Final Reflection

This semester has been filled with an immense amount of new discoveries. I came into this activity wanting to learn more about the inner and outer of workings of the commercial photography world and be able to have a solid portfolio of work before my graduation and I felt I have done just that. I have not only researched photographers but painters, writers and musicians as well to help me better understand how they view art and how those views could better my skilled behind a camera or computer when creating my various projects.

The most exciting things I wanted to speak about during my time with this course is the knowledge I gained from truly combining the worlds of art and commercial advertising. I have always found semiotics to be so interesting in the way humans understand and communicate symbols and signs to one another and across multiple cultures. Within commercial photography, the use of semiotics is key when producing advertising materials that speak to the masses. However, these methods could be seen as detrimental, at times, because they may force an unrealistic perspective onto a viewer. This is most commonly seen with the overuse of Photoshopped people or products found in advertising. I believe there is much more of a realistic and visceral way to reach viewers through the power of photography than simply retouching every flaw out of an image.

The word retouch means to “improve or repair by making slight additions or alterations”. I agree with this in the sense that retouching could add enhanced elements to a photograph or concept but that does not always mean the only way to “improve” an image is by erasing away everything that makes it relatable. I used the process of retouching to further the artistic concepts I came up with for each project. This ranged from color correcting images so they all matched in tone or feeling or cutting into, xeroxing or collaging layers of images on top of one another to build a stronger final image. I believe that by doing this and creating a strong portfolio of work to move forward with, I could be setting myself up for some type of success in the commercial industry because views about realism in advertising are beginning to shift. 

I loved this course and getting the opportunity to work closely with an advisor and get the one on one attention that works so well within an art context. The constructive criticism and constant feedback helped my projects to grow and looking back on them now, I realize how much my views and style have changed in only one semester. I believe this heavily correlates to the idea of change I want to incite in the industry as well as the many artists I studied in order to better understand the power of the image as a whole. I am grateful for this outlet I was able to immerse myself in without the confines of a classroom setting because I was able to really let lose and create work I wanted to see without the fear of letting my peers work persuade my own. I now have a wide range of work to show when trying to begin my journey through the industry and I have gained so much knowledge and tools to continuously create more!

Dream Client (FINAL)

For my final project I was given the task to come up with a concept I could imagine myself receiving from a client. Since I had worked so hard to try and cover multiple facets of the commercial photography industry, I thought it would be fun and interesting to combine all of the lessons I learned from past projects and culminate them into one project.

I imagined a client came in and asked me to shoot lifestyle images of an athletic clothing line. Being a dancer, I knew I would have access to multiple pieces of athletic clothing from either myself or other dancers on campus so I had the styling covered but I still needed to find the models.

I decided to go on the popular model search website, Model Mayhem and see if I could find women willing to work in exchange for portfolio images. I wanted fit looking models that had experience in either dance or pilates because I knew if they didn't, it would read in the images. I was lucky enough to find two women of different body types and skin tones to further achieve my vision for the campaign. One was a little more thin and toned while the other had much more muscle mass.

I knew I wanted to find a location in which I could shoot multiple areas and have the same feeling throughout so I instantly thought about Laguna Beach due to the multiple number of pilates studios around and the obvious beachy vibe it has. I contacted a local studio and asked if I could shoot inside in exchange for marketing material for their location and they quickly agreed.

In order to make the shoot as quick and painless as possible for the establishment owners and models, I decided to bring along two assistants with me. One would continuously hold my reflector while the other had anything and everything ready for me when I needed it like spraying the models with water to make them appear as though they were sweating. In this way, I felt like the shoot was more realistic because a photographer would usually always have a team on hand to make sure everything goes smoothly.

Here is the campaign I was able to create:

I combined all the aspects of my previous projects in order to create this campaign. In project one, I focused on people and portraiture as the subject while trying to show the same person in three different scenarios. This is similar but also differs in some ways. I used different colors and textures of clothing to change the feeling of each image but the models themselves didn't change in any other physical aspect. In project two, I focused on creating product based photography that could be used to sell the product and at first, I focused more on website based selling but upon further research and input gravitated more toward lifestyle settings of products. This is much more a common thing today and I feel the images I came up with properly shows the products in the right scenarios while throwing a bit of fashion in there as well. I also think my eye for the physical really helped me during this shoot because I was able to use my knowledge of dance to pose the models much better. The third project used concept driven photography to tell the story of a musician and I think it is similar to this project as I used the concept of physical activity to drive the styling, model search and retouching of the campaign. 

PROJECT 3

Project 3 began with the idea of creating album artwork for Beyoncé. I drew up concepts that related to her music while still trying to bring my own artistic flare into it. I wanted to create something that people wouldn't normally associate with her because she seemed to have been trying to get away from classic modes of advertising. She left her record label, created her own and began creating very avant-garde music videos to match her sound and lyrics.

I knew this would be fun to play off of so I thought of creating layered images through cutting and pasting to show the multi-faceted layers of Beyoncé, herself. She had gone through so many changes in the past few years from dropping the label and becoming a mother and it was showing in the change in her musical sound so I wanted to create something to reflect that.

On top of all of that she dropped the surprise album Lemonade as I was creating my concept so it added even more to the creative ideas I was coming up with. The album really focused on her loss of innocence through fame and how she felt unapologetic about her husband cheating on her so I knew I wanted to use those as fuel behind the creation of the images.

I began locating models and contacting them for the shoot. I wanted to keep the models fairly close to Beyoncé's skin tone and have them act as a type of "stand-in" for her to see how well it would work. My first image worked with the classic idea of what an album cover would be like and pulled inspiration from her Formation music video. She used New Orleans fashion and lyrics to express her idea of black womanhood so I wanted to expand on that.

In the second image, I wanted to create a very different feel by using illusion and reflection to communicate the multi-faceted life in which she leads. She is an a musical artist, businesswoman, mother and wife so I got the idea to make it seem as if she had multiple arms in order to juggle all of these responsibilities. The prayer pose her hands are in represent certain lyrics in her album such as "I pray to Lord, you reveal what his truth is", referencing the possible infidelity her husband took part in.

The third and final image is the most fragmented of the three and reference that loss of innocence I spoke of before. Beyoncé always speaks about the cost of fame in her songs and how she became a woman at such a young age. I took her identity out of the image by removing the top half oh her face and replaced it with a bouquet of flowers to represent the innocence she longs to have back. By only keeping the lower half of her face, I was also intending to bring more focus to her black features such as her full lips and large flattened nose.