Behind the Lens: No Body, No Crime! Murder Mystery Inspired Self Portraits
- Nov 21, 2022
- 3 min read
In the spirit of October, last year I decided to start a new series on my Instagram, where I shot creative portraits inspired by all things Halloween for the month of October. This included a self portrait inspired by the Taylor Swift song ‘no body no crime’ and it was very popular with my Instagram audience. Since this concept was so well received, I decided that this week, I would take you behind the thought process of my biggest self portrait concept so far. It included several wardrobe changes and a lot of post production, so I hope this blog will give you an insight into how I navigate more complex self portraits and perhaps inspire you to shoot your own.
Before we begin, I thought I would mention that you can find all the behind the scenes footage and unseen images from this self portrait shoot over on my Instagram. They are a year old now, so you may have to scroll, but that just means you can find more content to enjoy on your search!
Inspiration
As previously stated, the main inspiration for this series was ‘No Body No Crime’ by Taylor Swift. I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift and I loved the way this song in particular really created a narrative as you listened. It made me think of murder-mystery games such as Cluedo and books such as ‘The Dinner Guest’ by B P Walter (which I am currently reading!) where you’re waiting to find out who the murderer is. Collectively, this led to a visual in my head of ‘murder-mystery meets comedy crossover’ movie.
Styling Character Wardrobe
After dissecting the song over a few listens, I knew I had four characters to play with: the victim, the mistress, the alibi and of course, the murderer. Often when I listen to music, I can picture a specific look or visual for the final product, in this instance, I was able to picture the wardrobe of some of the characters and developed the remaining ones from there.
I knew the mistress would be wearing gloves and some kind of uniform, so I went with a black shirt and blue cleaning gloves, the kind you see in true crime movies where the suspect is desperate to keep any possible evidence hidden. For the actual murderer, I went with a similar wardrobe with a slight difference in pattern on the shirt. When you listen to the song, it feels as if there is a connection between the mistress and the murderer, and the mistress is wrongly convicted, so I wanted that feeling to be portrayed through the styling of both characters through similar, but different wardrobes.
The styling for the victim was completely inspired by a character in ‘The Dinner Guest’ as it was centred around a dinner party. I often repurpose a lot of items in my wardrobe for photoshoots when I can, and so I used a fur coat from a previous photoshoot for this character. I additionally added a glass of wine for her prop, because what’s a dinner party without wine!
Finally, I decided to keep the styling for the alibi very minimal. I felt that this character needed to look understated and make the audience unsure as to if she can be trusted. Now that we have our characters finalised and ready, it was time to shoot.
The Shoot and Post-Production
During the time this was shot, I was still utilising the small space within my bedroom where I had set up a white fabric backdrop and one continuous light. There was very little space, so I was limited to shooting from the torso, upwards. The most difficult aspect of the shoot was definitely the post-production element as it involved a lot of cutting out, masking, and retouching to end up with a cinematic style image. Nevertheless, here are the final images!
I hope this gave you more of an idea of how I create more complex self-portrait images. There are several steps including research, planning and styling to name a few before I even get in front of the camera. Often, the photoshoot is actually the quickest aspect of the process! It’s great when everything comes together and extremely rewarding to see your creative vision come to life.
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