My assignment for Project II was to recreate an old memory or memories to serve as an autobiography. I decided not to do a specific memory for my series, but rather a generalization of my past relationships. You’ll notice that Bo’s entire face is never clearly visible in a single frame and she is often partially hidden by light. My decision for this revolves around the concept that we can never really trust our memories to be completely accurate as time goes on. Also, despite the level of closeness and intimacy that eventually develops towards the end of the series, I never got the opportunity to really know the person. At the end of it all, she’s just a body and an empty face.

I tried my best to replicate a nostalgic, almost dreamy feel for the series without the use of Photoshop. In fact, Blur is almost completely unedited. My Project I series, Lifted relied heavily on Photoshop and so I wanted to handle Project II a little differently. The soft focus throughout the series and dreamy lighting was created using a small pink tutu (not a typo, we’re working with a legit tutu here) that I picked up from a dollar store. The tutu was covered in rhinestones and I cut up the fabric to create a “veil” for my camera lens. The rhinestone veil served several purposes. It softened and desaturated my photographs, added a purple tint that was more or less visible depending on the strength of my light, and reflected light into white rays that I could use to hide Bo’s face.

And in case you haven’t been keeping up with them, click here to view the Project II previews.

This is Bo, the star for my latest assignment.

Don’t forget to check out the rest of the Project II previews.

Okay, so here are the details of Project II, which drops on February 22. The assignment is based on the concept of memories, in which the photographer creates an autobiography using these limited pictures. One of the hardest obstacles I’ve run into during this project was finding a way to create dreamy, nostalgic images. I wanted my photographs to give off the feeling of being looked at through a flashback.

Now usually the answer would simply entail some Photoshop work. Something along the lines of desaturated colors, soft focus, over exposed highlights, etc. etc. come to my mind when I think of a picture memory. As easy this may be able to do in Photoshop, one of my goals in the project was to avoid Photoshop as much as possible. And so the problem remains, “how do I add these dreamy elements without Photoshop?”

That’s where this comes in.

This is the remains of a ballerina’s tutu that I picked up at the local dollar store. It’s see through, pink, and covered in little rhinestones. I had the idea for this from shooting my friend through a bed canopy during my Project I assignment. The photo below should explain how I’m using the tutu. It’s acting as a light reflector and tinted filter.

Here’s another raw sample from Project II, just for Valentine’s Day.

First preview shot for Project II! Unedited, straight from the camera.

I’ll be releasing more previews as the week goes on. The actual project will be up on February 22.