Robert Hardgrave Rapture Suit
So Robert Hardgrave mentioned this suit he made to me a few months ago. He brought it in for me to look at and we set up a date to photograph him wearing the thing. I shot him against a white backdrop I bought from the home depot. There was a lot of negative space so we ran outside and ripped off a bunch of Ivy from a nearby building. I draped some Ivy here and there and threw down a few leaves in the foreground. I even used some of the potted plants hanging out at the frameshop. It all helped and helped top break up the white a bit. I shot the front a back of the suit with him standing up. It is difficult to shoot someone standing for 6 second especially wearing an uncomfortable and hot suit made of canvas remnants. The fact that Robert could not see anything didn’t help either. The first shot came out way to soft from the motion blur so then I used the head held down with a sandbag and had him steady himself against it. I wrapped the base with white linen so the legs would not appear in the shot. Exposure was at f/8 for 5- 6 seconds using the big brass Bausch and lomb Tessar f4.5. The second shot was sharper but over exposed to be a positive but should make for a great negative. There was a total of 5 shots and with good exposure and good sharpness. The back of the suit was the last shot and I developed it unevenly on purpose. Robert mentioned he like the artifacts left by letting the developer pool and sit on certain areas longer so that is why is looks so wild. The suit is for a new show in Denver.
rapture suit front
rapture suit back