Here's a wayy belated response to your underwater photo, but better late than never!
I worked on a photo shoot where my friend Julia and her friend Carly styled and my friend Tian modeled. It was quite a production. I bought a few lights from Ace hardware for the shoot and it was the first time I played with artificial lighting. I'm editing the photos now and I'll be posting more this week on my flickr and I wanna hear your thoughts on the set as fashion photos or just as general photos and especially your thoughts on the lighting. I'll let you know when I get them all up!
I realized during this shoot that fashion is a difficult genre for me... I have to adjust to directing a bit more because up til now, the way I usually approach photos is through a more observational, capturing candids process. I've gotten better at directing people as I take their portraits for my walking talk project because I direct them aesthetically as I try to capture something I've observed of them while talking to them, but it is still me trying to capture or to accentuate what I see in front of me. With these photos, it goes a step further. The goal is not to capture the reality of the situation, but to direct the scene and the model to create an imagined image and mood, which is a different approach than how I usually take photos. I've been thinking about these different approaches and though I realize that I gravitate toward being more of a documentary photographer, I do want to challenge myself to be more directorial as I take photos instead of just letting things happen in front of my camera that I happen to luckily capture. I want to be able to create situations that allow these natural moments to happen, but to have more agency about it. Not sure if that makes complete sense, but these are just some things I've been thinking of in the past weeks.
For the lighting, I think the way that the photograph has cool and warm spots is nice, but the first thing that stood out to me when I saw the photo was that it is kind of dark on her legs, which bothers me. I wish there were some sort of spotlight just on her legs, because I’m ok with whole under the counter space being darker, going along with the aesthetic of the photo.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite photographs are the two in the second row of flickr, underneath the ones outside. I think the framing and lighting are the most successful for all of the ones by the window in that first photo, and I really like how her face is a little out of focus when you look closely. And I think the one next to it is the most successful of the ones at the table. I like it being a little bit sparser, with just the orange flowers and the fruit. And I like the framing and her pose. I’m also partial to the more square one that’s outside, the way the branches frame the model. But what if she were wearing something brighter? I kind of like the idea of her wearing fuchsia in that, so she stands out from the branches a little more. And I like the vines on the wall on that one too.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that posing photos is really hard, especially when you are so used to the more candid capturing of photos. I think you did a good job except for the ones when I can’t see her face. It bothers me when her hair is in front of her face or when she is laying down on the plate.
Yay for trying new things though! I really want to try and do a fashion shoot together on one of our visits to one another, because I've never tried it in an environment where I had any control, and it looks pretty and like fun.