# American Sign Language In Motion



## AllHailZ

Hey guys, sorry I haven't been on lately.  A lot of projects from different classes have been keeping me busy and the last project for Photo II didn't involve shooting any new pictures.  Fortunately, this project does.

I am Deaf, and these pictures are my language in motion.  I wanted to show that my language is a very fluid one, but I don't think they're very good.  It was only my second time using studio equipment. It's hard to capture still faces while still having the signs be in motion.

Whatever the sign represents is above the photo.

1. America 








2. ASL (American Sign Language) fingerspelled







3. Crash/Accident







4. Heart







5. Imagine/Dream







6. Inspire







7. Language







8. Love







9. Octopus







10. World


----------



## AllHailZ

Does anyone have any ideas to help me as far as techinique goes?  I'm going to change the gloves from latex to fabric and set the lights higher.  I want to capture the motion of the hands just like I did, but a bit more clearly.

If there was a way to minimize the blurring of the face or eliminate her face entirely, any suggestions for that?  By the way, I shot with a Nikon N80 35mm film.  These are not digital.


----------



## Albert.Hall

Not really wisened in the ways of photography so I won't be much help. Hope I haven't raised any hopes by posting.

Just saw these and thought they were really good. Such an interesting idea behind them. Really like numbers 6&7! The clear definition of starting and ending point looks really good!!

Just sorry I couldn't help!


----------



## Rolland

Great idea.....no gloves would look more natural..what about white paint? think mime .......I like 6 & 8..


----------



## kellylindseyphotography

I can't help a ton with the technical aspects of it, but a few things I'd like to see:

changing of the compostion so that your not always dead center.

getting rid of the gloves.  i'd love to see your actual hands in motion.

What might be cool is to keep your hands as the focus of the shot, and crop our your body/head completely so that when your shutter is super slow, that we don't notice your head blurred and stuff.

I'd love to see #3 cropped to just include the hands


----------



## AllHailZ

Hmm, yeah, I did think about white paint, I'm giving up on the idea with the white backdrop/white turtleneck/black gloves and just going with black/black/white.  My photo teacher told me where to find some very tight fabric gloves, so I'm going to give those a try.

Also, the v-neck black longsleeve is too distracting, so I've decided to go with a black turtleneck.  Basically what this was was a test run.  I'll definitely keep your suggestions in mind, kellylindsey.  My photo teacher told me that setting the lights up higher above the model's (The girl is not me. I'm male IRL) head directed at the hands would help put less focus on her face.  To the studio photographers, is that what I should do?

Kellylindsey, is this what you were talking about? -


----------



## kellylindseyphotography

It is.. I wonder how it might look if you darkened the background significantly?  so that its almost pitch black, with just the hands in motion.. although, agian I would like to not focus on the gloves, so I look forward to seeing what you do nexT!


----------



## Wyjid

do you have a remote trigger flash? if so try this. have one light (not a flash) shining only on her hands, not on her face at all. next set off one flash at the start of the exposure to capture the scene. then she moves her hands and since her face is dark it wont blur. finally you could set off a second flash at the end her movement but again, only on her hands. it would be simpler however to just have her hold her hands in place for a moment at the end. what is there is beautiful already. i like the croped versions.


----------



## kundalini

What did you change in your lighting setup from the first to the others of the low key shots?  All the others seem to give a sinister look to her face.  The first one is really good on lighting.

I think also if you can get your model to really concentrate to have hand movement only.  The blurred face is not conveying your vision IMO.

I think the gloves (as are) are distracting and would prefer to see uncovered hands.

Alternatively, you could have the model stand behind the backdrop and have her arms stick through (completely blacked out), stage paint her hands white and then create the motion of language.  Just a thought.

Great concept.  Keep it up and post your next results.


----------



## AllHailZ

I had the lights at her chest level pointing towards each other, then I decided to point the lights AWAY from her to put more emphasis on her hands.

Next time I'm going to raise them up over her head pointing towards her hands, and hopefully that will help lessen the focus on her face.

This time, I was only focusing on her hands, I wasn't thinking about her head.  Next time, I definitely am.  This assignment isn't due til May 4th, but I'll probably do it within a week or two weeks, since I need the negatives for topotypes (I think that's what it's called).

I'm shooting these pictures then putting emulsion on old vinyl records and using the enlarger in the darkroom on the emulsion and the picture should appear on top of the vinyl records.


----------



## Dioboleque

I don't know if it would work but I'm thinking something like cutting two holes in a black sheet, hang the sheet up, and have her stand behind it and stick her bare arms through the holes in the sheet???


----------

