Mini Briefs
1. Advertising stiff life (sport
2. Environmentalist portrait)
3. The true detective
Peter Kyte
Photography of a downpour outside Tate Britain
Peter is a practising urban and arts photographer. He is also a town planner and thus has much experience of cities and how they function. His photography celebrates all that makes up the urban environment – buildings, places and spaces, historic settings, heritage, regeneration and community action projects.
He states that
"My photographic work focuses on a combination of documentary and creative photography, with a strong artistic expression. I seek to not only record what I see around me but also provide a personal perceptive angle on the environmental experience, allowing the viewer to think about the imagery and enjoy it to a deeper level. My work over the last 2 years has gravitated towards a more artistic style.
I view the urban scene as a series of infinite still images, which are linked together in an ongoing narrative – a sort of ‘urban movie’. It is the photographer’s skill to seek out the best still images from the ‘movie’ and translate them into successful photographs. This image choice process is what Henri Cartier-Bresson called the finding the “decisive moment”.
In another sense, photographic images are like a ‘memory’ of a given moment in time. Thus, a photograph can evoke ‘memories’ in the viewer that are vivid, powerful and emotionally moving. I seek to achieve these aspects in my work.
My photography has made me an improved observer and helped me to better understand the environment around me. Through this influence, I am now seeking to apply the theme of ‘learning through photography’ and am becoming involved in photographic education on community projects and in museums. In this way, my photography has become a creative, educational and enlightening process that I will continue to pursue.…”
JOSH NICE
Skater-slash-photographer Josh Nice first met the Perdu skate crew in 2015 when they were in London checking out the Southbank skate scene. Josh and the crew’s mutual love of skateboarding ironed out any creases in the language barrier and an instant friendship formed.
Since that initial meeting, Josh has been hanging out with the Perdu guys and documenting them for a series of zines and photobooks. His latest trek with the crew took him to Bordeaux and Hossegor for two weeks, resulting in this latest zine, titled June.
COLE BENNETT
Cole Bennett is an American video director and business executive who is is the founder of the music promotion and event coordination company ‘Lyrical Lemonade’. His passion for music, which developed at a young age, ultimately led him to success. After discovering rap as a high school student, Cole embarked upon a blogging journey to record his experiences visiting and watching musical gigs across Chicago. He titled his blog ‘Lyrical Lemonade’ and assiduously recorded his observations of the rap industry. At the same time, he also developed a taste for making videos and was often out creating videos with his camera. By the time he moved to study at DePaul University, he had made a name for himself in the music scene. He soon dropped out of college to focus exclusively on music. Fortune favored him, and he started collaborating with the big names in the industry: Soulja Boy, Lil Pump, Warhol, Wiz Khalifa, and Comethazine, among many others. With this experience, he launched Lyrical Lemonade as a music media company that focused on the rap scene. Today, the media giant is among the most successful websites and Cole’s success story has been covered by many publications. He is often credited for introducing fresh faces to the online entertainment scene.
Mini Brief One: Advertising Still Life- Sport
You will be asked to choose an object or objects relating to a sport and you will photograph this in order to ‘sell it’ as an advertising image.
You will be given a series of crops relating to professional templates so that one image and concept is re-imagined in several ways for a dynamic presentation of your idea.
You will be asked to shoot in the studio under controlled conditions and your concept will be presented and agreed upon before you start to shoot. You will be asked to consider lighting, background, composition, contrasting and complementing colour- values, scale and dynamism as part of your final photography.
Choose an item that will photograph well with little effort and is recognisable and research how you can use lighting and camera work in a dynamic way to enhance your message.
I had the idea of instead of choosing a physical object related to sports for example a football or a tennis racket. I wanted to advertise a can of coke. Coca-Cola has been associated with the Fifa World Cup since 1978. due to this Coca Cola is the first drink you think of when it comes to sports and I feel like creating an advertising shoot for a refreshing bottle of coke is something that I want to do.
But then I got told that it's not a good idea so INSTEAD, I'm going to use the sport football and advertise some football boots.
When I think about advertising football boots I want the viewers to think that the particular boots I'm photographing are better than any ofter football boots out there. I need to portray the fact that these particular boots can do the impossible and that's why you need them. when I think of this, the term 'walking on water comes to mind, hence why I've decided I want to use a blue backdrop and some sort of a metallic surface to lay underneath the boots and spray that with water to give the illusion that they can do the impossible and these boots are that.
