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.
To tell stories with pictures, capture decisive moments and act professionally. You must first discover your photographic methodology. I spend more time looking and less time shooting. It’s not only until I’ve found the ideal composition that I begin to wait for the right “moment.” I get out front and let the action come to me.
Translating light in a scene to convey emotion is another important facet of my photographic methodology. This can be achieved by capturing a subject’s body language to help tell the story and using angle-of-view to put the viewer in the scene. It’s necessary to have light to make a photographic exposure. More importantly, light is required to produce shadows which ultimately create dimension. Light and shadow transforms a one-dimensional photograph into seemingly real-life scenes the viewer can walk into. To achieve this dimension, I approach each scene by reading the light source first. In particularly active situations, it’s easy to let the pace of actions happening around you dictate how quickly you shoot. This can lead someone to go from a selective and thoughtful approach to the “spray and pray” method: shooting randomly without any idea of what you’re actually doing. You hammer the shutter release button at anything that moves and pray it turns out. That’s when it’s important to remind yourself there’s always something going on. To secure your photographic methodology, view each scene thoroughly from every angle if possible, observe the light, analyze your subject, anticipate where the action is headed and then settle into your spot. Compose your frame and wait for the action to come to you. Make at least ten frames of various moments without altering your composition.
people use cameras all the time during fieldwork as a way to record all sorts of details—from the covers of newspapers to bus schedules and new graffiti. They often do this in conjunction with taking quick notes or “jottings” in a small notebook. Sometimes it works to write a few lines, and sometimes it’s a lot easier and maybe more effective to use a camera phone or small point and shoot to record something that they might otherwise forget. These kinds of photographs are really useful when people sit down at the end of the day and write up more detailed fieldnotes, and then they find that they jog their memory pretty well. This way of using photography is a bit different, since people are often less concerned about making a technically “good” photograph (framing, exposure, etc) and more concerned with getting something recorded so they don’t forget about it.
Photo elicitation is using photographs or other visual mediums in an interview to generate verbal discussion to create data and knowledge. Different layers of meaning can be discovered as this method evokes deep emotions, memories, and ideas. Photo elicitation interviews contribute to trustworthiness and rigor of the findings through member checking.
A similar research method to autophotography is Photovoice developed by Wang and Burris in 1997 which involves getting community members to take photographs of their concerns and assets so they can identify, represent, and enhance their community through the specific photographs they have chosen. This then allows them to act as possible catalysts for social action and change. It allows people to see the viewpoint of the people who live the lives rather than seeing them through the eyes of the researchers.
Yat Pit is a Hong Kong-based clothing brand bringing awareness to Chinese culture and its Clothes that draw inspiration from Bruce Lee, Hong Kong pop culture while being genuinely in touch with the city’s youth culture. Yat Pit (meaning ‘one stroke’ in Cantonese) was conceived a few years ago through the diasporic collaboration between two designers – Hongkonger On-Ying Lai and Britain-born Chinese Jason Mui. At its core, the clothing brand sought, and is still seeking, to revive, secure and ensure Chinese fashion design has an essential place in your wardrobe. Instead of a cliché runway setup, Lai and Mui have set up market stalls. Like the ones iconic to the area where the cool kid friends will double up as a model and sale associates for the latest collection, creating a real, see-now-buy-now experience. They are indeed just a different and unique Chinese clothing brand that really inspired me to perform a photoshoot with high end luxury clothing brand. I wanted to get on their level and hire a Chinese Model, I found Grace which fitted perfectly because of her sense of style. Since the beginning of the Qin Dynasty back in 221BC, China had already developed a distinct direction in fashion, which evolved beautifully over the centuries. Luxury clothing was well-tailored, robe-like, colourfully patterned, loose and flowing, layered and appropriately accessorised. Then all of that wonder and creativity came to an abrupt halt due to the Cultural Revolution. 5,000 years of Chinese fashion just evaporated and was mostly left to the West to romanticise.
