SHOOT: Advertisement Experimentation

Upon taking my food images, I decided to experiment with text and logos to create simple advertisements for both supermarkets. Upon reflection, these are not a good way of presenting my images, due to the text layout with the logo. The images are stronger on their own, and are not a good reflection of my work. This has been a learning curve, and has influence my decision to carry on this for my final major project. I plan not to turn my images into actual physical advertisements, but present them in a way that could be used for advertisements for food and beauty.

SHOOT: Studio Products #2

The first food I photographed with my lighting set up was bread to represent the breadcrumbs left as a trail by Hansel and Gretel. I decided to experiment with using more expensive bread, which was a crusty bread from the posher range at Morrisons (way out of my student budget for a normal day!). I used a macro lens to get closer to the bread, so that I could see all the crumbs left behind to emphasise what it is representing. I think he lighting set up really worked, because not only does it look appetising and professional, but it represents the darker side of the fairytale (about the children being abandoned by their own parents). The quote I plan to use as the text for this advertisement is: 

I took two shots of the cake, as I wasn't sure which one I preferred. I bought the nicest looking cake from the shop down the road to represent what Little Red Riding Hood took to her sick grandmother in the cottage in the middle of the forest. I took the first shot on a clean wooden board, and then the next one I broke off a bit of the cake and sprinkled it on the side. I have seen advertisements, especially by M&S, where they have used crumbs and sauces to make something look more appetising. I am going to run a poll on my social media accounts and ask people their opinions as to which looks more appealing and like an advertisement, so I have the view of the public who would normally be viewing the advertisements. The quote I will be using for this shot is:

For the story of Hansel and Gretel where they find the edible house in the middle of the forest and meet their fate of being kidnapped by the wicket witch, I used jelly beans and other sweets to represent this. Last time, I used a pile of jellybeans and various other nice looking sweets, and I attempted to recreate this using the current lighting set up. However, the shadow was so large that it looked odd. I then decided to use a singluar jellybeans, which worked exceptionally well, as it created a feeling of loneliness which represents the story perfectly. I took many photographs, but chose these two because of the long shadow that has been cast from the jellybean and the low light. I have been heavily inspired by the work of Ernie Buttom for this shot, where he photographed some cereal standing alone. It gives me the sense of loneliness that Hansel and Gretel will have experienced when they were left in the forest.

This image is represented by Hansel and Gretel and the gingerbread house that they find in the forest. I originally photographed pieces of gingerbread but wanted to show the comparison between gingerbread and the isolation of the gingerbread man. I find that the dark lighting isolates the subject and makes it appear lonely and singled out.

The shooting of apple pie was the first idea when constructing these advertisement concepts. I began by shooting this with the darker lighting but I felt that the layout and angle of the lighting in correspondence with the flatness of the pie and apples. Based on the fact the pie didn't have volume, I  decided to shoot this with another light to the left and one from above, all working as slaves to my camera. I felt like this worked so much better but does not fit in my final experimentation advertisement, although I am not too concerned. 

RESEARCH: Ernie Button

Ernie Button is my main inspiration for the artistic side of my food photography, due to his series of work called Cerealism. The meaning behind this work is his lack of being able to have cereal as a child, and how that experiment influenced him to produce this photographic set making cereal into art. The top image, showing the cereal standing alone, influence do me heavily to create the photographs of the jellybeans standing alone on the wooden slice. His work is both inspirational and meaningful, and I plan to future research his work in the upcoming months for my final major project, to look at how food  can be made into art.

RESEARCH: Carl Warner

Carl Warners work is both mentally and creatively stimulating and inspires me to take my food photography so much further in my final major project module. His image are beautifully photographed and edited, and remind me of common fairytales scenes that look good enough to eat. Although his work is out of my Photoshop skills zone, I plan to develop them over the course of the next few weeks using tutorials online as well as knowledge of fellow photographers. My Photoshop skills have developed so much over this module, but i plan to extend them further to produce beautifully shot and edited image for my final piece. All of his images are shot individually and then composed together in one singular image. I plan to take inspiration from his work in my next module, when I produce my final images for my final exhibition. I plan to pay more attention to detail, including the food I am going to use, the outfits my models will be wearing including their hair and make up, and the location being used. 

