so as i have mentioned previously, me and jess posted a casting call on the wesite net-portfolio for models for our shoot. so far just one guy has got back to us being the guy in the image below.
from looking at his images he is quite a versatile model and i feel he has a good look and would pull off what we want from our models very well. the only downside is that my group are dotted around the country so its very difficult to make any form of decision without using facebook messaging between us all.
we do want one black and one white model, it just depends which way around we want them?
well after the last meeting we decided to go back to basics as none of us really had much of an idea what was going on and where to start. i said the idea of using multi race models was a good one but the direction we had initially taken it in had snowballed to the point that we lost the whole point of the project.
sooooooo we took it back to basics and decided to keep things that way. we are still going to use the multi race model idea to reflectt the B&W of the dominos. we decided to include a still life shot (or at least shoot one and see what the combinations look like) and also shoot in the studio and on a location using the natural lighting available on the day - which in this part of the country means grey skies and rain for the most part. but we have to make this work for us or pray for a sunny day.
so far me and jess have put out a casting call on net-portfolio for models and we are scouting around people we know and around campus etc to find the kind of people we are after. we are aimign for a high fashion look with some full length and some closer shots to give a variety in the final collection of images.
so now we have the ideas for the shoot ive been thinking about looking for models. im not the type to go an wander the streets and ask random people if they want to model for me, but i have however joined netrworking sites such as model mayhem and net-portfolio so ive been looking on there and through facebook.
with the idea we are going for and to make it work we need both male and female, black and white models as we are taking the black and white from the dominos and using that theme throughout the shoot. we also want to have a narrative running through the images so we need models who could express the emotions of the story. were not 100% sure which way around we want the models whether we want a white female and a black male or the other way aorund.
meeting up again to discuss more this week so we can get it all prepped for the shoot
so seeign as this is a fashion shoot, i thought id include some fashion in this blog some where....
at the start i had the idea of dressing in black and white, and that then developed into using black and white backdrops, black and white models and shoot in black and white. we also had the idea of using acessories rather than actual fashions, so as not to clutter the images and keep with the simpleness of the shoot.
the idea of not using clothes is obviously a big step as we need to cover the models somehow so as not to make the shoot into a FHM 'glamour' style shoot. so i googled and came up with a few ideas:
i like the idea of wrapping them in sheets or having them hold sheets to them to cover up, however the underwear could be easier and look better with the type of image we are going for.
2nd group meeting next week to make final decisions, so we will see................
so after the first meeting we decided we'd go for a black and white theme, based on the black and white of our dominoes....
i found this above image of the white against black and visa versa and liked it as it was so opposite and the colour difference is so obvious, and this is a look we are going for. this is also an image we are trying to include in our series, as it is a different crop to some of the usual fashion photography you see.
this image is again a very obvious contrast between the black and the white and illustrates the difference between the colours very clearly.
Contrast
we have also decided we want very contrasted images such as the one below:
grainy and grungey
we also want a very grainy grungey look to the images, which depending on time could be shot on a low speed film. or in digital, a low ISO number....
Such gatherings, festivities of Carnival, were paralleled from the 15th century by increasingly elaborate allegorical Entries, pageants and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. Masquerade balls were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance (Italian, maschera). They were generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, and were particularly popular in Venice. They have been associated with the tradition of the Venetian Carnival. With the fall of the Venetian Republic at the end of the 18th century, the use and tradition of masks gradually began to decline, until they disappeared altogether.
we had the idea of taking away the models identity almost by havign them wear a mask through the shoot. we would have a pale coloured mask on the black models and a darker mask on the white models, to contrast against the skin colours, and back up the black and white link we are making through to the dominoes......
sooooo at our first group meeting we came up with a few ideas based on our object - DOMINOES:
1. we could use a maze of larger, child size dominoes and get the models to stand inbetween them. 2. we could shoot in black and white 3. we could dress them in spots or black and white
all of these we felt were too literal and too obvious. we then thought about adding a narrative and how we could use fashion to make a more intersting shoot thats not sooo obvious as black and white.
we then came up with a few more ideas, and as we all dicussed them they developed well into what i think will make a great series of images, with a bit of depth to them, given by the narrative we will include.
we want to use a number of models and have a sort of love story running through the images so they all link in an obvious way and the viewer can see the stages of the building relationship. we are sticking tot he black and white idea we had at the very start, by shooting against black and white, using black and white models, and shooting IN black and white.
we also wanted a very contrasty, grungey, grainy feel to the imagery which made me instantly think of the madonna video for "Give it to me" ft pharell williams.
