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What Makes it Fashion or Fine Art

Okay, so here we are at the room, so when I was planning this presentation of what I want to talk to you about today obviously yesterday we were talking about lots of things in terms of fine art fashion, how I brought my background and origins too. Why do now? So now I want to talk really more specifically on a bit more about fine art fashion and how these two things come together so just to go over what we're going to be doing today so we're gonna be starting with the lo fi shoot so the loaf eyes where we're doing simpler shooting techniques that a more in line with how I started on also my instincts when I first died shooting fashion model so here's an image that I shot of a model a while ago with a lamp I thought this was in this image was quite appropriate to show because it's actually a little bit reminiscent ofthe techniques I've used in myself for traits that I had the model hold the lamp in a similar kind of manner. Um if I just show you this next slide here you see this image ...

on the left, there is reminisce a typical of my self portraiture where I would use the the lighting I had available because I wasn't shooting with any lighting back then and I was at that time doing the siri's in hotel rooms where the lighting was very difficult on I had to work with what I had and available lamps and the ambient light on bennett was quite tricky, so I actually made a thing of putting myself by the lamp and then you've got here on the picture of self portrait I did underneath light um in my flat I was living in a time and also I made you so use of the motion blur in that picture, so the motion blur became the point of the picture and the painterly set it so it's going back to this picture so that's what I want to do in the lo fi set up I want to make a point of not using any of the huge amount of lighting gear that we've got that we're gonna be using on the hi fi set up, so I want to use lamps that we've brought in on also the lampposts that around this place on dh I'm on also different ways of manipulating my camera settings to make sure that I'm getting nicely lit or at least good enough little picture fill up situation. So then on the hi fi set up it's all going to get a bit more intricate, so we're going to be as you know, we've we've seen test shots from both, so you've got an idea of what I'm doing on both so the key differences with this shoot is that I'm going to be working kind of with leonid over my shoulder. As a stylist, tje is able to keep me suggestions he styled the model he's picked the model he's put the whole vision of her together, so I want his input on what he thinks is going to better that shot. I want his input on how he wants to dress to be conveyed because he's part of vision, andi also it's more about making the dress look like an interesting object in the picture tweaking that dress. Obviously, I mean that the lo fi, the low fi set up, has a very simple dress. The dress is not really the focal thing in the image, whereas in the fur hi fi set up the dress is the magnificent, the magnificent subject in the image. I was asked question yesterday about how you know whether the dress is the most important thing. I think in this shop is very important, it becomes the artistry in the image. Now, I also need to pay attention to the pose of the model on all the lighting and the way that I'm presenting the location, so these are always extra things and thinking about but those are the key differences between high find the lo fi hi fires about lighting is about styling it's about thinking along the lines of a high production fashion image, the low fires more about mood it's about pose as well, because the model is a dancer so she's able to make her pose almost like the point of the image and that's what I want to capture that strength of hers. So what is my objective today? S I'm talking here about the hi fi set up, my objective is to get the best fashion foundation, so forgetting the lo fi for a minute because that's a bit forgetting for a second, the hi fi has these layers of fashion and fine are so that's what I'm going for, I want to create something that is potentially both and we'll talk more about that in a minute, but to make I talk about making life simple, what I want to do is get the best fashion foundation I can with her and not worry too much about the surrealism ofthe things. I might do that crazy afterwards because sometimes that gets in the way it distracts me. I want to make sure I get the best foundation, so I want to capture the main fashion item, the dress I want to capture, the peripheral fashion items, the jewelry and the accessories I don't think she was going to be really she was not going to be visible, so she was not important in this particular image andi, to capture the model as beautifully as I can within all that as well. So basically, what I'm trying to do is tickly in its boxes when it comes to making a strong high fashion image, but also as is capturing part of the artistic mentality, a spark like cites me artistically, so that's, the thing that often kind of makes me feel overwhelmed my first come into the location, I see the lampposts and the story box aesthetic to this place, and I really want to convey that, and I'm my mind's bubbling away with how to do that and sometimes bubbling way too much. So I need to kind of calm it down, I think, how do I make it life simple and go for that fashion foundation I mentioned the last light also capturing the location to warrant being here so I get too close to the model on the location is not visible than what is the point of being here? I need to make sure I capture something about the spark of magic, about a location that excites me to be here on then a foundation for possible surreal directions. So what does this entail? What it might be that I want to make this shot wider by stitching so the left or right or top or bottom of the image? Now I'm going to be showing you lots of examples in the minute of panoramic