#studentfocus

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For more information click here: https://eduation1.wordpress.com/2026/03/27/how-students-can-improve-focus-in-the-age-of-smartphones/

Focus. Confidence. Determination. Our students at The Pinnacle Global School appeared for their exams with full dedication and a positive spirit! Wishing them all the very best for great results!

📌 Tiny steps. Daily wins. Stronger focus.

 When it came to the day of the test shoot, it took me a while to pick what colour back ground to use and what angle shot looked best. But I guess that is what a test shoot is for; it just took me a while to figure what I exactly wanted.   Having done the test shoot and going through the images I could soon see that the full shots although ok were not as effective as the close up shots I had taken. So a few days later I went for my final shoot. The close up pictures really worked well and gave me more of the image I was going for.  There were some finishing touches I wanted to make so with Photoshop I wanted to add some more colour and depth to the image, as well as rounding off the eye. This did take me a while to get the image complete, but it was time well spent and  I was happy with the final image.   If I was to do this project again I would probably try and make the image more grotesque, but I wanted to try and give people another view of the horrific damage being done to the fish. People only tend to think of hard plastic being dumped into our waters and being caught around animals limbs etc, I wanted to show a different view point.  I may shoot this topic again but at a later date as project is something that I have really taken an interest in. 

I knew from my tests that I wanted to try and shoot outside. Along with the hard light I wanted my background to be something a bit more gritty. With the ears the plain background the over all feel was softer and did not match with what I wanted to do. Instead of using photoshop I took my model outside and tried a few different backgrounds before picking the brick wall. It gave to the sense that my huntress was just that. The ears were very important to conveying the overall message. They give context in my parody to the meat and are also a sense of humour to an otherwise serious topic i myself am passionate about. They aid in my effort to try and shoot a piece that comments on our cultural conceptions of diet and health. The very fact looking at my photo is obscene is the point. Were not hunters. We don’t chase animals down and eat them raw and looking at a photo that implies we do unsettles us to a certain extent. My character is a personification of two cultural extremes. I used the same lighting plan from my tests but removed the background lights and instead just had 1 beauty dish 24in and one reflector for fill. I kept it simple, easy to manage and yet very effective. I did try using my 5 and 7 foot umbrellas but the light was far too soft and made the photos have a beauty vibe that I was trying to stay away from. I put a grid on my beauty dish to narrow the light and focus it on my model and have no leak over to the wall. I shot on a 24mm equivalent lens to give me a less Fashion or Beauty vibe. I intentionally shot the photo a little darker than needed to make sure I had 100% of the information in my frame. My sensor is iso invariant so it does not matter if I shoot at base iso and push later 1 stop or simply shoot at 400 other than the fact that I can selectively brighten my photo and keep my blacks as grain free as possible. Not something I would do for a normal shoot but I only had 1 keeper to edit all the way to print and it seemed worth it to make sure I got everything. What have I changed since the shoot? I’m planning on spending my summer break portfolio building on StarNow and I want to build relationships with MUAs and stylists so the team end of the shoots is much more flawless. I have people that want to work with me and I just have to make the effort to build a regular team for this year. I also want to use the studio at Rave a lot more but with my own equipment. Knowing not only how the gear works but how you can troubleshoot alleviates a large amount of stress from the shoot and gives you some flexibility but play on the day. While I do actually enjoy having a lighting plan ready for my “keeper” once I’ve got what I want I naturally want to explore. Knowing the gears means being able to be certain I have what I need. Julian told me a few years ago that keeping things simple is the surest way to getting effective shots as a student and I have taken that to heart with my minimalist set up. After the shoot it made me realise I had a lot of stuff I did not need. Some of the greatest fashion photographers to ever live including Richard Avedon used one light for a lot of their work. If I can’t take good photos with what I have, buying more stuff will not help me. This year that is really ringing true for me. I have thoroughly enjoyed pushing myself into new ideas and styles for this project and am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone.

Before shooting I wanted to quickly get some photos I knew the model would be happy with to her warmed up and out of her shell. The bottom 3 photos are what I started, after showing her she seemed much more relaxed and involved. Selecting the final image took me a few days, I drew over what I liked and did not like about my outcomes. My biggest peeve is things leaving the frame such as hands or ears. I wanted comfortable space around the model to crop in a little. I got her to really let loose and play around between frames and so trying to frame a technically perfect photo in the dark while you’re model jumps around swinging meat is not the best idea of a shoot with limit time and no budget for a reshoot. I knew my client wanted an A3 print and that I could achieve a 300DPI print with less than the 24MPs my camera has and so cropping / sharpness would not be an issue. I placed the dominant eye dead centre of the frame along with the meat. I broke some rules to use some others. What really sold me on the final image was the symbolic way she was holding the beef to her heart. I think it makes for a more interesting photo that someone would look at longer. It adds depth and a little mystery.

Update: After frantically googling I managed to find a make-up artist with 14 years experience in retro beauty. Luckily by only paying my test model in headshots, I had it in my budget to afford her fee of £140.