For my final major project I knew I wanted to take my fashion photography to the next level. In the past, a lot of my photos looked like they could be from another era, mainly the 60's and 70's, this time I wanted my photos to look contemporary but still keep it with in my original style.
Steven Klein
Stevn Klein manages to create this dark fantasy world that I find facinating to look at. I was definately going to take inspiration from this type of photography bu still add elements to the photo to make it my own.
Annie leibovitz
Here, I was inspired by the way Leibovitz has contrasted the dark story of Hansel and Gretel with the soft lighting.
I knew that I wanted to base my photo on something from the past and twist it to make it contemporary, this inspiration came from the Annie Leibovitz photo but I still wanted to take elements of Steven Klein's style.
I originally had the idea the do a fashion picture based on Henry V111 and his six wives, but I felt that this was to obvious. I wanted to find a story that was unheard of.
So I simply typed into google, dark stories from history and discovered the story of the 'Socialite from Hell', Delphine Lalaurie.
Project Proposal
Section 1
The theme for my project will be portraying a dark event from history. I want to interpret this into a modern fashion image that take elements from the story and put in into one photo, therefore there will have to be a lot of symbolism. Further to that I want the photo the have a haunting tone to and have a strong sense of story behind it, as I feel that is representative of my interests and me as a photographer.
Section 2
I am basing my photos shoot on the story of a socialite in the eighteen hundreds called Delphine LaLaurie. There was a fire at her mansion and when the firemen came they discovered two slaves chained to the kitchen stove. The slaves the lead them to the attic where the firemen discovered more slaves who had had cruel medical experiments performed on them, such as peeling there skin round and round to make them look like a catipillar, chaining, them up and giving them a forced sex change. At first I had the idea to recreate the scenes into modern fashion images, but I then came to the conclusion that I wanted to throw the whole story into one final image, but twisting the story to make it a fashion image.
Section 3
I am aware that this project will take a lot of organizing as I need to find a big enough space to do the shoot but the space will also have to have the right mood I am going for which doesn’t have to be dark and gloomy but I do want it to have a raw essence to it. I have already began asking hotels, businesses and pubs If they have any space for me to shoot in, so far I have been fairly unsuccessful, but there a a couple of potential possibilities.
There will be around six or seven people in the shot therefore I am also going to have to start finding clothes, also on the day I want to being a team of people with me to help with hair and makeup.
I also want to use flash lighting, to create the haunting tone I am trying to achieve. I want to spend two weeks organizing and then two weeks editing and mounting my image.
Section 4
At the end of the term everyone is going to review each other’s work and give feedback. I will also ask my tutors for advice.
Planning
The first thing I had to do was find my models, being very selective so that each person would look good in the outfit I had in mind for them. I began asking friends and contacting people I had seen on facebook through other people.
For the 'slave' who had their skin peeled round and round I had the idea have them have red ribbon wrapped round their body to represent this. I started planning the outfit.
These were my two ideas for how to present the model. In the end I decided to use the outfit that wrapped all the way around the models body, as I felt that this would give the photo more elegance.
Plan for other outfits
Socialite - Severe black dress
Chained slave - Something haunting and innocent, as I was going to contrast this with the hair and makeup. I was then also going to have a chain gently wrapped round her ankle, as if it were a piece of jewelery
Forced sex change slave - Mans outfit, but with a feminine twist and a face of makeup. This implys that the sex change was forced upon
Fireman - leather trousers, wife beater top and braces. I didn't actually want to use a fireman's outfit as I felt that this lacked creativity. Instead I did an interpretation of a fireman's outfit.
Location
I wanted to do the shoot in a location that had a modern feel to it but was still representative of the burnt down house. Originally I had the idea to do the shoot in an attic as that was where the slaves were found. I started asking around Brighton, hotels and pubs, if they had any attic space. Unfortunately none of them did so I posted an ad on gumtree but no one replied to it. I was beginning to worry as the set was a vital part of my photo shoot. I then started asking people I knew and someone suggested using the wood works department in the college. I went to check it out and it was absolutely perfect. They were building something that looked like house, it was completely fitting of my original idea of having a contemporary looking house that had burnt down/falling apart.
I then asked the head of the department if I was allowed to shoot there and he said on a Wednesday it would be empty, I then decided I would do it the following Wednesday which gave me one week to organise everything.