images where I have taken a shot to the left or right on that shot has benefited hope the way in which I then incorporate surrealism into the shop because otherwise there was no room in the image to add these surreal elements, which doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes I add them in without that that pans shot, but that is important for a lot of my cereal fashion images. Okay, so I want to talk about fine on fashion. So this is really interesting topic and one that I've actually thought about a lot deeper since preparing this whole creative life workshop. So this image is what I consider to be in my portfolio, a good balance of fine art and fashion. And I want to talk a little bit more about that. So let's just look a little bit on the behind the scenes of creation's image. So as I mentioned yesterday, I showed you a little bit that we shot this image with flash. We had flash diagonally camera, right, going down over the model, which gave it this dynamism held out against the background, here's some more behind the scenes shots there on the right there where you see that I also experimented with throwing her dress up in the air in the end I used I used a shot where the dress hadn't gone up so much because these will be over the top so it's important to try those and to see how how far to go but in the end there they looked a bit too exaggerated, so I chose an image where the dress was just gently lifted off the floor. Another aspect of making this image I made a panoramic tilt to the left, so then I could stitch the image to become this wide scene. Um it was a little bit tricky I didn't have much time to shoot this, so I didn't that the panoramic was a little bit tricky to warp on dh make happen, but in the end I managed to get it right so that you have this stitch see now this is a draft of them how I started to plan the canarias because I didn't want to make all these canarias if the shot wasn't going to look for it good. So I simply took the canary from the painting, but I got it from which is a painting called girl girl with open cage and canary in open cage, and then I did a draft, so I just kind of stuck canary over, multiplied it twenty times and thought, is this gonna work? Because previously, why for off as an idea for this picture is to take more pictures of dress aunt to enhance her dress going outwards to fill that panoramic space the id the I'd gone for because when you have when you have this panoramic stitch it might be that in fashion you don't want to necessarily out anything it's just about having a double page spread but for me also means that is a foundation to add something into that space so it seemed like there had to be something coming from the dress so I tried first of all to add more dress on but just didn't wasn't right so then I had the canary idea got the canaries did a draft to see how that works on this is thie is the final image as you have seen in the beginning so why do I call this a good balance of finance in fashion? Well, the picture without the canaris is I think good offers a fashion image you know you've got this beautiful yellow dress nice that is presented really well flared out really nicely you don't necessarily have to have the stitched shot to one side you could have the state shot on no canaries and then it looked like there was a little bit of wasted space but if you were to put it into like a fashion magazine then it would be nice because it would fill both sides of the page but the canaries became the fine art aspect to this image, so the canaries become the surreal addition to it on dh I don't liketo basically called fine art something so specific, and I could not as if the canaries just suddenly make it fine art, but what the canaries do is they elevate the picture from being just a woman in a dress to more like a story, because then you've got the canaries coming from the dress it's not just the fact that I've just stuck something in, but what I liked about when I added the canaries in is that her dress inside this staircase, you can see that takes on the illusion to a cage, so you've got his canaries coming out almost from the bars of a cage, but her dress is literally just on a spiral staircase, so you've got the real and the surreal suggestions eso why did I considered list to have succeeded in both fine on fashion? Well, leonid, the stylist likes his picture, you know, he presents his picture in his portfolio, so that is good for me. That's approval for me that that's a good fashion image, because lena is involved in the fashion world, I'm not involved in it that much as here's, so I trust his approval in his opinion, and that makes me please that takes it. The fashion boxes you can see the jewelry you can see her face, you can see a here you can't see a shoes in this particular case because addresses so big, but everything else is in good detail. The canaries don't distract too much it's not as if you're saying the dress is actually made of canaries it's just more like a suggestion that they're coming from the dress why's it good final image why do I consider it? Consider it to be a success enough in that sense as well. Well, it's sold as a print several times limited edition prints it's, one of the most sought after images in my cereal fashion siri's when it comes to people were involved in the fine art world it's going to be exhibited as well. So it gets interested in the fine arts seen so those the interest coming equally from both fine on fashion convinces me that this is a good balance. Now I'm not saying that I cheat this balance every time with my images. This is something that I'm gonna be showing you a little bit pictures I think I'm more fine art or more fashion this image as well, I consider to be a good balance on I'm going to show you an interesting kind of decisionmaking process I went through when I was making this particular picture, so this image is again, it's an image that leonid likes because it shows the dress shows off the dress is nothing distracting from it it's also a strong fine our image