Photographing Frankenstein Essay Example

I chose two scenes that I thought had a major impact on the story (the creation of the creature and the death of Henry Clerval) as well as one of the main ideas (isolation) to create my own interpretations of Frankenstein. My main focuses for the composition of the photographs were the usage of color, lighting, and location. All of these are very important, as color can portray emotions and personality, lighting can create a sense of warmth or coldness, and location creates the overall idea of the photograph.

For the first photograph in my three-part series, The Creation of Destruction, I used the positioning of the model and the model’s expression to make the desperation and exhaustion that Victor felt while creating the creature very striking. I wanted the person looking at the image to be able to feel the emotions that Victor was feeling at that moment. I used the light of a single candle to portray the depression Victor was falling into (the only part of Victor’s world that was producing any light and happiness/satisfaction was his progress on the creature) as well as the isolation he forced upon himself.  The lighting provided by the candle cast harsh shadows on the face of the model, creating an even deeper sense of the troublesome emotions and struggles that Victor was facing. I used an aging technique to age the paper that Victor was writing on, not only to make the image slightly more accurate to the time period but also to signify the amount of time that Victor spent working on the ideas and science that went into the creation of the creature. The crossed-out equations and sketches and crumpled pieces of paper represented the amount of work and effort he put into making the creature perfect. I used small touches such as a fancy black shirt and a fountain pen to get the time period and the drama of the scene across.

Why Can’t They See Me? is the second installment of my series, depicting the isolation and hatred that the creature felt. I staged a busy area full of people enjoying their time together to create contrast against the creature, who is by himself and feels lonely. None of the extra models in the image are looking at him, as I wanted it to seem like he was invisible despite the number of people surrounding him. I used color and saturation to illustrate the contrast between the happy people and the dejected creature. I upped the saturation and changed the hue to make the image warmer, all things that are used to portray joy and happiness, and then used a brush to make the creature himself black and white. To make his sorrow even more apparent, I made the image of the creature harsher by making the lines sharper and the shadows darker. In order to have my model actually look like the creature rather than a regular human, I cut out his form and enlarged it to make it seem like he was seven to eight feet tall. I also added a slightly yellow tint to the highlights of the image to give him the appearance of a dead body. Rather than just guessing what his skin would look like, I referenced the stages of human decomposition and determined that he would most likely be preserved in the bloating stage, hence the yellowish tint to his skin.

The final piece, Dead and Gone, depicts the death of Henry Clerval. To stay as true to the original text as possible, I shot this photo on the bank of a river. Although I shot the photograph during the day, I edited the white balance, saturation, exposure, and hue of the photo to make it seem like it was taken at night. I used the blue hue not only to make it seem like it was night in the image but also to illustrate the foreboding and fear the image produced in Victor’s heart. I made the area around Clerval’s neck purple for two reasons. The main reason is more literal: to represent the strangulation that he died from. The second reason is much more symbolic: to represent Clerval’s passion that was quickly cut short. I did not change any of the colorations of Clerval’s body (other than the blue and purple hues), as his body was still warm and fresh in the novel. I used the clear sky and steady motion of the river to create a sense of calm that contrasted with the terror that the image of a dead body creates the impression of.