Photography and Photographic Evaluation

Visual language; in my eight images a lot of visual language can be found. Within my eight images each of them had an old affect to them. In terms of tone I used a warm tone to make them look authentic and rustic looking. One of my images was slightly blurred but this worked with a warm photo filter as it made the image look like a 1940’s shot. The Pattern I used throughout taking the images is shooting the model in a place that is ghostly I used places that lady Nunnington (the original ghost that haunts the hall) had been sighted such as the staircase the bedrooms, the walls and the window seats. If you look at each image I have

taken there is a ghostly pattern that links them all together. I not used angles on my images because I chose the application of fashion photography, which used more straight verticle/horizontle shots to be able to fit the model in representing the clothes. As you can see from the two images I have already discussed they are straight images and they show what the model is wearing from head to toe. I didn’t use lots of exposure and brightness because my idea was to discover the ghost through fashion photography so I made sure each image looked ghostly. Nick knight the famous fashion photographer makes his images very unique and the clothes in them necessarily would not be worn on a day-to-day basis, which is what I have tried to go for a picked a dress, which is a bit different and will not be worn on a normal day. I have referred to his work without the images because I have tried to be original and do something slightly different compared to normal studio shots. In my work there are many symbols that I have added to give it an affect. The dress I have placed in her represents the ghost I have dressed the model in a white period looking dress that represents the lady Nunnington. In the above left image I have used a lighter edging this has connotations of a ghost like atmosphere and shows the model looking mysterious due to the hidden face and the make the model look angelic like. In this image I have used the light to make a silhouette of her legs symbolizes the ghost being seen as a black figure when it has been spotted. I have used the window in this Image to frame the model.

Audience; the audience of my work is young adults that are interested in vintage fashion. The clothes are very minimal which fits in with vogue. My images could appear in fashion magazines such as vogue and harpers bizarre where the fashion photography is rotating to be different. The audience of my images is 25-35 year old who like to look a different kind of

fashion and who read these kinds of magazines. Aimed at women in a higher social group due to the fact it’s these kinds of women who read vogue etc. My images could appear as image for a designer who creates vintage fashion. My images would have an audience of people who are interested in fashion photography. Also men who read Vogue as nearly half of vogue readers are male.

Historical and cultural context; my work I based it on historical culture of Nunnington hall. It is known for it’s haunting that I based this on my work. Discovering the ghost of Nunnington hall. This inspired me to use white clothes and to choose places in the house where a ghost was spotted as I have said previously for example I chose the staircase and the bedroom. The image I have taken on the left replicates the picture on the right but on a different part on the staircase and inn colour compared to the original in black and white. A photographer that inspired me was Nick Knight who I have mentioned previously his work has been shown in vogue and Vanity Fair and other high fashion magazines which is what I aimed to provide. Nick Knight uses original ideas and is very outrages and different

from just the normal fashion photo. I have aimed to do this by coming up with something original and different compared to the normal photograph in this application. In this image Nick has used shadows and plain type dress. I have tried to use some of these elements but put

my own twist and my own style to make them original and different. As you can see from the image on the left he tries to be very creative which I have also tired to copy by using a stately home and plain dress. Obviously I have not been at the same standard as Nick knight because he has equipment that I never had. I have not been in a studio and my creativity was being on location when I was shooting that is what makes my fashion photography different like Nick makes his images look very unique through clothing

and models.

Intentions and fitness for purpose: My images originally I wanted to be for a Vogue magazine or some sort of High fashion magazine. Overall some of the images I feel achieved this purpose such as some of the window seat images but

other I don’t think reached Vogue potential. Fashion photography normally shoots in a studio, which I haven’t done. Which have not made my pictures look like they should belong in vogue. If I was to redo my images I think I would have done them in the studio at college and had different outfits. Because then they would of looked more like they should have belonged in Vogue or another high fashion magazine because high fashion photography are normally shot in a studio. Defiantly a few of my images taken can be used in a high fashion magazine because they have the potential some of them are not as good due to the location and lighting and clothes. My images do work for a fashion purpose because I have demonstrated a dress on a model and show different sides of the dress like the front and the back. This image could be used in Vogue one of the back pages I have demonstrated this by designing a mock Vogue page. I have used one of the window seat shots because these images have a lot more potential.