because you can see that it's not made for the pages of magazine it's not necessarily made to be part of story it's got more of this kind of story book appeal to in terms of the ship on the square former on a sky you can see that there's more going on in it, but let me just show you more about the production of this image. So when I was shooting this picture, here is a sketch that lean it actually did off his dress that a present did to me to show me his idea for this outfit because before I saw the outfit, I saw the sketch, so it gave me an idea of what was going on in terms of my ideas and how I'm going to try and best represent this stress in the location that we were shooting it when it came to shooting the dress. I was shooting this model connie in a part of the location that actually I wanted to shoot you in that part where he turned out that it wasn't the most effective because I wanted to get close to the dress and the closer I got to the dress, the less of the location I could get in to the shop because I was shooting outside the location on that particular slot of the fashion to experience event that we were shooting this on, so I wasn't too impressed with what was going on around her. I wasn't sure what was going on with that, but I just knew that I wanted to get the best shot the dress I could because time was running out and I thought, ok, let's, just work on capturing her as best I can and see what we can do with the environment later. So I think I've included this selection of shots because I want to show you how the shape of the dress I think, is fundamental to how this image works in the end. So you've got all these different shapes that she's pulling with her dress on dh it was really quite tricky to get a shot that made it look as big as it really did look, because every time I ask that oppose her dress would kind of just hang and gather up around her and in this kind of ball. And so I asked her to turn around and face the other way so that her dress could spill toward me on dit was hard to get a show, it was harder than that. Than it you might think it is so I tried various different poses and then you see the one right at the end there the last two are the ones that started to interest me because you can see this folder the dress it looks like it is very big um whereas in other images in bulk talk like I say around her I shot this image with flash like I say it was outside the location I was planning to shoot with house behind her by the end I realized that that wasn't gonna work so I shot her instead just with scenery behind her and I had a lot of tweaking as well from the system that I had tim and also lean it himself came so we could arranged accessories on corneas well okay so when I started playing with these images I I knew that I had to put on a different background because this is not something I tend to like to do because if I've shot someone in a location then I want to capture the location is partof it but there are occasions where the location just doesn't work so as a kind of insurance I make sure that I just get as many good pictures of the model I can so that I could potentially take around put somewhere else so when I was playing with the images and focus up afterwards I realized I really need to change background so I started delving into paintings on dh um I just got this painting out as a draft this I can't remember the name of it is eighteenth century painting now making the whole background of painting is something that I don't tend to like to do because the resolution at which I get these paintings isn't good enough to do that, but what did it it got a spark going a spark of interest as to what kind of background I could put her on on? Also, I played with a painting called the raft of medusa where you have these dying sailors and I was putting that on his well, I'm kind of thinking about where that might go, so for every compass it that I've done there's being like a hundred different things that looked really rubbish during the making of the image on dh, you know, that's important teo highlight, because because the process of compositing is not just about the physical putting one thing on top of another is about thinking on being very honest about whether it looks good on andrea is a very large right brained element of that sometimes you think something's going to look good on it just doesn't to the eye and you have to just admit it doesn't get rid of it, so it's very have to be very discriminating when you're when you're putting things on but I started to get interested with where this was going but I knew that I needed some other seascape the painting wasn't gonna work but it interested me so I got this picture off taking on the big sur sometime a year or two ago off from my own pictures I taken just while traveling with matthew on dh so I thought I'll take more of these and see how this works and I liken gauge whether a seascape is going to make this image work okay so I put on a seascape there was a lot of folks shopping involved in terms of calling her dress out which mainly was just a pentacle and feathering and blending and forever another but I knew that was gonna work because first of all I put a picture on her roughly and I I just felt like the way that I zoomed into the shop to see on angled her in the image it was starting to work it was starting to look interesting it looked like it was gonna work on that image because I had other see images I could place it onto this one felt like it was gonna work now the sailors these sailors from the raft of medusa painting that I mentioned I was putting these sailors on on dh I really found them very interesting especially when I zoomed in on them is bit of a blurry lower shop but I want to you to see how I was seeing other time. Now, when you compositing something it's, you've got this contradiction. You want to zoom in close enough to see the detail of what you're doing, because details will import, and especially your gonna be printing an image big know that all of this stuff, but you also need to