Presenting the work

We were told to print our photos the day before so that we would be ready  to go the next day. I did. I had all three of my photos printed on shiny paper and looking good. I did not think they were particularly the best work I've ever done or could do. But I liked the thought behind them, the humor, the feeling of them. They resonated the way I feel and the style I was after. Had I however put just a little bit more effort in they would of probably been perfect.

I got home Wednesday night before the crit and realized that I had left my prints on the bus. I was upset but these things do happen. So I tried to get to school early enough to print them out on time. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. I almost cried. However I got there and they got looked at my work and I received pretty positive feedback. I was told that they were very current. So overall I am pleased with the final results.

Here are some of the photos front the shoot (Some are the edited versions and some are not)

Shot through a vase of water with a GoPro

I liked this one but it was supped to be a shoe story and this does not really sell the shoe at all (However it could sell glasses) 

Another experiment with the GoPro and water 

There is another version of this photo where they are smiling which I much prefer, it makes the photo way more fun and less serious. 

Again I love this photo but it does not sell shoes and needs some cropping

These last two photos crack me up, I love the sense of humor and sued them as a final piece. 

(All photos authors own) 

Before editing 

After editing 

                                               

Shooting the boys

Unwisely I began shooting the boys at 6PM.  The sun had already set and naturally half the lightbulbs in my house had burnt out. I probably should of just ran to the store and bought some new lightbulbs but feeling rushed and a little panicked I decided to make do.

The photo quality is not as good as I can do and I know it that is why I am honestly not that happy with my final outcomes. However they are a little humorous which is something I always want to try and achieve.

It was definitely an interesting experience shooting boys. We had a lot of fun and they kept me well entertained. However I am fairly sure I wore them out, by the end of it they looked shattered and bored. I am an obsessive photo taker so I pretty much can shoot for hours and never get tired. But sadly other people get tired, in other words I wanted to shoot them all night, even though the lighting was appalling.

Using the GoPro

Shooting with the GoPro through a vase of water was very experimental. It created nice distortions and water marks to some of the images. However it is a little difficult to use as there is no screen on it so you have to just make a guess at the photo you're taking or connect it to an iPhone and see the image on the phone screen. It was defiantly more challenging than using a normal camera but so interesting and exciting that I definitely want to do another shoot with it. I am thinking of potentially doing an entire shoot underwater!


Styling

The boys had both brought some tartan flannel Pajamas because they were gonna stay the night and we all love lounging in Pajamas. They also both had tartan flannel shirts that matched almost identically to the bottoms. I thought this was the best thing ever, it was so funny and so adorable. So instead of doing the first look I had originally thought of we went with this. I thought that it added a little more of the boys personality to the shoot as well.

One of my favorite things is businessmen on the tube in suits, wearing all grey or black and then seeing a little peek of purple or red around their ankles form their fun colorful socks. Inspired by these men I made sure my models were wearing orange, yellow, or green socks. 

One thing you cannot see in these photos is the details of the shirts. I hand embroidered the colors and the pockets with orange and green thread. I thought that this would give more character. 

 I wanted the boys to look sharp and smart. However I did make them look a little like dads. I don't think that is entirely a bad thing.

Planning

One thing that I really admired about Guy Bourdin was the way in which he planned his images. He spent time drawing out, thinking, and putting together every detail of his shots. This seems so logically yet I've never done it before. I always have general ideas of what I want the images to look like in my head but I've never drawn them down before hand. So for this project I decided to try and draw loads of little shot ideas.

Journal Extract - Shot Planning and Thoughts - Images Authors Own

Concept

I decide to look at the idea of the new man. The sort of man who cares about his appearance, cares about family, and is just this well rounded guy. The opposite of lad culture. Of course these new men still have all the qualities of the average guy; loving the pub, beer, sports, all that kind of thing. Since my inspiration was the Guy Bourdoin photographs that were shot through things I had the idea to try and use my GoPro and shoot through glass and liquid. I though since Guy's photos often have a sort of surreal essence without using photoshop this would be an interesting way for me to try and use him as inspiration.

My plan is to shoot two of my guy friends and give off the message of two 'bros' who've been hanging out and drinking all day. I want to try and shoot them being a little goofy but wearing good looking clothes.