RESEARCH: Stephanie Salo

I began to look into the work of Stephanie Salo who is a food photographer, and the way she photographs and edits food for advertisements and food editorials. I have taken inspiration from her to look further into how food is sold, when it is made of the same ingredients. I was told by Speedy to look into consumerism within children and how they will want something, especially if it is inspired by something that they love. 

I have been recently reading Snow White and watched the newly adapted film Snow White and the Huntsmen, and have been drawing quotes from them to include in my research. One of the quotes reads "it's apple pies that makes the menfolks' mouths water!", referring to the old witch talking to Snow White. I have taken inspiration from this quote and decided to do some food photography inspired by Salo to see if it would be better incorporated into an advertisement with text. I plan to use quotes from fairytales as text in the advertisement to make it seem more appealing and fill the idea of consumerism in both adults and children.

SHOOT: Self Portraits #3

This was the last experiment of self portraiture that I have produced, and was based on the idea of Hansel and Gretel being left in the forest by their parents. I planned to use children for this, but was not sure if the experiment would work and taking two small children into a wooded area in the deep snow was unsafe and difficult to gain permission for from parents. I decided to run this experiment with myself and my fiancé, to make sure that it worked and I was happy with the result. The meaning behind this image is looking into the loneliness of the two children, and how really they were left to starve in the woodland by their own parents. The breadcrumbs represent the trail left by the children as they were led into the forest, and the two bodies represent the death of the two children when they run out of food and means of getting it. I was not happy with this experiment, both because of the lighting as well as how it was executed. I shot this image in two and edited them together to create a panoramic shaped image including the two models. The lighting was not very strong for this image, and the image looks dim and dark, as well as dirty. The previous image of me led on the floor with the apple replicating the concept of Snow White was taken in the same location but on a brighter, sunnier day, and I much prefer the lighting. This image looks 'dirty' and badly edited, and I don't think represents the quality of my work to date, nor the idea perfectly. I will continue to experiment with this idea in the next module, as I love the concept, just not the way it turned out.

SHOOT: Self Portraits #2

Following from my initial exploration into self portraits, I decided to take advantage of the current weather conditions and shoot some more portraits relating to fairytales. I took inspiration from two fairytales - Snow White and Hansel and Gretal.

This image was inspired by Snow White and how she was poisoned by the wicked Queen disguised as an old woman. My original concept for day was to produce a variety of images relating to get topic but with a model. However, the model cancelled on me last minute and without time to find another one, I had to improvise and use myself. With the help of a tripod, and self timer, I took this shot of me led on the snowy ground, with the apple next to me. This image represents how the fairytale could have ended, if Snow White ways to know the apple was poisoned. I have taken a bite out of the apple, but keeping it a secret that it has not been swallowed. I think the lighting and editing techniques have worked well here, I used a red overlay at opacity 50% to give red tint as homage to the colour of the apple. I think this worked really well as it brought out the red in the apple as well as the red in my hair.

This image is inspired by Hansel and Gretal and how they were left in the forest to fend for themselves. Hansel and Gretal is a classic fairytale with a more prominent dark side, where the parents who cannot afford their children, send them off into the woodland and abandon them. I remember my parents use to threaten me with the threat of Hansel and Gretel's fate when I was naughty as a child, and is still used today on my younger sister. The setting and weather was quite bleak, but also mystical because of the snow on the trees and ground. I wanted to give the viewer a search to find me crouching in the trees, which would have been the same for Hansel and Gretal trying to find a place to sleep or something to eat. I edited to image to have 50% desaturation, which did not make a huge amount of difference to the largely grey image.

SHOOT: Outdoor Product

After my success of shooting the red apple and various other food products in the studio, I decided to venture outdoors and take advantage of the snowy weather conditions to shoot some food outdoors. I decided to go with the red apple as I was already shooting a self portrait relating to Snow White on the same day. I think the red apple looks better being photographed outside rather than in the studio, as it puts it in more context of the situation, especially with the snow and ice surrounding it. I think I will shoot some more product photographs outdoors and develop on this, as well as making them into advertisements on InDesign and Photoshop. I am focussing on consumerism in children so shooting outdoors will give me more opportunities to develop my work as I have no access to a studio over Christmas.