Once I had my location I could start sketching
I originally had the idea to have six people in the shot, but unfortunately one of the 'slaves' who was going to be chained up wasn't able to do the shoot, and as I was being very particular about what models I used I couldn't think of or find any one to replace them so I simply made it a five person photograph.
I therefore made another sketch as there was now an uneven number of models, which meant that for the photo to look aesthetically pleasing they would have to be placed differently.
Health and Safety
As I was shooting in a location that had a lot of dangerous material around I went down before the shoot and cleared everything away that could be potentially dangerous.
There were a lot of wires about, including the leads for the lighting, so I made sure no one had any water.
Location
I wanted to do the shoot in a location that had a modern feel to it but was still representative of the burnt down house. Originally I had the idea to do the shoot in an attic as that was where the slaves were found. I started asking around Brighton, hotels and pubs, if they had any attic space. Unfortunately none of them did so I posted an ad on gumtree but no one replied to it. I was beginning to worry as the set was a vital part of my photo shoot. I then started asking people I knew and someone suggested using the wood works department in the college. I went to check it out and it was absolutely perfect. They were building something that looked like house, it was completely fitting of my original idea of having a contemporary looking house that had burnt down/falling apart.
I then asked the head of the department if I was allowed to shoot there and he said on a Wednesday it would be empty, I then decided I would do it the following Wednesday which gave me one week to organise everything.
Once I had my location I could start sketching
I originally had the idea to have six people in the shot, but unfortunately one of the 'slaves' who was going to be chained up wasn't able to do the shoot, and as I was being very particular about what models I used I couldn't think of or find any one to replace them so I simply made it a five person photograph.
I therefore made another sketch as there was now an uneven number of models, which meant that for the photo to look aesthetically pleasing they would have to be placed differently.
Health and Safety
As I was shooting in a location that had a lot of dangerous material around I went down before the shoot and cleared everything away that could be potentially dangerous.
There were a lot of wires about, including the leads for the lighting, so I made sure no one had any water.
I made sure that the flash head caps were put on immediately
Lighting
The space where I was shooting had a lot of natural light coming in so I therefore only need two large soft boxes, one on each side. I felt that this would give the photo a perfet combination between natural and artificial light.
I used the camera - Cannon EOS 5D and after taking light readings this is what i set the camera to.
Shutter speed - 1/50 second
f stop - f11
Focal length - 45 mm
ISO - 100
The shoot
I knew that I wouldn't be able to do the hair and makeup all my self, so I therefore asked friends to help. But I did however want the socialites hair to be more intricate, so I asked one of the level three hair students to do it for me.
One of the main problems on the day was that the ribbon was not sticking to the models body, even though I had bought sticky tape for skin. I was beginning to panic but then i saw some black electrical tape, we started wrapping it round her body and it ended up looking better than the red. In a way it made the photo more dark because it was as if it represented black blood, which fitted the haunting tone I was trying to set.
Apart from that everything went smoothly.
Editing
There wasn't much I had to do with editing as the lighitng was pretty good. The only problem I had was that the model on the very left was a little darker than the others so I simply used the doge and burn tool.
I then also took the saturation out of the photo as it suggested more of a ghostly tone.
Mounting Decisions
As I only had one print, I wanted it to be very large, so I decided print it A1. I also felt that the size added to the drama of the photo.
I wanted to mount the picture onto MDF wood with no borders. There were two reasons for this. The first reason was simply because I felt by having no borders it made the picture look more like an art piece, rather than something you would hang in your home. Secondly I felt that the wood was in a way a continuation of the set, which I think makes the photo more visually interesting.
Evaluation
Overall, I am extremely happy with the way my photograph turned out. I feel that all of the models work well together and each one stuck to their characters very well. The lighting was just how had planned it to be and I think that the set gave it that contemporary feel I was going for. I would however have switched the socialite and the girl on the floor round as I feel that this would have given a bit of separation to the blacks in the photo.
Evaluation
Overall, I am extremely happy with the way my photograph turned out. I feel that all of the models work well together and each one stuck to their characters very well. The lighting was just how had planned it to be and I think that the set gave it that contemporary feel I was going for. I would however have switched the socialite and the girl on the floor round as I feel that this would have given a bit of separation to the blacks in the photo.
