The Third Prince
35 mm
f 16
1/60 sec
ISO 100
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-TuG9bp8041_E9bMZS6jP8qgCzdbur75
The Third Prince:
A traditional Taiwanese Taoism temple dance involving a human-sized suit depicting the folk god Nezha. Above is a person wearing the suit.
This dance involves a suit that resembles a person and is depicted as a Taiwanese god in temple dances, performances, and rituals. The diety is said to have Buddhist and Daoist ideas associated with it and is an important symbol in traditional temple festivals. The dance is extremely flashy and rowdy, so I attempted to show its glory as well as possible low-key lighting to show its god-likeness. The suit itself has many colors that are vibrant on it, so with the use of lighting and various intensities I have shown the possible profiles. They are often performed at temples similar to traditional Chinese lion or dragon dances/parades and are often performed with techno music or electronic dance music. I want to do this project because not many images have these deities in a studio lighting set, and with studio lighting the project came out better than I thought it would be. I’ve done this dance many times throughout high school till now and it has always garnered great attention that I want to showcase. I shot in high key, low key, and three-point lighting profiles. During the process, I’ve had lots of fun with the outcomes of my shoot, as well as working in post to get rid of the chains and distractions of the background in the studio.
High-key lighting. This lighting is similar to that of how it is usually seen in the daytime, except for additional highlights to display the main aspect of the suit.
Low-key lighting. To emphasize the ominous, god-like physique.
Vertical three-point lighting in all the suit’s glory.
Proper three-point lighting. The original intention of having a third light.
Three-point lighting with a flare effect from the third light. This is an unintentional effect that worked out quite well.
High-key lighting to highlight details of the flags and facial features.