[Snyder Cosplay] Reverse: 1999 light and shadow Huaxu

When shooting this set of Snyder photos, Beijing happened to experience a temperature drop, and the outdoor wind made people shiver. But the moment I saw the straight out of camera photos, I felt it was all worth it, enduring the dust and freezing in the abandoned building. This red dress was actually modified by myself; the original cut was a bit too long, so I cut it open along the side, and then combined it with a black coat to tone down the large area of red visually so it wouldn't look too thin. Layered pearl necklaces plus that red flower hair accessory instantly gave off that Snyder vibe. Two prop guns were originally prepared, one long and one short; after trying them out on-site, the short one was more flexible to spin in hand, fitting the character's light yet dangerous feel.
What gave me the biggest headache on the shooting day was actually the lighting. The original red ambient light in the scene was very heavy, and if the character wasn't lit, it was easy to blend into the background. So we used a powerful incandescent lamp as a rim backlight. The umbrella-holding photo in Figure 3 used the umbrella surface to block part of the light source, creating edge lighting and glare. That black umbrella was actually quite heavy; holding it with one hand while controlling the pose made my arms start shaking after a few posed shots, and we finally captured a relatively natural candid shot. Red and black clothes are particularly demanding on details under a red lighting environment; if we didn't rely on white light for a hard cut, the texture of the clothes and the contour of the character would completely disappear.
The character Snyder is quite interesting; she has a casual and dangerous vibe that doesn't play by the rules. To reflect this feeling, I didn't choose a too-tense posture when holding the gun. The pose sitting on the box in Figure 2 was actually because I was tired from shooting at the time, so I casually propped my hand on my leg with the muzzle pointing down, which instead gave a relaxed sense of oppression. The back view in Figure 1 was a sudden proposal by the photographer, who said that with this ambient light hitting from the back, the contour would be stunning. With my back to the camera, still holding that prop gun, and the red debris underneath looking like petals, the straight out of camera photo already had a great cinematic feel.
Actually, there are many discarded shots in this set—some with laughing breaks, and others with hair blown into a mess by the strong wind. But I personally prefer these raw photos with a bit of roughness; overly perfect retouching lacks some of the authentic atmosphere of the shooting day. For various reasons, this set of photos wasn't edited immediately and sat in the hard drive. Sorting through folders today and stumbling upon them, I still found them very appealing, so I directly posted a few straight out of camera photos as a preview. Without complex post-processing, basically only color grading was done, focusing on retaining the strong red-and-black contrast. The hidden patterns on the clothes, the dust in the venue, and the halos of light penetrating the edge of the umbrella are all the original flavors of the scene.
Recently, I'll pick a few to officially edit, striving to restore those textures hidden in the dark areas. The shoes and legging details of this styling are also very interesting, and I'll share them in detail next time if there's an opportunity.