Thought Piece 4

            Reading this section of “The Hot Shoe Diaries” enlightened me to different things that I didn’t think were possible while taking your exposures or that I just simply didn’t even think of. Some of these things, I thought you could only achieve in the post-production while editing. These techniques included creating double exposures in camera rather than in post-production, lighting MRIs so that they’re visible, lighting with different colors at different angles, and even just lighting the surrounding area to make it look bigger and like it just keeps going for a while. He especially did this last one quite a few times in this section.

            The double exposures in camera were one of the first things he talked about in this section, and it was actually really interesting, probably one of the most interesting things in this book so far to me. I’ll be honest, with how confused I get with this book sometimes, I tend to get a little bored with it, but this actually made a little sense to me and captured my attention, relieving me of my bored-ness. It was actually kind of funny afterwards too because I was scrolling on social media and a video of someone doing double exposures in their camera at a wedding popped up, very funny how things work out like that sometimes. I think that if my camera has the settings to do this, I might like to try it sometime.

            When the section about McNally getting an email and doing a shoot of a guy with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) came up, it intrigued me right away. My dad has MS and it always seems very rare to be reading something and all of a sudden MS pops up. I feel like growing up, I never really heard of anybody having it besides my dad, so I thought it was kind of a rare condition until this year. So far this semester, this is the second book that I’ve had to read that talks about someone having MS and I think that’s really cool (obviously not that they have it because it really sucks but that I’m hearing about it more). Anyways, I thought that the idea McNally had when it came to shooting this portrait was really interesting. The way that he wanted to light the MRIs and have them covering the background to show the story of this man and his struggles with MS taking a toll on his everyday life, especially with his son. This all just kind of resonated with me because I somewhat understand, I mean, I don’t really have a “normal” father daughter dynamic because of him having MS so I get how it can be difficult not only for him but also his son.

            Some of the examples that McNally talks about in this section really kind of have motivated me more to try to experiment with different portraiture techniques and lighting in the future. Also to start thinking outside the box whenever I am doing portraits and think about things I can add to make the surrounding area interesting while still emphasizing the individual.