zoom out and look at the image objectively as a whole. So I was zoomed in, enjoying the detail of how these sailors on these different layer blending modes. I think I might have picked soft light or hard light, and I was toddling between them all on dh leia masking and blending. And then I then I realized I had to kind of sailors out individually in place and shuffle on this way this way, and I like the way the red looked like it was blurring into them, as if they were kind of made off as if they were the red off. The dress was like their bloodshed on was made becoming part of their bodies as if they were made of that material. You know, in a weird way, I also liked really liked the way the sailors in the middle were kind of reaching out from the frills of the red, and I also played a long time with this. This guy laying down to to make him look as if he was kind of laying from the red with his arm coming over the waves there on dh I was one excited by I didn't get a spark of excitement from it because I really felt like it was going to be an interesting final image with these people coming out from this massive dress I felt like there was space for it but then when I was zooming out I just felt like it just this just bothered me I just felt like it was not gonna work I felt like they were distracting the flow of the dress when I zoomed out so when I zoomed out and looked at the whole picture objectively and sometimes I do zoom out all the way so I'm looking at it literally almost like it's just a sketch again you know in distance and I can see that the composition is just not sitting right so reluctantly I got rid of them on I also knew that by getting rid of them and keeping the dress like free I knew that lean it would prefer that I prefer the image I mean it's not all about what the people going like I have to think about what I like but I just knew that by taking away the sailors because there was this element of doubt that lena would be happier with the image as a fashion image so this image and this one is not entirely a parent at first, but there's some tweaks that go on from this one to this one, where I played a code on playing with improving the sky around her, I added in some bits of sky from other images and worked with curves adjustment. And this was while I was still thinking, what do I do to this image to elevate it from just a simple picture of her to something a little bit more interesting and that's when I decided to take the wave that was coming out from underneath her dress and collar that red, so that it appeared as if the dress was bleeding into the sea, so I still have this element of bloodshed going on that kind of fit. This kind of slightly ominous narrative on the boat in the background is from painting just the boat itself, not the whole sky or sea it's the boat, because then this the sea and the sky are taken from good, high quality photographs of my own. I also added in some extra clouds from another shot that we did in the garden at home on dh, and so I felt like the image was interesting, but the dress was unobstructed. The dress was no longer kind of. Vandalized with fine our urges that I had and I felt like the images more successful. So for me, the fine art on the fashion boxes were both ticked and I think equally enough so like I'm saying, I'm not saying that I cheat this balance or what I think is a balance on all images, some images and more fine art than they are fashion so on this image I think is more fine are because you have elements off the birds actually obstructing the model's dress going over address s o the dress becomes part of the palate for those birds, so you've got the bird obviously going over the white part of her her dress and then you've got this pigeon that's put on the the kind of wrinkly, creepy type part of her dresses well and then you've also got the other bird coming out from address so objectively it's not necessarily great fashion image because the designer might think, well, my dress doesn't look like that the dress and the designer did like this image on dh this image was published in vogue italia and exhibited is part of the earth first photo vogue exhibition so the designer was very pleased with that and I was obviously very pleased with that objectively this is not something that I necessarily old fashioned people are going to be happy with because you the fine art is taking over but that that's all right with me because that's, the way I think this works as a picture, you've also got this image as well, where you have a toucan and another bird taken from a picture, I took off a drawing in a frame in a location I've caught the two canal, and the intention is to make it I had a very to defect when I put it in. First of all, I thought, well, do I go with this? Because I don't want people to think that I'm trying to imply it's a real toucan on the shoulder, but it has this kind of quirky who framed roger rabbit kind of appeal to it with the slight look of the toucan, and I like that, but I was excited because she has such tropical colors going on in her outfit that I felt like the toucan became his crowning bit of glory to that image, and I like the weirdness of that. So for me, I really wanted to keep the two cannon, but I also supplied aversion to the stylist without the birds, because I felt like to them, it was a little bit distracting, even though they're not interfering with the outfit, so the fact that they're not interfering too much with the outfit makes it more appropriate to be considered, you know, to take the boxes of the fashion requirements so I like this because it's a little bit adventurous, but not going too far in terms of completely transforming the outfit beyond what it looked like, and they've got this image here where I showed you this yesterday, and I talked about how this image built up from they it was like a between take, and I built up this surreal elements on a shot, but I didn't think necessarily was going to be a big deal when I took it, and then when I was looking at them afterwards, but the