Scotophobia Part I

My fourth final piece is called Scotophobia, the fear of darkness.

Here is the contact sheet of my shoot:

You will have to click to enlarge.

Out of all the shots, I chose the image I most liked (which is named DSC_0158 in the picture above.)

Here is the original:

I like this image most because of the harsh shadowing on the face, and the emotion that I, the subject, am portraying through this image. 

One thing I do dislike about this photo is it's warm, orange-nesss (for lack of a better description.) This wasn't a problem though, as I could easily correct it in post production. 

Using Picasa, I added a vignette and made the image darker around the edges to make the image a little more claustrophobia, per say. Here is the image:

I further edited my image by adding a duotone on Photoshop CS4. I actually tweaked my image between the vignette and duotone, however I didn't save the changes to then upload to the blog. 

Here is the duotone effect:

I actually cheated a little and after applying duotone I took a Blue/Green gradient and applied it to give it a little more colour, so it's not pure duotone. 

Next I will be adding text to my image, I will be writing the definition of Scotophobia so this image fits in with my other ones. 

Additional information:
Subject:
As this is a self-portrait, I am the subject.
Costume:
I wore a blue and white t-shirt mainly because that happened to be what I was wearing that day, but I also felt it was subtle enough that I could get away with it in my shoot.

Location:

Situated in my bedroom.
Equipment:

Nikon D5100
Nikkor 18-55mm f3.5-5.6
A bed-side table and a pile of books to act as a tripod.
Lighting:
Candle-lit
Risk Assessment: 
As I used used a candle as my one light source, I had to fiddle about with the camera settings a fair bit before getting the right settings for a good image. This meant I was leaning forward near a candle to fiddle with my camera, and although I was being cautious there was a risk of me burning myself.
As I have rather long hair, I had to be extra careful none of it went near the flame, or I could have accidentally set my hair on fire - and that wouldn't have been fun!