Technique explained
For the Canadiana Martyrdom Series, Diana Thorneycroft employed a surprising technique to arrive at her final product.
She first indulges in the art of building miniature theatre sets, designing perspective with a variety of toys, dolls, figurines, objects and miniature decors. She paints them. She arranges them. Once the landscape and scene have been installed, the blocking of the characters complete, she sets her digital camera on a tripod.
With the framing right, she then turns off all the lights in her studio. She opens fully the shutter of her camera. And in complete darkness, she takes a small flashlight and she paints.
She paints the most light on the elements that she wants to bring forth in the composition. She fleetingly paints on the background and other less important elements.
Once satisfied that she has painted light on all the elements, she closes the shutter, turns on the lights and looks at the image. If there is not enough light on the right accents, she goes back and starts afresh, painting another exposure until she gets it just right.
After the image has been captured on camera she spends hours in photoshop tweaking the work. She selects the best photograph to become the core image, but it’s never perfect. She cuts and pastes parts from other exposures until all the details are realized. She lightens some elements, she darken others, and does a bit of drawing and layering of textures.
Once deemed final, the images are then printed on a large format, glossy paper at a professional photo lab.
