In this particular photograph you can see the model’s clothing blends in with the background — the blue denim skirt successfully compares  to the blue street art behind the subject, this could depict a sense of belonging within a visual connection between the model and her environment as well as the emotional relation between herself and her deep love of art. Blue often symbolises truth, confidence and loyalty. In this shot the model has got her hand resting on the background — this shows interaction between her and her environment, this could be a symbol of belonging and love she feels towards her home and her surroundings which successfully depicts environments. I personally like the angle of this photograph as the image is taken from a low angle which gives the model the chance to look upon the camera, this creates a sense of power and confidence. Her facial expressions of the model and the women on the painted wall contrasts between cheerfulness, dominance and sadness. The leather jacket is the ultimate symbol for authenticity and sometimes associated with rebels and the era of punk and metal subcultures within Camden. The leather jacket picked up cultural meaning in the 1950s often connected to ethic groups, music associations, motorcyclists and was adopted by a specific signature punk look. I feel  my model’s outfit links successfully to her background, the art and the fashion are both ways of expressing yourself and link to the environment in Camden Town where street art is socially accepted and where there is a sense of freedom concerning fashion choices such as  metal and a  punk style, my model’s leather jacket and her denim skirt conveys a  youthful sense of style. I attended the photoshoot with my model and an assistant who helped out with holding a sun reflector. We hit the ground in Camden Town at around 5pm on a non cloudy sunny day which came out it be a perfect weather to perform the photoshoot.

Using my DSLR digital camera (Canon 750D), a sun reflector and a 188mm-55mm lens with an stabiliser and manual focus to gain sharpness in my shot. By setting the manual feature on the camera’s dial, I gained full control of all the camera settings such as having a focal length of 32 mm, shutter speed exposure on 1/60, f stop of F 4.5, auto ISO and shot in RAW. 

For my second photograph I brought my model to the heart of Camden, the market. I wanted a natural composition. Yet again I positioned the camera to a low angle, this enabled me to capture more of the brick buildings behind her and allowed her to adopt a sense of power and strength within her surroundings. My models facial expressions present emotions such as tiredness and feeling drained of energy, this could possibly relate to Camden being in Central London, and being a busy, lively place.

Within this composition, I purposely asked my model to gaze in the left direction while smoking a cigarette, the smoke creates movement and even an additional layer to the photograph, it is the way it’s so aleatoric. It’s transgressive. It’s rebellious. This decision to smoke could be inspired by musical artists and different musical subcultures such as punk, mental and rock — artists such as Kurt Cobain for example who is a rock artist that heavily influences young people all around the world for years is captured smoking whilst performing, this could influence young people to smoke which makes them feel involved, and accepted by social groups. Overall the shot conveys the idea of the environment because of how normal smoking has become in the youth culture.

The camera settings I used in this scene was the camera was set to an AV setting allowing me to control the aperture, if you look closely I made my subject more in focus than the background, by setting the aperture on F 8 allowed me to create that look. Furthermore, I set my ISO on 100, had my flash exposure on 1 1/3 and lastly set my picture style to landscape that created a high quality detail on the background and the focal point on my model. 

I feel there is a high amount of passion surrounding this photograph, the deep, and intimate lighting creates a warmth and comfort between the model and her surroundings. This photograph was taken in a Camden shop called Cyber Dog, Cyber Dog is a store filled with various clothing that fits various subcultures — punk, metal, and lots of bright, colourful, crazy, eccentric clothing. Preferably only people who are trying to make a statement with their clothing would shop here. 

Personally, my favourite section of this photograph is my models face, I purposely asked my model to apply heavy, dark eye and eyebrow makeup, this adds to the boldness and the darkness of the picture, the makeup links to the hair and the black clothing revealed in this photograph. I like how the bold, black leather and metal stripes contrast with the devoted, warm colour projected on the models face and the background. This photograph was edited so that her face blends in with the pink background to make her part of her environment. It is like the wall is wearing her piercings. This photograph is purposely more posed, I also asked her to position her hand up so she can reveal more of her leather jacket and this adds to the metal hoops within the wall — the zips on the jacket, her four facial piercings, the hoops in her ears especially visually connect to the background. Therefore that’s the second time my models outfit has visually represented her environment/surroundings and in this case with a clear theme of metal and leather.

Using the 40 mm lens consisted of me having a wide angle view on my subject which bursts my focal point to full focus and clarity. There was no flash used, ISO was set to 5000, had a F 3.5 aperture and shutter speed was set on 1/30. 

In my last photograph I wanted to have a natural street shot with the public being included. The living streets of Camden Town are packed with light and humanity, the markets provide a chaos of bright and dull colours, shapes and allows me it combine the outstanding quality of the background features. I have shot this during midday which allowed me to create a harsh shadow on my models face, this shows that part of her is hiding away from the public and the other is revealed. To make this photograph effective I purposely made my aperture stay focused on my subject while the people in the background are still visible but blurred to show the focal point. To have this composition I used the rule of three where my subject is not in the centre but in the left corner which gives the viewer a better understanding of what is happening behind my model. There are leading lines from the shop stools above my subject which guides almost to her head; making her important and making her stand out.

The overall message in this photograph is to show the public that there are different way of styling yourself, as you can see my model is wearing dark and bold makeup which enhances the idea of the rock and punk stereotypes. This also contrasts the idea that everyone else in the shot wears ordinary clothing which creates tension between my subject and the crowd of people. The tension is created by my subject having her head held high showing her dominance and personality whereas the public feels and looks neutral as if they do not care about their style.

To take this shot I used my 55 mm lens which was more than enough to capture the landscape behind my subject and had enough space to fit in my models torso. I set my camera’s dial to AV and on F 3.5 to set my deep depth of field. My ISO was on 100 and I shot with automatic white balance to make my shot neutral

ARTIST CONNECTION

The photographer Ted Polhemus connects with my project about street style and subcultures. His photographs consists of having his models who are specifically dressed into a culture by standing in-front of a background which explicitly connects with their style and surrounding. A quote taken from „Street style”  by Ted Polhemus states „The street is both the stage upon which the drama of contemporary life unfolds or the bottom line metaphor for all that is presumed to be real and happening in our world today” — means that in my shot the model is actually standing on a stage which gives her power and makes her feel like the people looking at her gets inspired by her sense of fashion whereas  the bottom line is that she has the freedom to express her way of dressing and feeling comfortable what she wears in the urban area of Camden Town.