An unknown photographer called Issac Lam shot a photo for Yan Pit, a simple on location shot of a Chinese female with a cigarette not looking rather happy. The background does link with China because of the Chinese letters, the red colour and the actual model being Chinese. Here’s what it looks like:
The designers imagine how Chinese youth might dress if the Cultural Revolution hadn’t taken place. They take cues from traditional Chinese clothes to do so – garments which, from dynasty to dynasty, have maintained a similarly bulky, gender-neutral silhouette. Rooted in their love for and interest in their heritage, Lai and Mui are showing a different side to Chinese style one that’s far from the West’s orientalist and, all too often, appropriative clichés.
Yat Pit is really creative in their industry and they work really well together to create new genres of fashion. They difeintevely connect strongly with my projects idea as they explore the history of chinese fashion and try to modernise it. My whole project is literally inspired by their work and their ideas. The thing I learnt from their clothing design is to not be ashamed of traditional clothes and even if you are then try and make it more contemporary by customising ir or adding other garments/ accessories on top of it.
Chen Man is a Chinese visual artist. Her medium includes photography, graphic design, cinematography, and digital art. She also produces covers for fashion magazines and collaborates with major brands worldwide.
Chen’s choice of field within the area of photography was mainly style, beauty, fashion and her insistence upon perfected beauty. Her approach is first and foremost about taking total control of the images she creates; the motivation behind that controls being to achieve the ultimate in beauty. Not only has Man mastered cameras and computers, she has also mastered the seamless blend of her modern aesthetics with traditional Chinese culture into her work. This has led to people praising Man for assisting the evolution of China’s aesthetics and redefining Chinese beauty. To Man there are two ways of defining beauty and she finds “both sides of the coin beautiful. She believes in genuine beauty, “what feels real whether it’s an emotion, an image, a person or an artwork” and technological beauty, like the beauty of phones and computers. With the tendency to look abroad for inspirations, Man is hoping that her work will encourage people to rethink beauty and start looking “to China for inspiration.”
I want to take this image above apart and break down some key aspects of it. First of all, the colour red is the key colour here for sure, connecting with my project I also fitted the red background and red lipstick together as it just works so perfect. It gives the sexual but also romantic theme to the shoot. The model is stunning and there are no flaws with her face, the hand is behind her head and so we have the focal point of her face and a floral accessory attached to her side of her hair. I completely adore the shadow under her left eye because it gives it a mysterious sense of the subject, it makes the viewer think. Is there anything wrong with her eye? Is the eye real? Does she have a second eye brow? Lastly, I really enjoy looking at the texture of the glossy hair, the texture of the slick dress and the amazing tone of her face, the colour balance in this shot is just amazingly high standard. This shot really reminds me of the photoshoot I performed with my model in the studio. It’s the atmosphere of China, when you look at the photograph you can sense the Chinese colours, style and looks of the face. I want to take this image apart and break down some key aspects of it. First of all, the colour red is the key colour here for sure, connecting with my project I also fitted the red background and red lipstick together as it just works so perfect. It gives the sexual but also romantic theme to the shoot. The model is stunning and there are no flaws with her face, the hand is behind her head and so we have the focal point of her face and a floral accessory attached to her side of her hair. I completely adore the shadow under her left eye because it gives it a mysterious sense of the subject, it makes the viewer think. Is there anything wrong with her eye? Is the eye real? Does she have a second eye brow? Lastly, I really enjoy looking at the texture of the glossy hair, the texture of the slick dress and the amazing tone of her face, the colour balance in this shot is just amazingly high standard. This shot really reminds me of the photoshoot I performed with my model in the studio. It’s the atmosphere of China, when you look at the photograph you can sense the Chinese colours, style and looks of the face.
Next I would like to break apart the construction of this image. I incredibly like the background, I can feel the texture of the soft material that is behind the model. The softness really connects with the models face, the sensitive feel and the insecure atmosphere. All the colours here really work well the white, pink, black and red. There is no clashing of colours, and that is really good because otherwise the shot would be too busy and there would be a lot of things going on in one shot. The facial emotion here is rather confusing because I don’t really know if she is delighted or emotionally wrecked. The one eye being squashed and the other is being a little opened could possibly mean she is scared, and she is peeking through one eye to not see what is in front of her. In my opinion she could be scared of us, the viewers and us looking at her, she could almost be shy or embarrassed. Overall the use of make-up also adds a lot of Chinese culture, Chinese favoured beautiful, petite women with pale skin, bright eyes and white teeth. Make up back then, by today’s standards, would be alarming. The typical look was bushy, sprawling eye brows, long slanted eyes, thick pouting lips and the expansive coating of rouge on the cheeks.