I also chose to do a shoe story which meant I needed to go to the store and get some guys shoes. I probably should of just asked my friends to bring their own, this would of saved me some money. I wanted the shoes however to fit in with future trends that I researched on WGSN. One of which were shoes with subtle pops of colours. I originally and thought to sew actually coloured ribbons onto the shoes but this was really hard to do, also doing this would of actually ruined the shoes if  I had wanted to take the ribbons off. Instead of using the ribbons I got masking tape and coloured them in and taped them onto the shoes. This was a cheap and did not look at good but it was as good as I could get.

Two of the shoes I shot with the coloured tape on them. Images authors own. 

Journal Extract - Image Authors own 

New Project

I was not too sure how I felt about it this weeks new project going in on Monday. But once I sat down I got that good Ravensbourne feeling, which is when I come in to Uni and feel so ready and excited to work. Ian began explaining and briefing us on what we will be doing for the next two weeks and then later in the afternoon we went to Somerset House to look at the Guy Bourdin exhibition. Our goal is to use this exhibition as inspiration for our own shoot, Our shoot has to be themed and relating to a specific publication and season. Bourdin shoots woman but I really feel like exploring the world of menswear so I am thinking about looking at these new ideas of manliness and shooting menswear.

I really enjoyed the Guy Bourdin exhibition. It was incredibly inspiring, the way in which he works and sees things is fascinating. I love the thought processes, he really puts a lot of planning into each and every photograph and you can see that in the quality of each final image. My favourite room in the exhibition was one that had three large screens in a circle so that if you stood in the middle you would be surrounded by them. And on the screens clips from some of Bourdin's films were flicking through along to some mesmerizing music. I wanted to stay in there forever.

The images that inspired me the most were the ones that were looking through things. Such as a gold fish bowl or the car door windows.

Image by Guy Bourdin

 

Image by Guy Bourdin 

Journal Extract - Notes From The Project Brief - Image Authors Own

Deadline

I felt so much pressure from this project. It was so fast paced and I wanted to produce the best work possible, which I don't think I did. I feel like everything I've done could be so much better. I think  My photographs could be so much cooler. I may do a re-shoot outside the project.

I spent the last few hours before the deadline Thursday trying to finish off the presentation of my article. I was trying to find and figure out a good borders for it because in the annual Rookie prints they always have interesting and cute borders.  I decided on trying to scan a border of lace ribbon. I then got very distracted because I decided to rewrite my entire article last minuet. I am glad I decided to do this because I feel like the second version is so much better.

I also spent some time drawing little illustrations that I wanted to use as decoration for my article. I drew a cup of tea, basketball, spaceship (because the title of my article is 'I am an alien', dollar bill, crown, and a few other things. The last thing I did right before the deadline was write a quick playlist. Rookie Mag posts playlist every Friday. In the annual publication Rookie year book they usually add a playlist with every article.

The playlist I made for my article - Image authors own

Editing. collaging, and writing

I spent the day trying to get everything together. I had to finish editing the photographs so that I could print them and cut them out. I simply just boosted the contrast a little. Then once they were printed I began thinking about collaging them onto different backgrounds and trying to make them look very Rookie Mag. I bought a bunch of very British postcards thinking they would be perfect. I wanted to print off some images of Oklahoma to use as the background but I didn't particularly want to use someone else's images. If I had more time I would of drawn or painted backgrounds for the collages.

Overall I think that the collages turned out pretty cute. They are very young and fit with the publication I chose well. However I think they could be even better if I added more on top of them, a little more detail. I could of gotten images of very American and British things to go with the backgrounds.  If I have time I may do some little illustrations.

The Shoot

On Monday my friend was coming over to let me take photographs of her in the umbrellas and wellies. I had cut the waits band off a pair of my brothers basketball shorts, then I also clipped off the fabric part of the umbrella and cut it at the point large enough so it would fit around her waist. I then cut up another umbrella but made the hole smaller just to fit around her neck. When I first tried to get the fabric off the umbrella I made it really difficult for myself by trying to clip every wire, I wanted some to still be on the fabric to give it volume while on the model. However my abilities to do such a thing were non existent and thus I had to find a different approach, this approach turned out to be much simpler and less time consuming. I just ripped it off basically.

Detaching the wires with wire cutters

Cutting off the top to make a nice circle in the middle of the material

Ripping off the fabric from the wires 

The waist band of the shorts being used for the waist band of my skirt (All images authors own) 

I had timed the shoot right with the sunset, so the lighting was directly on my model which helps the photos come out a lot sharper. I did not focus to much on the background because my plan is to cut her out of the photos kind of like a paper doll. However looking back I wish I had done a photo shoot where the background and whole setting was nice so I could have a combination of nice cut outs and just photographs.