Final images; Overall my final images turned out how I wanted them to turn out. My images do look attractive visually. They are not that sharp and some of them are very soft to create that old look about them, which I wanted. Visually my images are very feminine because of the patterns in the background and the objects and patterns in the foreground. Within my eight images I used a lot of technical qualities regarding the camera and equipment that I used. I used a smaller aperture so I could get a bigger depth of field and I could have the background and the model in shot. I wanted a smaller aperture to be able to have the whole background. Comparing my work to Nick Knights my work is a lot darker than his work because I didn’t shoot my images in a studio like he did, because the lighting was very limited in the location I shot I was very limited to where I could shoot. I have gained a lot of knowledge while taking these images about photography. At the beginning of shooting I wasn’t quite sure the look I was shooting and I had to have a test about to find the right amount of light to make my images not as dark but as I gradually went on the quality of the images I was taking improved and by the end I was able to find the right light source and take images which were spot on. I chose to have a lower exposure to not make my images as bright and sharp I wanted them duller to go with the theme of the shoot. It’s not conventional for fashion photography to be dark and less light but the style of my image I think that it works well.

Technical Competence: from this project I have learnt/gained a lot of skills such as I have learnt about the shutter speed and the aperture and how the change it

on a camera and how to control this on images. I now can change the aperture and create images, which have high aperture, which make the background not in focus in the image. In some images I changed the white balance, which I learnt to do in this project for example, I changed the white balance in one of m images because of the lighting. I learnt to control he depth of field by changing the aperture, which I did for most of my images because I wanted the background in shot. I learnt many more skills in Photoshop like image alteration to make my images to the best quality I could get them. Some of the skills in Photoshop I learnt were changing the Hue/saturation, colour select (selecting colours in the image), lines and curves. I learnt to control the ISO in lesson which helped a lot when shooting because I came upon a moment when the lighting in the hallway I was shooting in was artificial due to the lamps so I had to change the ISO too a different setting. I used a white balance filter to make the tones of the image a lot less yellow and orange. It made the image look a lot darker and the white tones in the image are a lot less orange. Before this project when I used the camera I used automatic settings because I did not understand the settings like the aperture and the ISO. Now I understand these settings so I am able to control the settings myself to create the image I want instead of just using the automatic settings. I gave my camera a lower F-number and to make it a higher aperture this lets my whole image I am shooting be in shot and shows the background and the model.

I took about 30 images altogether, which I had to narrow to eight. This was a hard decision because I had taken more than eight, which I thought could be really good images when edited. Quite a handful of my images were shaky and they contained a lot of noise in the image. These images were not appropriate to use. For example the picture to the right is blurred and you can notice camera shake as soon as you look at the picture. The lighting is very dark and the model does not look right looking away from the camera and it’s not an image that I was happy with. That was the main reason why I didn’t use the image I did and this was because the camera shake was to bad that the image was unusable. I few of my images turned out grainy but this turned out to be helpful because I was able to use the grainy look to create

authentic looking vintage images such as this one to your right. I didn’t use the other 32 images because they was not right and it was either the lighting was to bright or the model ‘

