The “storytelling” project was one of the greatest assignment that I have experienced. I have learnt a lot about photography and fashion since the 1980s till today which expanded my knowledge on the difference in style that occurred during those years. This time I have done something that I have never done before and that is designing and producing an actual photo-book. I was challenging but since it was a storytelling unit, I have decided to fit the best outcome to its theme, when I think of stories I think of book; my photobook didn’t require any text apart from the context page as in my opinion the photography speaks for its self. The photo sequence runs in a chronological order which explained more explicitly is the era from the 1990’s till today.
My model was quite perfect to choose as his story of changing styles fitted well in this project. He went from not knowing any fashion brands since he was younger to now where he is passionate about the choice of clothes he buys and wears now. That for me was enough of a backstory to create a whole photo-book about.
As I didn’t work in the studio but in a field, playground and the street it allowed me to have natural lighting, genuine wind effects in the hair and props that were not needed to be bought in. Taking photos with my DSKR Canon 750D was great as the quality came out amazing to be printed in a book and post production was great as I started with RAW files from scratch. The physical book was created in Snappy Snaps as I trust them with my work, they are known very well and have never been to regret their work. I had all my photos on my card, I asked for a photobook template so I could design and create the chronological order of how my photos will be set to be printed. The overall process took around two days for me to come back and see the outcome. The first look at it amazed me and inspired me to make much more books like that even to have as a portfolio for my future career.
(90’s PHOTOS)
The 90’s themed photoshoot came out outstanding, I used some props to further make it obvious for the era I chose, my model needed direction as he isn’t used to modelling much however with my help, we manged to get what I wanted. For the postproduction I used photoshop to retouch his skins and Adobe lightroom for the lighting process. With photoshop I managed to get rid of imperfections, smoothen, sharpen and crop the photographs to the perfect standard and quality. Using Lightroom allowed me to add cool, green and vibrant colours to make my subject stand out. My Favourite shot was a portrait of my model with a lighter and cigarette as it really gave me that vintage vibe of when smoking was considered cool back in that time. I used selective colour spotting to get rid of the saturation and pop the fire in which the main colour in the photo was yellow. Overall great positions, compositions and styling came out appropriate for that theme.
(Mid 2000 PHOTOS)
Let’s take it back a couple years back to around 2006-2010 where this photoshoot was themed at. That was the time of Popped up collars on polo shirts, messy or side parted hair, the time of introducing suit pants to be more casual and funky sunglasses. I tried and I think successfully achieved to include all those elements into my second photoshoot. I styled my model into an YvesSaintLaurent polo t-shirt, contrasting pink belt, relaxed suit trousers, funky pink and leopard print sunglasses and formal shoes. The final shots consist of different perspectives and compositions, such as close up headshot, all body shot, close up of torso, and mid shot portrait which worked well in the photobook. Overall, I managed to recreate a scenery from the mid 2000 which fitted well in the evolution of men’s fashion.
(2020 PHOTOS)
Now it is all about the name of the brand and having it flashy and big. I didn’t focus on a formal look in this contemporary theme style, however focused on more of a hype beast (streetwear) style. I styled my model in Balenciaga Triple S sneakers which are very demanding and trending, reflective trousers that you see a lot on Instagram because of its amazing feature of having them monochrome in daylight and very bright and reflective with flash. The top part includes a skating brand simple white t-shirt that my model supports, a black puffer North face jacket, Givenchy sunglasses and a Polo ralph Lauren baseball cap. I believe I made this shoot standout with the branding and made it obvious that I aimed at the recent fashion style which could be easily compared to my previous photoshoots.
Lastly, I want to conclude that I have faced difficulties with the choice of Location, one way I could improve was to have a variety of location choices to experiment with the styles. One thing in my opinion I performed well was the overall concept of portraying my project with its aim and goal to have a significant and explicit story of different styles since the 90’s.
Damian's Reflective Journal 