all through the video she is wearing black and white, and there is one point where she against a white background and its soo contrasted that you cant really see the white of her skin and it seems like its a face with a body and boots dancing against the white. i dont think we would use contrast in such an obvious way as it is in this video, as we would lose the details which we want to keep.
we also had the idea of focussing on accessories, and also covering the models faces with masks, like the ventian ones they wear at masked balls in venice. this also made me think about the video by Gareth Gates for "Anyone of us" where he is in venice and at the end he is surrounded by people dancing at a masked ball.
by shooting in black and white we would need to have high detail as the colours will not be important, so i feel the masks would add to this.
as part of the group get together last week we thought we could use the black and white colours of most dominos as our starting point. we then brainstormed a few ideas about shooting in black and white, using more than one model and both black and white models. we also thought we could add a narrative and create some contraversial undertones to the images.
from there i thought of looking at th benetton adverts which i had studied at college. they always caused shock and created alot of contraversy when they were released for their grafic images and use of male and female, black and white models in the campaigns. they targeted alot of the issues within society at their time of release into the public eye and 90% of the time they questioned the viewers opppinions about these issues.
so we all got our final rpject in mondays class - found object (or in fancier terms 'Object Trouve). again we need to work in groups so for a change and to work with other people for doffernt styles and opinions i swapped from my usual group to people i knew but never worked with. so the group being - ME and MARK as the photographers and then JESS and SACHA as the two stylists. once we had our groups we went up and picked a 'found object' - ours was a box of dominos - the actualy dominos, not the pizza type!
so i brainstormed a little bit and came up with a few ideas :
the literal being that doninos are mostly black and white. so i thought we could just dress the models in black and white or dress them in colour and shoot in black and white. these two ideas were of course evry literal and didnt have much depth to them, but i thought they could be improved on and developed into somehting stronger.
another idea was to set up a maze of doninos (perhaps the super size little kiddy ones) and get the models to stand inbetween them. or even knock them over to get some movement in the shot.
anyways after a group meeting we came up with some good ideas which i think would give a really strong set of images especialy with the time available for us to build upon them. so lets get cracking!!!
so, now i have had time to mull over this open brief for PH2010, i have decided i will stick to the fashion genre (as lets face it, we all know fashion is my passion lol) and i am aiming to do up to four shoots, one high street fashion, one inspired by lady gaga one with a distinctive theme and another which im not sure about yet :) each of these will be very different, i will also try and use the studio AND location for these shots, but obviously due to the typical Prestonian weather (or generally the northern weather) this may be difficult.
i also want to build up my contacts for things like hair, makeup, stylists and models which would give me an opportunity to work with different people. saying that i have decided to work again with the two styling students i met in the PH2011 module 'Fashion Image' - Rachel and Jess. i really enjoyed working with them and we had a blast brainstorming and shooting the fashion assignment we did together. they also have some great ideas and work well as a twosome and with some of my ideas i think we could create some good looks for my fashion shoots.
i also would work with my two hair stylists, one of whom i went to high school with. we both know each other very well and he understands my ideas and the looks i am after and creates pretty much what im after for each shoot he has done for me so far. he has no problems with trying something a little bit different either which adds an edge to my models and the shoots i do.
i do not know a makeup artist, yet i know quite a few girls with good makeup knowledge who have done shoots for me before. i want to make it a mission to find a good makeup artist who i can work with on my shoots, or as another option - learn some makeup techniques myself so i could do it.
when it comes to models, as a starting photographer we all go for our friends, i know ive done it.... but now after the lectures with adam about the model i have realised that using people who aren't my friends would work better for my shoots. i do however have a couple of friends with modeling experince whom i could still use, but i would like to get myself out there and get some 'new meat' as they put it :P and find some new models. it would also be good for my practice to start working with new people etc.
the final thing i aim to do this semester (or by the end of 2010), is to get my work out there into the professional world of fashion photography. this could be through online magazines, projects linked with the university, doing a couple of exhibitions etc. either way i aim to get my self known a little bit more. the first place i would start with this is my local library - they have a section of a wall dedicated to exhibiting artists of all mediums and genres... the audience would be very limited, but hopefully through word of mouth people would know about it as we all know, elderly people (who would see it) do like to gossip. lets just hope my work would be good enough for them to gossip about?
as it is one of my favourite shops EVER! i thought id pop a post up with their take on the four different spring/summer 2010 trends and collections.....
i always find the topshop collections section a good way of keeping up with trends and findng items for fashion shoots. i like how they have a section in 'Look' magazine as well featuring the latest things in a different high street stores which always includes topsop. what can i say? im a girl and i like my clothes! so sue me.........