Creative ability; in this project I tried to be as creative as possible by having the model stood up sat down and in different positions. In the feedback I got told that my image with the face in the window was one of the best image and it was somebody’s favorite image “The fact that you can see the reflection of the model in the window is probably my favorite part of the photograph. The photo looks very vintage and the effect you have used to tone down the colour balance is brilliant and again, really highlights the vintage effect.” This quote from my feedback is rewarding for me because I tried my best to be most creative with the vintage look and the reflection in the window. I have a very creative mindset so it was easy for me to be creative in this project by thinking of different places for the model to stand and different places background wise. While I was shooting I was a lot more creative as I had the different rooms around me in which I could visually see what would look good and what would look bad. At the start of the shoot I was not that adventurous for where I was shooting for example the picture on the left shows this. I just shot in the same room with the model just sat down but then throughout the shoot I was a lot more creative for example this image on the right I changed the dress and made the model stand in a more creative place next to the window and grab the curtain to make the image more interesting using props. I used a different angle and did a high angle shot. Which is a lot more creative than my first image. Having the camera to myself let me be creative how I wanted to be creative I could control the angles that I did and the aperture, which was really good for making my images more interesting throughout the shoot. Having greater control over the images made me more in charge so I had to be able to come up with original ideas. This made me a lot more confident when shooting. Over this project I have researched many different types of fashion photographers and each photographer such as Nick Knight and Irving Penn each have their own type of style of fashion photography for example Nick Knight is very extravagant and Irving Penn is very sophisticated and did a lot of women in a fancy place looking very posh and formal. My style of fashion photography inspired me of both of these photographers because I wanted to be different like Nick Knight so I got influenced to not do my fashion photography with typical conventions but then I wanted to be formal and sophisticated so this influenced me to make my model look elegant and sophisticated like in Irving Penn’s images. The postproduction made me very creative because I was able to create the mood and set he style more vividly. I had control over shadowing and how light and dark my images were.

Time Management: Overall I have done really well with how much time I have had. I got all my images finished by the deadline and I even had some spare time to go back and perfect images, which I was not happy with. The photo shoot took about an hour to get the shots that I wanted which gave me plenty of time to come back to college and complete post production. I had time to edit each image in detail and each day I set myself a lesson to complete each image. I made sure I had enough time to edit 3 images in one day. Some of the images I had to touch up on once I had completed everyone. Overall I stuck to the deadline and was able to complete all my images in time. I did complete everything I wanted to which made my work a lot less stressful. In the future when doing projects I will

make sure to note down and create a time schedule to follow to make sure I have done everything on time because this is very useful to be organized.

Feedback: Overall the feedback I received off my peers was positive. This has made me more confident about my images because at first I thought my images were not on the same level as everyone else’s but after we evaluated the work I was pleased to get positive feedback. One of the common comments that ran

through each peer evaluation is that the different backgrounds went with the look of the model, which was really interesting to look at. The images were sharp and they were taken at good angles for example ‘the angles you took the photographs from are very good”, “ all of the images are sharp and in focus which makes it appear much more professional looking” and “ the background and settings go really well with the clothes, it really tells a story”. The strongest picture was this window seat image. It was said that the

entire colours compliment each other and it does not looked manipulated the model looks natural and the image does not look like it has been staged. The image looks observational/candid. In the feedback 100% of my peers agreed that the image of the model next to the bedpost was my weakest image. The image shows this on the right. The comments about this image included that there should have been background scenery, the colour balance is to high, and the shutter speed was to long. In my opinion I agree with this image being my weakest because it wasn’t like the rest of my images I did not include a warm filter on this image and it didn’t really fit with the theme of the rest of my images. I do think I cropped it too much and made it to bright compared to the rest of my images. If I was to re edit this image I would crop it less then I would change the filter to a warm filter and not make the model look so bright I would lower the exposure and the hue/saturation. This would then hopefully make it more into the tone of my images in general. For the areas of improvements I received feedback like ‘shortening the shutter speed to help get rid off movement and blurriness’, ‘more effects/altering the images more. The areas of improvement I agree with too because I did think that my pictures were blurry in some images but I have tried to cover this up with effects and I also agree that I could of use different filters and been more creative in post production but I like the theme I have used throughout my eight images. Overall I am very pleased with my final images and there like what I wanted when I

thought of the idea in the first place. I got positive feedback from peers and not much negative, which has helped me, be confident about these images.