I have to pick a mentor? How about one that stages crime scenes!

Cindy Sherman may not be the mentor that most people would chose but for some reason I found some of her photographs the most interesting. However, I must admit that at first I chose the photographer Weegee as my mentor because most of his photos are of crime scenes like murders, but when I tried to recreate a murder myself I was told that it had absolutely nothing to do with that photographer. It turns out that Cindy Sherman is the photographer known for staging crime scenes and taking photos of them. She also tends to use highlights and shadows to make she photos stand out. She also tends to take photos from the chest up so that you can really focus on the face of the subject better. And the most important thing that I notice about her photos is that they are all able to tell a story, and I mean every single part of the story of the person in the photo, from how they died to where they ended up. And though it may not be that much of a shock I find that her photos kind of remind me of all the crime shows I’m so obsessed with, and this means everything from C.S.I to Criminal Minds. And because of my addiction to these shows it is probably why I found this particular photographer so interesting.

So in my confusion I staged a murder by using Rachel as the dead body and having her die of exsanguination (also known as bleeding to death because of the severed artery in the neck). And yes, as I said before I watch way too many crime shows. So to create the crime scene that I had in my mind I made fake blood by mixing ketchup, water, and grenadine (the red syrup at the bottom of a Shirley temple) and was able to bring that to school in a water bottle. Then I basically told Rachel to act like a dead body and try not to laugh… which did not work at all since I originally wanted Armand to be a C.S.I and his posing caused them both to go into a 5 min laughing fit. So in the end I got 2 pictures that I liked the most and put them into black and white and used Photoshop to make the contrasts of my photos have a little more depth, and of course I added a little more fake blood.

In the end I was able to get a good amount of highlights and shadows on her face so that I could emulate the lighting that Cindy Sherman used along with the staging of the crime scene. I also tried to make my photos just as striking as Cindy Sherman did so that they would be able to stand out in a crowed of photos and also be able to tell a story just like her photos are able to. All in all I think that this specific photographer, Cindy Sherman, ended up being the perfect photographer for me, and I was able to be creative in creating the crime scene that I staged. Basically this was probably one of my favorite photo projects.