How I created - 'You can never leave'

A deep dive into my Hotel California 70's hit inspired photograph...

This blog post will give a detailed insight into the momentous works behind one of my favourite images. The how's, the why's, where did it come from? Ready yourself, cause this one's got a history, right lets get to it with the early beginnings...

An Idea...

My Idea stemmed from wanting to go BIG. I had learnt quite a bit throughout the year and, as autumn arrived, I wanted to show off my talents with a large scale series of photo shoots. For context, at this time I had no studio of my own, no money for models, no money for anything after purchasing my first vinyl backdrop. The essence of a backdrop is big for me when doing portrait photography. It allows me to focus solely on the actions and attributes of the subject, the part that best tells a story. distracting background objects might help bring an aesthetic, but in most cases I find a preference in leaving the story telling to the person in frame. Anyhow, you get my predicament, I would be needing a bit of help to get the results I'd want.

The Idea for using music as inspiration for a set of photos came out of, well...listing to music. I wanted to match each songs feeling and emotion with an equally portrayed photograph, one that carried a feel similar to when you listen to that song, whether a buzz or a feeling of freedom or perhaps nostalgia. Hotel California came into my head as this legendary, timeless piece with a double identity. On one plainly visible hand, it is a song about a hotel which you 'can never leave' but on the other hand, It is a masterpiece that sums up addiction, and it's ability to contain you through the unalterable faculty of relapse, through a powerful metaphor. The guitar in the song summons impending doom and is a powerful addition, I knew I wanted to portray this in my photograph. Luckily I had a guitar which fit the bill. In my mind I imagined this tall figure standing on his tip-toes, knees bent, jamming it out sort of attempting to 'burst out of himself' metaphorically. This would be my homage to the songs inner meaning, the guitar a symbol of its musical roots. To portray the more visible aspect of the song, the part which most people would recognise it with, I decided on dressing my subject as a hotel bell boy, the cap would be recognisable and synonymous with a vintage sort of classic vibe, also portraying the era the song derived from. I wanted the subject to be young as this, in my eyes, resonates with vulnerability and innocence, the same kind which addiction exploits. Finally, my colour pallet was purple and blue. Can't pinpoint why exactly, perhaps the blue guitar was my subconscious inspiration for that. I think purple has associations to feelings of creativity and expression, while other colours invoke more powerful feelings which I wanted to avoid. I didn't want the colour to outshine the character.

Kian Assemble...

These Ideas were a wonder and all but it all meant rubbish if I couldn't get hold of my bell boy and a space sufficient enough to house my flashy new backdrop. I started contacting places around my local city, enquiring about rates and available space. I nearly spent the big bucks on renting a studio with money I didn't have but instead, an option from the photographer heavens opened it's gates. As I was still under 18, I was able to get a hold of a community funded space underground that was set up for young creatives. Whilst there wasn't a dedicated photography area, I was still able to convince them to let me down there for a whole day with my models and my gear. at zero cost...what a win! As soon as I knew I was in, I got to work getting contacts for potential models. I sent my Nan off on a mission to gather my props, apart from the guitar, she visited the local charity shop to gather me an old blue waistcoat with golden buttons. The trousers were school uniform and the hat was made out of cardboard, yeah, that's what I call a budget.

Since I was planning other music inspired shoots, I had a few models to grab. A distant person I knew was happy to travel down with his mum during their trip and both star in my photo's on the account I gave them their own digital copies. And that was it, the stage was set for snapping some pictures...

Nearly a disaster...

On the day of photos, me and my equipment met with my models, I set up swiftly so as to not keep them waiting. When the time came to bring on my bell boy, I set up the purple coloured lights as well as my soft-box lighting. I had brought along two small LED lights to set up from a low angle, to replicate a sort of stage floor light and to project that mighty look that resonates with the song . Whilst projecting a perfect colour tone onto the guitar and skin of my subject, this lighting proved too distracting when illuminating my backdrop. The other issue I ran into was just how tall my bell boy model was for the backdrop, in fact, I had initially wanted to frame the picture horizontally but by this point, that Idea was a whimsical dream. The poor guy was struggling to keep his legs up whilst I biffed around with my framing and settings, eventually I had to wrap it up but I was not optimistic about the results. I started to plan a world where I had only three photo shoots to show, it was that bad. I had initially planned five but one had already been compromised due to model unavailability. This was a let down that could only be saved by an editing miracle...

The edit...

Though unhappy about the shoot, I was still going to try salvage the results through some clever editing. Side fact, I actually edited this photo shoot before any of the others, so that I could save the best till last, at least I thought. At the time I only used Photoshop for editing, I didn't know how to mask and I was relatively new to the layering system. To repair the backdrop, I carved out my subject manually and replaced it with a brighter, less colourful version. Although it was not an easy task, the results were mind-blowing once the subject was placed onto the new backdrop. My hope was restored and I got to work with fine tune adjustments. I used only the colour sliders adding slight blue shadows and yellow highlights to give a more natural contrast. Nowadays, I would use the colour wheel to colour grade and masking to select certain areas to fine tune but back then, I was a tad less advanced. Finally, a touch of sharpening and I was finished. I always like to take an hour away from my image before giving green light, that way I get a refreshed look at the photo which helps me see the immediate hiccups. This time it was all good however, and I exported to reveal the world.

A favourite...

to this day I still enjoy looking at this photograph, reminding me of my early achievements and how far I have come. For me, the level of standard that I managed to reach at such a low cost was my biggest achievement, but on a broader scale, this image brought me one step closer to where I am now, having learnt many things, and who knows where I may be years on. Perhaps one day I will re-visit a Hotel California themed photo shoot with a bigger budget and more importantly a bigger Idea.