Night Shift Final Edit

After much deliberating and jiggling around I think I have got my final edit. I have also worked quotes from the workers into the image to give more of an insight as to the reasons why they have chosen this life for themselves.

Faces of night

Recently been suffering quite bad with insomnia due to medication I am taking. While sitting up on one of my very late nights started thinking about other people that are awake while most people are sleeping. There seems to be this whole world that exists outside the normal world that only ever sees black skies and a white sun. I decided to look at ways I could approach this through my photography, what is it that makes people become nocturnal? Some do it out of necessity others, like myself, have no choice in the matter. To start with I decided to look at those that do it out of necessity by spending a few nights with people that work the night shift in a big supermarket. While I have a broad selection of shots I am unsure of how to approach the treatment of them so this is what I would really appreciate feedback on. These are just a few of the images, click to view larger.

 

I did find that due to the monotony of the work that a lot of the images were repeating themselves as everyone was pretty much doing the same thing. The thing I am looking at most of all with this work is the people so I decided to shoot a series of portraits of each of the night workers as another possibility of where this work could go. Again these are just a few of the portraits.

 

Time to hunt down some insomniacs!!!! If anyone knows any please put me in touch with them!

Few shots for publishing module

Finally had time to sit down with the portraits for the publishing module got a couple I wanted to stick up for people to have a peruse of. After playing with many different styles for the portraits in Photoshop I decided to go for the more natural look in the end. I am also considering layout possibilities for the final book so any comments would be more than welcome.

 

Test shots for major project development

For my major project I am planning on looking at people who for one reason or another are living on the outskirts of society. I am just starting a mini project to lead into the major project where i am shadowing a long haul driver who works through the night. I want to look at the affect his nocturnal lifestyle has on his perception of and interaction with the world around him. As most of this is going to be shot during the dead of night I am planning on shooting it in black and white as can be more forgiving in low light. I decided to go for a test shoot to see how my D2X copes with the low light and noise. I took a couple of portraits lit by an artificial light source, in this case a monitor and the experimented with shutter speed out on the street. Have a look through and let me know if you have any tips on the aesthetic.