Brad Carlile

Brad Carlile is a contemporary photographer, who is most well known for his extreme use of colour in his photographs, such as the one above. His photographs almost have a 3D effect, which is something that I'd like to try and recreate and experiment with in my own photographs. The extreme use of colour is interesting and grabs the attention of the viewer. It appears unnatural yet it is appealing to the eye. In this photograph (as well as the other photographs from his collection), there appears to be some use of double exposure, if you look at the chair. This could be because of a slow shutter speed when using the different lighting, or he could have just used double exposure to create an interesting effect. 

In a lot of his photographs from this collection, he uses a mirror to show the rest of the image. I think that the use of the mirror is important as it reflects more light - rather than just taking the picture of the bed. It also makes the room appear bigger and more colourful, and we can also see more of the room. It's almost like an illusion. The photographs are from a collection titled Neon Hotel Interiors, and there are several different styles of interiors, but they still all have the interesting lighting - making them relatable. 

"Each image takes two or three days to create from three to nine exposures at different times of the day. All work is done in camera on film and no colored bulbs or gels are used" 

Although these photographs are dramatic, intense and bold, I feel like they are still quite simplistic in what is actually in the photograph. They would be quite easy to recreate as the room is fairly normal. If you were creating it in camera, you could use different coloured lights, and if you were creating it in photoshop, you could add in colours and change the layer types so that they look more 'natural'. 

I also really like how in the room, although there are several lamps/lights, only one is turned on (in the mirror reflection). This brings a warmer glow to the photograph and makes the setting appear more real, even though there are lots of strong and vibrant colours everywhere. 

Overall, I personally really like his artwork. I think that the use of colour is interesting as well as unique, and can make a fairly boring and basic setting detailed and will captivate the viewers' attention. I think that you could incorporate this technique into any setting, and change the colours if you wanted a particular theme or make it reflect the surroundings in the photograph. I think that it is an interesting new way to do light painting, rather than just photographing traffic at night on a slow shutter speed, or using a laser pen to draw or spell out words. It is something that I am interested in recreating myself, and perhaps even going on to explore 3D photography. 

It would also be interesting to experiment with different settings using this effect, and perhaps even looking at portraiture with either just the model with all of the colours or just the setting. I think that it would also be worth experimenting with different colour palettes - perhaps one using bold colours and the other using just pastels, or something like that. 

More photographs from the collection: