Styling and Trends Week
Day One; photo booth, mood board introduction, styling session
This week is styling week and over the weekend we were asked to take photographs of ourself in a photo booth format. We had to think about how a close up image of ourself could show through our personality, features etc.
Through out this project I have focused on my eye and have used it as my symbol for the project because the colour of my eyes is something that a lot of people notice as it is quite an unusual blue. I made the rest of the images for the photo booth black and white so that they eye stands out more and also because I tend to stick to greyscale and monochromatic colour schemes in my overall look and in a lot of my work.
As a class we laid all our photographs out on the table and then went through and discussed the reasons behind our decisions etc. Once we had done this, we started working on mood boards and concept boards for our final photo shoot. We could go anyway we wanted with the photo shoot as long as it linked to something about ourselves. My focus was my eye again and just to simply show off my personality by keeping it fairly simple. I personally don't like it when there is too much going on in an image so wanted my photo shoot to replicate that.
Focus on eyes, black and white, backdrop
Location ideas
In the afternoon we did a styling session where we were given 5 minutes to style our partner in the things we had brought in. I really enjoyed this task however if we had more time I would want to style my partner completely, coming up with full outfits.
Day Two; trend reports, presentations
On Tuesday we were asked to go around London to do shop report and to see what trends that are out there at the moment. We were put in to groups and then went to different locations within our group. Freya and I decided to go to Sloane Square and Knightsbridge to spot the latest trends. The trend we saw most was tartan, it was everywhere and always placed at the front of stores so it's the first thing you notice!
Then on Wednesday we got back in to our groups so that we could do a group trend report. The main trends that we focused on were tartan, leather and luxe.
Once we'd put together our boards we presented them to the group to show the main trends we noticed. Most groups had very similar trends and it was obvious that tartan was the most popular trend at the moment in the stores.
Day Three; photo shoot editing, crits, presentation
Today we were going through our photo shoot and selecting what ones we wanted to use and then editing them.
The idea behind my shoot was to keep things simple, black & white and clean. I created the back drop myself by using my eye as the focus; I made it by getting strips of lining paper and then repeating the same drawing of an eye in different sizes. I should have outlined them in black rather than grey so that they stood out a bit more.
At first I wanted my shoot to be a bit more serious however this idea changed as I don't think I have a very serious personality, I'm fairly easy going and try not to take myself to seriously. This led to the idea of basically trying to capture the moments that come between taking one photo and the next. I like the ones where I'm laughing as it shows off my personality more.
The styling was again simple, I always monochrome or black and so thought it was appropriate for a photo shoot that is to show off our style. The backdrop is also simple but I think it works better than just a plain white wall. I don't think the photographs would have been effective if it was just a plain simple wall. There were a lot of close up shots of me as well to really focus in on my eyes but I don't think they looked as good as the full bodied ones.
I've placed the photos in a sequence and think they work better together than alone. None of the images have the same pose and I like the movement and difference between each shot.
We had a crit in the afternoon once we had finished editing; at first I was a bit nervous because I'm not very good at talking about my own work however once we got in to it and I saw other peoples I felt much more confident. We have a lovely group and so nobody makes you feel uncomfortable when talking about your own work. It was great to see what other people had done and the variety of ideas that people had.
Overall I've found this week very jam-packed but it has been good fun!
A1 board showing arrangement of final photo shoot to show our own personality
Over the weekend I have been playing around on photoshop and coming up with some different edits for my final shoot that we've been doing this week.
Weekly Review
Overall this week has been very busy with lots of different things being asked of us. When we first started I did find it to be a bit tricky, the thing I found hardest this week was coming up with ideas for my final shoot of the week because of the fact that it had to be based around ourselves. If I were to be given a word/ idea/theme that wasn't relevant to me I'd find it much easier to come up with a concept for a photo shoot.
I wanted my own personal shoot to be very simple and black and white because that fits in with me but was a bit worried that it would look boring or that I hadn't made much of an effort when really I feel like I have been working really hard to get things right.
I enjoyed the trend report because it meant I could go up to London and do a lot of window shopping! I liked being able to spot the trends and which ones were more frequent/ more popular than others. Tartan was everywhere!
I have been experimenting with photoshop this weekend to try and make my shoot a bit more interesting however I want to learn some more skills with photoshop as it is a programme I don't know much about. I enjoy editing and manipulating photos so I like to practice and play around on photoshop to see what works and what doesn't.
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