One of the things I love about the University are the studios and the equipment we get to use. For my latest module I got to use the big rig lights, it was quite nerve racking at first, but with the help of others on the course it wasn't as bad as I had thought.
Here are some photographs of one of my photo shoots coming together.
Mood boards and props for the photo shoot.
The photographs from this shoot will be shown on my website pretty soon.
For the winter season, Free People were inspired by fairy tales for their November catalogue in 2012.
Free People revisited famous tales such as The Princess and the Pea, Snow White and Twelve Dancing Princesses. Photographers Anna Palma and Chadwick Tyler capture the magic for the campaign...
I think the images work very well, not only have the photographers and team captured the fairy tale theme of the shoot, but the photographs suit the brand perfectly.
I have been following the work of Zhang Jingna since I was in college.
Fashion and Advertising photographer, Jingna has experimented with the art of photography throughout her career. Not only does she create outstanding fashion photography, but her most captivating images are her personal work. Jingna is currently working on a collaborative project called "The Motherland Chronicles" alongside the talented illustrator, Tobias Kwan. The Motherland Chronicles is a fantasy artbook project.
I had to do an image review for a short essay in Uni. I couldn't help but choose this image. The model looks like a statue, she doesn't look the slightest bit human due to her eyes blacked out and her skin resembling marble stone.
This image reminded me of the Vanitas movement.
I love the clash of the extravagant gold against the dull grey tones in this painting.
I always look forward to when Zhang Jingna and Tobias Kwan publish more work to contribute to the Motherland Chronicles, and I'm even more excited for when their work is going to be published in an artbook.
Over the years of my teenage life, and starting my twenties, I have learnt that I absolutely despise the phrase "real women". I'm sorry, but to be a "real" woman do you have to be blessed with gorgeous curves?
When I was being raised by my mother, I was taught that every shape and form is beautiful, and that no woman's body is the same. What I wasn't taught is that to be a woman, you must posses curves.
I have grown sick and tired of hearing "real men like curves, only dogs go for bones" or "corners are for tables, curves are for women". Those phrases make my blood boil. No, I'm not the skinniest girl, so comments like those don't offend me as much as they would probably offend a girl who is of an extra small size. What I don't understand is why is being naturally skinny frowned upon so much? The media is partly to blame. Actually, it is a huge part to blame. Not only do companies everywhere have skinny girls on billboards and advertisements, but they are photo-shopped to such an extent that they don't look human anymore. These advertisements give younger people everywhere false expectations of what the "perfect" human body looks like. This causes insecurity, and in some cases the insecurity gets to such a serious extent that it can lead to anorexia, bulimia or depression.
In the 50's it was fashionable to be curvaceous and have an hourglass figure.
But despite all of the hate towards people wanting to slim down, nowadays, it is crucial to be skinny. Where is the logic in that? There's this pressure to have "the perfect bikini body" and to have the flattest tummy. Yes, we are encouraged to keep fit and healthy, which is good. But why aren't we told that it's totally fine to be comfortable with who you are, and learn to love your figure whether you're big, curvy, skinny, small or tall.
The world would be a much better place.
All over the internet, I see articles about how unfair it is that there is this unrealistic standard of beauty that we have to "live up" to. Lighten up. We don't have to live up to anyone's expectations. What we should do instead is learn to love ourselves. I don't mean becoming a cocky person who is full of themselves, who everybody ends up disliking (for the record, they tend to be the ones with the biggest insecurities), I mean that you should learn to become somebody who is comfortable in their own skin. It's not an easy thing to do, but firstly, start with embracing your imperfections.
My insecurities? I don't have a forehead, I have a fivehead. In the Tudor age, if you had a large forehead, you were seen as an intelligent person. I can live with that... Also, I experimented on Photoshop to see what I would look like if my forehead was any smaller. Let's just say the result was pretty hilarious and my face looked ridiculously out of proportion. I can definitely live with having a fivehead. If Tyra Banks can, so can I.
Another insecurity of mine? My pale skin. When I was a teenager I was desperate for my skin to go brown in the sunlight. It always ended in tears, plenty of after sun, wet flannels and freezing cold baths. Unfortunately I learnt the hard way. Now I couldn't give a monkeys about having pale skin. I mean, look at the Elves in any Peter Jackson film. They are pale and fabulous! Do you see any of them rocking a tan from the Maldives? Didn't think so.
However my biggest insecurity of all is my tummy. Learning to not give a damn about it is a work in progress.
The Victoria Secret models being bikini babes and having fun on the beach.
Click here to read about the Size Me Up launch campaign. A very interesting read.
Also, for another interesting article about the same subject of this blog post, click here! Well worthy of a read.
I know saying "learn to love yourself" is easier said than done, but in my opinion, I think people everywhere should learn to do it.
Being a creative student, I have always been inspired by different medias of art. Despite the fact that I am doing a course in photography, it doesn't just mean that my work is influenced by photographers alone. One artist who I find particularly inspiring is Wendy Ortiz. Since I was a little girl, I have always been captivated by beautiful illustrations. Whenever my mum would read me a story, she would get tired of me stopping her from turning pages of my fairytale books, just so I could look at the illustrations for a bit longer. The work of Wendy Ortiz reminds me of some of the illustrations I used to see in my fairytale books. Ortiz creates a dark yet romantic theme throughout her work, which is also reminiscent of the Art Nouveau movement.
