Photography & Hand Cut Paper: The Hooded Rider

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I created this in a Photography 1 in Fall, 2021. This was the culmination of a semester of learning a new artistic tool that I had no previous experience with. For this final project, I explore the interplay between reality and fantasy. Between shadow and light. Between the possible and impossible. I have always been fascinated by shadows and silhouettes, as well as the seeming delicacy, yet simultaneous fortitude of paper as a medium. I chose to examine taking an innately two-dimensional medium (paper) and trick the eye into seeing it exists in a three-dimensional space using purely spacing, lighting, and a shallow depth of field.

I first sketched and hand cut the layers of the scene. I wanted to evoke an eerie, mystical, fantastical sense with these photos, so I designed the scene to match. Once all of the layers were cut, I attached each to a piece of loose plexiglass using miniature clamps. I didn't want to adhere them directly in case they needed to be shifted at all during the shoot. Each layer of plexigrass was inserted into a piece of foam, spaced 1/2 inch apart.

I played with the lighting a lot and settled on two cooler lights coming in from either side, and a single warm light coming in from the back. This gave the illusion of dawn/dusk, which is the atmosphere I was aiming to evoke. I used a tripod so that I didn't have to worry about my shutter speed, and set a timer so that there was no shakiness capture in the long exposure. This gave e the flexibility to play with my depth of field until I settled on an aperture that worked best for the shot.