn’t have worked this out. I have leant so much watching some the best cinematographers in the world light a scene. They all pretty much say the same thing, “Fuck off Chris, I’m trying to work”, well, apart from that, “The best way to learn about light, colour and composition is study the masters and the history of art”. So, that’s what I do and continue to do.
That was more like it but needed to pump the light into the space so I could reduce my ISO.
Being in Sri Lanka during April (Sri Lanka Summertime) it is pretty much guaranteed to get plenty of sun from 6am to 6pm. I liked the shots but then started thinking about bouncing light around.
8 x 2 ft Poly to bounce light back into the room.
Just right and this is pretty much straight out of the camera.
Now the fun bit, colour matching clothes and props…
We decided to chose 10 colours and go from there. I’m used to planning shoots being a film maker so planning and sketching was obviously going to be part it. I sketched out the first one for the colour blue and it all came together nicely. However, it was quite obvious that it would take way too long to plan and sketch each shot. We also had to think about Satya and Jai and holding their attention for the whole 2 days. We didn’t want it to feel like a chore for them. .
Playing dress up was just the start of it. We also started on props and accessories for each colour photo. I’m sure if every family tried this challenge they would be surprised with they would find in the same colours from the kitchen cabinets to the garage.
The Wild West
Each colour represented it’s own tone and feel in the shot.
To our surprise we found loads of each colour both outfits and props. We had picked a ton of stuff for each photograph but some looked too cluttered so we stuck to the, “Less is more” ethos. We all had a look then decided to pair it down and keep it more simple.
Once we were happy with a look we just sort of rattled our way through. We brought all the changes downstairs and had all the props then just in and out. The room was a total disaster by the end of it and I was just wishing we had could have done this in a big studio haha but where is the fun in that?
The children had an amazing time and one they will remember forever. That was the most important part for us that this strange period in history doesn’t have to be scary. They understand, to a degree, what is happening in the world and how important it is but it doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun and show support for the hardworking medical teams around the world by doing our own little rainbow.
Stay safe and Stay well.
