 | ||||||||||
             |
Notes and Commentary By: Robyn Barnette
There is a sense of 1940s film noir captured in "Queen Nevra," my third Bratz Photography Project and one of the most difficult projects I have ever encountered. The project was inspired by the movie "Casablanca," which is one of my favorite movies of all time and a movie that is the definitive greatest movie ever made ("Citizen Kane" is too overrated). "Queen Nevra" took place from the middle of November through late December of 2004, and the cold winter temperatures and cold winds made capturing some of the photos in this project very difficult. Unlike "Funkin' Out Fianna," "Queen Nevra" took approximately eight weeks to complete, and there were many spectacular photos of Nevra that unfortunately had to be rejected. One of those photos is an underwater sequence with Nevra's hair flowing around and covering her breasts. When I tried capturing the photo, a reflection of my digital camera was seen. Thus, it ruined what could have been a very spectacular and very sexy photo. Even with the most sophisticated graphic editing software available at my arsenal, several attempts at editing the photo proved unsuccessful. But there were other photos that were very difficult to capture as well — for example, a photo of Nevra standing in a field with a farmhouse in the background. It took over fifty tries to get this photo correct, and one of the ideas that I developed when it came to shooting this photo was a personal dedication to a friend who passed away last year from breast cancer. In the photo, Nevra's scarf is shaped in the form of a ribbon — a pink ribbon, which is the symbol for breast cancer awareness and a symbol that demonstrates my commitment to fighting this disease. Another difficult photo to capture was of Nevra standing at a tree branch. This one also took several tries to get right. The primary emphasis of this project is the 1940s film noir appearance. To achieve it for this project, I first shot the photos in black and white. Later, I digitally rendered the photos, retouching them using a soft focus filter and applying pallettes so that the photos looked as though they were shot during the 1940s. Thus, the photos are colored in soft light monochromatic pink. Most of the photos do not look as though they were shot during the 1940s, since the backgrounds and settings appeared too modern to be considered something from 1940. Example: Five of the seventeen photos were shot in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and in two of the photos, the buildings and skyscrapers in the background were not built until fifty years later. However, if there was one aspect of the 1940s that is captured in "Queen Nevra," it is that the photography for this project captures a time in America that ironically enough, mirrors the era that we are living through today. The world has become a darker place, with the shadows having grown deeper over human nature. So it was fitting that the photography for "Queen Nevra" take place during winter, where the cold weather was appropriate for the settings of this project. And speaking of cold weather, the weather was, by and large, the biggest impediment that I had to contend with when doing this Bratz Photography Project. There were many instances where I wanted to simply give up doing this project and wait until spring to complete it. One shot that I attempted to capture almost caused the entire project to be canceled altogether. Nevra was sitting on a ledge overlooking a creek, and just when I was about to hit the button on my digital camera to capture the shot, the wind blew strong enough to cause Nevra to fall backwards off the ledge and into the creek below. Shocked, I rushed to the creek and rescued the doll from the streaming water, but the damage had been done. Fortunately, MGA Entertainment, which is the manufacturer of the Bratz dolls, stands behind the durability of their products. I spent several hours cleaning Nevra up and drying out her hair and clothes, and she was back to normal by the end of the day. With just four photos to go, I insisted that the project continue to the very end and I would fight to the death to ensure that this project was completed. Considering that "Queen Nevra" is the type of project that exhibits the lifelessness and emptiness during the winter season, this project was a painfully difficult project to do. The experience of doing "Queen Nevra" was the most excruciating of my life, and it felt like it took forever and a day to complete this project. I hope that I never have to endure something like this again for the next Bratz Photography Project, whenever I decide to get started on it. There were no fancy shots in "Queen Nevra" to showcase my dexterity as a photographer — no M&M's shots, no fall color shots, no nothing. However, there were many shots that required me to learn new techniques and technologies in photography and digital imagery. And some of the photos required me to wake up in the early morning hours, since sunrise and sunset are traditionally the best times to capture this type of photography (and since Mother Nature was very uncooperative). Still, when I look back on what I had accomplished with "Queen Nevra," I can say that what I endured throughout this project was all worth it. | |||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
|
Copyright © 2005-2008 Bratz Heaven. All Rights Reserved. | ||||||||||
