I'm not gonna lie, I came out with this idea while I was already in the process of doing this composition. The guy in the photograph is my brother and the mask he is wearing was made by him, I know he did it because he enjoys horror stories and stuff like that, so I wanted to keep that spirit.
This mask is an aproximation of what doctor's in the Black Death wore, they used a tunic of thick skin that reached up to the ankle anda pair of black glasses, but the most characteristic garment were their masks. As you can see, the mask has a bird beak that "protected" them from getting infected, in the middle age it was believed that just by breathing the air of the dead bodies (that supposedly spred a noxious air) you could get sick. Also, they used to put flowers or something that smelled good, in the beak.
I guess these doctors are seem as scary not only because of their outfit but because they often weren't doctors at all, sometimes they were just people willing to take care of the sicks withouth having an special education, so their treatments weren't too conventional...
Now that we know that...
At first I wanted to make three photos, were the left side was lightened and the right side completely black and I kinda achieved that. After taken the photos I had to edit them in lightroom, through the process I realized that I wanted to imitate an old horror movie, where the main character starts to come out of the screen, so the first photo was in black and white, and the other two are in color, except for the wall behind, so it would seem like he's really coming out.
To do that I used the lightroom brush -------------------------------->
Here the photos before and after the edition
As you can see, everything was really dark because the only light we had was from the candle he was holding, so I had to change that in Lightroom. Edition finished, I scaned a celluloid that my mom had and then put the three photos on it in Photoshop.
This was the result
Even though the photograph is kinda sloppy I think I achieve what I imagine and more important, I could learn things that I didn't know until now, both in photography and history.
My brother and me decided to do this, because we love to make masks and show one of them in a special way, is really awesome. Putting this mask in specific was intentional, because this part of the history of humanity is so interesting and important, that I wanted to talk a little bit about this, we all heard about the Black Death but not always know in detail what was it, we don't often know that this refers to a period in the middle age were a deadly disease killed about 30% or 60% of the population in Europe, and it was caused by a bacteria that the rats had and was transmited through the fleas.
At least I didn't know, which yes, makes me feel shame
So, three facts about the Black Death to finish this post
I read that people were so scared that started to run away of the city and went to the countryside, but in these cases is recomended to stay in the city because as it has more people, is more likely that you'd be save, so they got sick anyways and maybe faster.
Eventhough the fleas were the main cause to transmit the disease you could get sick by the air so they weren't entirely wrong, because there were a pneumonic and pulmonary plague, but the people who got this often died in one day, so the chances were low.
Besides of the disgrace, the Black Death also brought wealth and opportunities for the people left after the plague; the farmers, for example, as there was a great demand of workforce, they lived in a golden age, because they weren't a lot so they could earn more money than they used to in the past.