I also wish I had styled my model in more colours. The publication I chose generally is very bright, they use a lot of pastel, brighter, funner colours than the ones I used.

Can I do it?

I was struggling with the styling section of this project. I was not entirely sure how I was gonna dress my model or show what I wanted to show and how I would make it look good.

I had a sudden thought inspired by the workshop we did using clothes we styled on the mannequins to create a new article that is far from its original purpose. I was also inspired by the collaging workshop where we had to try and be very conceptual, thinking so outside the box that the box turns in to a sphere. I was looking at different very English things and also very american things. On the english side I looked at pictures of the Queen holding umbrellas. On the american side I looked at the idea of jocks, but mainly girls wearing basketball shorts. One thing I notice when I go back to my home state of Oklahoma and America in general is that they don't dress nice. They walk around in old looking sports wear. The young girls wear basketball shorts and t-shirts everywhere. I never felt comfortable wearing my nice long floral skirts or dresses because I felt over dressed. So I want to try and combine basketball shorts and umbrellas into an article of clothing so far from being an umbrella and basketball shorts. Will I be able to do this? I don't really know but thats not going to stop me from trying. I shall keep you updated on my progress.

Decision making

After receiving the brief I made loads of notes in my journal with my immediate thoughts and feelings. I have my idea for the premiss of my piece. The next step I needed to do was choose a publication. I remembered this fun, young, online publication called Rookiemag.com, I thought this would be a great piece because that online magazine publishes pieces a very pieces on a very broad range of subjects. Their target audience is young teenage girls and the website is run by young adults and teenage girls. I love that, I think it is a great place for young women and girls to come together and talk about things that matter and interest them. I know if this online magazine had been around when I was 13/14 I would of been obsessed with it (not that I'm not obsessed with it now.) I genuinely think it is the coolest thing. The contributors are all very open and expressive woman with a very pretty aesthetic. The website always looks good. It looks young and has that air of messy childhood arts and craft time, this is enhanced by all the collages and illustrations that occupy every article. It's articles, photos, and pieces are all very nostalgic and at the same time very hopefully and full of longing. This must be because it is young people writing, so there is the genuine feelings that young girls feel being expressed.

With my piece I aim to write about clothes in the perspective of a young muddled person. By that I mean I wish to express and show how being multicultural and having to different styles from two countries can effect the way we think but the main  influence on the way we dress (and by we I mean those who are living in a different culture from that which they were born.)

New Project

Deconstruction and Reconstruction 

Today we began our new project. I already knew the title of the project and premiss as I had read the brief so I walked in very excited to get started. While listening to Becca talk about the project at the beginning of the day I wrote down loads of notes and began trying to set myself a theme or come up with an idea for this project. A few words popped out to me and a few came to me.  

The words...

• Frankenstein 
• Clever 
• Ariel (From the little mermaid)
• Aliens 
• Recycling 
• Details 

During the day I made some collages and worked on the mannequin with clothes I had brought in, I tried to use them to create other garments. I must say I absolutely suck at working on the stand. It is fairly clear I am not a designer. However I did really want to give working on the stands another shot because I see the designers always working on them and coming out with these amazing looking pieces. So I stood there pinning my pieces up and was so unimpressed with my results, I think I shall stick to promotion work. I did manage to do at least one look on the stands I was reasonably okay with, I just did not think it was conceptual enough or out of the box. 

As I sat on the train on my way home I was determined to come up with my idea so I could spent the evening researching and developing. For my photoshoot or film I am thinking about the idea of aliens. BUT not aliens how you are probably thinking. Aliens in other countries, so foreigners basically. I was thinking about aliens like space aliens at first and how if they came to earth and deconstructed and had to reconstruct it using only things of earth and humans things they would not know what was what and how it is supposed to be used. I thought trying to portray what they would do would be interesting. But then I began thinking about how when you go to another country you are an alien and have no idea about their culture and customs. My character would be an alien in England who begins to deconstruct the culture they brought with them and reconstruct it with the culture and customs of the English. I feel like this could become an interesting concept if I dive a little deeper. However there is always the possibility that I could change my mind tomorrow.

My next step is to research magazines and decide which one I would want to write a feature for and how I would go about doing that. I need to develop a good solid story to write about and begin that tonight and take it further tomorrow. I am excited for this project. 

