Reflection

now that this project is coming to the end of term I’m drawing it to a close, i feel in many ways although my project didn’t go right to plan that it in some ways has strengthened it and i have come out with a better outcome than what i had first imagined. After reading thought my project proposal, i think i have stayed within what i had proposed to do, i had wanted to push the boundary of the body producing a series of images that really push different ways the body can be photographed and how the body can be used to model jewellery. In the proposal i had planed on having a series of different images using different methods to photograph the body and i did experiment with different methods i felt that producing a series of different methods as finished pieces would be spreading myself  a bit too thin and that the images wouldn’t be as strong as i had hoped.

i think from not following what i had set out to do, it has made me become aware of the possibilities that i can add to my own style of photography, i usually work from one idea and try to follow it thought, but i think with this project it has taught me to take risks with my work and not always stick with the first idea i come across. I’ve always wanted to sway to fashion photography and always felt like i was not able to do so because of my style of work would not suit fashion photography but i think this project and the research that i have done has opened my eyes to different ways of mixing the two styles of photography, fine art and fashion, and i feel i am now more able to experiment and would like to continue in this direction and see where it takes me, i feel i will always be drawn however to the fine art style of working though.

Rather than producing a sketch book of ideas and thoughts and housing all my research in that i have been using this blog to note it all down, and i have found this a challenge, i am so used to working in sketch books jotting my ideas down as they come and drawing up sketches of photos i would like to produce, i think because i come from more of a fine art side this is why is has been hard for me, through this project i have tried to keep all my thinking posted on the blog but i feel by doing so it have lost some personality by having to plan do to posts ect, so i think when it comes to my next project in the future i will carry on blogging but will also go back to using a sketch book and if need be scan pages of my work in, then post on my blog.

While on the subject of learning, i felt i hadn’t worked with studio lighting enough and after doing a separate fashion project this gave me the confidence to try to use studio lighting for my project, and i think without doing so my photos would have suffered, and now i am able to consider alot more with my photos with not having to worry so much about the lighting, and this too have opened up possibilities for me to take my ideas and work to different places.

i think i kept within my timescale working well, i felt that i set myself a realistic time scale and helped me get to organise my work and not feel like i have piles of work, i think it also helped me from not leaving all my work to last minuet and i had to plan what i was going to do from the start which made me more prepared.

overall i am pleased with the outcomes of the photos, however since receiving the prints i am not to happy with them because they have a yellow tinge to them, i think this was properly something to do with the ink in the printer where i got my images printed.

As to how i am going to carry on this project i would like to look into the idea of photographing people with marks on their skins such as scars, tattoos and piercings because i think this would be a very interesting direction to take my project, and the way people are curled up and in the fetal posision, i think would lead to a very dramatic and beautiful series of images.

Alexander Mcqueen

one day during this project i was sat watching tv and i saw this advert come on, which stopped me from ding what i was doing and had my eyes glued to the screen;

this advert really interested me more not just the advert for chocolate by more by the clothing the model was wearing, the idea she was floating in air and twirling around  and the dress being cleverly blown from different angles to make the dress slowly open up, i think this advert was very powerful and was a different way to show a fashion piece similar to the methods I’ve been looking at. while looking into the advert i fund that the advert it’s self took the idea from fashion designer Alexander McQueen, he did a piece featuring Kate moss in his designed piece twirling around and the video was using in a hologram to project his pieces on the catwalk in a different style to attract attention.

 

i think fashion designers alike are always looking for new ways to show their peices and different ways to attract attention, and  i would like to be able to say about my work also.

Denis Darzacq

after looking at Sam taylor-woods work i decided to research into similar work about to find the best way of achieving the sense that a person is suspended in mid-air, i had heard of ne way that involved photoshopping out something that a person is standing on to make them appear to be floating. while i was searching i came across a photographer called Danis Darzacq that has been producing work that features dancers jumping or free styling in normal everyday places such as supermarkets and bus stops, using a very fast shutter he captures the dancer in mid-air so they appear to be suspended, and i think the shapes and different positions he captures them in are very interesting some of them i find my self wondering how they could have been photographed in such a position it almost goes against gravity, but it’s very interesting to know that all the photos are real. on some of his images you can tell that the dancer was moving at a fast speed since the hands are sometimes blurred on the photos. this video shows the photographer in action working with his dancer in a street location.

when looking at these photos, the body appears to be hanging in mid-air, everything about a person we recognise in photos seems t have been taken away in these photos left with a body we know thing about and i think this is why using this method will work well to model my pieces of jewellery because the person become just the backdrop of the image and i think with the right lighting my photos will really work.

my inspiration for my final images

one of the things from many that inspired me with my shoot was work by Sam Taylor-wood, she produced a series of works all self-portrait, where she was suspended in her studio in different ways to appear she was floating in mid-air, i really liked the simplicity of the images and thought i would like to do something similar to this for my project, as the scanning images were not delivering what id had hoped so i decided to take my project in a different direction and i thought that if i would do something similar with suspending or making my model look like they are floating i think it would simplify the image and would draw more attention to the matter in hand and in this case the jewellery being modelled.

