Extended project
- 1. Extended Project Is fashion photography a form of art?
- 2. Project Outline My aim throughout this project was to find out how people view fashion photography. Is it being considered as form of art or just simple advertising and high label cloths which are nicely presented on a girl or boy? As my final piece I have decided to produce a set of images that will reflect an answer to my question. I will mount the pictures on the white board as I think they will look more effective and will introduce my idea well.
- 3. Research
- 4. I began my researching from sources in the library. I found there many interesting books which are referring to fashion photography and art. ’’Such photographers were thus placed in a position similar to that in which they had placed painters a half century earlier and the chain of reactions at the end of the century must have had a profound influence on the new directions painting had already taken.’ ’’…perfection has been embodied in images, visions of enhanced reality that teach the eye how to see clothes, and teach clothes how to look.’’ ’’photographic description of lifestyle’’
- 5. Art and Fashion blurred boundary I found some interesting views and majority of them are suggesting that fashion and art have a really blurred boundary. For example in the book 'The Idealizing Vision, The Art of Fashion Photography, April 1991’ Anne Hollander is saying that by ’’feeding the imagination and pushing the visual possibilities of clothing into new emotional territory’’ audience are able to fantasy about clothing product and by presenting cloths on photographs in certain ways the brains of receivers are coding the message hidden behind pure photographs. What I meant by this is that even the photograph is composing the model and cloths by showing it in special ways the imagination of audience is working better therefore it can be said that it is also an art piece that is inspiring customer to desire the product. They may not receive the feeling of art straight away, because in our days they are used to seeing the fashion photography presented creatively however at the end of the day those photos are touching their imagination, making them want the cloths or look like model on the image.
- 6. Advertising; how they use to advertise things how they are doing it now?
- 7. My Initial Ideas To get my starting point I have researched fashion photographers, I found three which have absolutely different styles. To discover what audiences consider to be considered as a form of art, I created the questionnaire which helped me to define people taste. Then based on this questionnaire I started to prepare my photo-shoots trying to create similar effect to the photographs they liked the most. Miles Aldridge Tommaso Nervegna Marco Tengalia
- 8. Audience Response Majority of audiences liked the set of Tommaso Nervegna photographs. The positive comments I have received about his photos were about the use of creative lights, shades and composition which was quite uncommon where it comes to fashion photography this is why people dragged attention to his work. As an improvement people wanted to see even more experimenting with lights, they believed that I will give the images more artistic feeling.
- 9. 1st Photo-shoot For my first photo-shoot I have decided to play around with lighting as audiences liked the images taken by Tommaso Nervegna and I was influenced by his work as well. He used a lot of lights techniques to make his work look creative. I planed to do similar shoot with my model, however my objective was to make fashion photos in urban lifestyle, but appearing to arty. My audiences then would be young adults or teenagers that are encouraged by fashion photographs on billboards and magazines.
- 10. Final Images
- 15. Software Used I have mainly used Photoshop to increase the saturation and colour balance as shown below. I also strengthen the contrast to make photos look more professional, yet quite funky, colourful and bold.
- 16. 2nd Photo-shoot To develop my work to more artistic piece I tried to focus on the location and model’s look rather than technique used. This time I decided to shoot indoor and I managed to find really good location and gain the permission to photograph there.
- 17. Final Images
- 21. 3rd Photo-shoot Once I gather the feedback from my peers about my second photo-shoot they gave me interesting points to consider for my next photo- shoot. I found out that as an audience they would like to see more fashion and different prospective then one view. So this time I tried to emphasis their observations in my 3rd photo- shoot.
- 22. Final Images
- 25. 4th (Final) Photo-shoot So far I managed to capture really nice and good quality photos. But I was questioning myself, do they represent fashion art photography well? I came up with conclusion that I have to go in slightly different direction. I was stimulated by my teacher she told me to lake at famous painting that other photographers used in their work. So I did found few of them, but one particularly got my attention. The story of Lady of Shalott; about young women suicide by drowning herself in the water. I find the connection between fashion and this story as young girls are losing her personalities due to the fashion trends. I was inspired by the prestige paintings of the lady and I tried to create similar effect, combining art and fashion together and represent it on my photographs.
- 27. Final Piece
- 31. Conclusion Throughout this project I found out that art and fashion are really close together. Especially in our days where technology has such an ability to create some good photos even with amateur not really specialized camera. So the answer to my question would be yes, fashion photography can be considered as a form of art. Even if the people are not putting much attention to them their brains are receiving the creative signals making them desire to look like the models from the photographs. The massive impact is putted on young generation as to them those photographs are exemplar and their life style.
- 32. Any other question, please feel free to ask? Thank You! Sandra Ksiazek