When researching ideas I came across a lot of old nike adverts that I also wanted to take inspiration from, however, these are two very contrasting ideas and I haven't figured out a way to merge them yet.
Based on the colour of the boots I had two backdrops to choose from. Either a cream-coloured one or a bright orange one. I chose the orange one as it was more of a bold colour and I wanted the picture to stand out as a whole instead of just the boots.
For the first image, I had the idea of doing something different and keeping the box in the picture. I think it works and I've heard from others it doesn't look good but I'm going to go with it regardless.
As for the landscape image, I decided to get rid of the box and just focus on the shoes. I tilted the camera a little so that the image was at an angle and I think this works well and creates dimension in the photo. Positioning the laces on the higher boot was easy as I could fill the gap however positioning the laces on the right boot was harder as its facing the other way and I didn't want the laces to merge with the other ones. I also felt like I had to create some sort of shape with them hence the little loop in the top of the right boot. I didn't want it to just look flat.
Research on advertising shoes
Nike, in the 1970s, were the first to present new advertising campaigns with catchy logos that appeared in image-laden print. Soon popular personalities were paid to endorse their products in print and by the 80s television commercials began to appear.
As shoe firms launched increasingly attractive and complex campaigns, branding became the emphasis and by the 90s, advertising strove to turn brand names into household words. This strategy was paralleled in fashion marketing as consumers recognised branded labels as the all-important feature rather than the old-school qualities synonymous with style and fit.
After researching this was my outcome.
As for the closeup, I wanted to stick to the simplicity throughout this shoot and so I zoomed into the boots to get the brand clear. I also tried spraying water on the boots however the beads of water just collected and ended up sliding down the shoes onto the surface of the table. I didn't like it so I cleaned the boots dry and sprayed water onto a pair of scissors and dabbed water droplets onto the boots in order to get the same effect without all the excess water.
the editing process took me a while however I managed to get the outcome I wanted. I thought the original images were fine but after playing around I decided I wanted to change the saturation of the photo in order to make the images brighter and have the orange colour bolder. I changed the contrast and the brightness of the images in order to have the orange of the shoe and the backgrounds stand out from the punk at the bottom of the shoe.
Then after I was happy with the colour of the image I went back in and retouched the surfaces of the box in the first image, removing an obvious pair of fingerprints and the foreground in all three. I went in with the smudge tool thinking I could smudge out the darker shades due to the water drops on the paper when we took the images then go over with the smoothing tool in order to smooth and blend the darker and lighter shades together, then I realised I could change that by using the blemishes took and corrected the darker water droplets by doing that. it took less time but have roughly the same result.
FINAL IMAGES
WWW: I liked how these turned out I think I did very well post production and I managed to make the three images brighter and more vibrant compared to the originals. I also like the simplicity of it and I like how I didn't over complicate the images.
EBI: I feel like because I went for the simple look I could have done more compared to other peoples images. I could have added more water on the third image or maybe something in the background like smoke or maybe water drops to give it the feel as if its raining indoors or something
MINI BRIEFT TWO : ENVIRONMENTAL PORTRAIT
Environmental Portrait- Sport
You are asked to take some of the lighting techniques and approaches learned in the studio out to a location to make a dynamic and impactful portrait. This image needs to link to the theme of your still life and should have a connection in terms of the subject and perhaps the same approach in terms of lighting, camera technique or lens choices.
You will be given a crop and layout to ensure that there is consistency in terms of linking this to your other images.
Deliverables:
A location image that relates to the concept of a portrait and is related to the concept of the still life image - Final Raw and edited JPG images from your final selection
These are some images from one of our lessons we had on environmental portrait however I felt like I should include it in my true detective as this lesson was quite helpful for me in my true detective work. We learned how to delete objects or people from an image and also how to then blend in two images hence why we were told to make sure to shoot two images with your model in it and one of just the background.
Mini brief two mood board
For the environmental portrait, I wanted to use something with the net from the football goal in order to make it obvious it's football without having the model hold a football throughout. I like the idea of having a small collage of the model moving around the pitch using the first three photos as an example of moving locations within the same location.
