Merry Christmas Everyone!

I was given a new camera for Christmas so I took the opportunity to capture some interesting photos over the break as I really love the colours associated with Christmas-time!

Unit 1 Top 20

More of my favourite shots...

Psychedelia

Candy Face

Who Ate All The Jaffa Cakes?

- original edit

- new edit

Love U!

Candy!

Developmental Shoot 3 Work Record - 07/12/12

Plans for the shoot –

My plans for the shoot are to go into the studio and use sweets in various ways to show emotions, and to just have fun!

I have bought a variety of sweets (and some jaffa cakes) in which I will be sticking them to someone's face and experimenting with different parts of the face, such as the lips and around the eyes. 

As well as sticking them to the face, I will beforehand get a variety of shots of the sweets on their own, arranging them in different ways such as in colour or size order. I will also be getting my model to hold the food objects in various ways. With this shoot I haven't as much planned the sort of shots I want to do - as it is quite an abstract, random shoot, I want the shots to be quite random and to have some fun with it!

What I hope to achieve –

With this shoot I hope to achieve almost two different collections - a more commercial selection of photos which would look similar to something used in a advertisement - simple, basic shots that clearly highlight what the objects are, and a more abstract selection of photos - these are the shots where I will be playing with the sweets, getting my model to hold and present them in various ways -- all whilst playing with emotions. 

What I actually achieved -

I have had such a fun time with this particular shoot as I found it quite easy as I could do whatever I wanted to, it didn't involve a lot of me having to take charge and tell my models what to do - this was only so for a set of particular shots I wanted which were quite easy to create with my model anyway. Because of technical problems, this developmental shoot took place in three different shoots as the first time I had run out of time in the studio, and the second time the camera had run out of battery; but I found that my best shots did come from my last shoot, as it gave me plenty of time to get the exact shots I needed. This shoot has also given me a lot to experiment with; I've used a lot of repetition techniques, selective colour and a lot of size manipulation. 

This is personally one of my favourite photos from my shoot - I think it looks really cute and would make a good piece for some advertisement. I also think that it fits in really well with my planned theme as 'love' is a really strong emotion.

This is probably my most favourite photo from my whole shoot as I love the different colours used in it and how bright and vivid they are. I also think that it is the picture that represents the theme 'emotions' most, as obviously, each different sweet represents a different emotion. I would have liked to have included more sweets of different colours and used a load more different emotions to expand upon the idea of the photo.

What I am going to do next - 

What I would like to do next is to either expand on my theme of emotions which has been used in this shoot, or I may be able to carry out my next developmental shoot which you can see I have already planned for in previous blog posts. 

Developmental Shoot 3 Research

First of all my original planned 3rd developmental shoot has been postponed because my props have arrived yet! So to make up for this I have planned another shoot to do in place of my original shoot.

My idea for the next shoot I do is to play with sweets!

 

Best Work - Developmental Shoots

       
         

The Little Things

This is one of my favourite photo's from my second developmental shoot, because I have combined my original idea, with my future idea for my next developmental shoot of turning people into fairies, based on my research into the Cottingley Fairies photographs from 1917. With this image, I have combined two of my best images together to make it look like my friend Jess is holding the fairy-form of herself in her hands. I have also included fairy wings which have been made using special brushes I have downloaded for Photoshop, the link of which I found them on can be seen in the previous post. 

Photoshop Brushes

I am going to post various links to downloadable brushes I may want to use for future work:

• http://naldzgraphics.net/freebies/44-free-wing-photoshop-brush-sets/

Playing with Bubbles....

Developmental Shoot 2 Best Shots

Developmental Shoot 2 Work Record - 21/11/2012

Plans for the shoot -

My plans for my second developmental shoot is to explore colour in more depth, and also look at different angles and views portrait work can be shot at. I am going to take my friend, Jess, into the forest where she will pose as a reindeer. This idea came from looking at different fashion photography photos on the website We Heart It:



I also plan to explore various different emotions, which I think can usually change the mood and tone of a photo. I will also be experimenting with various different photoshop effects and tutorials which I have briefly outlined in a previous blog post.

What I hope to achieve -
I hope to achieve a set of photos which similarly reflect the same style of fashion photography I have done a little research into (see above), but in a different environment which explores a wider range of richer and bolder colours and textures.

What I actually achieved -
In the end I was really happy with the photos, and even did a little editing to some of them which reflects my idea for my future development shoot based around fairies, which has given me some good practice. I really favour the close-up photos as I feel they reflect my initial theme and ideas more, and gave me more scope with the editing. I really like my photos as I think they show some really beautiful, autumnal colours, and also show a lot of different emotions. I also feel that this shoot did allow me to experiment with various different portrait shots and angles.

However, I did find that we were limited with some of the shots due to the poor weather - as we were in a forest and it was raining, a lot of the terrain was muddy and slippery which limited us to certain areas. If the weather had been dryer or warmer, I feel that some of my photos would have come out a lot differently and would have been somewhat more interesting. I also feel that it could have been interesting to include more people in the shoot to develop some of the poses we created for some of the shots. I also feel that I should have put more time into the preperation stages as we did find some issues with the costuming, as the 'antlers' at time did tend to fall out. I also feel that with the choice of location the 'antlers' didn't show as well as they could have if I had done the shoot on an open field, as the 'antlers' just blended in with the trees in some of the shots.

This is one of my favourtie photos from the shoot, after I had edited it. I really like the emotion in this photo, it almost makes the model look 'lost' or lonely, and I think combined with the added sepia colour effect over the top makes it look quite vintage and old. I also chose to  repeat the image but reflect it to make it look like there are two 'reindeer' peering around the tree.

