The research that I have conducted prior to the exam has majorly influenced the final series of images that I have created. Without researching portraiture and fashion from the last 100 decades, I would not know how to style my shoots in terms of clothing and make up, as well as how to make my images look through editing. For example, the work of Milton Greene showed me both of these aspects as his series of photographs featured portraits of Marilyn Monroe from the 1950s. The influence that Greene has had on my work is one of the reasons why I have chosen to conduct a 50s shoot within my exam - his photographs have shown me one of the clearest examples of the 50s in terms of both fashion and how images looked. Another photographer who, through research, has influenced by work is Alfred Cheney Johnston. Johnston focused on capturing portraits of showgirls and started his work in the 1910s. This was a decade that I definitely wanted to recreate within my exam shoots as this was 100 years ago and so is the first decade that I focused on in my preparatory shoots. By looking at Johnston's images, I am able to see the glamorous, more flamboyant fashion that was around during the 1910s and can get a good idea on how to style my models if I choose to represent this look. Not only this, but I am able to see how images looked in 100 years ago compared to now as technology has come a long way and so images look very different. My preparatory shoots themselves have also had a lot of influence on my final series of images. By conducting my preparatory shoots, I was able to get a feel of what decade I enjoyed recreating for a shoot. As I really enjoyed my 1950s look and the outcomes that I got, I have decided to recreate this shoot for my exam. Not only this, but my preparatory shoots have helped me in experimenting with lighting and editing so that I know what to do next time in order to replicate or improve upon these shoots. For example, my 1950s prep shoot was quite over exposed as I did not have the correct camera settings and I had not had much experience with using a beauty dish instead of a soft box light. Now that I have used it a few times and was able to improve upon my experience using it, I did not encounter these problems during my exam shoots. In terms of editing, I was able to play around with different tools on Photoshop during my prep shoots and find out my own personal way of editing these images to look old and worn. As I was free to experiment as much as I wanted before the exam, it meant that I knew exactly how I wanted my images to look in my final series and that I knew how to get them to look that way.
As a result of this project, my work has developed in both technical and aesthetic aspects. In terms of technical advances, I have learnt some new skills whilst working in the studio. For example, before this project I had primarily used soft box lights and had only used a beauty dish a small number of times under supervision. As I felt that these shoots would work better with the use of a beauty dish, I found myself having to learn a new skill in setting up this kind of lighting. At first, I did find a few struggles when it came to setting this up as I often found that I would make my camera settings too over exposed. However, over time, I found myself becoming more comfortable in working with the beauty dish set up and gradually found myself using the correct settings. My work has also come a long way aesthetically. Usually, when editing portraiture, I find myself keeping it very simple and not changing or manipulating too much of the image. This time, on the other hand, I was finding new ways of presenting my work as I was representing the different decades over the last 100 years and wanted the images themselves to look how they actually did at the time. For example, with the 1950s, the images were often in black and white, had a fair bit of grain and had quite a soft focus. In order to recreate this look in Photoshop, I would add a black and white filter, add noise to the image and then use a gaussian blur to soften the whole thing - but not enough to make the image blurry. Throughout my preparatory and exam shoots, I found myself being able to fine tune this style of editing and make it very aesthetically pleasing. When I first did this style of editing, I feel that I added too much grain or blurred it too much. Now, I feel I have identified the right balance to create a vintage looking image.
Overall, I feel that I was successful in responding to the exam paper and that keeping true to the brief is one of the strongest areas of my work. The brief that I decided to follow was 'portraiture' and so I have been successful in sticking to just this as every image I took was a portrait. Although my images became more about the overall look than the make up (as I had originally proposed), I still managed to keep the face of the model the focal point of all my images. I feel that one of the strengths with my exam shoots specifically is that I used the same model for all three shoots. During my preparatory shoots I used multiple models, however I feel that the use of just one model made my look seem more cohesive and made it clearer that this was all part of the same series. Another strength in my work was my editing. This is one of the main focuses of my shoots as the editing is what makes my images look as though they came from the era. The addition of grain and softening of the image gives a vintage look and feel, which makes you feel as though you are really looking at an old image. When combining this with the looks I created for my model, I feel that I was able to create images that were accurate to the time era and so I represented the decades well.
There are, however, some areas that I would like to improve upon if I had the chance to repeat this project. Firstly, I would like to work more on the poses and framing of my images. As I was so focused on the look of the model and the editing, I neglected this side of photography and so I would like to repeat these shoots with more attention in this area. Another area I could improve upon is exploring more decades. Within my preparatory shoots, I only conducted six shoots which meant that I only covered six decades. As I was trying to represent how times have changed over the last 100 years, I wish that I had conducted more shoots that covered more decades and looks. Therefore, I would improve by ensuring I had time to do this. Lastly, I could improve my work by perhaps including different cultures and their fashion/beauty throughout the past as this would show how trends in style are not always universal.
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