The first shoot

My second attempt for my first shoot was much more successful. By this point i was certain about what i wanted the outcome of this shoot to look like. This shoot consists of the following elements that i had originally hoped to create, they are as follows: Strong, powerful, contrasting, alien like images that have succeeded in creating a shoot that reflects what i wanted to achieve. Little changes such as the face being covered, helps create a mystery to the images, and does not distract the eye away from the outfits. 

I wanted to create the image above to look unusual, and almost like you can not tell what it is. The reason being is i felt it really tied in well with the optical illusions that i had referenced earlier on in the project. 

I desaturated all of these images as it helped reinforce my inspiration and helped add to the strange effect that i was hoping to achieve.

The above image is one of my favourites from this shoot. I got the model to crouch down like this as i wanted it to almost mirror the head piece that she has on.

This image does not have many shapes, lines, contrast compared to the others, however, when creating this image i wanted to create a shape that almost looked like pieces of the body were missing.

The checked skirt helps create the illusion that the model is almost unusually tall. We felt that taken the image from below would help add to this illusion. 

The image above was created by focusing on shape. I put a hanger inside the top to create the pointy shape that mirrors the lines made on the skirt. 

I had my review a few days back and the feed back for this shoot was not what i was expecting. Over all it was negative. Basically, the clothes were not right, and neither was the hair. I took all of the comments on board and after having a good old moan I knew what they meant about the shoot.

My first shoot


Well, despite nerves and the ever changing weather conditions, my first shoot ran rather smoothly and successfully! I had a great time styling and i am really pleased with the final out come.

The only problem we did have on the day was quite a major one. We did this shoot on some cliffs near to my house and we drove there so that we could have a place to change the model and keep all of the hundreds of bags we needed. Anyway, we were happily getting on with the shoot and some man pulled up in his car and started screaming and shouting. i was very shocked as we were very quite and i really did not understand why the man was screaming so loudly. Basically, he was saying that we needed to move our car as the land is privately owned. We were blissfully unaware that this was the case otherwise we would have never parked there. It was very unclear as not all of the cliff is privately owned in fact just a very small area is. The sign that tell people it is private had been turned upside down and backwards so obviously when you are driving you are not going to take notice of a sign you can not see. WHAT A JOBS WORTH!!! As a result to this mans unreasonable behaviour, we had to move an find a different location. This as you can imagine did not go down well as time was running out and we had done all our previous photographs in that spot. However, thankfully we managed to find an area of the cliff that was not private and the people were very friendly and interested in what we were doing. It did cause us to have to rush as the light had changed and so had the weather but over all we pulled it off.

Shoot final pics

When styling this shoot I wanted the main focus to be on the strong lines and how they can create different shapes.   

These are some sketches I drew to assist me during my shoot. I always draw out poses/the outfit before i do my shoots so that I have something to work towards. I feel that generally my poses that i draw work out to be the better images. I think this is because when i get an idea of what i want to create i can really envision it. As a visual person i find that drawing my ideas for shoots down helps me explain what i want to achieve, as i often find explaining ideas through words can confuse the rest of the team, which can be extremely annoying for me and them! 

My final touches to my outfits

Very tired today! I created all of the rest of the outfits as wanted to keep the ball rolling and ensure that everything was perfect ready for my first shoot! I am very excited, as i have worked very hard and shoots are by far the best part of the styling process for me! Lets hope it goes well! =-) 

The rest of my outfits x

Well today has been filled with lots of spending, cutting gluing, painting and sewing. Despite how crazy and tiring the day has been, I have made four outfits ready for this Thursday. Two outfits to create now, let's hope they run as smoothly as the last four did today. Lx

In the making- Outfit two optical illusions

In the making- First outfit for Optical illusions x

Gareth Pugh mood board

inspiration

This is my location. I want to shoot this at Kingsdown Cliffs as the emptiness and vast amount of space will help the strong lines and contrasting colours stand out. In black and white this location looks very creepy and is almost unrecognisable. I want to make my shoot look like an alien has landed and like it is about to take over. 

This is my inspiration mood board that i will take with me to the shoot along with my pose sketches as every bit of inspiration counts for me. I want a powerful shoot that reflects how clothing can create strange silhouettes by clever styling.

For my make up and hair i have created a mood board to help my make up and hair assistant understand the look i am hoping to achieve. I want to carry on this theme of strong and powerful, therefore i have found images of hair and make up that i believe will reinforce this look. I want my model to look like she is almost for another world. I feel that sleek back hair put into a bun would be a good look as it can look like an extension of a person head. That sounds odd but you know what i mean! haha! Dark eyes and lips, with a pale complexion will add to the contrast that i want the shoot to withhold. I want this shoot to be in black and white, so every last detail has to be contrasting otherwise will could go very wrong.

Leigh Bowery 

Leigh Bowery's fashion statements left people often wondering what sex he was, and no doubt in some outfits, what he was. However, he captured the art of optical illusions through clothing, and it is in his outfits that you can see how powerful styling can be. 

I am not going to try and recreate the kind of looks that Leigh did, however, my inspiration is from the same family. I want to create a shoot that is a lot more commercial in a sense, as i feel that as a stylist this is my signature style. 

I find it amazing that certain changes can make your eyes believe they are seeing something else. Below is a picture of Salvador Dali, and as a Surrealist Painter he often played around with illusions and perspectives. Below he has used looking glasses to change his appearance and create a kind of illusion.  This image has particular inspired me to experiment with the styling that i will be doing. I think that i will look into trying to create outfits that change the shape of a body. 

The strong contrasting lines in these images are used in nature to confuse predators. amongst their habitats the eyes of the predator are (or in the spiders case prey) their lines work as illusion and help them mix in to the background. Although i do not want to create an image that blends the model into the background, I feel that the lines play such  significant part in their ability to confuse that i want to ensure that these strong lines are reflected in my styling. 

These images are optical illusions and to me they are almost very beautiful with how each line complements each other. The most amazing element of the art is to me is, how the way you put certain lines, colours etc together, it can change the way you see things completely.
This is a very attractive element for a stylists as often we want to create a different shape, play with proportions, and make an outfit change the wearer completely.

I have always been very fond of optical illusions, I think it stems for the long car journey's I have always had to endure, and they always kept me extremely occupied. About a week ago i found an old optical illusions book that i completely forgot i had. Obviously i had to have a few turns of making my eyes go funny, but it also inspired me for my first shoot. 

I was mainly inspired by the contrast of black and white and the strong lines that the illusions create. I have also always been a fan of op art, so for me the idea of using this as inspiration for shoot 1, seems to be a good one. 

This blog has been set up for me to keep a frequent log of my thoughts, process and progress throughout my final major project. I am in the visual pathway in which i will be focusing on styling. After two long horrible weeks of problems and issues in the Promotional pathway I have moved to a more creative area.
Anyway, onwards and upwards, I am doing a shoot this week hopefully if all goes to plan on Thursday. I am basing the looks on Op Art and can't wait for my busy but creative week ahead. Oh how I love creating and being able to be really messy. Lx