Photo Shoot 3 - The Air Element

Photo Shoot 3

In preparation for this photo shoot I went to the market to buy some material, the only thing I had in mind was the colour being white. I ended up finding this translucent material, which looked as though the lighting would work well with it. It made me question how it would look with the white backdrop, I had this image in my head of something quite contemporary and clinical looking. I arranged my model, Molly Vandervell and my assistant and make up artist, Farrah Watts and booked a studio for Friday Morning. 

On the day of the shoot, I had a rough idea in mind what I wanted to experiment with. We attempted to do a similar look to this image below, but it came out unsuccessfully with us having no black paint and only a dark blue. I went up to the store to buy some black paint and charcoal to see how it would look by changing the colour but by the time I got back I had decided I wanted to make her whole face white and then add the shadowing on top with the charcoal once the white had dried.

 I went up to the store to buy some black paint and charcoal to see how it would look by changing the colour but by the time I got back I had decided I wanted to make her whole face white and then add the shadowing on top with the charcoal once the white had dried. Here is a shot of Farrah touching up the make up.

I experimented with the lighting a lot as I have not worked with the white backdrop much as black or grey would usually be my first choice. I began by bleaching the backdrop out by placing to soft boxes facing onto the back drop. This shot involves the previous make up that went wrong but shows how I lit the set to begin with.

I didn't particularly like the bleach out as it reminded me of the photos you get in a family portrait studio, it was too plain looking, there was nothing artistic about the image, therefore I started experimenting with the light in the foreground rather than the back ground to see what I would get. This is an unedited shot but was the result of my lighting experiment. I didnt feel as though it was very successful and looked very flat. 

Here is an example of two of my work in progress's, they are still in need of further editing.

Post production was a very time consuming process. I have spent hours on them and teaching myself how to airbrush through watching YouTube videos and finding out different ways of doing so. My fashion friend who went to Berlin for the fashion week mentioned how the five elements are coming into fashion. I looked tried researching this but found an article from back in 2008 but was very relevant to this theme:

"On our pages you may have read the article and seen the video of the campaign of the fashion manifestation Quelle Fashion.hr spring/summer 09, which will be held from July 10 to 12 in Zadar. 

Famous Croatian fashion photographer, Mare Milin, shot a campaign called “Peti Element” (The Fifth Element) and here are the results. The campaign shows four female models who symbolise the four elements of nature: fire, water, earth and air, and fashion as the element on which the other four meet each other.

- First of all, as a photographer I had to adapt to the theme which the producer assigned, due to the concept of architectonic wonder itself, such as “Sea Organs” and “Farewell to the Sun”. The theme itself got off from the cohesion of the four elements (fire, water, earth and air) and their presence in fashion. We thought fashion in a new context as the junction point where the elements mix with one another. We concentrated on evoking these elements of nature serving “dressing” in fashion photography, and in fashion in general. Here I mainly refer to fashion accessories which often have an important influence in many editorials, as in defining someone’s fashion awareness. The idea itself is extremely decent and discrete, it celebrated the female body and sends a series of messages through the mentioned accessories. For example, the model who holds a scarf who dances in the wind symbolises the air, the model next to there with a quiet and proud expression on her face and a necklace represents the earth, the third model with sunglasses and warm reflection marks fire and warmth, and the fourth model completely fresh and aquatic represents water. This is what I personally wanted to add to the campaign: a process of reading between the lines which I use in my work – said Mare Milin after shooting the campaign.

Apart from Mare Milin, as art director of the campaign, the director of Fashion.hr, Vinko Filipic, explained his view of the concept of “Fifth Element”.

- As we set the manifestation from the point of view of the creation and production, the story of the four elements jumped out on its own, and today it will be present during the review in Zadar. Reviews are held on an installation which absorbs solar energy (fire) and in that way goes on living after sunset. Then are Sea organs and an immediate closeness to the seas (water), the sounds mix with summer breeze which kisses the shore (air), and the final touch, it all takes place on the shore (earth). We called Mare Milin to interpret our view of Zadar. In this way we go towards the end of the story which follows a logic, because we will all be exposed to the game of the mentioned elements, and in this way we will celebrate fashion as an expression of human creativity.

The head roles in the campaign were played by Croatian models with experience abroad: Lea Gobo and Lana Petanic from Talia Model, and Midikenn’s Ana Popovic and Malina Grahek." - Daljie.com, June 26th 2008

I decided to look into this concept of the four elements in order to work around  a theme. This I will be looking further into within my research.

POST PRODUCTION

Below is an example of post production on my bottom image. I began with airbrushing the skin which is a detailed process. I began by creating a mask for the skin which was create through using the colour range to highlight in detil just the skin. I then used a combination of high pass, gaussian blur, and emboss and adjusted the mode to overlay/linear/soft light to create the air brush/glamour glow to the skin. I then wanted to add texture back to the skin, where I added in noise and adjusted the opacities of each filter to create just the right textures to the skin. I also used the liquify tool to adjust areas and cloned out the background. 

Here is a few samples of the edited photos:

This was the first time I had experimented with the white backdrop. The light worked quite nicely in lighting it from behind the model, where I placed it at head height. For my next photo shoot I need to concentrate on the foreground lighting in order to create more depth to the image. Currently there's a lack of shadow to her face so I plan to use the light meter in order to construct and manipulate the lighting to bring more outline to the strong features of her face. 
The outcome of the material is aesthetically successful in creating this air type element. When printing my test images, I placed next to them a quote. 

"To connect with the power of the air element, find a place with clear air and breathe deeply. Touch a feather or inhale the fragrance of a heavily scented flower. Let yourself experience the energy of this element, and reflect that we also possess air energy within ourselves" 

This made me start to think about perfume campaigns and whether this quote is relative to these images in an artistic way or whether it makes the image seem more commercial. This is something I need to think about through my shoots.