Blood For My Valentines

Welcomes to the behind the scenes of my bloody portraits!

This is an example of one of my spontaneous quick ideas that I develop the urge to create. As it was the month of valentines I decided to make use of the reds and roses, however, after creating the first test this did not quite feel true to my work and myself. What could be missing? What is it lacking? I was not aiming for a complex portrait session but it still did not feel right. My solution was blood of course! What says romance like a vampire murder scene!

I used my trusty bed sheet over the umbrella to the side as the key light with another umbrella as the fill in front. Feathering the key light is something that I enjoy experimenting with in my portraiture. The red background was a piece of material previously covering a chair and the flooring is something that I often use as a table for other projects that I find has a sense of character from the worn and weathered appearance. This was something that I found in a skip, originally an old gate that had battled the weather and found the end of its use. So, there I am dragging it out of the skip with my new splinters, taking it to the studio to meet all my other forgotten oddities.