One of the interesting Photographers I looked at who had completed projects on Re-enactment was Robert Bridgens. Having been searching for photographers for inspiration, I came across some of his images published in the daily mail in article on his four-year project.
I read the article and viewed some of the images and frankly I was impressed, his images had a very unusual look and feel, a softer look to what i expected. The images were taken on film with apparently a Leica like 35mm camera; the images are striking and make the images look like colourised images taken during World War 2. The images are quite muted and are very sharp originally using kodachrome film he produced dozens of desirable images he switched to a 5D MK2 discovering he could develop a similar effect with editing techniques.
His images actually made me want to try similar techniques with a medium format camera using the muted tones makes the images seem realistically like the time period. However, this will be a experiment for next semester as I will narrow down my project to a either more modern re-enactments or medieval the third option is to use both but narrow down the way I shoot and the format in order to construct a more defining style then what I currently have one of my weaknesses at the moment is not having similar white balances between each of the shoots.
Robert Bridgens project took four years and my final year project will take place over less than a year, I also have to accept the fact that most of the big re-enactment events happen in the summer for example the war and peace shows and the victory show. Despite this I will attend training sessions and smaller shows in my next semester.
Below are some of his images from his project, I used these images for educational means as a full time student for critique and analysis. Robert Bridgens’ entire project can be found at the links below.
Bullets and Mail 