Lastly, I would like to say that Chen Man is incredible at what she is doing today and she really inspired me to perform my photoshoot. I definitely take to consideration the make-up style she uses on her models, to portray the inner beauty and glamour within a Chinese woman and to show Chinese tradition in a modern way.
Australian born, Candice Lake is a London-based photographer, blogger, designer and Contributing Style Editor at Vogue. has appeared in campaigns for Ralph Lauren and Versace, cat walked for Louis Vuitton, Fendi and Chanel, photographed editorials for Vogue and Glamour magazine, and collaborated with Louis Vuitton, Jimmy Choo and Tiffany & Co. She’s been featured in the world’s glossiest magazines, has her own fashion label ‘Candidate by Candice Lake‘, was named on US Vogue’s best dressed list, is TRESemmé’s Global Brand Ambassador and is the Contributing Style Editor at Vogue Australia. She connects with my project because of her passion to shoot on the street and capturing fashionable moments that occur on the street.
Tommy Ton
Tommy Ton is driven by an obsessive and extensive knowledge of fashion design. As a street photographer, he is admired for the wit and energy of his stylish shots. Yet as a portraitist of the leading stylists and editors whom he photographs in and around the catwalk shows, Ton is revered for his rare ability to pick up on the garments and styling details that forecast the trends of the forthcoming seasons, often before they are previewed on the catwalk. He really connects with this unit as his fashion sense is always on point, he always wants to photoshoot latest trends and that’s amazing as I was doing the same. He is definitely inspirational because of his clean and sharp shots of his model. The lighting and colours are always on point and I understand that a lot of work is put into one shot.
Muyi Xiao
She is passionate about telling stories of individuals that can reflect larger social issues, including gender, cross-generational relationship, and poverty in China. Her project, Teenage Marriages, received wide attention at home and abroad over the last two years, in which she photographed a village in rural Yunnan province, where teenage girls marry and have children at their own will. She inspired me because of how great she is at documenting young people’s marriages. Her passion is to inform people how life is hard in other countries and how they can’t do anything because of the countries’ political situation. I am in a way documenting a sense of fashion that shouldn’t be happening, merging traditional clothes and luxury clothes isn’t something normal because the tradition could not be seen as respected anymore or people from China could think I’m offending them.
YIN CHAO
Yin Chao is known for his work as a famous fashion photographer in China. He has deep cooperation with many international brands. As the most active fashion photographer in China, his influence on fashion photography is immeasurable. In the early days, the media praised him as “a soul photographer.”, “Open your heart to feel and capture the moment instead of relying on your eyes”, “He believes to capture a person’s inner world by photography”. Yin Chao doesn’t think photography is only a job. Through photography, he conveys his attitude towards life, fashion, affection, love, friendship, everywhere and everything in the world. Yin Chao hopes his works can make the audience feel the power and love to acquire inner peace. Yin allowed me to understand the china in a new way, he taught me to turns objects as if they were involved in a relationship with the model. For example, the white rose in front of the model’s mouth could mean purity and that is her way of expressing herself. In my instance, I made this connection through an object (heavy padlock). In one shot my model is linked with a tree through a chain and padlock to show their relationship.
Kiki Xue
Kiki Xue is a young photographer, is really into fashion and photography which he pursues as a dream of his life. Photography, seen as not only records but also creation, means a lot to him. He uses it to carry his feeling with each detail, each expression, each emotion in eyes, faces and movements. Photography is fulfilled with magical aspects. Kiki loves women and develops more shot to record women’s hearts. In most situations, he combines his own feeling with theirs and then shows these feelings out through pictures. He always believes that photography is a way to record the simplest moment without any artificial. Women’s true beauty inside their heart could be revealed through the unique way which makes them more attractive and amazing. On the way to realize his dream, he always insists on the most natural feeling-be simple and true. Xue’s images are known for rich and saturated colours, similar to the aesthetic of Paolo Roversi, a hero of the young Chinese photographer.
