Fishbone photo arts group

The past couple of weeks Gaz (http://www.flatfrogimaging.com/) and I have been working on the latest project for the fish bone photo arts group (http://fishbone-photoarts.blogspot.com/).

This group meets at the Fishbone gallery, Longford in Coventry. All are welcome. (www.fishbone-gallery.co.uk)

This months project was to recreate a painting using photographic techniques. As with most good ideas my idea came to me when we went to the pub after the last meeting. I wanted to recreate a Caravaggio painting that I saw on a visit to the Vatican City a few years ago. After a bit of research I realised that that painting I was thinking of was the entombment of Christ by Caravaggio. This raised a the issue of actually being able to recreate the painting due to the large number of people to cast. See below:

After a look through 'Caravaggio by Catherine Puglisi' another image caught my eye. 'Judith beheading Holofernes' was interesting proposal, the lighting and set design appealed to me as well as the three subjects. I immediately asked Gaz on board as a collaboration project as his photographic skill were going to be an integral part of the shoot.

Gaz and I immediately thought of the ideal Judith, Joanne Billingham, who is an actress that Gaz has worked with previously that had an uncanny resemblance to Judith. We researched props and arranged the photo shoot. Gaz was cast as Holofernes (with a bit of convincing) and with less than a week to go we got Jon to play the part of 'the Hag'. We shot on Tuesday in a studio at Coventry University where I work. I wanted to try to recreate the lighting and postures as accurately as possible, which I think we pulled of quite well.

A big thanks goes to these guys for helping out, without every ones input we couldn't of pulled this off!

Gaz and I will unveil the photo this Tuesday at the next meeting of the Fishbone photo arts group. See you there!

Kev