First shoot back at university (with artist research).

Artist research:

For my first shoot, I was unsure of what I wanted to depict within my Final Major Project. I found the work entitled "Velvet" by Nhu Xuan Hua really interesting and therefore decided to start there.

Velvet:


A lot of these images are very minimalistic, which is something that drew me in and sparked my interest. The image that I was drawn to the most is the one in which there is someone holding a mirror up reflecting someone's face - I feel like this is something that I can use to start my project off and then develop it and experiment in a variety of different ways. I like the use of the block of colour in the background as it is very strong and vibrant - I like using colour in my work and so this is something that I could have some fun with as I could try out a lot of different colours.

Contact sheet:



These are all of the images that I took in my first shoot back at university, and I know that I could have had a much better first shoot back but this is just the beginning of my Final Major Project. Initially, I took some images in my room where I live to see if I liked the way the images came out and I was really pleased with the minimal aspect of the images and therefore knew I wanted to shoot in the studio so that it would be easier to add colour to the images.
I was helping out a friend in the studio and she had some time left in the studio after finishing and so I decided to take some images so that I had something to start with. I didn't have much time to use and so I wasn't able to change around the lighting but I added a second backdrop that I used for the reflection. I added a second backdrop because I felt like this would add some more interest to the images, whereas only one can be seen in the image by Nhu Xuan Hua. Because of the lighting not being both on the mirror and on the model, the model ended up fading out in the mirror as it was too dark to see her.


This is an image I took within this first shoot and I feel like this was the most successful image from the ones I took in my bedroom - I really like how she is not looking at the camera and how her full face cannot be seen. I feel like this works really well as it has a sense of anonymity about it as you can't see who the person is fully.


I then edited this image to have blue tones and to achieve a more natural skin tone. As I had shot some images in ambient lighting, the model's skin tone had turned orange and this is something that did not work so I had to alter this in post production. I think this image is a lot more effective than the previous one as it looks more natural and it looks a lot more considered.


Here is a side by side of 2 images that I took within this shoot, both of which have been taken very differently. In the image with the blue background, I have placed the focus on the hand rather than the subject, not for any particular reason other than I wanted to have as many different images as possible to look through. Upon looking at this image, I think the out of focus portrait works really well as it hides the identity of the subject - this is maybe something I will carry on throughout my project. In comparison, I have focused her face in the image with the pink background which I think works well also. This is very similar to the research I did on my initial artist influence as the face fills most of the mirror and the composition is also something that is very similar due to the way in which the mirror is being held. This is something else that I may continue with, but at this point I am trying out as many different ideas as I can so that I can develop my project into something I really enjoy and can say a lot about.

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