Work Record - Monday 24th February 2014

Preparation; 
The aim of the shoot is to show the idea of fantasy through the idea of youth and the idea of dressing up and becoming someone - or something - else.

The above image gives me some ideas on how I want the model to look, happy natural and smiley - portraying the idea of youth and innocence. The bottom image is of the popular character from Monsters Inc that the model is dressing up as. This indicates the colours I will be shooting, helping me plan in advance any editing and choosing the correct colour backdrop. 

To Prepare I need to; 

• Book the studio
• Decide on a backdrop colour
• Plan on any specific poses and lighting I will use 

What I hope to achieve; 
I hope to achieve a fun and colourful photo shoot showing ideas of youth and becoming someone else.

What I actually achieved; 
I am really happy with how this shoot turned out, as I got a variety of images showing my ideas. The only thing that let the shoot down a bit was the fact that the model was a bit unwell which made the shoot harder, and the only way to keep the shoot going and make sure Tommy was okay was to let him have his dummy. This did not implicate the shoot too much though as I still got good results and the dummy matched the colours in the costume. I decided on a grey background as it would help make the colours stand out well. I used two softbox lights to ensure that light was even as I wanted the images to be as bright as I could get without using a Ring Flash. In terms of poses, I just let Tommy move around naturally, sit and crawl as I wanted him to feel comfortable to make sure I got natural, happy shots.
When it came to editing, I mainly just made the images brighter and increased contrast.

 This is my favourite image from the shoot. I like the composition and how its filled, with Tommy's face being central to it. I also like how he is looking off just behind the camera. When editing, I decided this would be a good image to use selective colour on which turned out really well and works with this image.

This is another image I like. What I like most is how tommy is just sitting central to the composition and filling it entirely. I also like the shadows cast in the back of the image. One thing that I think ruins this image a bit is the fact that one horn on the costume has bent down and cannot be seen. Although this stands out, it does not ruin the image overall.





What I am going to do next; 
I am happy with how this shoot turned out, and the idea itself I do not feel I need to redo or focus any more time on it. I am however going to look at the idea of using a child/baby again for shoots to represent different ideas of fantasy.