My goal is to push one idea till it is completely saturated. 

Creating the final presentation

After our group tutorial with Becca it was unanimous that we did not want to present our work in a boring way. We wanted to do something conceptual like our brand and work. The idea was to creat an experience for everyone watching. Some of the initial ideas were to just stand there with our work on slides and just be silent while it flicked through, another idea was to not accept any questions. We then thought about standing in a circle around the audience holding candles while the presentation flicked through on the screen, we all liked this idea however we couldn't use the candles as flames and smoke are a safety hazard. One of our group members was creating a head piece out of a burlap material so we decided that if he made six of them we could all where them during the presentation. This idea got everyone excited. Most of my group just thought we should do a power point and have voice over of everyone explaining their work. However I had a thought that our work was strong enough to need no explanation and Comme are not the type to explain themselves. I wrote a poem and read it to our group, they all felt it summed up our concept really well. I suggested that maybe we could just have voice over of the poem going through the presentation while showing everyone's work.

I have a long history with PowerPoint, there was a time in my life where in one class they made us make a PowerPoint for basically every lesson. Because of this I knew that having a voice over on PowerPoint would not work well. I also knew that it would not make our work look good. Our work needs to flow on its own in one beautiful loop. To get that we needed to create the whole presentation as one flowing film, to do that I had to re-create my film in a new film document then convert everyone's scanned in work from PDF's to JPEG's then insert them and change the speed and way in which they appeared. That all takes a long time. We started working on this presentation on the  Wednesday before the final presentation. I really wanted to start earlier but no one was ready to give me their work before 3 in the afternoon that day. This was probably the only time our group felt really uptight and tense. We had a long evening of editing ahead of us. We started working at 3 and gradually throughout the evening went from all 6 of us to only 2 of us, till 9 O'Clock when I was left trying to finalize and save the final cut. WE DID IT. FINISHED!

The voice over 

To record the poem I needed a really quiet place where there would be no background noise, this meant Phoebe and I sat on the floor in the disabled toiled reciting my poem. The poem was shorter than the length of the video. Phoebe suggested that I read slower and put way more drama into my voice as I do. The first few try's I tried reading through it as a whole watching the clip as I go to try and time it well and make it last as long as possible. Phoebe then suggested we try and recorded it in sections then drag them around and create spaces in between. This worked perfectly. Another member of our group thought that adding effects to the voice over may be interesting and effective. We tried out all the effects but none of them sounded as good as it did natural.

The poem

A family
By blood or by bond
It didn't matter
It was more about the connection. The truth.
An invisible twine tangled between us
holding and locking together
The secret spell which will encapsulate us
Into a single moment
A kiss or song
A beautiful painting hung on the wall
A family portrait of foreigners yet to be met
us or them
A dream, a dream
A potion, a trick
An embodiment of lust
greed
The things families need
and magic, mostly magic
To tighten the seams,
no tearing but fearing from un-involved beings
cause we,
we are the foreigners in the painting
the people you meet un-expecting
in the cool cool night
Orange, candle light 

 Here is a copy of the final presentation...

(Video authors own)

Film

My main job in the group was to create a short film. This film will be shown at the beginning of our presentation. My initial idea for the film was to have lots of images with some sort of back ground noise. The images would all relate to theme/concept, it would slide through sort of in a similar way to that of family slides on a projector.

I then talked to some tutors about this idea. I told them I wanted to create some suspense and make the audience feel something weird. I did not want to make your average film basically. I was given the idea of sounds. I began thinking of all the sounds I could and made a long list of them. Sometimes less imagery can be more effective then too much imagery and with that in mind I began filming.  I had the idea of writing spells and smoke, those were the only images I really wanted in the film. I was going to add some sort of material movement that would be very reflective of the head pieces, however I could not think of any way to display this well and also most Comme videos do not relate directly to what they are trying to sell at all. So with that freedom I stuck to the three simple clips of writing and candles. I did not have a a noise recorder to record the sounds so I just filmed the noises, for example I lit a match then during the editing process I stripped the sound and dragged it under a black screen and deleted the video. This was a very long process to do for every sound. If I were to create this film again I would probably think more about the colours in each shot. I could of done some cool stuff like used filters, this would of added a nice tint to the shots. Considering colour was important for each designers identity in the collections this may have been really effective.