point I bring this image off again here is because this isn't necessarily a great fashion image, and you can't really see her outfit very well, you know, it's pretty much tucked away, you see more of her hair styling, you see a little bit of her of her outfit, but it's not, you know, it's, not necessarily great fashion image, because not only that, but you've got all these other things going on in the image, so it's a bit more of an indulgence of fine art, and I'm happy with that, because that for me gives me that that's, so I feel it right? I don't feel like trying to make it something it's not like getting rid of the rain drops in the water and trying to make it fashion image it just it's not going to go that way, so let's, just enjoy what I want to do to it creatively is, I put these in to show examples off where I've more maura's I've started to work with increasingly interesting styling and bigger outfits and interesting textures to those outfits. Ah, good way, I think, to get the balance right between the fashion requirements and the fine art. Oh, juice, if you like, is to present the dress as dramatically as I can within, um, the context of what I might do to it's a really so with this dress, I have kind of had it splayed out s so you can see the whole shape of it and the texture of it and in this dress here, you've got it being thrown into the air, and I've added also a little piece on the other side of it, so I just kind of show the the kind of the falls of thes images, these both panoramic shots. I'm going to be talking a little bit more about that in a second, so stitched on in these cases, the left part off the image and you can see a little bit also of how the foundation for the dresses were start to build a well, so on the image here, you've got the dress being held out, I've added a bit to make it, if you could go back to that image, you see what kind of added a bit to exaggerate the size of it. Um and I've also done all the bits and pieces to it. I've changed what's outside the window and I brought these dead fishing and don't always, you know, we had color adjustments to make it more dramatic and also changed her hair as well in this image, you this was a lot trickier because I didn't get a proper tilt to the left, but I did get wider shots where I had that information off the side off the shack, so this is the the same shock, so I just I did what I could did way and could do in folk shop in really manually tweeting that, and it was a little bit tricky, but it can be done when you can just manually warp things to fit the side off the shed. S oh, yeah, life would have been easier if I'd brought taking a proper tilt to the left so I can stitch that as a proper photo merge in photo shop on dh in that image is, well, I've also go on even more adventurous with the painting that I just go back to that I've actually put her. Not I haven't just put painting into the picture in this case I put her into a painting which is not something I do often but I've done it in this case because I really felt there was this interesting synergy going on between her and this for escape off the painting. So this image I want to go into bit of how this was maeda's. Well, now this is another one of my favorite fine. Our slash fashion images in terms of why consider at least to be a good balance of the two fine art on fashion because we see her quite clearly. We see your outfit, we see her accessories, we see her, we even see her ring, you know, bracelets on also a shoot on dh totally enough. When someone's saw this image online, they pointed out that they think they thought it would be better without her shoes. But then I said to him, well, it's to me it's supposed to be a fashion image it's both a tick that box as well as the finer aspects that make it an interesting or story laid an image and then you've obviously got these surreal aspect ofthe the the the beach scape around her. Now these were taken from one of the same shots of the big sir that I showed you earlier for the girl in the red dress so for me this was a really nice synergy because actually shot her with a fog machine on dh the shots that I brought in from the outdoor image was shot in this extreme fog that just suddenly came over the the beach scene that we were shooting it's also a panoramic shot so instead of shooting left and right have shot up and down so that I can get detail of the floor and detail of above her I'm gonna be showing you more shots I took of her but this is what this is how this shot is made up so you can see how I've achieved that focus on the model whilst also getting her context above and below her okay, so let's talk it'll be about the making of this so here you can see the set that we had going on um we had a we had we were shooting by hating my light so our blue clocks hate demise and ladies that were just shining into the same and just basically illuminating her quite simply nothing too extravagant really. We also were shooting with a fog machine and this fork was blowing in behind her to separate her off from the background which gives that really nice um detail of a face in the final image that you'll see more shots off in the second the fog did start to fill the room a little bit and so towards the end, the shots were becoming a little bit too smoky so naturally leaned me toward early shots so you can see here on the different shots that we got, you know what that is taking aim at the left but these are just some examples off the poses that we were doing with her so this was a really ideal shoot this is one of my this is quite memorable shoot because it was quite when I talk about simplicity what I liked about this is a harder in one place and I had my camera set up for that one position of her and then I just asked her to do different poses in that position because I could already see that there was something interesting about the way she's presented in the frame so these are the original shots of her in this position and you can see that there were the quite tight shots they don't you don't see much of the