Yuan Lu
Yuan (Circle) Lu is a Chinese born photographer now based in Shanghai, China.Lu’s exaggerated aesthetic is formulated with a significant amount of post processing, combining photography with collage, acrylics, and digital painting. Yuan really inspired me by his use of compositions in his shoots. I really enjoy looking through his portfolio and see how he used art and sculpture to combine two genres of art together to create something really interesting and effective. I could really use his technique in the future and explore fashion and culture through his eyes. For instacen having a shot of a model with a sharp jawline and then having blood rubbed all over her face and then scan that as a overall photo. This will include art within a photo.
Dongyu Wang
Coming from an illustration background, Dongyu Wang’s photos feature bright colours and a sharp, playful style. He states“I love to create, dare to try, and constantly challenge myself. Whether it is a photograph or a piece of artwork, it has to have its own unique style,”which is so wise because he would create anything just as long as it’s in an art form. This really spot my attention into his work; the bright colours and compositions really work so well together. In addition to outstanding photographers, he also works with a rich variety of carefully chosen stylists, makeup artists, hair stylists and other creative talents, from the planning of a project right through to post production.
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.
Here you can see my friend helping me with the photoshoot. She done her make – up and her hair style. I wanted her hair to be put in a bun because I wanted the focal point to be more of her face than her hair, making her hair holded upright, there was more focus on her highlight, eyes, lips and cheeks.
I was so impressed and proud of this workshop, this is because the outcome and quality of these shoots went so well. The compositions are so unique, and the lighting came out strong and as effective as the latest magazine photoshoots today. On the day we set up continuous and flash lighting and as a group we had to figure out the best way to make this work. In my group we first decided about reforming the shutter speed by slowing it down and capturing motions in the shots. It came to notice that it only would work well if we added gel colours. With the help of the red gel we created amazing outcomes.
My personal favourite is of Harry in the first image, his neck is tilted upwards and you can explicitly see the red glow on his neck. This made it look really contemporary and extravagant.
One of the shots I took that I was also proud of was the one of Lauren and with her flicking her hair up and capturing the movement of that was so great. Also, someone who didn’t knew I was using mixed lighting could think I spent a week editing the shots whereas I simply performed it in one shot.
Continuous and strobe light are normally of a different colour temperature, and while in some scenarios this may work to your advantage, in others you may want to match your light sources’ output colour by using colour filters or gels. I will talk more about this in a separate article. When we shoot with strobe light in studio our shutter-speed usually is a little below maximum synch speed, typically somewhere between 1/125 and 1/250 depending on the equipment. We increase our shutter speed to those numbers to avoid any influence of the ambient light, such as light from the windows in the studio or modelling light of the strobes.
It’s important because ambient light, when it interferes with your intended controlled lighting, can reduce the sharpness of details in your image and alter its colour temperature. It is very important to place and point your light sources so that that main strobe light “freezes” the details that you want sharp and pronounced in the picture. And the modelling light should only spill on the areas that you want blurred. As I mentioned before, photographers often match the colour temperature of the continuous and strobe light by using colour filters, but in Aleksey’s scenario the warmer colours created by the modelling lamps actually perfectly fit the idea and the mood of the image.
In this workshop I have learnt to make sure there’s no ambient light in the studio. Only your continuous light sources should be on when practicing this technique and to use reflective objects, accessories and shimmering fabrics to add interesting highlights and “light trails” in your photos. Avoid using dark clothing and fabrics as they will absorb the light and weaken the effect. Lastly our teacher has told us that If you use colour gels on your continuous lights watch them closely to make sure they don’t melt – continuous light sources tend to heat up quite quickly.