Here is the first cut of the film

(Video Authors own) 

Final piece

Part 1

I began the day by finding the font Comme uses which is helvetica bold. I wanted to get some practice making advertisements for Comme. They usually just have an image with their logo printed across it usually at the bottom. I grabbed some images from out concept board and put the logo on them, they turned out really cool. This practice really pushed me into wanting to create these ads even more. I found it so interesting how by just adding a logo it can change the image completely, you see it in a totally different light. The logo makes it look more professional. 

One of my practices, if I were to re-create this ad I would make the type red instead of white. (Image authors own) 

Part 2 

I really enjoy painting and In particular I  love portraits. Most of the time the portraits I create are not any particular person just nameless face. I was sitting and painting a face Thursday afternoon just to release the painting impulse from my system. When I took out the painting Friday morning I had a sudden thought, what if I put the Comme logo on this image? So I did exactly that. I then printed it out to show the rest of my group and their reaction was very encouraging. They all loved it and liked the idea. So instead of taking a photograph for the Ad I've decided to make a painting. Instead of just having a random face that does not relate to the whole concept I will paint four to represent each designer and each face will be a different colour. Two of the designers in my group are thinking about taking their final looks and cutting them in half then putting them together with each others pieces. Taking this idea of cutting up and putting together I have decided to cut the face into four sections then taking one part from each painting to create one. This will then represent the idea community and family, the idea of a group of people being one, the since of  connection that outcasts in society have to each other. Naturally I did more than one ad. I did this because I had many different ideas of how to lay it out and I also had four paintings to choose form. I think that it is better to have many options and work down till you find the best.

The following images are two of the ad's I made. The last one is the one I decided to go with in the end because my group agreed that they like it best. 

The final version of this ad the type is upside down. One of the designers in my group decided she wanted to do some work upside down, thinking of the idea of black magic and being an out cast how the world thinks their views can be unusual or upside down. I wanted this idea to come through from her work into mine. 

(All images authors own) 

Developing ideas

The second day of our group project we collected favourite images from everyone's personal concept boards they had created. We placed them on a blank document in Photoshop so we could create a layout that would work and display the ideas well.

Throughout the idea we continued discussing ideas and the designers began thinking about their designs, thinking about shapes, volumes, and colour. We made a decision that each designer would  have their own colour for their collection as Comme for the last few seasons has been sticking to one colour for their entire collection. I decided that I wanted as a promoter to make the designers happy, In real life my job would be to create something for a designer to help show their ideas with my own ideas to help enhance it. To do this I listened very carefullly to each of the designers and asked them lots of questions and put in my own thougths so I could build this strong mental image of who we were collectively and individually.

First 

My first idea came to me as I watched the designers drapping  calico on the mannequins to create shapes. I loved the folds and movement of the material so I decided to photocopy thinking i could paint COMME des GARCONS over the top of the photocopy. While photocopying the material I remembered these head pieces that were everywhere on our mood boards. I was suddenly then hit with another idea to place my head on the photocopier and place the fabric above and around my face. I took these images and painted COMME des GARCON in various ways over them, I tried a few methods.

(All images authors own)

Second

The next step i my thought process was taking the images and adding typography through Photoshop. The ones I edited on Photoshop turned out alright, I think that they are cool however they are not final pieces. I think the image is a little basic and that I can come up with something much more conceptual and something that when you look at it you would think COMME. To get to that I need to create a new image, I need to decide what method I want to use and materials and also what I want the image to actually be. 

COMME des GARCONS

THE BEGINNING 

I was very excited when I saw my name on the paper title COMME des GARCONS.  I was attracted to Comme initially because of its attitude. I respect the way Comme presents itself as a brand, I like how they are particular about their image and don't care about publicity for the sake of publicity. Comme are after making an impact and a statement they want you to feel something that you would not relate to fashion, and that is exactly why I chose it. I put Prada as a back up.

I was excited when I saw my team, mostly because all the members of my group have reputations for being hard workers and passionate about their work. Those are the kind of qualities I find admirable and desirable for team mates or co-workers.

To kick start our project we were given two quotes. We then dissected these quotes, interpreting them and choosing our favourite aspects, words and phrases.

1. 'There are massive gaps in this essay, it is broken and re-wound, not always knowing and yet searching. Respond, Exchange, Converse. Be a traveler in this novel, Even if only for a while.'

