Mens Street Fashion & Magazine Research

I have decided to do Men's casual street fashion because I feel like this is something I know well and i wanted to create a magazine that I know I would be able to talk about. I also think that this is a very open shoot and can still be very interesting depending on how created you decided to be.  As for my final product I will be creating a magazine so I might create a casual and then a smart page, but both for affordable prices.

I have got some examples of magazine speeds and covers that I will help to inspire me with my own magazine and to help me generate layout ideas.

I am not too sure about the page spread personally this is not something that i would do myself. I think it looks too serious and I would want my magazine to look more fun and colour full, this page spread is very plan and basic.

I like this one because it think is it always important for people to have something to read, I don't think anyone wants to buy a magazine that is full of images only and no writing its pointless. I also like all the cropped products and accessories to help fill up the page and it helps to add colour.

I also like this one again because of the layout, how it has one page that is focused on an image and then the other is on a story but obviously my magazine is going to be about fashion so it may not contain as much writing as some other magazines. 

I love the photograph style I think this is something I could easily created out on location. I also really like the translucent writing over the image, it really helps to brighten it and gives it that modern look and feel about it,

I really like the image layout again for this, not so much all the writing but I think this would be a good idea for a page I also like the contrast of the images.

These are some examples of magazine covers that I could recreate and help to inspire me.

I really like the busy cover look, I am not too sure about it over lapping the writing on the image, to me its feels really cramped and squished.

I definitely prefer this cover because it is simple, light colour and it is very welcoming, the text doesn't over lap too much with the image and all the colours work very well together to create a nice even contrast.  I like the simple plan background I think that it is very easy to work with.

mens modeling poses

This is a small collection of images of male model poses, i thought it would be a good idea to look at male poses to help my model and to help me direct them. This was also very helpful to give me the idea on what type of poses, I wanted to use and what effect they make give, this also helped me to decided what type of like I wanted and which one would be most effective.

High Key And Low Key And Lighting Attachments

These are a few examples of high key lighting, this gives a very bright and white effect to your images. It also makes everything appear very clean and crisp, you get every part of your object with no shadows. I think this is a good technique for very clean bright photograph, it is good for positive, happy images, or if you want some features to stand out more then others you make make them darker and have a light and pale background. 

These are examples of  low key lightning. They are a lot more suttle and gentile to look at. They make the skin appear really smooth and clear, this kind of lighting is good for very dark photos, when you want that dark feeling of fear, scary and different emotions. I also think this is good when you want to focus on different things and make the jump out to your viewer so they don't get distracted. 

Beauty dishes are a great tool for any photographer; the light produced is harder than a softbox but softer than an umbrella. You can also add different modifiers to change how they work. The light can be made harder when you use a grid, which you’ll see below, helping to add to the versatility of the modifier.

Shooting in the studio has many benefits and having total control over your lighting is one of them. You can let your imagination run wild and visualise endless ways to shoot your subject. That’s the fascination for me, using any number of different accessories to create subtle effects and mood changes. To do this – to create those different moods – needs a type of accessory that will control the light and give very small, controllable pools that we can use like tiny brush strokes.

Soft light
Soft light is light that creates shadows with a gradual transition from light to dark. There are no hard shadow lines. It is created from a scattered or diffused light source. Soft light is found where the lighting is indirect or where it passes through a diffuser, clouds or some other medium which scatters the light. Diffused light can be light that has bounced off one or more surfaces before it hits a photographic target.

Hard light
Hard light creates shadows with a sharp edge. There is a negligible transition from light to dark. Hard light is created by strongly focussed light travelling from a small (or relatively small), single-point light source like the Sun, a focussed beam of light, or an undiffused light bulb).

Standard reflectors are your everyday reflector for the studio flash head. They’re usually made of metal (with a silver matte interior finish, a polished silver finish or a granular metallic finish), and they direct the light output in a 90 to 120-degree beam. A standard reflector is the typical light/reflector set-up for shining the light into bounce cards, through diffusion, and grids or cutters. One thing to know about standard reflectors is that the wider they are, the softer the light you get from the lamp unit. Additionally, the shape and interior finish can affect “softness” of the light. While standard reflectors seem very basic in their usage, they should become a staple in your studio lighting set-ups.

