ALK

For inspiration with regards to the aesthetic of this advertising project, I looked at the work of well known photographer Helmut Newton. I wanted to complete some individual research as I felt this would improve my approach towards the work, ensuring I had plenty of ideas to bring to the table. Last year I purchased a book of Helmut Newton's Polaroids. This book is a collection of a careers worth of fashion Polaroids, some in colour and some in black and white. Although there is a mixture of on location and studio shots, the on location work really reflects my personal desires for this project. By looking into the work of Newton, I was able to understand further the importance of working on location and how this can improve the quality of fashion campaigns. It allows for a fresh perspective with regards to recognising cultural context and the importance of this within the fashion industry. Here are a few of the shots from Helmut Newton's Polaroid book.

When editing my final imagery I wanted to chose photographs that were all in a portrait orientation even though some of my favourite shots were landscape if these images were to be published as a fashion story in an editorial magazine this format would not be possible.

I drew inspiration when editing my photographs from a series of images by Michael Schwartz of Hailey Gates for Interview Online. Images below and article here. 




I was drawn to the dark aesthetic and thought it would mirror the aesthetic of the model we used during our final shoot. I also thought that this aesthetic and editing style would allow me to mask some of the elements of the location that were distracting and to draw more focus back on to the model and the clothing.

I edited each image in the same way to create cohesion between the shots. I wanted my images to be comparable to current fashion advertisements and so I edited elements of the photographs including the models skin and I made details in the clothing and models face stand out more. I also added a vignette and an iris  blur to draw the viewers eye to the models face and the clothing rather than the surrounding detail. By editing the images I was able to add signs to them which signify a high fashion advertising campaign.

LV

Above are my chosen final images from our final shoots for our advertising campaign. For my final images I chose photographs that had similar features, a close up portrait and longer body shot for each location, as I want these images to be featured in a similar style to that of a fashion story in a contemporary editorial magazine.
Here you can see the final edited versions of my photographs and below each is the corresponding raw image. Further details of how I decided to edit my final images can be found in the blog post 'Editing Final Images: Libby'

LV

Above are all of the images I shot during our final shoot for our advertising campaign. For our final imagery we shot at three different locations which represent three different activities, or daily events. These locations were a laundrette, a park for a picnic and a tennis court. We shot a different outfit at each location to show the variety of styles and clothing available in shops and markets selling Recycled and Reused clothing.

LV

Over the half term I managed to do some more test shoots with the clothing to figure out what sort of vibe we need location wise. I went to Vale Furnishings in Farnham where they allowed me to try out shooting in the different themed set ups they had made. There were two in particular I felt went well with the clothing which we can now explore further. One was a very modern set up with pastel colours and reflective glass units and the other was a more boho chic set up with velvet sofas. Both tied in well with the clothing and after discussion with the rest of the group we can the figure out more specific locations to ask to shoot in.

KL

After the initial shoot we felt the blue dress and orange jacket would look better on a green background and that shooting each outfit on a different background will make each different from the other, but by using the studio and similar lighting it will keep the images flowing with each other.
We then showed our class and got some feedback from them so now to take this further, we shall be going back to the original plan of shooting on location because although it worked well in the studio and the clothing looked great, there was still something missing to give the photos the edge they need.