2. 'All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and men at last are forced to face with sober sense the conditions of their lives and their relations with other men.' The Communist Manifesto

We all decided to focus in on the particular word "profane." We began looking at this word in its literal sense 'to treat something sacred with irrelevance or disrespect. So we began thinking about religion and decided this idea was to bland and too obvious and obvious is not very Comme, we did all our work with the brand we are trying to represent in the back of our mind. We began digging into the idea of black magic and witches who are definitely considered outcast from society. We zoomed into this idea of being an out cast from societey. Gypsies and homeless people were what came to mind first. We thought about this idea of not having a home as most people know it to be free. The idea of freedom from society seemed like a very positive and happy thing to us.  We decided that our theme would be to do with gypsies and free outcast from society.

We sourced out ideas from many different places and our initial concept board was very overwhelming and crowded. This gave the start of our project a little bit of a slow start because everyone felt as though we were on different pages we needed to solidify our idea. It was there but it was buried in between a whole bunch of other ideas. To solve this problem we took only a few of our favourite images and put them together into a little group concept board.


ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

Each member of our group has a different role and responsibility for the project. There are two mens wear designers, two womens wear designers, and two promoters.

My personal role is as a promoter. I will create ad's and also a short film. My goal is to create something that represents all the designers as a whole and also to create the atmosphere and feeling of our theme and mood. Also I want to make people uncomfortable and present something that is unexpected. If we can create and present something unexpected I will feel like we were successful and personally be happy about the work.

Food A fashion film

I managed to shoot a few shots with my friend when I was at her flat the other day to try and create a better film that reflected more of me. I feel, perhaps because I myself do not understand true obsessive love I was not able to capture it or display it in a film in a way that I liked. However eating is something I know very well. Me and eating go back 18 years. I asked my friend If I could just film her with a bunch of food and she was totally up for it. However we did run into some issues (naturally.) I shot my editorial at her flat as well and lighting was the major issue of that shoot and of course again that was an issue with this shoot. My camera struggles to capture images in darker environments and I didn't want to touch up the videos at all, I wanted it to be pure and raw. However if I were to edit it again I would probably lighten some clips. 

Because my camera was having a hard time filming in the poor light I started using my phone to film, so this final piece is a combination of Iphone clips and Nikon D5100 clips. 

For this film I found a song that I really liked called 'Ain't No Rest For The Wicked,' By Cage the Elephant. I Chose this song because I like the rhythm, I think it flows well, it is fun and upbeat and really creates the feel I wanted for the film. I also chose it because I like the lyrics and the message. 

"Oh, there ain't no rest for the wicked
Money don't grow on trees
I got bills to pay
I got mouths to feed
And ain't nothing in this world for free
No I can't slow down
I can't hold back
Though you know I wish I could
No there ain't no rest for the wicked
Until we close our eyes for good,"

It connotes some of the thoughts and feelings of living life obsessed. For example the line "No I can't slow down, I can't hold back" reminds me of the thoughts of someone who is so glued into their obsession that can't stop or slow down, they cannot resist their obsession. Then the next line "Though you know I wish you could," This is like the next thought of the obsessed person, when they come to the realization their obsessions are truly controlling their lives. 

The following video is the finished edited piece. Overall I am really happy with it and feel like it shows more of my personal style than the other video. However one more point I must make is that it is probably less of a fashion film as there really isn't much literal fashion references. If I had more time and planned better I would of tried to add way more fashion elements into the film. 

Video Authors own 

The kiss

This is the end result of the film I just did not like no matter how i edited it. I decided that maybe if I wrote a love poem to read as a voice over instead of music that it would bring it more to life.

I also really did want to try and include poetry in my work in some way as it something I really love and enjoy. In my sketchbook when I was looking at symmetry as a type of obsession I looked at the poem Tyger by William Blake, there is a line in it that goes "Who could frame thy fearful symmetry." I love this poem but I also love this line and can take it out of the context of the poem and link it to my work. I was trying to think about symmetry when I was filming my video. However to film completely symmetrical and balanced a tripod really does help, I should of brought a tripod with me.

The excessive fashion look at the end of the film
(Image authors own) 

Here is the video...

Film Practice

I still haven't been able to edit my film a way that I am completely satisfied with. I think I could of filmed it better and made this a lot easier for myself. Because I genuinely enjoy filming and editing videos I went out for a coffee break with Esosa and decided to film it. I edited together a 1 minuet film that is all black and white. It isn't anything over the top but I like it way more than my other film at the moment.

It can relate to my theme as we were getting coffee and coffee is one of the main obsessions I looked at. 