Soft boxes work by confining the light from a lamp into a closed chamber and releasing it through at least one layer of diffusion material. As the light passes through the translucent fabric it scatters, producing a very even and soft result.Uses for the soft box fall predominantly into two categories: Key Light, as the principle light source, and Fill Light, as a secondary light to reduce contrast. Although any style of light source can be used for key or fill applications, the use of a harsh light for fill renders a poor result. Soft boxes, on the other hand, are perfect for fill light because they don’t cast harsh shadows.

Fashion Photographers Research.

Contemporary 

Steven Meisel 

•  is an American fashion photographer, who obtained popularity and critical acclaim with his work in US and Italian Vogue.
• He is now considered one of the most successful fashion photographers in the industry, shooting regularly for both US and Italian.
• He was born in 1954. His fascination for beauty and models started at a young age. At that time Meisel would not play with toys, but would instead draw women all the time. He used to turn to magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar as sources of inspiration for his drawings.
• One of Meisel's first jobs was to work for fashion designer Halston as an illustrator. He also taught illustration part-time at Parsons.
• Meisel is notorious for rarely giving interviews or being photographed. However, in one of few cases, he was interviewed by Ingrid Sischy for Vogue Paris.

I think that this photograph is definitely very effective because of the black and white contrast also I think it has a lot of juxtaposition, I don't know if the photographer was aiming for all this contrast and opposites and it all works really well together. I love the bold fashion, its not something that people would imperially wear now. I think that is why I like fashion because because you can be bold and wild because it is very open to interpretation. I do not think that this was photographed in a studio I think that it was taken outside against a wall, using natural light as well as artificial light, you can tell this because of the shadows and the contrast.


This image is just so creative and different it appears to me that it has been taken on a film camera because it has that feel and effect about it, I love the background effect it is so different and the contrast between the girl and the white smoke and the blue background and the white smoke, it all works really well. I am really not sure how this photograph was taken it looks really interesting and the contrast is amazing, i love how it looks, I think that this is somthing i am going to look into and maybe try a little bit myself.

Alex Sainsbury 

• "It's not been easy finding myself a position in the contemporary art world," admits the supermarket heir Alex Sainsbury. 
• Now, after two decades on the sidelines of the contemporary-art world, the 41-year-old has finally found his calling in the shape of an 18th-century grade one-listed building tucked away in a lane on the edge of the City of London.

I think that this is the type of image that you would find in a very modern magazine, or on a fashion blog. I think this photograph is very dark but soft and elegant because it has got very dark bold colours, blacks and reds. But it also has very thin silk clothing and smooth curly soft hair, which gives it the soft feeling. I think that the pale skin and the light jewellery use is also making it more elegant, it makes it more casual and less sexual. I think that this photograph was again done in the studio again I think they used a soft light box, to get a wide range of light that is all even and smooth across the full image.

This a different type of fashion genre, its not focusing on clothings it is a little bit different it is focusing on beauty side of fashion. I think they photographed this in a studio, using a soft box or a beauty dish, because of the lack of shadows but the bright clear lightening. I like modern fashion because it is so bold and crazy and different this type of photography really allows you to think outside the box an be creative.

Historical Photography 

Herb Ritts 

• Herb Ritts began his photographic career in the late 70s and gained a reputation as a master of art and commercial photography.
•  In addition to producing portraits and editorial fashion for Vogue, Vanity Fair, Interview, and Rolling Stone, Ritts also created successful advertising campaigns for Calvin Klein, Chanel, Donna Karan, Gap, Gianfranco Ferré, Gianni Versace, Giorgio Armani, Levi’s, Pirelli, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Valentino, among others
•  His work often challenged conventional notions of gender or race. Social history and fantasy were both captured and created by his memorable photographs of noted individuals in film, fashion, music, politics, and society.

