Week One.

Colour Splashes.

From initial stages of research and thinking about concepts for my shoot, I knew I was going to organise a fashion shoot. One that would replicate something that you would see in a Vogue or Fashion Quarterly.

After our first assignment and doing a shoot out at Piha beach I was very keen to go and experiment using the two contrasting ‘elements’. These elements that I wanted to combine were the beach (nature) and fashion.

To begin with, I started looking on various fashion blogs on the Internet. As I LIVE on these sorts of fashion blog sites this was very familiar territory for me. The images that really inspired me to begin with were ones that were all ‘snippets’ of people wearing colourful fashionable pieces off a blog called monicarosestylist.blogspot.com. The idea of colour really appealed to me and from these photos I started to think about how I would use this concept in my photos. I wanted to first try out using my main accent colour of pink. I used items from my wardrobe such as my pink bangle, dress, lipstick and scarf. These worked really well in the photos and the colour turned out amazing in the test shoot.

Piha.

What I learnt/discovered from completing my Piha shoot:
I discovered that I need to learn how to direct my models better; I can do this by knowing exactly what I want from each shot. Knowing how I want my models to pose; the poses that help to convey what I want each shot to communicate, which will also relate in some way to each outfit and each background (if varied) change.

From this test shoot I learned how to control my camera in different settings; there were two different locations that I was shooting from; in the direct sunlight and in the shade next to the cliffs; this helped me work out how the difference in lighting can affect my photos in such different ways.

I learnt that it is a lot harder to shoot two models at the same time in the same frame; mainly because the success rate of both models having good outcomes is less likely ie when one model performs well in a photo it doesn’t necessarily mean the other one will at the same time; therefore there aren’t as many great photos of both models together as there would be of them photographed individually. When models are photographed individually, there isn’t another model in the frame and we don’t have to worry/focus on the other model and how they’re looking, because there is only the one person in the photo.

When I was taking these photos I was really interested at using colour and texture in the photos. I wanted to exaggerate the rocky texture and brown colours to the soft, fluffy, and pink colours of the focus in the clothes that the models were wearing. I also added Lily (dog) as an extra to add to the textural elements within the images and to add an extra ‘something’ within the images.

Overall I think the shoot went well, but from the experience I realise that in order to achieve more successful and powerful images I should try using one model instead of two. I’m choosing to go with Annelise, because she has very strong facial features and her bone structure shows up exceptionally well when photographed in certain angles. She also has previous modelling experience, which is an added bonus.

These are some of the successful photos from Piha.