Shoot 2 - Experimenting

Shoot Plan

For this second shoot I had the cove studio booked as I wanted to work in that environment again. I created a list of shots I wanted to capture before actually going in there so I had a plan of action.

This list is below:

- confidence - tall, bold heels with contrasting colours

- trapped - hands and face trying to get out of a box or cover

- dreamer - sparkly wand and fairy dust representing the make believe

- vulnerable - surrounded by products society use to change the way they are or look

Models

Taylor and Courtney

Location

Cove studio

Date

April 20th 2016

After completing the shoot I had to download my images and go through them in order to edit my best work. I decided to go through them on the computer instead of wasting paper and printing them off as there were over 4 sheets. Below is the 2 sheets which have the original 'final' images on. I crossed through the images which were no good and annotated certain images to remind myself why and to what I wanted to do when editing. When going through the contact sheets I ended up narrowing it down to between five and ten final images to edit.

My favourite shots were the only ones which really went to plan as everything else I had hoped to capture didn’t work in either the setting or just didn’t work. The first image was my idea to represent being trapped and vulnerable to society. I thought that by surround her with products which we use in today's society as a way of making ourselves look better and more likable, it would give the viewer some sort of information about it. The second part is the book she’s reading. As you can quite easily see, it has the words ‘Rules of Beauty’ written in big letters on the front. This helps you to see how she is trying to improve herself and become a person everyone thinks is ‘perfect’ and expected to be. As a photo goes, it’s not very pleasing to the eye as it doesn’t look very well composed. I think the reasoning behind this is definitely the fact that it was shot in a studio space. If it was in more of a candid, natural environment it probably would’ve been more effective and informative. The composition and styling would’ve been fine if it was a portraiture shoot but since it was to get a conceptual meaning and point across it sort of doesn’t contribute or add anything to it. The second image I've chosen is the one below of heels and legs. For this I basically wanted to get across the idea of someone being bold and confident. As the image has so much negative space I thought that it would bring more attention to the subject which is how confident people are viewed in today's society (huge need/want for attention). The idea behind the heels was actually inspired by a piece I saw when browsing the internet and had saved on my phone (below). I found it when looking online a while back for fashion work and saved it as I really liked the composition and setting. I thought the heels really made the piece come to life and tell a story of a bold character who uses fashion and appearance to show this. I decided to reciprocate this and do a similar thing. I think this piece works as it definitely comes across a confident and bold but I have a few ideas on how i'd make it better. If I did this again I would definitely use bolder colours and more contrasting tones. The image I had as inspiration is bright and colourful as well as bold which I think brings out the identity much more.

Overall I feel this shoot was pretty clarifying for me rather than inspiring. It has made me think about the others ways I could portray the initial subject rather than conceptual. I couldn't make this style photograph work for what I wanted to show so now I have a clearer view of what I do and don't want in my work. I think if I wanted to continue with the conceptual based work I'll need to do it in either more natural settings or set up shooting spaces which have relating surroundings and backgrounds.