If smoking was a joke, you'd be the clown

After researching into clowns and clown portraiture i wanted to experiment with recreating this within my own practice. I wanted to produce a set of clever and controversial images surrounding the ways in which i felt best represented the idiocy which comes from smoking. As these pieces were experiments i decided to test out a number of different poses, angles, distance, facial expressions and body language as by doing would give me a good idea of both the best and the worst to use in my final shoot. To begin this process i set up a tripod along with placing a chair in front of a white background as i found that this would allow greater colour contrast when editing than that of black which would both restrict me with colours as well as lighting.

When shooting i began by wanting to capture the actual process of smoking as though i was unaware the camera was there yet still keeping a portraiture like appearance. I wanted to capture a daily and common process such as the lighting of a cigarette, something which is commonly seen. With the addition of a clowns face i wanted to symbolize the joker or clown in which the act of smoking makes someone appear even in a regular or common situation. After this i decided to experiment with using different facial expressions attempting to interact with the viewer creating over exaggerated poses playing on portraying a mindless and ignorant notion still with the inclusion of the cigarette in shot. I wanted the cigarette to be the main attraction of the photos, something in which i couldn't keep my eyes off  like a prized possession meaning more to me than anything else in that photo. Doing so i felt would automatically lead the viewers attention to this, turning it into the main focal point of the photo. I then began by altering the shutter speed  as i wanted to capture the flame and smoke coming from the cigarette and lighter but on an unrealistic surreal level. Although this did work on certain photos unfortunately it didn't seem to work the way i wanted mainly resulting in blurred and unclear images taking away the detail in the photos. I also wanted the photos to display an over colourful appearance working in contrast with the childish clown like feel, this was best done when edited as the white background alongside using tungsten lighting resulted in a green bluey hue which i feel worked brilliantly next to the red and whites of the makeup, forcing the foreground to become a much more brighter and attention centered aspect of the photo. This will defiantly be something which i will be using in my final shots yet i do feel that the lighting may change this slightly depending on the angle and distance.

Overall the main aim behind these photos are to show how smokers on a a daily basis are the clowns of the smoking industry  they themselves are the jokers, the ones who yet alone know that what they do is killing them yet they still persist on the act leaving behind the trail of failed attempts and ignorance which only others can see. Personally i feel that i have achieved this and am happy with the photos produced, i think if i was to do this again i would change the clothing to something more relatable such as business wear or club wear as well as changing the background to somewhere commonly associated with smoking such as a pub, club or building walls, as by doing so i feel would again add a personal level to the photos working in relationship to that of the viewers past and personal experiences of smoking. I also feel that this worked dramatically better than that of the sticking tobacco to my face idea, as i feel it not only got the same point across but with a more visual entertaining and aesthetically pleasing factor.