Jess Cole has taken the fashion world by storm with her. She might not be a household name as big as Kendall or Gigi, but Jess Cole is a rising star on the runway who first made her debut at Phoebe Philo’s final SS18 show for Celine. Cole has also walked the catwalk for Tom Ford, Sies Marjan and Symonds Pearmain, as well as posing for Dazed & Confused magazine. The zine is basically one enormous photo shoot shot at the photographer Anna Victoria Best’s studio alongside stylist Hanna Kelifa.
I really Liked the way the zine was displayed as a double spread. It was simplistic and organised. Then there was boxed photos on the pages later which gave the zine a different look. there was more to take in at once rather than only viewing one picture at once. Furthermore, there is no text on the pages, I will definitely use that idea because I am going to have a narrative and my photos will speak for itself.
In my own zine I want to include atleast three double spread, one for each photoshoot. I also want to include boxed and bordered layouts too.
Here I present an idea I would like to use, it is having a photograph inside a border or a picture/design. This is more contemporary than the other zine and I would like to make a more modern zine.
Chris Lee travels around the world to different countries each year to capture modern culture. The results are then compiled into one book, which offers a combination of photographic styles. He connects with my project really well as I focused on the Chinese culture and how to modernise it. He is a professional photographer based in New York City. He specializes in performing arts with ardent focus on the world of classical music since 1987.
Chris is someone that has definitively inspired me to do this project, he showed me the potential that culture can be modern if you put it in a specific way. For instance, me doing a photoshoot of one of my models in central London wearing a traditional dress and breaking the law of having it left alone I added a heavy-duty chain and a high-end fashion hoodie. Chris Lee does a similar thing of having a cultural person such as a young Chinese boy having his haircut done under a bridge rather than at the barbers. This questions the reality and makes it seem normal. I want to discuss the relation between the barber in this shot and the boy. He doesn’t seem scared because of his facial expression. He doesn’t seem annoyed because of his body language and the Chinese barber looks delighted that he could cut his outdoors, it could have been for the shot but if this was all natural then Chris Lee was really lucky to find this scenario happening. The shot in my opinion could have been improved by setting the scene more and having the background more visible, for example I am personally curious where is all this happening however on the other hand the facial expressions would of not been so visible and in this photograph the focal point is the two people in the middle and not the background so therefore it can be argued that Chris Lee had thought of this composition being ideal.
Another example of Chris Lee’s photograph is this photo below of a Chinese girl looking at her phone. There is not much happening in this photo however she could be doing anything on her phone, she could be calling the police, looking at social media, ordering a cab or stalking someone. That is the power to unexplained photography, if there was a caption then everything about this shot could be easily understandable however there isn’t one so imagination runs through our mind non – stop. Furthermore, this image could also relate to the previous image of the barber and the boy as the location looks really similar. The bridge looks as if the last image has been taken place there.
Chris States “By shooting candidly, I like the idea of creating windows into the lives of other people, but I’m most attracted to the spontaneous things that keep you guessing,” which means that he creates photography of casual things people do during the day or night and he leaves a question to his audience/ viewers of all possible things they could be doing ( the guessing game). This is done in a similar sense to my work, I done a photoshoot of my model looking at a fruit market and there is a level of mystery because she could be stealing, picking up fruits for her grandma or she could have never eaten fruits, so she wanted to buy some.
Critical Evaluation of Image Making Project – “Grace – Lee”
The project Grace – Lee explores and illustrates tradition, modern fashion and culture within China. It started with me looking around Central London and spotting a lot of Chinese youth and young adults wearing numerous luxurious and high-end clothing. It made me think, what is the story behind their style? I looked into the Chinese culture and found amazing dresses and garments that they wear in China on special celebrations or occasions. Their design is unique and the texture of their garments (especially handmade) are better than what we think because of the stereotype statement “made in China” as it is cheap, however the material and the hard work that is put into one significant dress is priceless. The Grace – Lee project explains visually three stories: Chinese Fashion on the streets, cultural fashion within China and a collaboration of both modern fashion and traditional garments being put together to create the ultimate look that traditional clothes can be trendy too if you style it correctly.
This project began with a photoshoot carried out in China Town and New Covent Garden in Central London. It consists of a native Chinese model from Shanghai called Grace being styled in High end brands such as Acne Studios, Versace, MKI MIYUKI ZOKU and Y3. To make this photoshoot more effective I took my model to China Town as that was the heart of the Chinese Culture, everything starting from the colours, the shops/restaurants and finishing with the atmosphere fitting perfectly as backdrops to relate to my project. For instance, taking a mid-shot of my subject in front of the China Town Gate, with bright red lamps and Chinese restaurants on the side looked stunning in the frame to illustrate the scene. The gift of having natural lighting on a sunny day was amazing because I didn’t need any help of flash or external lighting and therefore, I ended up with no harsh shadows in my shot and no underexposed/ overexposed shots either. Overall this photoshoot came out really well and I was delighted with the scenery, compositions and styling.
The second photoshoot was carried out in a photography studio. My model in this shoot was called Lee Ing and she is also Chinese, It was her first time modelling and because of me giving her directions she was confident in what she was posing. I wanted to show the viewer the power of traditional clothing and how amazing it can look in a fashion photoshoot. She came with three dresses, a hair pin and trendy shoes. There is a transformation of her wearing just the dress and then her wearing it with Basketball shoes “Jordan’s” which gave the shoot a contemporary vibe of collaborating genres of styles. I included some props for the photoshoot such as a leather chair, a white wooden box, a wooden chair and a cigarette. Using continuous lighting, made sure there was no hard shadows under her eyes, using a light dimmer I brought down the highlight on her face so that the lighting was set evenly on her. I used a light metre to measure the exact ISO and aperture that I could use. Finally, the idea had a narrative, a story of a Chinese girl showing her new cultural dress to the public with confidence and pride.
Lastly, I travelled to London Waterloo where I undertook the final photoshoot for this project. I gathered Grace once again to model for me. I choose a site where the was construction works because I thought that could connect with my model by her building her way up in fashion by combining two genres of style: Traditional and contemporary. I also have chosen Southbank as a more low-key location as there was not a lot of people and a stairwell behind the Southbank Royal Hall.
One thing I think I could have improved is the model, they were great, but I would rather have someone that naturally poses for me rather than me thinking of poses. Apart from that I also could have made my zine more professional by printing it in a digital printing shop/ lab as it would last for longer and the pictures would have been of higher quality.
This project came out strong because it has a narrative, a story that tells my viewers that fashion is unpredictable and that you can style practically anything with anything and still look trendy. I believe this project has strong shots which greatly explore the nature of the Chinese culture.
Damian's Reflective Journal 