Threads & Bulbs

After discussing the use of video within fashion during one of the lectures, we wanted to try and create a video to correspond with our shoot.

Me and Gavin decided to make full use of the 5DMKII’s HD video capabilities and create a short film during the shoot which would run parallel with the content of the publication.

The video content itself was relatively unplanned, and was directed and considered as we went along through the filming process. We were trying to push the concept of the subject being in their comfort zone by showing typical activity that would take place within, whilst still enhancing the ideas of thought and contemplation.

We also thought that the use of video would help to encourage some more focus on the actual styling, by showing the subject waking up and getting dressed with tightly cropped shots, the viewer is able to get a better sense of the styling used within the shoot, an equally important factor.

After sifting through the footage from both cameras, and enduring several hours of somewhat laborious rendering and post production, this was what we created.

Other media: 120 Medium Format Film

As stated in a previous blog post, we wanted to use a variety of media formats to create our shoot (perhaps a sub conscious decision to experiment with multiple media, in regards to referencing different kinds of arts? Maybe we were thinking about it too hard and for so long that it embedded itself deep into our brains, who knows…?)

Gavin and myself used two 5D MKII’s to execute the majority of the shoot, being 21.1 megapixel full frame sensor DSLR’s retailing at over £2,000 each, the results were obviously very sharp and they handled the shoot incredibly, but even with the advancement of digital technology, there is an undeniable magic that traditional film still possesses over digital. The dynamic range that analogue film can capture within a scene is still beyond any digital sensor, more so even than a 40 megapixel digital back

Here are a couple of examples of our 120 film shots:

Shot on Kodak Portra 120, 400ASA using a Mamiya 645 Pro.

Layout concepts

Now that we have finished the shoot, we’ve started to look into layout ideas and considering how we want to portray the images within the format of the publication.

Being an ex student of Graphic Design, I was quite excited to progress to this stage of the assignment, as I already have a fundamanetal understanding of effective layout use and typography I was thinking of ways we could incorporate our images into a design.

Samantha had recently brought Volt magazine to Gavin and mine’s attention. I had never really heard of it before but I became very interested in it straight away. Printed at around A3 in size on a nice, semi gloss paper, the photographs are all very large and look quite spectacular in this format. The attention to detail is really captured in the way the publication is presented and one thing I really love is the actual design of the publication itself. There is a lot of use of negative/white space around the images which are commonly printed singularly to fill the majority of the pages. There are also a lot of examples that use really nice, modern looking typography, almost always sans serif fonts, printed quite large and very minimal. Rather than distract from the images, I think the use of typography and design really help to push the effect of the photography (which is clearly the intention of the magazine, as is any other fashion/photography publication). 

Due to the fact that our shoot has a very ‘white’ theme to it, we will most certainly be using the influence of Volt magazine to inspire our own layout ideas.

Wrapped!

After a very frantic week of last minute decisions, prop/model sourcing and concept finalisation, we proceeded to go ahead with the main shoot on friday.

Having shot in the very same location a week before for a 4th year Fashion & Brand student, I was slightly skeptical about how our shoot would go (the pictures I took in this room the week before were not to my liking whatsoever). But God was on our side, and the amazing weather worked WONDERS for the natural lighting in the room, and gave the photos an absolutely incredible finish that couldn’t even be recreated in a studio. Gavin and I had sourced a flashgun/softbox to use as fill light but we were both pleasently surprised that there was no need for it whatsoever during the whole shoot due to the amazing weather.

However, although the great weather worked wonders for our actual images, it created a VERY horrible and uncomfortable shooting environment, temperatures were soaring and what with the room being quite small, the 7 of us (group and 3 models) certainly felt the intensity of the heat during the 8 hours we were shooting…

I think I can safely speak for all of us when I say that once again, we are over the moon with the outcome of the shoot and have exceeded our expectations with this brief.

Now we just need to group together, slim down the final selection and get working on the layout!

Another group meeting, almost there…

So today we had another group meeting to further discuss and finalise our ideas for the shoot. We had already decided that the concept for the shoot would be based on this kind of feeling of dependancy, and not knowing what to do with your life as far as education goes, with all the factors surrounding the difficulties of taking up further education etc.

As far as styling goes, we had decided on very minimal styling, focusing more on plain clothes and underwear to try and create something of a delicate and almost vulnerable appeal to the shoot.

