Just one year ago after filming several short pieces in front of a fire place with a stylized crenulated top rail it was time to pack away. The wind had picked up and there was an eerie feel to the Blue Room as the windows rattled and the floor boards creaked in the early hours of the morning. It was a perfect time to be in a lonely castle with a camera, lights and costumes. For a finale it was decided to attempt some long exposures to see if we could capture a little of the spirit of the place. This was a photographic endeavour that delivered results which inspire the mind to conjure with etheric possibilities.
This collection of intense images was created using available light photographic techniques to record the atmosphere in Featherstone Castle where the ghostly spectre of the Bloody Bride is said to return. These long exposures allowed for our model to move and to create more than one image of themselves in a single exposure. The lights that they carried form trails and the same lights were used to create the shapes such as the five pointed star. In creating these long exposures the ambient light and the LED light sources mix in a combination that due to the movement of the model and the angle of the lights is never quite repeatable. This one off technique for each picture was used in an attempt to form a link to the evocative atmosphere of the castle.
Featherstone Castle has sections dating back to the Thirteenth Century. There are ornate stone works throughout the castle which have been added to over the centuries. The many alterations have brought into being a fantastic collection of styles and of designs. One after another section has been built and often the sections have been reformed leaving us with a quite intriguing result. The passageways lead to peculiar junctions that turn at sharp angles and lead off in several implausible directions. The widths of the halls change as you step over and through the evident seams from one era of construction into another. The stairs to the towers all differ from each other and all seem to lead to hidden nooks and crannies that may still hold on to historic mysteries.
These pictures were designed to be atmospheric and to literally open up the camera to take in the surroundings over a long exposure. They have been enhanced in Photoshop to make them brighter and sharper, but they have not been added to. The effects that you see in the pictures were created spontaneously. A short film presentation of the pictures is available on YouTube. The film opens with the cosmic six rayed star followed by the earthly five pointed sigil and we close in reverse sequence with a five pointed star and then a six to finish. The film notes ask you to look out for Baphomet the Templar idol, the Ram Goat of Mendes with Daigon appendages and the eye of Nuit the heart of Hadit and the hawk’s beak of Ra all in a single transfiguration of light. This strange shape was not designed by the model when they danced in front of the open camera holding LED lights. The image is available in the set posted on Flickr.
Sometimes in film and photography there is a magical element that completes your intended design better than you could have hoped for. There is no claim here that the pictures are made by otherworldly forces. Our eyes are trained to recognize shapes and to deliver certain stimulus in a way that our brains can process it. We are all constantly looking for symbols and a structure on which to form our vision of the world. It is always good to see how our vision can so easily be altered and how our interpretation of the world before us is dependent on the way we choose to view all phenomenon. These images may make shapes for you that no one else sees. Whatever we see from this side of the lens it was not what the model saw when they danced with the Bloody Bride of Featherstone Castle.
HD film on YouTube
©2010 PHH Sykes
Edinburgh Festival Fringe Fancies
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