This photograph was clearly photographed in a studio, even though the light is clear and there is no shadows on the background but there is one of her body but I still think they used a Maybe a slandered reflection disk, this is just a guess I am not sure as I have never used this equipment so i am not sure on the effect. This image is very to the point nothing to distract your eyes, this is also interesting because of the pose the model is doing which is different compared to other fashion photographs I have researched so far. Even know it contains nudity it is still very clean clean you cant see anything that some people may say is inappropriate.  

I really like this photograph because it is very playful and fun, i think when it comes to doing my own shoots it is going to be really dark and mysterious or really cute and positive. I am not sure if this is in a studio or just in a normal room, but they have used a very bright light i am not sure if it was photographed in black and white or later changed to black and white, but I love the effect that this gives, I think colour popping the bow on her head would really make it jump and stand out a lot more to an audience.  I really like the elegant nudity and the old fashion hair looks so pretty I think that this is somthing that i would consider using when i do my own shoot.

Francesco Scavullo 

• Francesco Scavullo (January 16, 1921 – January 6, 2004) was an American fashion photographer best known for his work on the covers of Cosmopolitan and his celebrity portraits.
• Born in Staten Island, Scavullo began to pursue his fascination with images of beauty by picking up his father's camera and taking snapshots, using his sisters as models.
•  He soon moved on to Vogue. Scavullo spent three years as Horst P. Horst's assistant, studying Horst's techniques.

A lot of Francesco's work is in this dark, black and white effect. I liked this photograph because I really like this fashion look, it is almost vintage and it starting to come back into fashion, the high waist denim jeans and the white tucked in shirt. I think that this was taken in the studio using low key light, because it is not very bright but still lit up enough for it to be clear. Again the pose done by the model is very effective because it is different and makes it jump out to the viewer.

Again I think that this photograph was taken in the studio using low key light using a light box, to influence and spread the light to make it appear clear and natural. This one does appear to be a little bit more up to date and more fashionable, I love the big messy hair look and the white jeans with the pale nail varnish but the tanned skin. The black top and the white jeans are the perfect contrast and juxtaposition and the tanned skin works well with the background, so that it all doesn't blend he wants to model to be bold but not too heavy and dark on the page and i think he does this well.  

Final Evaluation

Task one was again like at the beginning of every new task was just research, which I understand its always good to get some ideas and inspiration for your project, but it can get very boring and dull most of the time and it would be good if we could mix it up a little bit.   

Task two was another research task. We were asked to research photographic processing laboratories. I did not enjoy this task research is deftly not my favourite thing to do and I only managed to find anything apart from pro-am. When I was looking on-line for others I couldn't find many and any i did find, didn't have any clear online information. 

Task three was to go out and photograph digital images of glass. I liked this task as it enabled us to get out of the classroom and to do some photography. However, finding interesting glass things in Bradford was difficult and for it to be different was hard as well because we photograph in Bradford a lot and it again can get very boring and bull. 

Task four was to go out and shoot a black and white film. I decided that I would go out into Bradford and try to get some interesting photographs which was difficult, it wasn't very nice weather which benefit me as it means that I could go out and try get some interesting photographs of the rain, which I has never done before. Photographing rain can be difficult and very cold but I got some very interesting images from this shoot.  

Task five was again, a black and white film however, using an object. I decided to photograph my glass crustal ball and a jack dandles bottle I used the this to manipulate the reflections and make the appear different, i enjoyed playing with the angles to get different effects. 

Task six was to do risk assessments for the darkroom including the do's and don'ts. It was a very simply, straight forward task and it didn't take that long to complete. It was good to refresh the memory of the rules in the darkroom as we haven't been in for so long.

Task seven was my favourite task by far. It was to shoot reflections. I really enjoyed looking for the reflections and trying to get the most unique ones. although the majority of the time was spent looking for them, I enjoyed photographing them and finding out what apatures will would work and what wouldn't.

The comparison shoot was very interesting. I liked enjoying shooting on both camera's side by side to see the differences and also to see how different but how sometimes how similar the images come out on colour film and digital. I really enjoyed it. I always enjoy photographing with film the outcomes are always interesting and different every time. 

The Christmas task was pretty easy. It was to simply photograph baubles and lights. There wasn't much too it therefore, it felt like it was just taking images. I did not really enjoy this as Christmas is not my favourite. 