Here are some images from Sam taylor-woods work;

 

The finished images

i’ve just about finished editing the photos from yesterday theres still a few little bit that need to be done to them but apart from that i think i’m going to leave this part of the project now, by using similar method used though these photos i think i’d like to explore other areas such as tattoos, body piercings, scars and other marks on the skin i think this could form the basis of a very interesting project with lots of opportunities. i think they was the body looks suspended meaning it has no real connection with the background or the viewer and, i really like the different shapes and positions that you can put the body in to create quite abstract images. i think theres something about the body curled up and turned away from the camera that is very private and the fetus position also gives the feeling of safety within the photo, so i think by doing this with people’s tattoos, scars and other marks on the skin could would really well together as everyone has different backgrounds and stories along with tattoos ect, it would almost be like a documentary told though the body .

anyway thats food for thought and were a might take my project but these are the final photos from the recent shoot;

i did this one in black and white just to play around with the different tones i could achieve with the skin but i then decided against it because i feel it doesn’t make the necklaces stand out as much, which would be expected when that’s what the image is focused around.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

recent shoot

after much perseverance i decided to move anyway from the idea of scanning jewellery and find other ways in which i could photograph the pieces these are a few of the unedited photo and i will be posting my inspiration for them later , but overall i think they have turned out nicely , i just need to do a bit of post production on them to sort out colour balance slightly.

 

i’m very pleased with the outcomes, i really like the idea of the simplicity of the back mixed with the detail of the pieces of jewellery, i think it makes the photos quite striking  the fact I’ve used the back to model the necklaces on rather than the normal front for images . i’m aiming at gettiing these photos edited and finished by the evening.

 

back to the drawing board

so i did the shoot anyway it didn’t go as well as planned, i was disappointed with the photos, the scanner just didn’t light the image up enough and it was awkward getting the model positioned on the scanner with the jewellery, so i think i’m going to give this idea one last go, but instead of using the scanner I’m going to use glass like jenny Saville and use a camera to take thephotos.

 

 

 

test scans

before my shoot using my model i decided to do a practise run of scanning the pieces of jewelry that i am going to use to make sure they were suitable, and see how they look and how i would need to position them on the model so that they would lay correctly on the scanner.

Here are the outcomes of the images i got;

as you can see from the photos i’ve tried to use pieces that have a lot of textures to them to make the different contrasts an interesting mix, i only quickly scanned these since i only want to see what the pieces themselves would look like so i haven’t really concentrated on making sure the background is completely blacked out or cleaned the glass of the scanner so there are quiet a few marks on the images, however i do like the effect this has created on some of the image mainly the ones with the darkened backgrounds as instead of being a completely dark backdrop it shows the smudges on the screen from me moving the pieces onto the scanner and it creates this wonderful swirling effect almost, which gives the image even more depth and detail and allows the images to not be as stark, i think this is interesting and will take this in to consideration when doing my final scans .

Inspiration

since starting this project i tend to look for inspiration from lots of different books and magazine and see what other photographers and artists have done and see if i could reflection on any of there styles with my work.

jenny saville did a project where she push her body agaist glass and took photo before then painting the images, she creative similar tone and depth with her images as i want to creative with my images.

these images i found from my Polaroid book, these really inspired me to mix materials using a scanner, also looking though the Polaroid book i found lots of other photos that have really inspired me and give me ideas to apply to my own style of working and to take my work to other areas.

First shoot preparation

For my first shoot , well no so much a shoot but scanning jewellery against skins, since using a scanner I’ve found that any hard object you put on a scanner ie. jewellery doesn’t lose its shape or distort like skin but instead you can see it much more clearly, more so than with your own eye, so for my first shoot i will be enrolling a model to model the different pieces of jewellery for me pressed up against a flat bedded scanner, and hope for the outcome that the models skins will distort and squish against and around the pieces of jewellery creating almost a backdrop to the subject matter, and as i’ve found with scanner skin the body is no flat and has it’s over curves and shapes in the skin and against the light from the scanner creates interesting tone to the image.

i really want to show the detail of the jewellery because this is what an aim would be if you were photographing jewellery for a magazine of company, it’s what should attract someones attention, and sell the piece.

For the shoot I’ve collected a range of different pieces of jewellery specifically chosen with scanning them in mind, i didn’t want to just use jewellery made just from different metals put with other materials such as lace, beads and feathers creating even more interest in the photos and also showing how the body will fit and frame the pieces differently creating some variation.

when using a scanner i found the scanner light it’s self can sometimes be too bright and lights more than i want to be on show making the images seem flat, and i would rather achieve more of a dark looking photo creating depth with the skin disappearing off into the darkness, i achieved this last time in my last project using cloth over the model to black out any light and also asking the model not to push down on the flat bedded scanner but to just allow some of the skin’s surface to touch the scanner. After taking the images with the scanner i then using some post production n the images just to darken and burn out bit on the photos that i still wished to be darker and i think i achieve the desired effect,so i will use this method again .