room until I do the tilts up and down so I knew that after I'd shot her and finish shooting her I would put my camera on manual focus and go up and down so I can use them maybe I won't use them but it's good to get them while I was there because I knew that if I didn't want to do something surreal to it potentially then I would get extra room to do that and you can see here that I'd say the folks like to fill the room or on dh so those shots for me one uh well, they could have bean good because you might want the extra forty effect but for me I chose a shot that was kind of midway where there was enough fuck behind her but enough also to bring her off the background to hear some more shots. This one top left is the one that I went for a variety of different eye contact and lack of eye contact so she was looking away on some hands up on others. I was sure to get us many options as I could because I don't know in the time and place which shot is gonna be the best is good to get lots of options images like this one where a hands of hidden I felt was best you could see some detail of that um images like this we're both her hands are up no, I'm all right but maybe it's maybe that's a bit too much so you've got one hand up, one hand down and in the end I preferred the one west looking at the camera blusters my personal choice in I was also sure to shoot lots of options of her doing the other things as well so I've got here he is standing I've got close mid long when it comes to fashion ticking the boxes of fashion you want to make sure that you get a cz many shots as you can off the outfit today it might be a bit tricky because an hour and a half to shoot on the hi fi set up the high production set up the one where I might be doing something surrealism to afterwards and a half isn't that long because we want to get the best wide shot we can but at the end I'm going to go and take close ups ofthe her because we also want to get that in the bag while she's all styled get up for the stylist and makeup in here um so here I'm doing that thing I'm just trying to get as much as I can off her I'm also with the notion that I might want to use these pictures afterwards I might decide that we want to see more of her outfit on also some more shots of her standing in the spot where she was sitting a cz well because I wasn't it's not like I knew straight away that I wanted to be sitting I had a crouching as well on some of them on also when she was putting a shoe and I thought I was quite interesting so I kind of snapped her while she was doing that as well s oh yeah and also on these ones is good to note that I had her do a little turn on that could be nice because you could end up getting a little bit of free motion in the dress and also in the expression of the model that can be better than a very stagnant shot so that's always a good tip to try but just watch that you don't get blowing on us we'll make sure your camera's things are set up for the motion that the model going do on make sure you do a test shot on zoom in close to see what the clarity is like on that particular shot so here she is just swirling an outfit to one side which means that for that one split second she looks relaxed in that second on we also get a bit movement on the dress these are all options I was shooting so this is a close up of the image that I did choose I really liked the clarity of her against the fog that's one of the great things about using fog machine you get this in camera effect that can go kind of all over the place in the end but there are the moments where you can really get something that is worthwhile and this is what made this shoot one of the favorite recent shoots of mine because I felt like I knew somewhat where I was going with it because off the income a effect off her against the fog um and also we're like the clarity of her face the clarity of the crown on di on everything else going on in the picture as well. So there is thestreet show after I put the top and bottom on um the top there in the room that's where you've got this exposed brick in the in the room looks maybe a little bit confusing to someone who's not familiar with that room or doesn't know what's going on but that's just part of the room I quite like that but it's in camera surrealism of the wall coming away you've also got this lightbulb hanging there as well. So it's quite pleased with this as a foundation as a palate to do something with it in surrealism in compositing so here's the pictures I took the miss teen us from pictures this was amazing we were just driving down the road and suddenly this our coast road and suddenly this fog just came in just literally within seconds so we had to stop the car and take pictures and then within a couple of minutes and gone it was just literally like this moment of just extreme hayes on the pictures were just beautiful because you can just see how thick that mist is on dh I thought to myself, you know, it could potentially uses in some pictures I didn't really know where are when I would do that? But I'm glad I did okay, so okay, so here's here's after I've pulled stuff in I've just just a side note I've taken from I've taken two chunks one chunk from one picture and then another chunk to put on the other side because just taking it and putting it straight on didn't match up on both sides so I manipulated the sea on this side so it's pointing in the direction of the floorboards have manipulated it here raised their feet out from that foliage stuff they're so her feet come in front of it now these little people here this is when I was playing around so I added my beach scene and I was playing around with potentially putting something else in it you know, like I did with the images the girl in the red dress so here I've got some people I can't remember what painting they're from, but I just put some people in from a painting and try some more as well and I felt like this should work, you know it's really fascinating this is like a beach with this big giant woman that's landed and these little people are