Reflecting from my latest shoot in Thailand, I found my images slightly resembled the idea of film noir, despite me shooting in colour. This is represented where the light is captured softly on the floor of the imagery and there are no clear focuses on the people of the images. Some influences in this genre of film/photography
is ‘Raging Bull’ Martin Scorsese and also Fritz Lang’s work because of their lighting conditions used in the films. Raging Bull particularly due to the scene filmed with Robert De Niro in the cell, where the lighting in low, however only small amount of light has projected itself on to the actor. When taking a still from this film, it however differs largely to the work I have created, however the stylistic idea of the subjected light links to my first experimentation. Lang’s work relates a lot closer to the work I have recently created, as the stills I have chosen use the same concept of lighting and street photography style photographs. Film noir was originally coined by French film critics as they noticed that many American crime and detective films were dark, downbeat and black imagery throughout, representing the ‘chilly’ Cold War period.
Tyler Bishop-Harris 