RIZWANA
ALI
Mario Testino
Mario Testino was born on the 30th of October 1954 and is a Peruvian fashion and portrait photographer. He was born and raised in Lima to an upper class catholic family and was the eldest of six children and as a child he wanted to be a priest. In 1976 he moved to London and studied photography, it was during apprenticeships at the studios of John Vickers and Paul Nugent that he made his first attempts as a photographer. Mario Testino was not living in good conditions so he had to work as a waiter to fund for himself and he dyed his hair pink to be noticed as a photographer. London was a city that allowed him to flourish expressively without the restrictions he felt were imposed on him in Peru. His work first appeared in 1983 and has been featured internationally in Vogue, V magazine and Vanity Fair since then. He has practiced photography for 40 years and has also worked as a creative director, guest editor, museum founder, art collector/collaborator and entrepreneur.
When first looking at this photograph I can see that there are clear leading lines being shown as the background shows lots of vertical lines and a horizontal line going across past the elements. I can also see that there is rule of thirds as the woman would be shown to be close enough to being through the horizontal line of the grid and the dog shown on the vertical. One thing that really draws me to the photo is the vibrant colours that are shown more in the background of the image. I can see that the dog is on a lead which shows that it is being restricted from going towards the model which could show how important the female is, I can also see that the dog is looking up to the model and she is standing straight up which could show her hierarchy to the dog. Within the image I can also see that the dogs and the female are in more focus than the background which is more of a shallow depth of field. From the photograph I am assuming that light was being used from a low position as I can see the shadows of the female and dog towards the legs more and it is a harder shadow rather than when you see the shadow more towards the females upper body.
Personally, I don’t really like Mario Testino’s work in the fashion industry because I feel like it is too simple and too professional as they are all based in a studio with the correct lighting and resources for popular magazines. I feel as if there is no story behind each photograph as the only purpose is to show a celebrity in the latest trend of fashion.
MIKHAIL MALYUGIN
Mikhail Malyugin has been in the beauty industry, portrait, and food and advertising photography for more than 7 years. He advertises photography using portrait, nude and food onto magazines with the cooperation of advertising agencies and private clients all over the world.
Mikhail Malyugin didn’t receive any formal education in fine arts or photography and was self-taught. He said that he went was taught everything through trial and error, educational resources from the internet and tons of practice. He spent a lot of time retouching only one photograph at first up to 9 hours at times and now after trying all techniques and spending all his time doing so he has become a retoucher or digital artist.
A retoucher adds details for correction or improvements on a photograph by adding or removing flaws. They use colour to match the body part which is being changed to look more flawless.
Here are some of Mikhail Malyugin’s work which inspired me during my photoshoot.
Mikhail Malyugin was one of my inspirations in my work as I used more of his simple photography work for my photoshoot. When going out for the shoot we initially went to a place with a white background but the pictures weren’t coming out how we wanted due to the lighting so then we went to a different location. We looked at Mikhail Malyugin's photographs for a guideline of how we should have the poses and kept it as simple as we could. The more simple photographs had minimal makeup so the model also had minimal makeup for the photoshoot. During the editing I used the healing brush tool to make everything look more smooth and flawless and there was a lot of trial and error going on as some parts I felt that I tried to improve too much which created a few mistakes during the editing process.
THIERRY LE GOUèS
Thierry Le Gouès was born in France, Brest, in 1964. In 1986, he began his career of fashion photography by carrying out public campaigns and fashion shoots with Conde Nast Italy: Sail and Uomo Vogue, and continued collaborating with many more magazines. Thierry Le Gouès is one of the founders of the magazine "French - Revue de Modes". He is also the author of international advertising campaigns such as Replay, Nike, Paco Rabanne and Swatch. It currently resides in Paris and New York, the two capitals of fashion.
Thierry Le Gouès is not only a fashion photographer, but also a talented photographer, his work "Soul", is inspired by Black Africa. A photo that presents the female nude as a true ebony sculpture and light. "Popular", his first book offers a new vision of Cuba.
Thierry Le Gouès has released four books called “Havana Boxing Club”, “Amazones”, “Popular” and “Soul”.
For the photoshoot I will be going over to Brick Lane. The model has to be posed near fences so I will be going towards Shoreditch station. To get there I took the 262 to Stratford and a 388 towards Brick Lane. I used a Nikon D3300 with a lens of 18mm – 55mm. As I was focusing on Thierry Le Gouès I looked at his editorial section of his photographs and saw that in editorial 5 the model is wearing a bandana over his head and does boxing poses and that in each photo he has a straight facial expression. Once looking at Thierry’s work for inspiration I decided to make sure that my model has a straight face in each photograph too and would do poses which represent the area and typical poses young teenagers would do. The model just wore tracksuits as that gives more of a chilled and boxing vibe.
