For our concept we
wanted to bring back the well known child’s fairy tale Snow White into a darker
and intense narrative for the audience of a more mature age. Without losing the
morals and values of its religious meanings our idea was to transform the
accepted pure innocence of Snow White’s beauty to be resurrected into a sexual
predator - one who uses her beauty to manipulate claim dominance. Our set was
based inside a religious crypt with Snow White being encased inside a glass
coffin - a significant transition from virgin to sinner. Set upon a three-step
alter, this was to add height and importance to her presence where she is
controlling not only the surrounding space but also the viewers attention. There were many fashion influences I
researched into including the recent Steven Klein ‘Good Kate V’s Bad Kate’ and
his fashion shoot with the famous Dita Van Teese. It was through this that I
became inspired by the thematic of these shoots and developed an idea between styling
our character through the posture and pose.
It was from this that I contacted two stylists who were both students at
UCA for some advice into the fashion and styling, however as one already
dropped out I felt there was too many delays and little communication where in
the end I had to sort out the fashion right at the last minute. Overall though
I am happy with the end styling and clothing this caused a lot more pressure in
having to perform at such a late notice. For the shoot I found six potential models
for the role of snow white in which our choice came down to Francesca Shirka,
who was an art and design foundation student at UCA. I felt she was the most
successful choice of model because she fitted within our mature title - her jaw-line
was more sharply defined and her cheekbones had an angular and ‘robust’
structure – these strong features supported an adult and dominant personality.
On reflection I believe the most difficult aspect of
our shoot was the lighting as I must admit I was unsure and had no certain
strategy or immediate visual reference. It was much of trial and error but is
something I feel more confident with and have learnt a better practical
understanding of how to control and direct the light on to a subject. But also
how to creatively use lighting in an artistic invention, such as reflecting and
highlighting the edges of the coffin to reveal the incased entrapment and
concealment of Snow White. For our final shoot we used a zoom lens at 75mm with
an exposure at F8 at 1/24th a second, with an ISO at 100. When
composing our shoot I learnt that it was not only just the camera lens that was
important but the distance and space between each subject that could
dramatically change the aesthetics. By moving the distance between the back wall
and the Perspex coffin we was able to create greater depth whereas before we
started with a flat panel, with the lighting spilling over the entire ‘scene’
in a compressed and dull surface.
On the shoot day Thursday 26th May 2012, I
think we started to work well as a team, with the lighting already set up the
night before and we quickly set out to start shooting. I and Holly worked well
together in directing the model using earlier references into the reclining
position we researched before hand. This was the first time I had ever directed
a model before but I think it went well as we already visualized and
experimented with a range of postures and so was confident to achieve our
desired image. Unfortunately the model had to leave early but I think this gave
us valuable time to alter the lighting and re-evaluate the choices we made,
ready to re-shoot the next day on Friday 27th May 2012. During this
shoot I felt more confident and positive with the improved lighting
arrangement, and felt our photographs had improved significantly from the day
before. However I feel we should have taken more photographs as we had spent
many hours building this set but our re-shoot period was rushed and over very quickly . I
would have experimented more with the pose and posture of the model as this was
obviously the most central and important focus which could have been improved
further. If I had my time again I would
have also liked to of tried using the hasselblad camera more as I felt this was
the best time to get more confidence and experience and this would have been a
great advantage to practice.
Overall as a team there was many disagreements we had
to overcome but this was all part of learning to work together and we overcame
many problems. For the post production I was relatively new to Adobe Photoshop
so used this time to learn a lot more about the editorial and printing practices.
I learnt how important it was to work non-destructively and work through layers
and masks. As everyone on the team decided on the final photograph we started
to experiment with ‘retouching’ the image. I and Holly spent the next
followings weeks editing and printing our final image, after making many
mistakes! We have both started to learn on a professional level the editorial
practices used and feel that our independent commitment has given us much more
confidence when in post-production.
