BLK - Reflections on my best photograph

A dark, poignant scene illuminated by a thin slit of moonlight. A fresh rose held loosely in the clutches of a cold, lifeless hand. A lover, dead at the doorstep of his beloved. Someone was murdered here, and it's our job to find out who did it.

In this photo, I've used a high angle close up, focused on the rose and the hand that held it. The surroundings are very dark, the room was completely blacked out save for the little stream of light. The rose suggests that the limp hand belongs to someone who was going to meet his girlfriend when he was killed, while the dark surroundings could connote an alleyway, or night time. These both represent the crime/detective genre as they both exclude mystery and create suspense. As a film still, we can't see the face of the victim, so we don't know who he is, or what kind of person he was, but the rose seems to imply that he was a faithful lover who cared about his girlfriend. The darkness excludes a sinister aura and the audience may be afraid of the unknowns, such as the killer and the setting.

I accomplished the effect by having my model lie down on the carpet and relax his hand, while I placed the rose in his hand so that it would look like a natural position for it to be when he 'collapsed' onto the ground. I used just a thin slit of light from the pack light, which was held low to cast a shadow from the rose across the hand and to illuminate the hand and give the illusion of night, or a back alley. I set the camera to macro and turned off the flash to make it as dark as possible.

I think that the successful things in my shot are that the model really looks dead and that the rose was placed right, so that the shot worked. The darkness really helps to give the impression that the victim was isolated and alone. The rose is in focus, so you can tell that it's the main focal point of the photo. These things all add up and the photo excludes a tangible aura of mystery and murder.

However, it's not perfect. Preferably, I'd have had the photo done on a gravel ground instead of carpet, maybe at a different angle, or showing more of the victim. I might add a few more props, for example, a ring maybe. Overall, though, I'm very pleased with this photo.