As
Art director, what advantages does the larger format give you over A Midsummer
Night's Faery Tale?
The larger format literally expands
the world. It gives the viewer a greater sense of the landscape surrounding the
figures. The use of portrait format instead of square gives the book a more classical
feel.
Does photography
of this type require special preparation or technique?
The photography requires a lot of special
preparation. Once the set is in place, it must be lit just as you would light
a small film set. The photographer spends hours creating the lighting effects
that are needed for each shot.
About how
long does it take to photograph one of the pictures in the book?
The photos usually took a day each
to shoot. The sets took two to three days to complete although we built in pieces
so that they could be moved and changed as quickly as possible once the elements
were made up.
The snow
looks so real: how did you make it?
The snow was made using a combination
of things. I dusted the trees with talcum powder and then we covered the set in
dendritic salt. It is a type of salt that retains moisture so it can be molded
in to shape as snow can. We then covered the salt with a light sprinkling of epsom
salts to give it a sparkle. It was an odd experience to be in a small, hot room
with a set that looked so cold!
Could you
give us a sense of the size of the sets for THE WINTER CHILD?
We shot all of the photos in our studio
shed in our garden. The shed itself is quite small and the actual platform we
built the sets on is only seven feet wide by five feet deep. The height of the
sets was between five and six feet tall. Its always an interesting challenge to
create a sense of depth in such a small space.
What was
different in your process of creating the sets and backgrounds from A Midsummer
Night's Faery Tale and The Winter Child?
The sets were much more ambitious on
this book. We had running water (and a flooded studio!), very large interiors
with candlelight and firelight, large exterior buildings (the stone tower was
almost four feet tall) and much more depth to the sets themselves opening up larger
vistas.
© Wendy Froud
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