What I am going to do next -

Depending on the availability of props, I may either chose to complete my 'fairy' shoot in the studio, where I will look at the manipulation of photos to make people look smaller or bigger than they really are. If I cannot get the props I need for this planned shoot, I may complete a simple shoot in the studio where I will 'play with food and sweets'. The ideas I am getting from this are to arrange sweets in such ways to make them look like other sweets, such as getting Skittles and drawing smiling faces on them, or making a Jaffa Cake look like a 'full moon', 'half moon' and a 'total eclipse'.



Developmental Shoot 4 Research - CANCELLED

For one of my future developmental shoots I want to use the studio to photograph a model, rather than myself this time, dressed as a dark fairy/angel. In this shoot I want to particularly look at different parts of the human body, colour and form.

When I was researching about similar styles of photography, I came across the British photographer John 'Rankin' Waddell. After looking at Rankin's portfolio, I was really inspired by some of his work and the styles he uses.

The main inspiration behind this developmental shoot was from a music video; Ed Sheeran's 'Give Me Love'. The video features 'cupid', and you see the different emotions she feels when she makes various people fall in love, but she can't make someone fall in love with her. I really want to use this idea of looking at different emotions through someone dressing up as a a similar sort of character.

After I had developed the main theme for this shoot, I decided to do some more research into 'fairy photography' which I then found out about the Cottingley fairies. The Cottingley fairies appeared in a series of 5 photographs taken by young girls Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths who lived in Cottingley near Bradford, England in 1917. At the time the photographs were taken, the girls were adamant that the photographs were genuine and sparked a lot of interest in similar psychic phenomenas. The girls then admitted in 1980 that the photographs were faked using cardboard cut-outs, but the fifth and final photograph was genuine. Even today, these famous photographs are one of the biggest influences of photography with the supernatural, and even influenced the photographer Rankin, which is what led me to do more research on him. Looking at the Cottingley photographs myself, even though I know that they are fake, there is still that element of realism in them, making them look beautiful and elegant, which I would like to work with in my own developmental shoot.

 


With this research in mind, I have also found some good online tutorials for Photoshop which will allow me to develop my images afterwards:

• Fantasy Photo Manipulation
• Forest Magical Scene
• Fantasy Light Effects
• Reflective Bubbles
• Eye Manipulation
• Fantasy Style Eyes

Developmental Shoot 1 Best Work

Developmental Shoot 1 - Work Record - 13/11/12

Plans for the shoot –

My plans for the shoot are to base it around Great Britain (more specifically England) and the military.

On the day of the shoot I plan to come in wearing a green army-style jacket, leather leggings and military boots to reflect a similar outfit which would be worn in the British army, but is also keeping up to date with current fashion trends.

I also have a large Union Jack flag from when I went to the Olympics in the summer, and I have also purchased some Union Jack lip tattoos to wear for the shoot. I will be using the flag in various ways to show how much the army/military means to Great Britain

I plan to use the studio for this shoot and it will either be mostly or completely self-portrait work. I may also take some photos on location around the college to use and edit together with my studio work.

What I hope to achieve –

What I hope to achieve by completing this shoot is something that will symbolise and represent all things British and more specifically, the British Army.

Also, as I am personally quite a self-conscious person who doesn’t like there photo being taken, I hope to produce my shoot in a way that doesn’t show my whole face, using a variety of techniques. I want to do this to show that everyone, in some way, can take and feature in great photos – they do not need to be models to look good in an image. With this shoot I also hope to develop my knowledge of Adobe Photoshop as this is what I will use to manipulate some of the photos into the way I actually want them to look.

What I actually achieved -

For my first Developmental Shoot, I chose to look at the use of colour, pattern and texture, through basing my shots around the British Army and the Union Jack.

This shoot was made up of a combination of both studio and location work. Here is one of my favourite shots from my location shoot. I have chosen to edit the image by applying text to the image, as it makes it look like something that would be used in an advertising poster. I am also using these developmental shoots to experiment with all sorts of different effects, such as applying text to the image. With this image also, I really like the contrast in the colours in the flag, but also the contrast againt the darkness in my boots.

This is one of my favourite edited photos from my studio shoot. To create this look, I took two images from my shoot in the studio, one of my eyes and one of the flag, and layered them over eachother in Photoshop. I then changed the opacity of each layer, which allowed both the layers to be visible at the same time. I really like this effect as it gives a mysterious, ghostly mood/tone to the image, which is something I could really develop in further work as I think it looks really effective.

What I am going to do next -

 From completing this shoot I have realised that I don't really enjoy doing self-portrait work, as I found it really hard to position the camera correctly - I much prefer to take the pictures myself of someone else, so that I know how well the images come out and having total control of the camera.

For my next few developmental shoots, I want to completely change the theme to give me a chance to experiment.

One of my ideas is to do a complete location shoot, themed around animals and fashion. I would like to go into the woods and photograph people in a way to make them represent animals. By getting my model(s) to dress in a certain way and using natural resources around me, I could get them to look like deer, squirrels or birds, which I think will look really effective in the natural lighting.

My other main idea is to do another studio shoot but using a model instead of myself this time to allow me complete control over the photo quality. After being inspired by some research and a specific music video, I want to dress someone up as a fairy/angel, and explore the use of colour, the human body and different emotions.

I will post more information about the research and inspiration for these possible developmental shoots in separate blog posts nearer the time.

Photo Joiner