Task ten was to manipulate your images. I found this very frustrating as I am terrible on Photoshop and always find it difficult. When i stopped getting stressed and started to play around a little it all become easy and was more fun. 

Putting a person in a bottle was one of the easiest to do when it came to photo manipulation. It was quite simple when it came to photoshope however, whilst in the studio and getting the right positions for the model to be able to fit in was quite difficult however, it came out very well. I enjoyed it a lot.

Over all this Unit taught me a lot about photoshop and I enjoyed being able to go into the darkroom again. I really enjoyed the amount of freedom we had and I also liked playing around in photoshop.

Glass Photoshoot

For this task we had to photograph people and make it appear as if they were inside a bottle. 

We did this by photographing people on a white backdrops and then we had to photograph a glass bottle, also on a white background, then we had to edit and put the together on Photoshop. I did this by cutting out the outline of a person and copying it onto the bottle and cropping it and re-sizing it to make it fit and appear like they are inside the bottle.   

This is my first attempt at this effect and I didn't think it worked well with a white background, i thought that it made it blend too much into the background and having it all white brought too much attention away from the bottle. I also in this photograph you could not see the outline of the bottle very well and its looks very 2d and i wanted it to look 3d to make it appear more realistic. 

This was my second attempt and I felt that is was a lot better then my first attempt. The bottle was a lot more clear and it definitely appears more 3D and realistic. I really like how he has got his foot and hand on ever side of the bottle which gives it the sense of size and makes it feel more real when you are looking in it, 

This idea was a little bit different because he is not aside the bottle i wanted to do one where he was holding the bottle again messing with sizes, making the person look smaller and the bottle look bigger. I don't think its looks as realistic because the hands don't touch the bottle well but apart from that I really like this image as well. 

This is another one of my favourite ones, I don't think it is as good as my second one because I don't think that you get a sense of scale and i think without scale it is just not as effective as all. It doesn't bring you in as much as some of the others photographs do. 

Manipulating Images On Photoshop

Manipulating Images 

I manipulated a lot of these images in the same way, I created all off these images in Photoshop by opening an images, then going to filter and just playing around and experimenting. 

I created this image by using filters on Photoshop, open find edges and playing around with the levels so that you could see the details in the building and the reflection. I decided to keep it this way because I thought it was a grate way to show the detail and textures between the two buildings, the new and the old one in the reflection. I also think that this helps to sign to stand out which ways "we are moving" and I think this is good because this goes with my early idea of how this is representing the old building and the new and how the world is moving on and changing, i think this image is a perfect example of juxtaposition. 

If I had to name this images I would call it the abstract selfi, because it is in fact a selfi and I think all the lines and the tile effect makes it appear slightly abstract.  I created this image by again going to filters, diffuse tiles and selection background colour. I think that this is a really effective for this image because it goes so well with the mirror and reflections and helps to brake it up and make it more interesting to look at. 

This image is defiantly one of my least favourite photographs not because it is a bad images but because it is so popular, i know that a lot of other people would have done the exact same image or very similar and the puts me off I want to be different and try somthing new, but i still decided to experiment with this image anyway, to try and make it unique and stand out just that little bit more. I created this image by going to filter, twirl and then playing around with it to see how strong i wanted the twirl to be, i am definitely one of them people that think sometimes less is definitely more and this is what i thought with this image. 

I really like this image, I really like black and white images and I think that it is hard for anything to look bad in black and white, I think that is why I enjoy working with film camera and black and white film. I feel like the images are a lot more effect and unique definitely not the same as taking an images on a digital camera. I created this image by using filters, wind and the selection from the rights, so that it gives your image that windswept look. 

This effect was definitely one of my favourites throughout this task. I really enjoyed experimenting with the different shapes and textures you could create with this particular tool, I think that this tool is really effective and is always going to give really interesting and unique results. I created this effect by again using the filters, liquefy and selecting the move tool, to grab and pull out the shape and colour of the object. 

