Milenci for The Jungle
Added 2019-11-03 00:00:00 +0000 UTC
I've been experimenting with soft focus techniques again. If you saw my earliest work (very little of which is still out only to be found on the far corners of early social media websites) you'd see images shot with hand made lenses that were incapable of focusing, and Vaseline covered filters.
It was only after investing the time into making these lenses, and destroying countless filters that I stumbled upon a few better less destructive ways to get that soft focus quality to shooting. Vaseline gave way to black stockings, and its been my go to for years on the rare occasion I shoot something in that style. Black stockings can be stretched tighter to allow for an image to be sharper, or poked with holes for areas of sharpness, and since black is neutral it doesn't contribute any color shifts.
On sunny days when often I would be struggling otherwise, like the summer afternoon Milenci came over for our shoot, the chaos of harsh dappled light is softened, and turned into the hazy dream we often use to romanticize summer. I love this blur. To create images with somebody that feel all together separate from our reality, paint an image that we can relax into.
