500 critical

The 6 photos chosen are to show how people express their individuality and personality through fashion, whilst also showing the contrast between different types of people. Taking inspiration from photographer 'David Sims' with his unique style of studio photography this project follows the same style. Each photo has its own individual meaning on fashion and how it links to identity, for example whether you are into fashion or not you will find that the clothes you wear represent your personality and the colours on those clothes can also be a representation of who you are and what you enjoy and thats what is trying to be achieved in this project.

Some people also mask their identity with fashion and this is also something that is focused on within this project. There is a growing community in fashion and people are able to express themselves in any way imaginable, and then there are some who chose not to and dress without any effort or consideration on whether it looks good, however that is still showing their personality.


The process in which I followed to complete my final images was mainly in my research; as I said before 'David sims' was a big influence as he focuses on studio photography which is what inspired me to follow that same theme. As I believe with studio photography you can experiment a lot more with the photos. I also did research on the studium and punctum which are conventions of a photo that I wanted to incorporate in to my photos, the punctum was my main point of focus which is an element within the photo that stands out or grabs the viewers attention. This was also mentioned in 'Stuart Hall's' reading on 'REPRESENTATION, MEANING AND LANGUAGE'.

Also peoples mental representations will play a part when viewing my images as they will interpret the pictures in their own way 'we carry these in our heads, without them we could not interpret the world meaningfully'. This allowed people to take their own meaning away from my photos.

I believe my work has achieved the task of showing the contrast between colours and gender whilst obtaining my goal of representing fashion in peoples identity's, my original goal was to have different people wearing their own clothes shot in a studio environment. However my plan was to go a tad further and capture the contrast between occupations and gender, for example I had a photo of a skateboard with loafers on the skateboard, this was to show the contrast between the work life and the complete opposite lifestyle of a skater.

To conclude what remained my intention from the beginning was for people to approach the photos and question them, and hopefully they question them and think about what the images represent the same way I did when working on them.

6 final images

editing process 4

When editing this photo I needed to change the levels to bring out the shadows as the lighting really compliments the shadows in the photo. I also had to duplicate the layer as I wanted to only lighten the the black shoe as it was too dark in the original. I then changed the background colour to a light blue to have the contrast between blue and pink, as blue and pink are opposites in terms of gender.

The photo to the right didn't need much editing as I quite liked the raw image so I only changed the exposure down bit to enhance the lighting as I liked the lighting in this shot.

editing process 3

As you can see on the left I have changed the images saturation to black and white, and I then have planned to change the background to pink and blue. To do this you have to duplicate the layer so that there is two, you then have to select the quick selection tool and highlight everything that you want the colour changed on.




Then select the space that you want the colour to change on and delete it this reveals the duplicated layer behind it, you can then select the duplicated fine and change the colour on the layer to pink and blue.

 I have done this to show the contrast between gender in fashion as the colour blue is associated with male and pink is female and my subject has long hair so I thought at first sight he could either be male or female.

process of editing 2

In this photo I have changed the photos exposure to darken it a bit to have a bit of a raw look to it.

 In this photo you can see I have started to change the colours in the photo. I did this because I didn't really like how the original looked and I wanted a bit of a more vibrant feel to the photo as this specific image showing the colours.





This is the image after being edited and as you can see I have changed the white background nd the pink clothes to more of a purple colour. I did this to achieve the contrast between the light and dark colours in the image.

process of editing

When editing my photos I begin by playing around with the levels and vibrance so I can determine how much I want to change each photo. With this specific photo you can see I have changed the levels. With this specific post I have changed the levels to make the photo a bit darker and then changed the vibrance to enhance the reds in the photo, I also wanted to bring attention to the hamster in the photo because the hamster is the punctum.                                    

fashion community (project proposal)

I have decided to go in the direction of fashion for my project especially street fashion as I feel like it is a great representation of identity and personality. Each person has their own individual sense of style whether they put effort into it or not it still reflects your personality. there is also a distinction between gender regarding fashion and those who seek to disregard the conventions of fashion to express their individuality.

These photos on the left are photos I got off the internet showing a community of people who are involved in fashion. It shows how a group of people come together and express their passion for something.

Jackie nickerson

 I then started to look at fashion and various different artists exploring what intrigued me, such as: 'Jackie Nickerson' who shot the 'Yeezy season' which is a high end fashion brand

After looking at the 'Yeezy season' I began to start shooting and then made my contact sheet, after making contact sheets I selected the 8 images I was going to be using for the final outcome, i put the 8 images into photoshop and began development on the photos to make them look how I thought was the best.

composition

This was a task in class to go out in stamner and shoot photos, but when shooting them take in to consideration depth of field and rue of thirds. I feel as though this task has helped me improve and learn new types of shooting which I feel can contribute to my final idea when shooting it. As you can see below I have chose my favourite photo out of all of them, I chose this photo because it has a low depth of field which allowed me to focus on the barbed wire whilst the background is out of focus. I also focused on the rule of thirds allowing me to have 3 symmetrical lines through the photo.

shooting for final piece

Today I started shooting for my final images and as you can see above I have set up a home studio by putting bed sheets over furniture, the reason I have done this is so that the subject in the imagine will be more easily seen. The white background also allows me to be able to edit the background into whatever I want for example I was going to have one picture with a  pink Background and one with a blue to represent gender and the contrast between them in terms of colours.

