PLAN!

I could have put this in my previous post but I didn't want to. This post is just to let you know what the plan is meant to be for the rest of the week and what to be expecting! I wanted to do another shoot after the photoshoot on the rooftop but in the studio. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time and hopefully I'll get the chance to do that tomorrow. I've then asked one of my male friends to come into college Wednesday and let me photograph them in the studio (as long as i can get it booked). I'm feeling some black and white images for that shoot. And then on Thursday, i have another photoshoot planned with a female model to go to Coventry cathedral and get some images around the ruins. I just hope the weather stays dry like it's predicted to and my model doesn't let me down!

Rooftop Photoshoot

So this week looks like it's gonna be pretty busy! If all goes to plan that is (fingers crossed)
Today was the first day in a while it hasn't actually rained and I managed to get out and get a photoshoot done! I would like to thank BBC weather for predicting the forecast correctly as I had planned for the weather they had predicted. Anyway, I got to do my photoshoot on the roof of my college building which was actually a really good area to photograph and pretty cool. Here's a photo my tutor took of me on set today with my friend modelling for me and my other friend helping with the lighting :)

I purposely wanted to photograph up on the rooftop for several different reason. One of the main ones being because of being high up, I knew it would be windy and I wanted it to blow the dress around the model was wearing. Originally for this shoot I was going to use a mixture of natural lighting and a speedlight on a tripod however I found just using available light and the silver side of the big reflector gave me an awesome effect and continued to use this throughout the entire shoot. I really enjoyed doing this shoot and I feel I've got some winners within my collection :) Here's a couple of images from today before I retouch any of them.

Unplanned

I still need to upload the third photoshoot that I did during the second week of the Easter holiday. In all honesty, I hadn't really planned this photoshoot well. I had the same studio set up in my bedroom as I did when I photographed my sister. I had a selection of the models own clothing to try and just experimented with a few things which in the end, didn't work out successfully. I then did some images in the similar style to John Spinks 'Menswear' collection of work. I liked these images however, I have already done images similar to this before and I didn't want to repeat myself. I then decided to try something different and photograph a pair of glasses. I got the inspiration for this from similar work I'd seen by Karl Lagerfeld. Below I have posted a few images from the shoot which were in the style of both photographers I was influenced by.

Alec Soth and Jennifer Lewis

Whilst looking through Alec Soths' book 'Paris / Minnisote', i noticed he did a series of images that intrigued me in which he photographed people in a before and after shot. What i mean by this is that in the image before, the model looks quite plain/dull and then in the image after, the model looks all suited and dressed up, suitable for a magazine. Unfortunately, i cannot find examples from the book of this. However, i have two examples of different images. One is of a before and the other is of an after. I like the idea of these and would like to try something out in my own work. I especially like the images he did with this idea of the people on the beds.

The images of the people on the beds then led me to look into another photographer who i was suggested to look at. This is the work of Jennifer Lewis and her series of images 'Bedrooms'. Again, unfortunately she doesn't have many examples of her work online but i thought about mixing both ideas from these two photographers together. Here is a link to Jennifer's website.

http://www.jennylewis.net/

Alec Soth - Paris / Minnesota

After having the problem with the objects in my images that I was meant to be advertising but seemed to get lost. I thought about photographing them separately so they're enlarged and photoshopping them back into the image or just keeping it as a separate image altogether. Then my tutor suggested that I look at the book 'Paris / Minnesota' by Alec Soth. Within it, there is a series of images where Alec had photographed a product that had been placed in a landscape so it almost gets lost and you're playing 'Where's Wally'. For example, this is one of the images from the series. Within this woodland area is a tie. Then, towards the end of his magazine, he has zoomed in versions of his images showing where the products are. I did take this idea into account but I'm still not sure yet.

