SDA- Health of the Highstreet in Cornwall

With a keen interest in the news and things that are not just effecting large aspects of the country but also having a detrimental effect on a local level i have been researching and tracking changes in the high street since Christmas and have found that countless local small business' loved by the local people are being forced to close die to hikes in business rates,rents and the increase in large corporate business' that can charge far less than any local business can dream of.
I first visited "Party Zone" in January of this year which i have talked about in previous posts and since then have found a recurrence of the same story from business to business and not just in one market for example cafe's, fancy dress shops, bridal dress companies have all been effected by the same two or three factors and the list can go on.

Last week i visited a sweet shop in Falmouth called "the chocolate box" this time i found that the story again related to corporate competition that they simply compete with any longer. The owners of the business have agreed to an interview over email to ensure that they can get there message out there within the editorial section of the SDA which will be presented to various Cornwall focused magazines such as Cornwall live.
In hind sight i definitely should taken a flash with me to this shoot as the lighting in the shop was incredibly poor and the large windows didn't provide enough ambient light as they were covered over with large closing down stickers.

Spring/Summer fashion second shoot

After the first shoot i learn't a lot about lighting, composition and ensuring location conveyed the correct connotations to fit the theme.
The second shoot was carried out at Pendennis point on a hot, sunny day and despite waiting until 4pm to shoot the sun was still high in the sky and was producing some harsh shadows while also causing my model to squint although that was partly the fault of the strong winds present at the coast on the day.

The shoot consisted of two different outfits which both me and the model/fashion blogger agreed where suitable for a spring/summer article. we tried several locations for shooting to create diversity within the work and also find various lighting scenarios.
Throughout the shoot i experimented with different compositions as i was baring in mind that the images where to be used in an editorial context which allowed me to try compositions which may not otherwise work such as the image seen below. This image would usually contain too much negative space to be considered as a final shot or atleast for me, However the extreme volume of negative space in this context allows for headlines, interviews and intros. My only issue with this image would be the pose which while shooting became un avoidable because of the wind.We tried multiple poses but this was the only one which looked remotely natural and comfortable for both the model and the audience

This next image is one which i have mixed feelings about from a technical stand point.The aim for this image was to create something which could work as a double page spread and also be cropped into to work as a tighter portrait if required and from that idea it totally works however, because of the sunlight there were some harsh shadows casting across the model which usually i could easily blow out by simply using some fill flash. This image though was shot between 150-300mm meaning that i was stood quite a way back from the model in order to capture this composition using the aperture settings i desired meaning that even with some fill flash added it simply didn't make too much of a difference because of inverse square law.I also tried to use the flash a slave however this didn't seem to work which is something for me to practice before future shoots. So my problem with this image is the distracting shadows which cover the clothing and the models face and will be something i discuss with my lecturers.

I will leave this blog post with just a few more examples of images from the shoot.

Spring/Summer Fashion

PEP160 has me experimenting with many different genres within photography as i try to find my niche.So this week i have been doing a shoot based around fashion designed for fashion magazines such as Vogue. The shoot for this editorial piece is happening in two parts.the first part of the shoot being the content within this blog where i met up with a popular fashion blogger to photograph one outfit in the woods in order to bring a sense of adventure and create a more aesthetic scene for portraying the idealized vision the magazines portray.

so my idea for this shoot was to combine ambient light with a hint of fill flash to create soft aesthetic images that compliment the clothing in order to work successfully as a fashion editorial set. I looked at posing and location to create narrative and the colour pallet for the shoot was picked out by Ellie after i had briefed her on the exactly what i was aiming for