I will post it here even though I do not think it will work for a final piece it is nice as research and practice. 

                                               Video Authors Own 

Discontentment

I have now done a photo shoot for my editorial based on the food/coffee/general obsessive theme. I have also shot my film based on obsessive love and the structure of that.

I received some constructive criticisms on my photo shoot. They were kind of boring, especially compared to my day of the dead photo shoot. I wanted the pictures to be subtle but I tried so hard to make them subtle that they are now boring.

This is a major dilemma! The last thing in the world I want to be is boring. I was given some tips on how to take them and edit them to be less boring. For my day of the dead shoot I did a collage around the photos making a sort of frame, I am thinking about doing a similar collage type technique to make these photographs more exciting. I enjoy doing collages over my work, it adds an interesting element.
If adding things on top or behind the photographs does not enhance them or make them more exciting I will do a completely new shoot.

Collaged photograph (image authors own)

Not only am I discontent with my photographs but also my film. I have looked through the videos and they are okay but there isn't enough to make it a solid film. I could potentially get at least 33 seconds but that doesn't seem long enough. However I thought about TV ads, they are all quite short and so in a way being able to create a very short film and getting across the message is a good thing. The only question is will my message be understood in only 33 seconds or will it look like a quick mess just thrown together. The message or story I am trying to tell is one of a boy and a girl who see each other and fall in love instantly and the closer they get to each other the more vibrant and colourful their lives become.

Fashion Film Final

As my alliterative title suggests this post is about the final fashion film we must create.

My theme is Obsession. For this film I am thinking about keying into the obsession of love and also hopefully trying to add in a little bit of my other theme family structure.

I just wanted to jot down some of my inspiration for the film. I am still trying to story board and plot the entire plan. I am going to shoot it on Sunday.

The idea is to capture the moments before a kiss between two people and then right at the end finally having them kiss.

One of the directors I have begun to look at is Wes Anderson. Partly because of his use of colour pallets and also because of the way he frames his shots so symmetrically and centered.

(Video by kogonda)  

This video perfectly shows the skill Wes Anderson has when it comes to symmetry and composing the frame of a shot.

His use of symmetry keys into a type obsessive nature that I briefly looked at in my sketchbook. Some people genuinely do obsess over having symmetry and this mind set really does fascinate me.

Photoshoot time!

This is the shoot that has had the most mental preparation. Also the most mood boards. So if I haven't nailed the mood I will be a little more than disappointed. I was aiming at 70's styling, I tried to get he Farrah Fawcett hair, and added a little blue eye shadow. I also tye dyed a white t-shirt with coffee that one of      
(Insert shots of mood boards)

William Eggleston's photography was also another inspiration point. I loved the colours and tones of his photos and also how natural they feel. So I wanted to create a natural feeling photo that subtly hinted at the obsession of food and coffee.

We started hair and make up at around 4ish. And we finished taking photos entirely at 7. It was unfortunate that we had to shoot so late in the evening because the lightning was not that great. For one of the locations I used my models bed room. It was very dark so I turned on her bedside lamp and this added such an interesting affect to the models and their characters. I feel like these photos capture more of the relationship and personality of the characters rather than the theme.

I chose my friends kitchen and room for the shoot (also her balcony) because it was easy firstly, but because it was also so subtle. It isn't anything fancy, it isn't staged, it is what it is. That was what i was after. However choosing a location that isn't so easily changeable and workable posed many difficulties. The lighting as I mentioned before was the main issue. But I also just could not figure out how to pose the models, where should they stand, how should they stand, should they hold food or coffee, should they be moody or smile or what! So we took a few shots and they sucked. Everything felt wrong. Then I had the models move around and tried to think what you wouldn't expect someone to be doing in a kitchen. So I had my model lay down. I imagined she was in a massive food coma. I state of I ate to much but I am not sorry about it. Then the models began to loosen up and we had fun. I took a thousand pictures, most of them are going to probably not be that good but I am hoping once I search through them I will find some gems.

