1. Project Evaluation
Overall, I have enjoyed this project focusing on Fashion and Beauty really interesting
and fun as it has been self driven in the sense I have chosen what shoots do in
relation to my project and had more freedom than the projects in my AS year of
photography. I have also enjoyed looking into the idea of fashion and beauty in
different ways and how to present it – for example, similar to how it is commonly
perceived in magazines and advertising or taking a different approach showing the
darker sides – creating a story to go with the image and showing more than just the
fashion and beauty aspects in the shoot for instance, location and props has played a
fairly big role in many of the shoots I have done during this unit.
For the majority of this project I have come up with ideas and inspiration for ideas
easily, although creating them has, in a few cases, been hard to show in the way I
imagined whether it be down to availability of models, props, or location which did
not stop me from taking the image, it just changed the outcome which was not
always negative. However, for the majority of the shoots they went as planned and
in most cases turned out a lot better than I expected. One thing I focused on during
this project is using locations more and incorporating them into my shoots and
making sure the location fits the ideas in the shoot. Two strong examples are my
Brick Lane shoot and the Motel shoot. Both of these mentioned shoots use location
to broaden and deepen the ideas behind the image and the overall presentation,
with the Brick Lane location enhancing the fashion and colour aspect of the shoot
and the motel location giving a grungier effect that would not be achieved in a
studio.
Another area that I have worked with a lot and
looked at in terms of enhancing my images is the
use of Ring Flash. This helps to give a magazine
cover finish to portrait work, which therefore
making it seem more professional. This can only
be used for portraits, and only works well with
certain shoots that look better with no shadow
and bright white light. An example where this
worked really well was a shoot I done of
Rhiannon where the aim was to show a
cute, pink, girly beauty idea, therefore Ring
Flash worked really well, which helped
create a better overall finish including
showing the colours more vibrantly and
getting rid of shadow.

2. Something else I have
experimented with in this unit is the
use of film cameras. This is most
evident in my Motel shoot as using
a film camera was key to this shoot
as I wanted to achieve a slightly
more vintage, grungy look to go
with the location and fashion I was
showing. These film images came
out good, with good colour and had
to do very minimal editing. Some
images came out crisp, and others came out blurred and distorted. Although this was
the case, the effect looked really good and worked well with the ideas I was putting
forward in the shoot. I also used film cameras in the studio as well which came out
good, with the film camera giving a slightly more faded effect on the images.
The 3000-word essay although being difficult in some
areas, has also helped me along the way with this
project in terms of developing ideas and understanding
the fashion and beauty photography industry. For
example, looking into its origins has not only given me
information on the industry and how it was started and
who headed it, but looking at techniques and how
shoots were constructed, and how they developed
overtime, changing along with technological and social
advances. Another area that has helped me from this
essay was taking a deeper look into the leading fashion
photographers and how they fit into and changed
photography in their time.
Overall, I am really happy with this project as a
whole, and don’t think that it could have gone much
better due to the range of shoots I got looking at the
idea of fashion and beauty from different angles and
is something I could easily continue with due to the
range of ideas I have and how I can develop upon
and do different takes on shoots I have already
done. I am also happy with the research and
contextual side of this project also as it has given me
more insight into the area of fashion and beauty
photography and its leading, and new,
photographers, which has then impacted my shoots
in a positive way.