Our original idea was to shoot in a bed and breakfast hotel. We had looked online at some of these in Blackpool and had seen some pretty good competitors, that is until we found a much better, more suited, and far more convenient location:

Last week I did a shoot for a 4th year fashion & brand student, using the above location. Gavin assissted me and was also at hand to create a behind the scenes video of the shoot, but we realised how perfect this room would be for our shoot for this assignment. Rather than using a B&B, which already has a recognised set of cliches and impressions associated with it, we decided that this room would better reflect the concept of our shoot. The blank white walls and concrete floor are not dissimilar to those of an art gallery, and seeing as the props we are using for the shoot are more focused on the arts subjects we thought that this would be perfect.

The location has been secured and sorted for this friday, due to the beautiful ambient light that hits this room from the window, It looks like we will be working with 90% ambient light for this shoot, with maybe a little bit of fill flash, and also using a mix of digital and 120 film.

Concept Development

After reading the Telegraph’s article regarding the elite British educationers talking down on the arts subjects, we have started to push this as our key conceptual idea for the assignment.

The proposed idea for the shoot is to use our models in a somewhat tentative and vulnerable looking state. We want the idea of ‘thought and dilemma’ to be a key theme within the shoot, showing subjects which are portrayed in their comfort zones, using bedroom type scenarios and minimal comfortable clothing such as vests and underwear to try and portray that sense of absolute independency, and the idea of uninterrupted thought.

We want to create a very bright, clean looking aesthetic within the shoot as something of a visual metaphor for the untainted mind of a young creative individual dictating how they want to progress with their life within the field of the arts. By using the format of diptychs as I had previously mentioned, we want to convey the types of objects and tools that concern the subjects that the concept revolves around. Using other visual metaphors such as cameras being hung up on a wall, almost unused and forgotten, being somewhat similar to the concept of “throwing in the towel”.

We also discussed the idea of using inspirational quotes (intentionally delivered to the viewer with an anonymous nature) within the layout format of the publication, perhaps representational of the kinds of thoughts that the subjects could have running through their minds.

Methods of concept enhancing: Diptychs

After the lesson we had recently with the on-the-spot live brief regarding the use of diptychs, we started to look at ways in which we could try and incorporate this tool into our project to help push the concept further.

Whenever looking at diptychs in the past, I had always just assumed it was a way of presenting two images together as part of a set, and that the line was more or less drawn there. After the lesson, and after also doing some further research in my own time, I discovered there is a lot more to the idea of diptychs than seems first apparant. 

The diptych was a common format in Early Netherlandish painting and depicted subjects ranging from portraiture to religious stories. Often a portrait and a Madonna and Child had a leaf each. It was especially popular in the 15th and 16th centuries. Painters such as Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes used the form quite often. Some modern artists have used the term in the title of works consisting of two paintings, never actually connected, but intended to be hung close together as a pair, such as Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, now a modern pop culture icon.

Through the use of diptychs, it is possible to combine two seemingly varying photographs and tie them together with this format, to create a rhetorical third image within the viewer under their own perceptions through the means of connotative signs.

Seeing as our concept is based around the arts subjects, we thought it would be a good idea to try shooting the models and presenting them in coaltion with suggestive props alongside that convey the arts, such as musical instruments, books, photography/theatre equipment and musical memorabilia.

Visual Inspiration: Pose

These are some great examples of poses that would really match the kind of feel we are going for with our shoot:

These poses demonstrate a very vacant sense of expression, very passive and almost thoughtful in look. One thing that I had mentioned to the group in our meeting recently is the importance of pose in creating the right message for the shoot is absolutely crucial. Where in other shoots (such as the recent Androgyny shoot we did for our last collab) you often find yourself firing off shots like a machine gun, with the intention of shortlisting down in post process, I suggested that the execution of our shoot will probably be far more constructed and staged, model direction will be absolutely crucial in order to truly fulfill the narrative we are trying to push with the shoot.

Universities tell students which ‘soft’ subjects to avoid.

This article from the Telegraph website was brought to my attention by Gavin, and explores the ‘higher uppers’ (Oxford, Cambridge etc) talking down upon what they consider to be subjects such as photography, media, design, art etc.

This is another great example of where we can draw some influence from for the narrative in our shoot. The theme of confusion and not knowing what to do with yourself in education is enhanced by the words of these schools filling students ears with educational propaganda.