RESEARCH: Annie Leibovitz

I looked at the work of Annie Leibovitz with awe and enthusiasm, her work, both technically and creatively, is stunning and breathtaking. I looked at her work from the Disney advertisements she did that included celebrities replicating popular children's fairy tales. From a child point of view, these are magical images that make them want to visit the place that these advertisements are pushing - Disneyland. Consumerism in children can be uncontrolled, as children sometimes have no grasp of money or how much things cost in retrospect to adults wages. Many adults know that Disneyland is an expensive place to visit, especially as a family with children. Disney knows this - and plays on the fact that if children see images like this, filled with role models dressed as knights in shining armour and gorgeous princesses, they will want to go to the place where "dreams come true". The use of celebrities in these advertisements are the thing that I am interested in. If Disney can use celebrity and fairytale references in their advertisement, then it gives me the idea of using fairytale encouragement and hints to relate back to the Disney Empire in my food photography. My studio images came out well, so I plan to edit them in the form of advertisements to see what result that produces.

RESEARCH: Tracey Rose

Upon looking into Susan Brights book titled "Auto Focus", I was inspired by one individual photograph by Tracey Rose showing her running through a bright green field naked. Although the I am not going to take my clothes off and do the same, and although her imagery has no direct link to my own photographic experimentation, her use of location and thinking about the landscape around her to represent a theme has heavily influenced my reasoning into making sure I pick the right weather conditions and locations to make my photographs have the right feel. Because I am shooting self portraits to represent fairytales, the use of woodland locations is vital to represent the theme to make sure the audience can make the connection.

RESEARCH: Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman's film stills have, and always will be, my favourite collection of self portraiture to date, based on the cinematic feel they all possess. Her work has inspired me to take the first step into self portraiture, and gives me a historical reference to work upon.

RESEARCH: Ananke Asseff

Annake Asseff looks into the ever changing beauty of landscapes and how her body works together with them in photography. Her work has made me think about locations and weather conditions, and how they can be used to make my work stronger. I really hope after seeing the above image, it snows over the winter period, as using snow as a backdrop with the human form is beautiful and represents the theme of fairytales well; as them being a magical story with magical locations.

SHOOT: Self Portraits #1

It snowed over the weekend so straight after work on Sunday afternoon I decided to head straight over to a woodland area to take some self portraits using artificial lighting. I am planning to take my experimental portraits later on this week with the food items I have chosen, so it is a perfect time to practice and see what lighting works best. Below is a behind the scenes shot of my fiancé setting up and image whilst I stood in as the subject. I wanted to make sure that the shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings were correct as the snow was melting every time I sat down.

We started shooting at 7pm which is quite late as the sun had completely disappeared! We began by using car headlights and a reflector to create a harsh but golden glow on the subject. We soon realised that using full beam headlights was too harsh and we needed to turn them down. The outcome (shown below) is using side beam headlights and a silver reflector. I am really impressed with this images as it is my first time trying self portraits as well as artificial lightning outdoors. Although it was freezing and I have a cold body, it was well worth the end result. I am heavily inspired by Gregory Crewdson in this image for the use of heavy but creative lighting, and now understand that using lighting outdoors can be greatly beneficial to my photographic work. I decided to edit this photograph in black and white to benefit the mysterious lighting, and use a cinematic crop as homage to televised fairy tales.

SHOOT: Studio Products #1

I decided to begin my experimentation into product and food photography by setting up my product table with my studio lights and experimenting with different ways to photograph food. I have spoken to Speedy about my idea and he has encouraged me to expand them and looking into consumerism and how it affects children. I decided to photograph four different foods; sweets to represent Hansel and Gretal, gingerbread to also represent Hansel and Gretal, a red apple to represent Snow White and a piece of cake to represent Red Riding Hood. I understand that some of these references will be better understood by different people who have different memories from fairytales.

My favourite image that I took on this occasion was the image of the gingerbread. I originally took photographs of the gingerbread (which were shaped like snowmen, how very festive) stood up next to each other in line, however this was neither creative nor practical and looked silly. I decided then to break the gingerbread into smaller pieces and stack them on top of each other. This gave a more neat feel and looked professional. My next experimentation on top of this is to recreate a gingerbread house which would represent the fairytale even more, however, I don't want to spoon feed the viewer so will hold some details back. Speedy referred to consumerism in his tutorial with me and suggested I looked into it further. After taking these photographs I have decided to need to read more into consumerism as a subject and how it can relate to my current project. I plan to look at the work of Disney advertisements and how they encourage children to want to visit Disneyland, and the work of other children's advertisement photographers and graphic designers to understand what they need to do to hit the target audience.