well, as we all know the girls among us are most probably shop-a-holics. i will quite happily hold my hands up and admit that i do have a shopping addiction. a very large shopping addiction. i find it very hard to even walk past topshop without having a quick glance inside, and it takes my friends all their effort to keep me out or else my purse will be emptied and my bank account will be raided in order to afford that one perfect purchase. so seeing as i am rather skint right now i am stuck wondow shopping or even wishful web shopping :( which gives me a perfect opportunity to discover the latest trends and also figure out some ideas for photoshoots, which is always a good thing.
so as i have decided to do a shoot based on high street fashion for my open brief i thought id put up a few of my favourite items from the topshop website:
i think i can honestly say that you may find me wearing some if not all of these items at some point during summer :)
so as the assignment for fashion has kinda come to an end, all images chosen things all wrapped up, i decided to look at my new brief for PH2010 - the open brief. this is a big project which gives me creative freedom to do shoots based in whatever i want culminating in up to 8 exhibition prints. i have made a start on my sketchbook (like usual gone for my favourite A3 large style, work best this way) and have come up with a few ideas for shoots.
i would like to do upto 4 or 5 shoots (depending on time obviously) and then re-do my strongest idea and keep developing it up to my final prints. with my passions lieing in fashion i am keeping with this genre and developing my skill set ready for third year. i will also be workign with hair and makeup stylists, fashion stylists and perhaps some professional models. i am also aiming to build up my contacts for future referances and projects. bring on the shoots =D
as part of the assignment my group has decided to use a studio for the reasons being mostly the typical english weather we get in these parts. we could see us plannign a shoot getting everybody down to the location, the hair and makeup done etc and then the skies opening and terrential rain! its typical northern stuff. so to conquer this, we decided to build ourselves a set within the studio. so we managed to come with a simple idea for the set that would be colourful and eye catching yet one which we thought would be achievable on a budget. so after bribeing a couple of hair stylists and sweet talking a makeup artist we have a full team and we are ready rock and roll next tuesday!
for the set we managed to get some cheap and cheerful fabric as a background, some balls to paint in bright colours and loads of balloons to spend our time blowing up. we wanted create a scene like photographer Annie Liebowitz does, and create characters to go with it through the styling, hair and make up and the way things are going we are well on our way to managing this.
for some ideas about a set for the models to prance about on i looked at the images that Liebowitz has done for Disney and Vogue in the past to get some inspiration.
the last image of the 'White Stripes' is a similar look to what we are going for with the whole circus thing, ours is just happier and more colourful. we wanted it to look like a location almost, but shot in studio conditions. we have a number of things to play with when we do our initial set up in the morning before the models arrive such as the background set up, the lighting (to get a spotlight effect we have booked a Dedo lighting kit out to try and get this lighting right) and also a coloured lighting kit (which we have thought would be too much, but we shall have a play anyways).
we have four models coming to create four characters. we are aiming for four final shots including a group one. we want the character to each have thier own personality yet still have a similar look as a constant between them which would be the hair and makeup.
so far everything has fallen into place pretty easily, and apart from some model issues we have everything sorted for our final meeting on monday to finalise for tuesdays shoot. so lets get snapping :)
so while doing research for my research journal last semester i came across this editorial from Bazar US.
i was really inspired by the way he creates the characters and they all look different. this a look we are trying to create with our shoot for the Fashion assignment two. keep the characters very strong and have small links between them such as hair and makeup and colour yet keep them very much their own character etc.
soooo after a fun few hours sat with Gemma, Rachel and Jess we came up with our ideas. after we had our little brainwaves and we came up with theme, the syling ideas (briefly), backdrops, props etc we then thought about hair and makeup. as i know a trained hairdresser and make up artist we instantly got them on board so we now have a full team.
i looked into a few ideas for make up including false eyelashes. i found the image below on the internet which looks a little like a doll that i though would work well. the red lips and pink cheeks is something that would work well with the characters we are creating, and with plain eyes and huge lashes i think we could have a good look for the models.
keeping the rest of the eye simple is very important with eyelashes like the ones below. as we are creating seperate characters we want different lashes for each character, and after a trip to Presotn market i found quite a few different styles which would definatly seperate each character while keeping a whole 'big lash' look there as a constant.
and as for the hair, as we are again creating different characters we need to give them different hairstyles, yet try to keep a constant. as an idea we had for one character we wanted to try and get a crazy crimped look like the one below, and the others will follow:
