Topic: How were these experimental portraits lit?

[grit]

I've become interested in the work of Winston Duke:

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Website

Particularly, I'm interested in how he's lighting these portraits. I realize they're all different. I'm trying to tease out the individual effects, but I'm struggling; there isn't much info about these photos, and of course the catchlights aren't particularly helpful.

What I know: He was (is?) part of a photo collective called "Stealing Frames." It seems they would gather in a blacked-out studio, and build their lighting setup from the ground up without a lot of traditional modifiers and with a lot of non-traditional ones. For example, I have seen fiber optic light cables in frame in some of his work, although I'm not sure they were used in any of these examples. Their work is in-camera; none of this is digital manipulation. It also appears that some of the effects are from manipulation of the negative, although I'll admit to being less interested in that aspect and more interested in the lighting itself.

Some of my suspicions: Some of these may be shot on large format film and then cropped way in (they seem somewhat grainy)? There are prisms involved? The exposures are rather long?

What I'm really curious about: How is the diamond so perfectly framed in example 1? Same for the circle in example 3? How is that white flame-like effect encircling the model in example 2 achieved? Are the models just holding reeeeeally still, or are the exposures shorter than I thought (or are there multiple exposures here?) Curious to hear any and all speculation.

[Francois]

Here's my take on it.
In the first example, you see a person photographed from an extremely low position that is probably holding a backlit slide. It could also be a prism but I doubt it. The light is coming from the top right of the image.

The second one is probably done with a piece of sheer fabric (you can see a stitch on the third flame from the left) on the front. A single pop of the flash. The background (which overlaps the model's face a bit) is a light painting.

The third one is a photo of a photo. There are visible chemical stains on the circle. It was done probably on a scanner with the corners slightly lifted.

The high grain photos were probably done on either 35mm or half frame. My guess is Tri-X or HP5 processed so as to increase the grain.