For the photoshoot the pictures near the fences will be inspired by this photograph and the model will be standing behind the fences.
For this photoshoot the intention was that the model wore tracksuits to show how people dress within my community. As the models in Thierry Le Gouès’ photographs are shown to have more light and are brighter than the background I did the same with my model by only selecting and editing him to be brighter. With the background I found a location where there were lots of graffiti to show more of an urban vibe.
During this photograph the model wore a mask and did a few gang signs as that is what people in my area do and I wanted to show the reality of it. Here I also brightened the model however I put the brightness of the mask much lower.
The original idea was for the model to stand behind fences which was inspired by Thierry’s photographs. However this idea didn’t really work out as the camera wouldn’t focus on the model and instead kept focusing on the fence itself.
Final shoot
Portraits
the plan
Tim Walker
Photograph people with clothes/objects that have a meaning behind it, something special
Location:
- Clear background with a clear table (Black/white background and table
- Hyde park
- Benches at parks
- Canning Town (Under bridge near the station)
- Hotel lobby
- Uncle's flat
Urban outfits to contrast with the park
Clothing and props:
- Hoodies, mask, leather gloves
- Books (A stack of books)
Estéves + Belloso
- Mansolutely - Campaign 2015
- Dressed in suits
- Top hat, flat caps
- Boy and girl dressed in suits
- Velvet suits
- Black/navy
- Slim fit suit
- Makeup (Minimal)
Tripod, flash guns, reflector
Inspirations
Tim Walker inspired photographs:
Tim walker was born in England in 1970, his interest in photography began at the Condé Nast library in London where he worked on the Cecil Beaton archive for a year before university. After a three year BA Honours degree in photography at Exeter College of Art, Tim Walker was awarded third prize as the Independent Young Photographer of The Year. He graduated in 1994.
Before Tim Walker was a full time assistant to Richard Avedon in New York he lived in London and worked as a freelance photographic assistant. When he returned from New York to go back to England he concentrate on portrait and documentary work for British Newspapers.
When Tim Walker turned 25 he produced his first fashion story for Vogue and ever since then he has photographed for British, Italian and American editions.
His first major exhibition was at the Design Museum in London, 2008 which coincided with the publication of his book “Pictures”.
After concentrating on photographic stills for 15 years, Walker is now also making moving film. He created his first short film called “The Lost Explorer” in 2010.
Tim Walker has received the Isabella Blow Award for Fashion Creator and the Infinity Award from the International Centre of Photography, he has also received an Honorary Fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society and the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery in London have included Tim Walkers photographs in their permanent collections.
Tim Walkers portrait photography has inspired me for my photoshoot as it gave me an idea to also use models to wear or hold an object which has a meaning behind it and it special to them that only they know and can represent. It also gave me an idea to have more of an urban fashion style to represent my area.
Estéves and Belloso inspired photographs:
SHOOT NO.1: TIM WALKER INSPIRED
For this shoot I wanted the model to wear or hold something which meant a lot to them or something they admired so for this photograph the model has worn a hoodie which was given as a gift. The jumper is related to the models admiration over a K-pop band named BTS.
The reason I feel this image is well composed is because I can see the contrast in colours between the models outfit and the background. The foreground is very bright due to the jumper being light pink against dull and plain colours.
During this photoshoot we located to the stairs within a flat and the lighting was not great as it was very dark when the pictures were being taken so I brought a flash gun out. However, the flash gun was not working so I had to resort to the flash on the camera which I didn’t really want to use for my photoshoot because I felt that it would take lots of detail out and there would be lots of sharp shadows. Fortunately I was able to position the camera and the model in ways so that no shadows were appearing.
Here I have used a white background like Tim Walker in his portrait photographs. The model is wearing a black hoodie and a mask to represent the society where I live and to show how people dress on a daily basis. The clothes worn for this photoshoot are more urban and casual wear.
SHOOT NO.2: Estéves and Belloso inspired
For this photoshoot I used a Nikon camera with a zoom lens and a fixed lens which were the 18mm – 55mm and the 50mm lens. For most of the photoshoot I used the 18 – 55mm lens as I needed a wide shot and more than one person within the frame but when needing only one person in the frame I used the 50mm lens as it kept the model in focus only and it was a very sharp image.
This is one of my favourite shots as only the model is in focus and there is a very small depth of field between the foreground and the background.
This photoshoot was located in South London in a flat and within this location I went to three different areas in the flat. One being the lobby, the other was the public garden for the entire flat and the other location was the side staircases in the building.
The aim of this photoshoot was to show both men and women in suited up in formal clothing and show the contrast between gender and complexion.
One thing that went wrong with this shoot was that while out in the garden it was very windy so the outfits that the models were wearing kept moving away such as the tie and scarf and due to that it took a while to get good photographs. Another thing that went wrong was that the flash guns were not working so I had to resort to the flash on the camera.