really scared you know, I also tried a ship wreckers well, but for the same reason like I was telling you earlier with a scarlet song red dress picture I was zoom out and then they just look like the distracting they look like they're in the way I mean you might to screen we might like the people it's is down to taste and it's also down to the opinion of whoever comes over and looks at your computer screen and puts you off no names mentioned so you have to be honest of yourself, do you? Does it work as in the whole picture? Or does is it just a detail that you really like when you zoom out? Do you like it? Is it actually gonna work? So I decided that the final picture didn't need these details, but what I do is I added a detail into the area with the lightbulb because I felt like the beach part of it was it was done, you know? You've got you've got a room, you've got the beach coming in that's enough that's that that's enough don't go overboard, but then you go also got this space with the lightbulb, so if you've got a beach coming in surreally into the room, then why not carry on that kind of weirdness a little bit in the other spare space above her, but try not to over cramp the image, but the area around the lightbulb I decided to bring in clouds from painting on dh, then the bulb then became representational of sun so I thought that was quite interesting little detail that wasn't too much but wasn't too little to miss our either so the final show I think is is just enough just enough for the surrealism not going overboard obviously it comes down to taste but I felt like there was enough space to take in the fashion elements whilst appreciating the fringing fine are elements that make it something more than just a finite image than just right just the fashion image just an image of her in a dress you've also got this story of why she's on this beach and yet in a room at the same time I also took images enough images in this room to get some nice fashion images as well so without any final elements or fine arts story that I was building in that previous image on some close ups of her way she's just like by the lightbulb but you can see the beautiful details of a hare and the crown I actually really like the styling is one of my favorite looks on that particular day could we had like five six models I showed you yesterday the mermaid mood board that the stylist gave us that was that same shoot so this is the same shoe as the girl in the shack as well with the big blue dress in the fish so this was then one of my favorite looks yes, I wanted to make sure that I also did something that I could send the team and say, no here's, some nice fashion images that you can use your portfolio, and also I just her hair was so beautiful. I requested that hair be just straight, because she that was one of her strength as a model. I thought when I first met her is her hair was so beautiful, long and dark. Oh, stark looking against the styling that she was having that day, this is ah, panoramic breakdown off another image that I've made, but I made into a surreal image. S oh, this is just a glimpse of how I've put this together, how shooting images of the model of until it to the right. I put my camera manual focus, which was particularly important because you have something that is closer to you in this case, because I was standing here, you got her a little bit further away than the lamp it's a bit unusual, because then this the lamp, the lamp apart, the images out focus because she's in focus. So it means that you got something out of focus in front of you and her and focus, which is a bit I don't know if it's necessarily always gonna look, um, right to the eye, but that that was important for me because I didn't want everything to be in focus because then it would ruin the depth of field going on it's going on in the picture of her, they wouldn't match up together, so I really liked this already as I was pulling it together, because even out of camera, there was all these textures going on. You've got it's interesting, kind of to part shadow going on from the hate to my lights were shooting within this very movie, like you've got this wonderful textures on her dress that came out even better when you ray's exposure a bit in the roar converter and maybe a bit of shadow definition as well bring up the shadows on dh um, yes, I really like what's going on here, I've brought together as one scene, and then I started to think about what I could do with her in the surreal sense. So there is money pictures I've taken well, there's a few pictures I've taken that I've made, where I kind of insert things into the hands that off models and it's, almost like it looks as if it was shot intentionally like that, but really, it was just me having a strange moment afterwards, so you can see got her hand kind of slightly ope. In here and potential to put something there and you've also got this table space and space kind of off the couch but it's not easy to know where to get things and how to incorporate them in so you end up with a situation like this where I've literally this is how I work I stick a load of things and I tried on all at once but I stick things in one by one this is just like a no review of everything live stuck into this picture I just sound it doesn't sound like the right way to work you know? Surely you should know exactly what you're doing you should put something in well no, I don't I don't think I make my best images like that I make my best images when I try things and I'm very discriminating about what works and what doesn't so the chicken just the hanging chicken just didn't want to go anywhere but I really like the idea that I might go somewhere. So you've got this bit of a a theme in some of my cereal fashion images off kind of dead animals or, you know, kind of foul and from these from these old still life paintings of like and fruits and birds and other animals like dogs and that dear and so how you can't have a thing for that in some of the images and you've got this giant moth er over that