Most creatives these days tend to connect to their audience through social media. I follow Wendy Ortiz on Instagram and Facebook. Not only does she share her fantastic work, but she'll share who inspires her, and what helped her to become the brilliant artist she is. Her work is influenced by the artwork of Alphonse Mucha, which is very clear if you look at the details and use of patterns in her work.
I hope you enjoyed looking at the artwork of Wendy Ortiz, if you love her work just as much as I do, go and check out her website!
As part of my course we look at a lot of advertising. We look at what works and what doesn't work. As part of the course we have looked at famous adverts from the past and present. Last week we had to present an effective, and an ineffective advert and discuss why we think that each ad is effective/ineffective.
When I thought of effective campaigns, I couldn't help but think of Coca Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign. Coca Cola replaced the famous logo with Great Britain's most popular names. It shows how doing something very simple can be a great success. Everyone wanted a bottle of Coke with their name replacing the logo! (...Guilty)
Due to social media, there was a 7% increase in sales, the company earned a total of 18 million media impressions, traffic on the Coke Facebook Website increased by 870%, with page "likes" growing by 39%!
Share a Coke had its own tours around the country, so that you could place your name on a Coke bottle.
Share a Coke was a great success over the internet. Thanks to Twitter, hashtagging, Instagram and Facebook, bottles of Coke were almost everywhere.
I think the Share a Coke campaign is a great example that keeping things simple can often turn out to be incredibly successful. Even I, as a consumer bought a bottle of coke which had a friends name on it and sent a picture to him. Sad, I know, but it amused him!
For the ineffective campaign, I chose to discuss the controversial Shameless campaign by Suit Supply, which got banned. I had a lot to say about this photograph. Photographically speaking the shot is well lit, but that's possibly the only positive thing I have to say about this photograph. The Shameless campaign had posters all over stores, they were taken down as many people were offended, and children could easily see the photographs. When I look at this campaign, it says to me "If you wear one of our suits, you can dominate and degrade women!" this is in no way a positive message to give to the public, especially to young children. While researching the story behind the ban of these ads, I discovered that the photographer, Carli Hermes stated that the shots were "Carefully designed and artistic."
As a woman, I struggle to see the artistic side of this campaign. I understand that sex sells in today's society, it always has done. But sugarcoating dominating women for a campaign is not acceptable.
As part of my research, I asked both men and women how they felt about this advert:
Male no.1: "Honestly, I think it's weird, crude, sexist and ineffective. And I'm not a conservative guy, but if that was on massive boards around the place, I'd consider complaining."
Female no.1 "I cannot see anything good about that picture. All I see is a man dressed in a suit who thinks he has some entitlement to do what the hell he likes with a woman."
Male no.2 "That's a bit naughty/degrading?"
Female no.2 "It looks like a man in a suit who looks as though he has a pick in women. Even the way hes looking at the piece of clothing the women is wearing to see if she lives up to his standard."
I thought I should show an ad which was also effective and ineffective. This is the "Clean your balls" campaign which was aired in Australia. I would have shown the Clean your balls campaign when I was doing my presentation, but it was too long. This advert is effective because it's humorous, shocking and memorable. Although it's ineffective because it's a bit too much on the naughty side and caused controversy down under (no pun intended).
This advert made a lot of people laugh, yet not everybody has the same sense of humour. This advert got banned for being sexist, racist and ageist.
My name is Amelia, I'm currently in my second year of University studying Photography for Fashion & Advertising. Here you'll find my work, my thoughts and some "behind the scenes" to show you how I pull my photo shoots together.
Photography has been a big passion of mine since the age of fifteen. Throughout my school years, I had always experimented with art but never found a media that I had excelled in. I was quite talented at sketching, reasonably okay at painting, but I was never quite there. That was until I discovered photography. It wasn't long until I discovered that I had an interest in fashion photography, I used to buy copies of ELLE and Vogue and stare in wonder at the beautiful photographs before me. Being the weird, arty, slightly gothic quiet girl in school, I kept my interest for fashion photography private. I thought you had to be one of the popular girls to have the slightest interest in fashion. Everyone knew photography was my hobby, but no one knew I had an interest in fashion. Shortly I had decided that I wanted to make a career out of photography.
After I had completed my GCSEs, I waved goodbye to my horrible school, and I started a new course in college. My years spent in college were the years I had finally come out of my shell! I experimented with photograms, film, and digital photography. I have some of my best memories in college, I truly miss it at times. It was that push I needed that I didn't get from school. I also got some great experience with photography through college, and outside of college.
When I graduated college I took a gap year. I wasn't so sure if University was the right choice for me, and I didn't want to start a new chapter of my life if I wasn't 100% sure if it was the right choice. Throughout my gap year I assisted photographers, experimented with my personal projects, attended photography workshops, worked to save up money for new equipment, but also had fun at the same time. By the time February rolled around, I had made the decision that I definitely wanted to go to University. I was fed up of being stuck in a small town, not pursuing the career that I had dreamed of for so long.
By September 2012, I had started a new chapter of my life. I can safely say that it was absolutely the right choice!
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