#hnd2c

So back to Pollok park and a bit more prepared this time.

checked on time of sunset

makeshift snoot for Rotolight

darker clothing for model & photographer

homemade mask

dog securely out of way

head torch for adjustments etc.

bribe (beer) for model

This was the latest I had been outdoors since the lockdown and to be frank I was a bit nervous, but I had dog walking as my reason to be in the park and, surprisingly, there were several dog-walkers there! I wasn’t confident I could explain the tripod, light, and camera if someone came along halfway through the shoot.

I used the “live comp” setting on my camera set at 15 second intervals and started by illuminating the ruined tree. First of all the grassy hillock in front of it and then the trunk itself. Next I lighted a pathway between the trees and then the second tree and the stick structure around it. Lastly I introduced the masked figure and illuminated him using an old flashgun triggered on my other camera.

Some of this went well, the trunk in particular, however I did still get some bleed from the LED on the back of the light which I had to sort in edit.                      The flash on the figure only partly illuminated him, fading off towards the feet, but I was quite happy with this effect as it added to the overall eeriness. 

This post is an initial rough edit. 

In an ideal world I would have had at least one other person to assist and that would have made all the difference. In an ideal world I would go back and do another shoot. However ,at the moment, this is not an ideal world, so I may shoot something else closer to home, or submit this less than perfect shot as my final submission...

For the ‘fashion front cover’ brief, I chose to take inspiration from ‘Moonrise Kingdom’, a film directed by Wes Anderson.

Wes Anderson is an American filmmaker and director. He’s created countless iconic, successful films such as: ‘the grand Budapest hotel’ (2014), ‘fantastic mr fox’ (2009) and his most recent film ‘isle of dogs’ (2018). Anderson is known for his unique style and colour palettes.

After researching his style I found out the following about his filming techniques:

• Wes Anderson heavily incorporates symmetry into his films. He does that by centering the subject right in the middle of the frame.

• Anderson uses flat lighting and composition, no harsh shadows or awkward lighting is used on the subjects which creates a more 2D appearance.

• He is also known to shoot directly above the subject to emphasise smaller details that tend to involve inanimate objects and hands that still convey things such as the time, place and the character.

• Lastly I found that he always sticks by a specific colour palette for each film. He mainly uses vibrant pastel and neutral tones.

As I’m basing my fashion front cover off of the film moonrise kingdom I’ll be taking inspiration from the scene shown below and aim to follow the colour palette of the specific scene.

I chose to take inspiration from this scene in particular as the composition and use of the rule of thirds really intrigued me as the frame is quite simple with few aspects to it which helps emphasise the subject.

For my front cover I aim to use a female model, one who has a younger/youthful appearance that could loosely resemble the character Suzy from the film. I will position the model directly in the middle of the frame and have her looking directly into the lens to create the symmetrical Wes Anderson look, I’ll also use even lighting to create a 2D effect.

For the set I’ll be using cloud wallpaper to replicate the background of the scene, I think this will work well as it will follow the colour palette I’m aiming to use. I will also include binoculars to add some contrast and personality.

In Imaging we have been learning how to retouch skin in photoshop using the Frequency Separation technique.

Before Image:

After:

As yo can see I didn't want to retouch my image too much. I think that this has just the right amount of blur for it to look slightly retouched, however I don't think that it looks harsh. 

Project-follow inspiration and guidelines from image provided by lectures, our image is the one above with low lighting reflections, elements of ambient light in the background, cool colour tones and a subject behind a window panel possible with a pillar or light stripe to their side. hopefully we manage to show our interpretation of this.

Aye Write Festival

A wee phone snap I took when I was out with my dog. I think I can build on this.