Shoot Two (1920s) - Work Record

Plans for the Shoot

This shoot will be based on the 1920s. This was a time of very heavy, dark make up and so I will be incorporating this into my shoot. Like the last shoot, I will conduct my shoot against a black background as this will help to increase contrast in my image and therefore bring more attention to the face of my model. In photoshop, I will be adding grain and blurriness to my image - as I did with my last shoot - however this time I will not desaturate it as much and add a sightly orange filter to the image to create a sepia effect. This was something that I found common in portraiture images from the 1920s and so I feel that this will help make my images more accurate. 

What I Actually Achieved

I did not feel that this shoot was as successful. Whilst I feel that I created a make up look that was a good reflection of 1920s trends, I feel that the overall look of the images was not that good. Firstly, I did not style the hair as I planned for my images to just focus on make up. However, when looking at my results, I found that it made the whole image seem off and it made it difficult to decipher what decade that was actually supposed to represent. This was also the case when it came to clothes - I now feel that I should have had the model dress in a way that was similar to the 1920s. Secondly, I felt that the images seemed quite flat as I used soft box lights, which washed out any shadows that existed. Whilst I do not mind how this looks, when I looked at 1920s portraiture, there were a lot of shadows in the images. Below are an image that I did and didn't like.

I felt that this image was the best from my shoot. As it is quite close up, it crops out the clothing and hair that I mentioned did not work well with the look. Not only this, but it makes the sole focus of this image the make up, and helps to really capture the details in the image. I liked the editing from this image as I felt that I got the right balance of colour to create a sepia effect and that I was able to still maintain contrast between the model and the background. Though I used the soft box lights for this image, I was still able to capture a slight shadow under her chin which helps to create more depth.

This image was my least favourite from the shoot. I asked the model to have her eyes closed for this image as I wanted to capture the eyeshadow. However, I feel that it makes the image seem off and not very pleasing to the eye. I also feel that the framing is off in this image as she is slightly off centre, creating a lot of empty space towards the left of the photo. Also with the framing, I feel that I was slightly too close to her face and therefore it is cropped too close.

What I Am Going to Do Next

In my next shoot, I will experiment more with the lighting as I want to create more shadows and depth in my images. To do this, I will most likely explore using a beauty dish as I feel that this will help me achieve the perfect amount of shadows. I will also plan more for how I want the models to look, as before I only planned the make up looks and failed to focus on hair and clothing. This is an element that I really want to work on and so I will therefore ensure that I plan accordingly for the looks.