Location shit (Image Authors own)

I originally thought I would shoot with orange film over my lens, but the colours were too bold and not exactly what I wanted (Image Authors own) 

You guessed it, more location shots (Image Authors Own) 

Last location shot (Image Authors Own) 

Photoshoot

This week the goal was to plan and produce a photoshoot based around the accessories we made the precious week. I spent a lot of time thinking about my theme and about the accessories I made (which I did over the weekend) and how I could combine the two and successfully pull off a good photoshoot. One of my themes is family structure.So I began looking for photos of families.  I thought of the Dolce Gabbana ad campaigns that always have such a family vibe and essence. It led me on to old family portraits, specifically ones from the 19th century. I was also very inspired by images I was seeing of the day of the dead and the sugar skull. I saw an illustration of a family of sugar skulled day of the dead skeletons and thought it was perfect. So my research led me to my final idea. I wanted to create a family portrait style, or have two lovers portrayed in an old fashioned meets modern day of the dead way. And of course wearing my skeleton head piece and neck piece. 

We arrived at Uni around 11:30 to start the shoot. First I had to paint their faces. I had a few reference photos but mostly just winged it. I felt really good about the finished looks. Especially considering I didn't have time to practice. I used black and white paint and also orange because I have decided that will be my colour theme. 

I had a Mexican dress found at a vintage store in Oklahoma that I knew would be perfect for this shoot and asked my male model to wear a white button up and jeans. 

After styling their outfits I had a great struggle attaching my accessories to the models (tape had to be used.) We went to three different  locations for the shoot. By a black wall, in a park, and lastly in the Ravensbourne's cafe. It was so windy outside making it very difficult to shoot in the park,  especially with the hair pieces flying all over the place. So I had a sudden idea to take the photo shoot into a cafe and get photos of this living dead looking couple having a coffee and some food. This helped to relate the shoot to my other theme of food obsession. 

We finished the shoot at 2:30. I am now starting to think of how I want the final photos to be edited. Originally, I was going to have them in black and white as one of my references/inspirations for this shoot were 19th century family portraits and they are all in back and white. However there is so much vibrancy in the images and the day of the dead influence does bring a strong element of colour that would be nice to come through. So I am thinking of editing them both ways and seeing which turns out the best. 

Here are some photos of preparing for and doing the make up for the shoot.

(All photos authors own.) 

Magical mystery fashion tour

We went on  Magical Mystery Fashion tour today! When I opened the file with the instructions for the day on my computer and saw this title I was too say the least excited. I was a young Beatles fan, I went through a phase where I would genuinely only listen to the Beatles, so this title had a very personal connection with me.

My laptop broke in a tragic accident (that was all my fault) so I couldn't map out a route for the day. However in the morning I put the names of the streets into the Google maps on my phone so we had a GPS to follow (Thank you Jesus for Google maps.)

We went to quite a few stores and when I say quite a few I mean a lot. I collected catalogue's, leaf lets, and basically anything I could get for free. While I was at the stores and walking down the rainy streets of London I kept in mind the target audience of these stores. The extreme life of luxury was evident. I mean every door was opened for me, if that is not luxury I don't know what is.

I also took note of how each store had this homely element. There were sofas, pictures on the walls, and even a fire place in the Vivienne Westwood Men's store. I felt like the goal of these establishments was to make those who walked in (and looked like they could afford to buy things) feel as though they are in their home casually shopping and dropping thousands of pounds on shoes. The carped floors and marble stair cases, give you the feeling that you are walking through your own homely palace.

I also took note of the actually articles for sale. The difference in quality is evident in the material and the stitching and even the structure of the garments.

As well as walking down Old Bond Street,  Conduit Street, and all those other streets that were listed. I headed down to Dover Street market. I had never been before so I had no idea what to expect. It was very interesting. The fact that £2,000 clothes could be bought form cashiers in old rusty look huts that you'd imagine poor people in third world countries to live in seemed rather ironic, and also felt a little like they were taking the piss. There was a casual atmosphere yet this tension that rose in the air as you approached any item of clothing. The eyes of workers watching your fingers as they briefly just touch a pair of shoes. I'm not gonna lie I felt moderately inadequate and inferior walking up the bare stair case, as a person who can barely afford to buy a coffee, I was the porto loos and rusty huts that were ironic and being laughed at and everyone else the posh totty who dresses cool and wears £65 Commes De Garcons shirts.

On the other hand, it was inspiring to see these places. To think about the potential of fashion and it's influence on the world. It made me want my own shop. It made me want to get to work and start creating and start pathing my own path.

Accessory experiments

Here ares some of my initial experiments with the objects I chose for my accessory 

Melted two skeletons together with the heat press 

Family dinner 

Skeleton shoulder piece 

Lego bag with skeleton strap 

Skeleton sunglasses?

(All images authors own)