I also took photographs of the red apple, which was the first idea I had when it came to food photography. Everyone is familiar with get concept of Snow White being poisoned by the apple by the wicked Queen. I decided it would be a safe option to continue this idea to really get my message across, alongside other items of food and drink that relate to fairy tales, my next step is to read more Grimm fairytales and list food from them, even if the story is not as popular with the ones I have already explored.

RESEARCH: Consumerism in Children

After meeting with Steve Speed regarding my current ideas for my project before we left for the Christmas break, he mentioned the idea of using consumerism as a base for my project, to underpin my idea and concepts better. I then decided to research into the Disney culture and consumerism within children, and how things sells if they are represented by a brand or stereotype.

Disney is a favourite for a lot of younger children, as well as the older generation, and the store can mark up their prices because of the brand; they know it sells. Children are driven by this desire to want and apparently need certain items if they are represented by their favourite television show or film, especially Disney. Fairytales from the Grimm Brothers have been adopted by Disney, and made out to be glamorous, beautiful stories about gorgeous princesses and courageous princes, and the quest to save one another. However, in the time when they were originally published, they focussed upon issues such as kidnapping, abandonment, murder and slander. For example, Cinderella is singled out and mistreated buy her own family because of the way she looks, Alice in Wonderland wanders off away from her family and becomes lost in a mysterious world that is full of strange and weird creatures and scenarios, and Snow White is poisoned by an apple off a wicked witch who wants her dead. All of these fairytales have a storyline of someone being mistreated and sad. However, the Disney versions of these fairytales hide this fact, and present us with a dumbed down, lovely version, which disguises all the bad parts and presents us with the good. 

Lets begin with some facts sourced from Investopedia.com. Walt Disney is one of the most powerful companies in the who world, especially in the field of entertainment. It runs films, ice shows, stores, theme parks and television channels. There are not many children who live in the world who have not heard of Disney. The Disney empire is worth over $60 billion dollars, and rising every day. Every day, a quarter of a million guest make their way to the various theme parks that they own, a mass transit system that consists of more than '270 buses, 12 monorail trains and a fleet of boats and water taxis' (Theme Park Tourist, 2014).

"Children are a captive audience: The average American child watches an estimate between 25,000 to 40,000 television commercials per year. In the UK, it is about 10,000" (Global Issues, 2010). Children are influenced by what they see in advertisements, television programmes and in magazines. My work is going to now look into advertisement culture, and I am going to create some food photography and make them into advertisements for supermarkets as a response to this issue.

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Anup Shah. (2010). Children as Consumers. Available: http://www.globalissues.org/article/237/children-as-consumers. Last accessed 24th December 2014.

Nick Sim. (2014). 10 Mind Boggling Statistics About Walt Disney World.Available: http://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20140214/16276/10-mind-boggling-statistics-about-walt-disney-world?page=1. Last accessed 24th December 2014.

RESEARCH: Kyle Thompson

Kyle Thompson is a surreal portrait photographer from Illinois, he describes his practice as surreal, conceptual self-portraits, spanning out into alternative portraiture. I have taken inspiration from two of his images in order to develop my own portraiture work for this module. He is completely self-taught, skipping college to choose travelling around the USA in his car.

The first image is my favourite image of Kyle’s is this photograph shown below. His head coming from the puddle looks so surreal and out of the ordinary, but reveals a lot about Thompson’s personality and his photographic approach. I am inspired so much by his work and how he represents his thoughts and feeling through imagery. I am also inspired greatly by the second image, although not a self-portrait, it has inspired me through use of location and how the lighting has created an eerie effect and is kind of captivating. The mood set in this image is quite hazy and unclear, which is a contrast to the technical aspect of his photographs, which are technically perfect. He work has inspired to capture the extra ordinary, whether it be people hidden within piles of mud, floating among reeds and water or surrounding by blazing fire, I plan to use Kyle Thompson as my main inspiration for the portrait pathway of my experimentation, as he has clearly shown that anything is possible with a creative mind!

www.kylethompsonphotography.com

www.flickr.com/photos/kyle_thompson

REFLECTION: Presentation & Further Ideas/Research

After looking into studio portraiture and understand how I need to put more thought and process into my image. I have decided to experiment with two different paths of experimentation, one being product photography of food and props that are used in fairytales, as well as the pathway of experimental lighting within portraiture. I have been looking into the work of Gregory Crewdson a lot over the past few weeks and have fallen in love with the idea of "dressing the set" and preparing dramatic lighting for a shoot. I think it will broaden my knowledge of lighting outside of the studio. 

