These two images continue on from my end-of-university project, Do You Dream, at the end of which I unearthed a series of dream-journal entries about space. They were filled with a kind of cosmic depression, as I was placed into experimental space missions with friends and loved ones. It was both beautiful and cruel, at once.
There’s one story (as posted previously) which made reference to Space Shuttle Columbia, and in particular its destruction in 2003. It seemed strange that I would remember such a detail.
It was only a few weeks ago that I discovered why. As a child in the late 90s, I had visited Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, and like any excited child I had bought a souvenir. I found it last month, at the back of my closet, and it gave me quite a surprise: it was a flag of Space Shuttle Columbia, from a time when its fateful disaster lay years ahead.
It’s a haunting connection, and one which explains the strange resonance the space-dreams have with me.
I’ve heard Brian Eno’s name a few times lately, most notably for the simple yet mesmerising iPhone apps he has collaborated on. But it wasn’t until this month I had a chance to listen to his album Apollo, soundtrack to the eerie 1989 documentary For All Mankind.
The highs and lows of the US space program are particularly resonant for me: In 2005 I was treated to a series of dark, sublime dreams where I partook in space projects with dear friends, and was faced first-hand with the prospect of never coming home.
While some of these feelings were explored as part of my end-of-year project, it was Eno’s suspenseful soundtrack that sent my imagination soaring. There is a wonderful modern aesthetic to be explored on the theme of ‘cosmic pessimism’, a term often associated with the epic work of H. P. Lovecraft.
Some of the best examples I have seen (so far) of this are the post-space-race documentaries of the Apollo 11 mission. The aforementioned 1989 production For All Mankind forms a narrative through simple choice excerpts of NASA stock video and imagery, with a sublime soundtrack composed by Brian Eno. There was even a special edition, released by the National Geographic Society, which featured no narration at all.
Another stellar example is MoonFire (recently re-published at a more reasonable price), a large hardcover book which recounts the strangeness of man’s first flight to the moon, as documented by Norman Mailer. The book features gorgeous photographs aggregated from NASA and various media outlets of the time. The images from NASA, most notably, beautifully portray the surreal nature of the training and preparation that went into such a daring mission. Astronauts and scientists alike are bound and caged by strange machines, simulating out-of-control spacecraft and other unlikely scenarios. It really is an amazing collection.
This modern aesthetic of space exploration seems to be an interesting theme to explore, and I’m sure there are many artists that feel the same way. Read past the break for an entry from my 2005 journal, which I think pinpoints some of my own thoughts and ideas.
As work on my current university project comes to a close, I thought I’d share a few tidbits of information I’ve picked up from the past few months.
Part of this project involved taking a series of headshots in a similar style. When it comes to headshots, there are a myriad of styles one could go for. To fit my own work though, and in particular other work in the project, I decided the portraits had to:
be simple and consistently executed;
be somewhat personal/intimate;
make some use of colour.
There was one big constraint, however: the university studio at the time had no strobes, no light-control devices, and no backdrops. Aside from natural light, the only available sources were the buzzing strip lights on the ceiling, and a selection of old halogen lamps.
Here’s the lighting diagram for what I came up with:
Devoid of anything to soften the light directly, I set up a flip-chart with a sheet of plain paper just out of sight, to the camera’s right. Bouncing the bright halogen lamp off of this created a much softer light, which could be adjusted for shadow softness by moving the lamp closer or further from the paper. Shadow contrast could be changed by moving the flip-chart further or closer to the subject.
With the main light provided by the lamp, I sat the subjects in front of a whitewashed wall, with a large window across the room to camera left. This provided a colour-contrasting fill light, which really gives a three-dimensional feel to the final images. Aside from cloning a pock-mark or two out of the wall behind them, very little post-processing work was done. A few colour adjustments were used to keep colour consistency between shoots.
Now the studio has a walk-in light tent, which does a decent enough job softening the halogen lamps. However, having a good understanding of these basic principles allows you to set things up in almost any circumstance.
, soundtrack to the eerie 1989 documentary 
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(recently re-published at a more reasonable price), a large hardcover book which recounts the strangeness of man’s first flight to the moon, as documented by Norman Mailer. The book features gorgeous photographs aggregated from 
