New lighting experiments and a re-think. (A repost)

Spent some time in the studio making modifications to my lighting equipment. I don't really use anything 'high tek' for lighting, a single LED video light (purchased on the cheap on eBay). I needed to make a 'snoot' to limit the light to a narrower beam. I used an old tripod box and duct taped it to the light. A simple MacGyvered snoot. I also needed a scrim to shine the light through to create a mottled light pattern. I used an old 'doily' clamped onto a cardboard frame. I will need to get some stiff wire and make an adjustable stand for it.

I have been rethinking my imagery over the last few months, not so much the content but the visual style. Although I love the Baroque style in which I have been producing art in the past, I am thinking about a style that is not so stylistically slick but something more emotionally evocative. Darker, more shadows, less formal compositions. I would still be referencing the tropes from art history but not full appropriation of the scene - gestures, poses, interaction between figures. If you know your art history, you should be able to pick the reference. In the past I have played a game with my audience with referencing of art history which has been fun. However, there has been some of my images that does not necessarily reference past artworks and when questioned about the original inspiration, I sensed some trepidation when I explained a particular image does not have some link to the past but an original composition of my own. Maybe my own paranoia has set in but I started to question my work. Was the strength of my work only due to the fame of the past masterpieces and my non appropriated image a lesser work? 

So a rethink is in order. Experiments, re-shoots, a time to go over old ground and rework past images. I think this is what art making is all about, sometimes it is easier to make new work than to be brave enough to revisit the old.