For my action plan, I have come up with some initial ideas for both.

Product

I had the idea to experiment with product photography when looking at a fellow students work during the Professional Frameworks module. I did not want to have to solely rely on models (who off the internet can be unreliable) over the Christmas period as students have deadlines and a lot of people have to work extra hours to fit demand or spend time with family. Therefore, I have decided to expand my knowledge of product photography. I have been researching into a number of product photographers who work in the industry to learn more about lighting techniques and what sort of lighting they use. I plan to conduct a number of studio and outdoor shoots depending on weather and if I can access a studio over the Christmas period. If not, I am hoping it snows to get the fairytale weather conditions to produce these product images. The food that I will be photographing will all be based on food included in children's fairytales, I plan to use a red apple to represent Snow White, gingerbread and bread crumbs to represent  Hansel and Gretal and a pumpkin to represent Cinderella.

As experimentation for this action plan, I plan to experiment with different colour backgrounds and locations, as well as using body parts with the food. I understand now I will have to research into advertisement food photographers and understand studio lighting for food photography more.

Experimental Portraits

I have always been the photographer to take editorial styled images in the studio or on location that would look good published in a high fashion magazine, therefore, I want to experiment with taking alternative portraits for this module. I want to take eerie images of people over the Christmas period, taking advantage of the possible weather conditions that could arise (such as dense fog and snow). I think these are all good weather conditions that could look good and compliment the theme of fairytale.

I plan to use the inspiration of Kyle Thompson (research to follow), as his self portraiture work is inspirational and well thought out. They all represent problems in his life and how he can overcome them and strive forwards in life. They all represent problems in his life and how he can overcome them and strive forwards in life. I want to take inspiration from some of his work he produced in the woodlands to influence my style of photography, I plan to research this in the next post.

SHOOT: Hedgehogs

I decided to plan a simple fashion shoot in the studio. something I am used to in my normal practice, but making sure I pay attention to detail to make the shoot the best it can be. I realised in my research that I need to pay more attention to small details within a photo shoot so it represents my brief perfectly and fits all the criteria. Here, I wanted to create a whimsical fairytale fashion photo shoot, to experiment with the concepts I have in mind and decided whether this is something I would like to concentrate on for my Final Major Project.

I hired a small pygmy hedgehog for the shoot, and used my good friend Kelly as a model. I did not want to hire a model as they can sometimes be unreliable and, on this occasion, could not pass the opportunity to use animals as part of my shoot. I think the photographs came out really well. I made sure the hair and make up matched my theme, and made sure everything was in place whilst I was shooting. In the past, I have shot a whole series of images and realised at the end the make up was too shiny or that the hair was out of place. At this shoot, I made a connection between my camera and my laptop to provide my assistant with a live feed, so errors could be noticed and corrected.

RESEARCH: Margarita Kareva

This work inspired me the moment I saw it because of two things; the animals involved and the snow overlay in the background. I have already worked on my Photoshop skills by using a snow overlay over the top of the some of my personal images, but the use of animals really makes this feel like a fairytale. I have been reading into one of my favourite children's books which was about a hedgehog who had lost its Mum, kind of like a fairytale of Finding Nemo but with hedgehogs. I want to incorporate hedgehogs in my next experimentation as they are a personal fairytale creature of mine. I have been inspired so much by this series of work that I plan to experiment further with this if my next series is strong and exciting enough, and use other wild animals to produce editorial images I could submit to a magazine.

SHOOT: Woodland Location (Photoshop Layers)

I was looking at the work of Annie Leibovitz and realised that I would need to improve upon my Photoshop skills if I was to make some surreal work that would match my brief. I took these photographs of a model wearing some pieces from my friends clothing collection, again, I paid great attention to detail whilst shooting to make sure that the garments were fitted correctly and that the hair and make up was perfect at all times. I decided to in post production to add an overlay of some snow flakes. I then used the healing brush set to clear to get rid of the overlay from the models face and body, to make her more clear. I enjoyed being able to improve my Photoshop skills, and using my Bamboo tablet more on my laptop. I definitely need to improve my skills over the course of the next year for the industry when I graduate.