This was my first shoot for the year on my theme Alice in Wonderland. My idea for this shoot was to create a creepy tea party, inspired by the Mad Hatter's tea party. I used some dolls from my childhood to act as the guests and used my mother's tea set.
Here is the contact sheet of my images from this shoot.
Post Production Photo Sequence:
After completing the shoot, I took some of my best images and combined them into a photo sequence on InDesign.
Ideas:
For this shoot, I did a still life shoot inspired by the class artist model, Irving Penn. I did this shoot in the studio and brought in some still objects such as teacups, chess pieces, roses, playing cards, and a bear. Irving Penn focuses a lot on composition, so I was very purposeful with my object placement when taking the photos.
Artist Model Inspiration:
For this shoot, my inspiration was Irving Penn. He does a lot of still life shoots and focuses on vibrant colours. His object placement is very purposeful and although there are a lot of objects, the image is not too busy.
Irving Penn
Evaluation of Shoot:
What worked in this shoot, is that the images have bright and crisp colours, with contrast between different objects. The images have a group of objects that work but do not make the image too busy.
What didn't work is that is that although I explored different compositions, I didn't explore enough. I focused a lot of the chess pieces, but they are not the main focus of Alice in Wonderland.
For next time, I will have a greater exploration of my still life. I will have more objects and focus on the vibrancy of the images.
Ideas:
For this shoot, I wanted to focus on portraiture and the exploration of Alice. I wanted to focus mainly on my model, Gina, and used minimal props for the shoot. We did the shoot outside, mostly in some long grass in Gina's backyard. A couple of my props were a teacup, rose petals, cards and some teddy bears.
Artist Model Inspiration:
For this shoot, my artist model inspiration was Anna Gaskell. Anna does a lot of work on portraiture and likes to have different angles for her shoots. As well as this, she often cuts the head off of her models. Her series, Wonder, is similarly themed to my theme for this year.
Anna Gaskell
Evaluation of Shoot:
What worked in this shoot, was that I was able to explore a range of ideas for different styles of portraiture. As well as this, I was able to explore the style of Anna Gaskell and create some nice images from it. There are some images that are darker in exposure, which creates a more grungy style that I was hoping for.
What didn't work well is that there were a few images with very bright exposure. This is because I used natural sunlight for the lighting of my images, which caused there to be very harsh lighting in some of my images. As well as this, I tried to attempt to create a forced perspective with my photos, but that did not work. I could not quite get both my model and the teacup in focus.
For next time, I will want to try and shoot in the studio or in an area that has more controlled lighting. I also want to try and create more abstract images with my model, and possibly try to explore more of the low shutter speed image work.
Post Production Experimentation:
After this shoot, I used Photoshop to combine two images together. I combined these images to give the effect that the cards were falling around my model, Gina. As well as this, I took a different image into Lightroom Classic, and created a black and white images with spot colour. I dropped the saturation on every colour to create a black and white image with only the colour blue being in colour.
Ideas:
For this shoot, I wanted to do a still life shoot. I created some cutouts of my model, Gina from a previous shoot. I then created an area in my room with a mirror surface and black backdrop. I then experimented with the mirror surface and different cards and pages torn out of books.
Artist Model Inspiration:
For this shoot, my artist model inspiration was Abelardo Morell. More specifically, I was inspired by his collection; Down the Rabbit Hole. This collection has paper cutouts from Alice in Wonderland.
Abelardo Morell
Evaluation of Shoot:
What worked in this shoot, was that the mirror surface I used for the floor created a cool effect in all of my images. As well as this, I was able to create some cool card and paper dropping images.
What didn't work well is that some of the images didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Because I did this in my bedroom, it was more difficult to control the lighting in the way I wanted it to be. As well as this, I feel as if I didn't quite get the essence of Abelardo Morell, which I can try to do in a future shoot. During the shoot, my camera's SD card ran out of room as well, so I was unable to complete the shoot as much as I would have liked to
For next time, I will want to do a portraiture shoot. By doing this, I will get more options for cutouts for shoots. As well as this, next time I do a shoot with these cutouts, I want to try and manipulate them more. I want to possibly destroy them or change them in any way.