This project for me was quite difficult in many different ways. Firstly carrying all the equipment to my location was long as I live far from uni and the trains were on strike the day of my shoot. I ended up taking an uber from and back to uni again with the equipment to make sure everything was delivered safely and none of the equipment was damaged on the way.
Getting to the location from my house was pretty easy as I live right next to the field but I had a little problem when I arrived. Firstly it was pretty windy and I had forgotten to book out the sandbags so I had to have someone hold the light stand in place whilst I was shooting. Secondly, my idea for the location shoot was to take photos by the goal in the park but they had taken it down for some reason, so the theme of my sport was only carried through the outfit and the fact my model has a football in the photos.
The editing process for this image was so long I had to do through everything so many times in order to get it right. I thought the image lacked a bit in colour so I decided to change the saturation a little bit. I mainly focused on the colour of the sky in order to change the mood of the photo.
WWW: I managed to use the outdoor lighting for this image and make it work.
EBI: I could have taken more photos and I wish I had a full body image instead of 3/4. I'd like to have had the models whole body but she was a but fussy and difficult to work with due to the weather as it was cold and windy.
Mini Brief Three: The True Detective
Finally, you will be asked to make single images that will be used as elements in the composites for the MODULE'S Specialist Workflows. The theme of the module is detectives and film noir so you will be able to use the lighting techniques you are developing in this module to make single images that will be used as materials for this accompanying module.
You will be encouraged to work independently in the studio and location to develop these assets as the module develops as well as PREPARE the best selection for final submission for one of the elements of this module.
Deliverables:
- Three images that capture the essence of the concept of The True Detective and that relate to your ideas and development for the module ‘Specialist Workflows’
- Final Raw and edited JPG images from your final selection
- A Digital Workbook that relates to the process of research and practice for your images
- Three images that capture the essence of the concept of The True Detective and that relate to your ideas and development for the module ‘Specialist Workflows’
- Final Raw and edited JPG images from your final selection
- A Digital Workbook that relates to the process of research and practice for your images
During this lesson, we got taught how to use then pen tool and feather in photoshop for the true detective project.
During the lesson, we took headshots for the true detective brief. Using a snoot and standard white backdrop I achieved these three final images that I will use and edit. I think ill use the first image with the model's hand in front of his face as for me this pose gives more emotion and more of a desperate for hope feel to the image. I think this will add to my overall brief.
Research for images
for this project, I decided to go along the theme of horror and something to do with being haunted. I decided to stick with the because I thought it would be. bit of a challenge editing photos in a way that projects fear and horror without just editing the image to darker colours. These were the three images I decided to go with in the end however for my final one I think ill stick with the first one as a lot of people in horror movies or stories tend to turn to god to help them whilst experiencing these supernatural events.
God and religion, Christianity in particular, tend to be associated with paranormal activities or horror movies as its known any sort of monster or demon fears God's power hence why crosses are either worn around people's neck or places around their houses in attempts to get rid of any evil.
Also accosted with horror films is for some reason a young girl, always lost or something like that so I decided to edit these two pictures together. First one being a young girl lost and alone in an isolated area. The cars headlight creates a silhouette and adds mystery to the image. Maybe it's a sign of hope for the girl. The second image is a picture of a church, again relation back to religion.
These photos were taken separately. the first image of the girl I purposely went out and took for this shoot. it took multiple tries to get the image I wanted and I finally got it. The blur in the image wasn't what I wanted but after thinking about it I decided to use it as it gives somewhat texture to the image and I wanted it as if she's a ghost or a figure of imagination.
The editing process for this was so stressful as I'm not very good with photoshop so it was defiantly a challenge. I added a mask to the original layer of the headshots and then cut around the image eliminating the background. After that I created a cut out outline and decided to go back in and clean up the image leaving no part of the background untouched.
After that I went ahead and dropped in the image of the church first, as this is the background image to the girl. I moved the image about and placed the door of the church in the centre of the headshots and thats what i wanted to draw the attention to in the photo.
After that I dropped in the photo of the girl and centred it in the door frame of the church. Then I used the brush tool and erased the rest of the photo. turning down the hardness so that it blends into the photo of the church. I decided to not put this photo into black and white as I wanted to keep the bigness of the cars headlights.
FINAL IMAGE
