Concerning negative space

So recently I've really been trying to shoot as much as I can concerned with the Vermeer assignment, and really trying to give myself lots of options for the ever looming deadline.

I wanted now to continue still with capturing this sublime moment, however really experiment with the style of Crewdson. I set up a light that was out of shot and which shone onto my model directly so as to illuminate him. I also chose to shoot from outside of the room in which this was happening so as to appear as if I was looking in and observing.



It just so happened that when I was setting up, I discovered that I could use negative to space to good effect and so composed the image so that the majority of it was in dark shadow.



I first tried out the shots with the model above, trying a variety of different positions with him, however the larger image above seemed to work the best.

With the rest of the shoot I used another model, who was a lot more confident with posing etc, but I feel this worked as a disadvantage to me, as it seems almost that he is acting too much and far too aware of the camera.
Still, here they are...





I think one of the main problems with the shoot was the actual narrative going on within the scene. I knew that to make it interesting and somewhat strange, I would to set up something out of the ordinary, so I chose to have the room full of boxes with coat hangers spilling out onto the floor. However I feel this didn't work to well, and if I were to re-shoot this, a better narrative would have to be created.



This image is my favorite from the ones with the second model. I really like the positioning he is in and the expression upon his face, however I think that my first choice of model worked better.

All in all I think these images work well to some extent, but if I were to use them they would need re-shooting with a better mise-en-scene. The enveloping darkness used as negative space works very well and is the best feature within the image.