Second shoot

This is a second photoshoot I also did during the Easter holiday but in the second week. I wanted to try another advertising campaign but I wanted to do something different to my other shoot. Luckily enough my boyfriend agreed to model for me alongside with his Calvin Klein, MAN perfume. I used the same camera as before with the prime lens however this time I didn't use any studio equipment. I relied solely on natural lighting and sometimes used the built in flash on the camera. These few images that I put up were the more stronger ones out of the whole selection as the images in the location at the start of the shoot were the more weaker ones. The main problem I faced with this shoot was the fact that it feels like you're playing a game of 'Where's Wolly' with the bottle of perfume. 

Dove - Evolution commercial

Following the previous post, I was shown this video clip by my tutor. It basically shows you all the behind the scenes of beauty ads and how much detail is put into them. He was basically telling me to take this into account if I'm also going to be doing beauty ads and maybe I should explore this side of photography more in depth. I should also talk about how far do you go with image manipulation.

First response photoshoot!

I thought it was about time I posted some images from my first response photoshoot. I've only selected a few which I thought were my strongest to put up here as there were a lot of images taken. I took these a couple of weeks ago now, during the first week of the Easter holiday. The concept behind the images was a beauty campaign to promote mascara. I used a Nikon camera with a prime lens and i had a pretty simple studio set up in my bedroom. I can also post a picture of the set up I had but it was just one umbrella on a stand. I had the power turned right up on the light as i wanted quite a clean look on the model. Luckily, my sister was kind enough to let me use her as my model and plaster her in lots of make-up. I have plain white walls in my bedroom so i took advantage of that and used it as a background as it made my images look clean. Feel free to leave me any feedback :) I would just like to add that these images haven't been edited yet.

Karl Lagerfeld

Here's a link to his website with some of his work on
http://www.karl.com/en_uk/worldofkarl/category/fashion

I came across this mans work whilst flicking through POP magazine. There's more of his work on models.com which I have found influential and want to try something similar within my own photoshoots. Here's a link to some of my favourite bits of work he has produced:

 http://models.com/people/karl-lagerfeld

First Post! -Sharing My Ideas.

Well, this is officially my first post on my first blog! This is also the beginning of my 'Final Major Project'. I'll be posting things throughout my progress and thought I'd start by sharing my ideas with you.
I had already made a decision long before that I wanted to make a magazine for my FMP, that was the easy part. As my main interest is fashion photography, I wanted to create a fashion magazine. I thought about photographing vintage and charity shop clothing as this is what i love most. However, I had already done a similar photoshoot using this in a previous project and didn't want to repeat myself. This then led me into producing a editorial/high fashion magazine. I had flicked through a couple of these types of magazines such as vogue in the past. What I like about them is they're always full of beauty and clothing advertisements or campaigns. I love the amount of detail that goes into producing these images. As I was researching by looking at magazines such as POP, ELLE and VOGUE to name a few, I noticed that the brand was sometimes the last thing I took into consideration. It was the set-up of the image such as the location, lighting, props and model(s) that caught my attention first.
I had also looked at other photographers work which I have linked to who I have been influenced by that have done fashion shoots. To name a few such as:

LARA JADE - I love how she uses natural lighting as her main source of light for a lot of her work and I also enjoy the simplicity of her set ups. I like the studio work she has produced by just using one soft box and the effect it has created.

EMMA HARDY - I'm influenced by her work for the same reason as Lara Jades because I like how she uses natural lighting and I enjoy working solely with this too. I was influenced by Emma's work in a previous project of mine.

RANKIN - I love a lot of Rankin's work as it's a contrast to the other two photographers I have listed. I really like how much detail goes into the set up of his images and how dramatic the models, location and lighting all look.


JOHN SPINKS - I really liked the simplicity of the first few images with the plain backgrounds so you're not distracted away from the product being advertised. I also really liked the other work where he had created effects with the smoke and lighting and want to create something similar within my own work.


I took all this research into account and started jotting a few ideas down for example possible locations as I want to do some photoshoots in the studio and outside. I want to have a variation by working with natural lighting and studio lighting so i can create dramatic effects.


I think this'll do for my first post for now. Toodledoo!