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.)