Christmas aesthetics and the split diopter look

I've been itching to get a split diopter as of late. Have no idea what that is? Well it's like placing a broken piece of glass in front of your lens and enjoying the weird characteristics it can produce. The world of filmmaking often uses these in different ways, from weird effects in music videos to utilising the ability to focus on foreground and background subjects at the same time. These things aren't used all that much despite how unique they can be. But I've loved the idea lately of pushing myself a bit more and trying different things. Since I don't yet have a split diopter yet as they're hard to find here and nobody ships anything to Armenia, I decided to pull images into Davinci Resolve and add those characteristics myself in post. Already using vintage glass and a filter which softens light to produce some effects already. Oh, I also really wanted to mimic some of that ARRI Signature Prime lens look with the bokeh.

I really love how these images came out, I think it really helps that the subjects are Christmas related. We tend to feel a stronger emotional attachment to the otherworldly around the Christmas holiday. The magical feeling it provides us, the joy of the mystical snowy landscapes and housing. The world of elves and strange obese bearded men that fly via reindeer. What better way to amplify that feeling than to visually alter the images around such themes? It was a bit hard finding Christmas themed things to shoot during the day though, the city is still slowly putting up decorations, and during the day none of the Christmas lights are functioning, obviously. But throughout are little snippets of the holiday appearing. From the leaves still falling on the little pine trees throughout the city. The little gingerbread houses being made in bakery windows.

The air quality in the city still isn't the best but it's picking up throughout the day at least. Where you don't really notice the poor air quite the same as once the sun starts to go down. This again made shooting a bit harder. Stronger natural light only. As much as I wanted to capture the beauty of the artificial lights with the mist filter over the lenses. Mixing the atmospheres and going for that diopter look. This whole creative potential had me thinking of ways to photograph and film people with it, which also has really inspired me. I'm hoping to find some people for that real soon, especially to be able to capture it all within the changing landscape of the streets, where I already spend my time. I have so many potential locations in mind from these daily adventures into the unknown!

I walked around a bit of an empty Christmas market which I wrote a post about recently. I think I enjoyed it more without the live music and the density of people. I noticed people that were here during the day seemed more relaxed and slower. Enjoying the little stalls and talking to people more. Where they'd sit with a drink or actually buy some food from the stalls knowing they could find somewhere to relax with it. I even saw a small group of people trying to film something, to which one girl came up to me and said hello in Russian, clearly to ask if I wanted to partake in whatever it was they were filming. I told her I didn't really speak any Russian to which she got all nervous and said she didn't know much English, running off to continue with the rest. It was nice to see people out and filming with similar intent though. To see more creative interests appearing in people in the city. More and more people hold cameras around their necks or within their hands.

Unrelated is the last picture. An attempt to decide on a focal length with all of these decisions in mind. Landing on the Helios but feeling a bit too tight with the 58mm focal length, kinda preferring the wider look of the 35mm film which I still didn't end up switching back to for the most of the day. That Helios just always finds itself back on the camera. Though it lives on borrowed time as I'm looking at that Мир-1в at a 37mm focal length.