In this workshop we split into small groups of three and we had two sets to build within the whole day. One was a simple corner type set with two wooden backdrops and the other was more complex by having an extra panel on the side which was changing the directions of the light and how it was hitting the face or body of the models.
To make the set work, we had to use a drill and then screw screws so that the backdrop will be connected together. Moreover, we had to place a back stand of these panels so that they were balanced properly and wouldn’t drop and hurt anyone. I learnt that I could play around so much with these boards and make spectacular designs. For instance, I could paint on top of them too as long as I paint it back to white and have a backdrop that intensely relates to my photoshoot.
In the first photoshoot we had some red, pink and white drapes which created a warm and neutral mood/theme. Furthermore, my subject had some red on her too which further related to the shoot as a whole. We hanged the drapes so that it looked like a room, a romantic or even a sexy scenery. One of the drapes was meant to represent a curtain, that’s the one that was more in front of the model, then we had a red one at the back and a pink one going across. I wanted to include at least one prop and so I decided to add a mirror and have Shainy holding it at waist length to capture her face in it.
The second set built was trickier to make, there was more drilling but there were more ways to make spectacular compositions. For example, one of the shots below look like they were taken in an alley somewhere unknown and my model is wondering around, looking so lost and confused. In another shot I wanted to include the stand of a light because why does it always have to be out of the shot? It gives it more of a story in my opinion and that’s when imagination and creativity kick in, that stand could be a lamp post or a flag.
We used continuous lights and soft boxes to create this photoshoot and used a light metre to get the perfect aperture and ISO.
Using a Canon 5D Mark iii we took those amazing photos. After the shoot was done, we Quickly tethered the camera on a computer and downloaded all the good photographs for personal use.
In these last images you can see the way the set was set up with all the lights that were being used.
Lighting such as LED’s are easy to set up however, they are harsh which means that they give a powerful flow of light onto the subject. Using a light metre, I could perfectly measure the Aperture and ISO so that my shot didn’t come over or under exposed. We got into groups of four and had two sessions, one using LED’s on a big mount which we had to use weights to balance it out and one using a portable flash LED which was less powerful but became effective after a long run of working with it. LED panels also have advantages over flashguns for photographic use. Instead of a bright but very short pulse of light they deliver constant output, which makes it easier to view lighting effects while composing a shot. Constant lighting is essential for video shooting. LED panels can be effective for this but be wary of models which give a flickering output, especially when the power setting is reduced.
The first session consisted of having a subject in front of a black backdrop, posing and me as a photographer had a task to make the colour balance as neutral as possible, I didn’t want the shot to be too cold or too warm but just in the middle. I took advantage of Lauren (white, Blue jacket, Blonde hair) and her having beautiful and big Blue eyes which collaborated well with her blue jacket. The colour scheme worked so well because there was a tone of blue, grey, black and white which all work really great together. There was no red or green or pink that distracted the viewers eyes, it was not too busy but just the right number of colours. Additionally, we had Harry (white, brown hair, black hoodie) and I placed a small woollen handbag on top of his head to make this photoshoot more interesting and absurd. The bag made it look as if he had an actual hat, and the chains that were dropping off his sides also made a great effect on the outcome of this shot. It almost looked as if the chains were connected to his body and by him having his hands closed like that with the chain around them, it was him having a relation with his new accessory. His eyes were really well merged with the blue hat too because they both stood out really nicely.
I also went onto the shoot because me and Lauren both had blue clothes, I for instance was wearing a blue fleece that also really stood out, I was really happy with the outcome of the photographs because they look so alive, realistic and in high definition. Furthermore, there was a shot of Lauren with her hair being all over the place. It almost seemed as if she was a lion, the LED lighting really boosted up the texture of the photograph and amazingly left no harsh shadows in her eyes or on her face which was great because that is a step forward to then post production.
The nature of LED photography lights does not stop at making the room more comfortable. These cooler running lights have advantages over hotter conventional bulbs. An LED light can be squeezed into a corner where it would be dangerous to put a traditional light. Gels can be clipped to them without burning. And, running cool means there is little to no cool-down period when a shoot is over, allowing you to use your time more efficiently.
Damian's Reflective Journal 