When shooting these photos we dimmed the lights so there was minimal light in the room as we were shooting with a flash which we learned how to use in class to get a more clearer photo.









As you can see this is the outcome of the photoshoot and I am very pleased on how they came out, and I can now select my final 6 images.

data bending

data bending consisted of put a raw photo into audition as .wav file and ten editing the sound waves within audition and then seeing the outcome.

As you can see it is a very unique way of editing and the end results were actually very interesting.










This photo was edited in an online editing software, I was experimenting on different types of edits that I could maybe incorporate into my firninazation of ideas.

studio (potraits)

These are my contact sheets from todays session in the studio, we were experimenting with lighting and we took reflectors in which allowed u to get a first basis with lighting and where the light should be directed on a photo. Once I made the contact sheet it allowed me to select the image which I thought had the best lighting, I think that this photo also has nice composition in terms of the subject being very central and the dark background really compliments the lighting on the subjects face.

So this is the image I selected out of the ones I took, I feel as if this is my strongest image as the positioning of the subject is very central and the way the light really compliments the one side of her face I found aesthetic. Wr learnt this so I can incorporate this technique into photos outside of class.

presentation 2 (nan golding)

Nan golding is renown for her documentation of love, her photographs feature her life and everyone in it. its said that her photos disregard the conventions of your typical photos, Goldings photos are of people she has lived with over time as she ran away at such a young age she has always been living with different people which in a way is the muse of her photography. Golding lived the crazy life just as the people in her photos did.

When recreating Goldings work I took into consideration that she photographed her piers, so I thought it would only be right if I did the same, so I took a disposable camera and shot some 35mm photos when I was out with my friends focusing mainly on the style of Golding. As you can see below on the right I shot this on a night out in Brighton and felt it captured the same style as Golding in terms of the subjects being intoxicated and the friendship of the 3 people in the photo. Then the photo on the right is my flat mate who got punched on a night out and i really like the contrast of the black background and the flash on the camera really complements his face.

presentation 1 (martin parr)

Martin parr is a chronicler and at first sight his photos seem exaggerated and ugly however he is actually portraying how we live, leisure and communication between one another is what a lot of photographers try to capture but Parr does it in a specific way that allows the viewer to see the peculiarities within ourselves, and as you can see from the photos above this is exactly what he's done, especially with he photo on the right, its a perfect demonstration of a crazy individual.

 This is my recreation of Parr's work, as you can see I have a middle aged woman in recently streetwear clothing and a skateboard with some vibrant trousers. I was trying to capture the contrast between age because its unusual to see an older woman on a skateboard and it focuses on the peculiarities just like parr did. I shot this on 35mm and if i was to go back id focus more of the depth of field as I feel this image is a bit blurry, however it followed the conventions.

gallery visit (snap london)

I started off my fourth week by visiting a gallery, and the gallery I decided to visit 'Never mind the sex pistols' by an artist named 'Pierre Benain' at snap gallery in london. I really was inspired by Benain's work and I really like the way he shot and the style of his photos, I came across the gallery on an educational visit and I really enjoyed it so I went back for a second time. I got a feel of escapism from his photos and this is why I am including him as research in my project, as there is a old fashioned feeling to his photos and the way the people in his photos look like they have been out all night and they have beers and cigarettes and the room they are in is dirty and there is things everywhere. The photos are of John Lydon who was in a band named 'There sex pistols' and 'Paul Benain' shot photos him. I could really relate to these photos as some of my nights out look similar to this and I feel its a good representation of personality because the people in the photo look like very interesting individuals.

I then started to plan a response to 'Benain's' work so I started to go out an shoot on a 35mm film camera to get the same effect as 'Benain's' pictures so I took a camera to a party that everyone was going too so I could incorporate the theme of my project into the same style as 'Benain'. I took a lot of different photos and tried to capture the same essence as Benain did, for example I took most of the photos when the party had finished and the last men standing were all together. I felt like this was the best way to capture the same style as Benain did, I even captured a photo of one man sleeping which I used as one of the responses as it reminded me of Benain's work I also had one photo of a man smoking and then another of a man drinking at early of the morning. I feel like this is a good representation of escapism and freedom as its photos of youth doing what they enjoy on the weekends when there not at school or work or anything of that sort, below are two of the photos I took responding to Benain's work.