Again I think that this image is very abstract, I love working with reflections I think that you can do so much stuff with them, they are so easy to experiment with so many things. I created this effect by going to filters, liquefy and playing with the move tool, this tool is amazing and definitely for my favourite i love creating abstract and unique different.  

Again I used the same technique as before but it was interesting to see what this tool would do to different textures and how it would effect the finial image outcome.  I do think this is very effect maybe not as much as others but it is definitely one of my favourite images.   

This was another one of my favourite photographs, because it is so pretty and different and a little more ex stream compared to my other edits. I created this by going to filters, distort and then wave and edited  it so see how wavy i wanted it to be. 

This image is in poor quality just because of the upload my final image is very clear . I created this image by going to filters and going to solarization. it works really well because of the dark colours. 

This is my favourite manipulation photograph because it is so simple and sometimes a little goes a long way and I think that is the case in this photograph. Again this one is very poor quality just because of the upload.  

Black And White Dark Room Work.

 Rain Drops 

This is one of my photos that I developed in in the darkroom. Its of a bench in Bradford with rain drops on.
The final I exposed it for 22 seconds. Grade 3 Aperture: 5.6
 Image Evaluation

I Really like this image because of how clear you can see the rain drops. I also like how i have used depth of field because it is only focused on the metal bit and the rain drops but the rest of the image is out of focus. We had to do clear and quarter inch boarders. I think i got my exposure and everything perfect, i am so happy with how is turned out so clear. I think black and white adds that creepy old vintage feel to your image. If i was going to re-shoot this i may take it from further away but not too far because you would loose the quality of the rain drops. 

This is my test strip i did to get the right exposure and grade. I did 5 second strips 3x When doing this i decided that i would try 22 seconds and keep all the grade and aperture the same. When doing the test strip i new straight away that 22 seconds was going to enough and i really thought that it brought out the detail in my photograph and helped make the water drops more clear, In images like this i think the darker the better because it really helps with the contrast and to boost your image and to make it stand out and clear. 

I did a little small full page test just to make sure that it was right before i did a full size print for my final photograph, again i really liked the contrast and detail so i decided to make this one of my final images. 

Broken Glass

This was my final outcome for my broken glass photo. My total exposure time was 13 seconds. Grade 3 Aperture 5.6.
Broken Glass Evaluation.  
This is a photograph of a broken mirror outside an old club in Bradford, Again i like how i focused clearly on the broken glass and nothing else and all the background is out of focus. Again this would have been good for the last album project but i think it is very effective because it is clear and evenly exposed.  

This was my Test Strip for my Broken Glass Photo, i did 5 seconds exposures 5x . 
On this test strip you can see that i exposed each bit for 5 seconds a time and i really liked the 10 and 15 second strips so i decided to go somewhere in the middle which was 13 seconds, this worked really well and give my image the perfect amount of contrast, i loved the details in the broken glass and the cracks but i also liked how all the reflection was bluey which makes it so much more eye catching and definitely focuses of the main point of the project these which is glass.  

 Traffic Lights 
This was similar to the image that I shot in digital and thought it would be a good idea to give it a go in black and white first to see how it turned out, but this image was very flat and boring because it was so simple and without the colour from the traffic lights it just wasn't as effective as the digital photograph. I also wasn't very sure how to expose film cameras for the amount of time that i needed to capture all the traffic lights.

Aperture 5.6 Grade 3 Exposure 6 seconds 5x , I thougt that all these where too dark and was not capturing the detail enough so i tried to lighten it and did a second test strip. When I did my first test strip i thought that it was too flat and that i needed to up the contrast a lot to even make it work a little bit without colour so i upped the contrast to Grade 21/2

This was the second test strip i did for this image i changed the aperture to 4 and grade to 2 1/ 2 with the same exposure but only 4x.
Changing the Grade did definitly help to improve my image and lighten it a lot but it still didnt do what i wanted and i didn't feel strong enough about this image to proceed. 
I decided now to go any further with this image as i didn't feel it was strong enough to be one of my final images as it wasn't very effective in black and white, but in colour it would be captivating and stand out a lot more. I may try and re-shoot this in digital and maybe in colour film because i do think it is an interesting idea to play with.