winged creature is there that is actually from a museum, the national history museum that I've shot that brought that in to the image as well. So all of these things, I just felt like a lot of them didn't work too much, so the things I selected in the end, we're just things that I felt were conducive, but not getting in the way. So you've got this bird on her hand. I feel works quite well, it's looking in the same direction. It's feels like it's, right? In the perspective you've got this rabbit I felt was perfect because it comes from her hand, then it drapes down onto the couch and you might kind of ask, how did I make it look like it? Like it during he's dripping onto the couch? It was just one of those little synergies that that just I found by simply trying it where as you saw there's, lots of things that didn't work so it's just recognizing something when it does work on, then I was looking for a while for something to put under the lamp, and I was trying out different little thiss whole collection of birds that you see there is one. One piece from a painting I haven't put them on top of each other myself I tried out all the bunches of dead birds, but that one just looked right because the way that the bird's landed looked as if they were on the table so it might sound all very convenient oh yeah, it just it just worked like that, but that comes from trying things and seeing where they fit and I felt like it wasn't going to overboard because we've got something going on here something in the middle something on the other side are nothing not any more would be too much, I think so I felt happy at this point that there was enough to satisfy the eye without going overboard I was making enough you said the spaces well toe warrant there being this extra space I've taken and to be honest, I think this image is probably good enough without all the stuff as well if you wanted to present it is like the double page spread as a fashion image you didn't want to put these elements in because not this is just something that I do in my siri's it's not something that I'm saying you need to do it's just me as an artist trying to do something that I feel is exciting I just get excited making these pictures and it's important to tap into what excites you panoramic scan also be to just make a wider image so I've got this shot here. Why I've shot to the left and the right of model standing in the doorway in this church, and then I've stitched them together to become a wider shot. Why could also do is stretch the side as well so that they actually become less of a square thought image and become longer as well? Um, it's up to you, but for me, this was good enough. It's not an image. I wanted to start doing anything surreal because I just didn't think it was appropriate. I was thinking instead of maybe bringing in some mr clouds for behind her, but for me I felt like bringing in surreal things would be too much because she's, already a bit of a strange kind of visitor in a church on died, it felt like it was going overboard. So this is this shows where you congee, you can use panoramic stitching just to make a wider shot and that's perfectly appropriate for your doing fashions bread also this image one of my kind of not an image that I really shown much it's, just an image I shot on one of our shoots on dh I've done. Exactly that I've stitched to one side to be able to get a detail of the shack behind her, which is the same chatelet or earlier, and I think this works really well, a cz a fashion spread, you know, you can use that that that other side could be used as space to write text. The designer might decide to kind of blurred out even more, or kind of whiting out and write text there, or they could blink you out and write the title of the fashion story or whatever. So, I think this is an example of where it's not all about surrealism, it's also about just functionality of pictures and how they work as part of the context you're aiming to get them into in this case, pages of magazine and this is a picture where I have decided to, I've shot tilts, but I haven't done anything in that space. You might ask, why? Why have I not put things in that space? Well, it's, just the way that I wanted it to be, I just felt like anything more would be distracting for me. When I look at this picture, I just want to take in her, I want to look at her outfit and explore her outfit, the mirror is, well, I'm interested how that's reflecting some kind of sky coming from beyond the image and she's looking into that sky aware, getting the mirror image of that I just felt like it was was good enough by itself I didn't feel like it needed anything extra um that's just that's just the way that I instinctively felt so I felt like this image stands in a separate maybe a separate subset than surreal fashion. So the good thing about working with leonard like I've already mentioned is that he I feel like we're really on the same page with imaginative fashion photography because he's styling I mean, he styled this image and you've got this really surreal thing going on with the out listener in her hair you've got the outfit, I was just it's surreal in itself so this surrealism I think is just self serving in the image and that's enough for this one, but I did a lot of work to just make her look as good as she could in this picture I'm just cleaning up skin and cleaning up a couple of creases in this, um draping fabric and I've also there was a little bit of a lack of draping fabric on one side, so I cloned the inn on the other side to equally out, so sometimes I mean it's really important, I always say to listen to the image uh, what it wants and what it doesn't want which seems a bit odd. But sometimes when you try and put something in and you feel like your left brain is trying to force something into a pitcher, that just doesn't work. And this is something that is best talked about when I'm showing you these individual example. So you can see how I've applied my own thinking and made those decisions to take in order to put the takeout on.