Fashion Photo Shoot

Once I had completed my accessory, (which took the form of a body crown, made from polystyrene chips creating multiple spinal cords), I documented my work by way of a photo shoot. The concept that I came up with was related to my theme of changing the human form. My body adornment piece is an extension of the bone structure, so for the shoot I wanted to play on the opposite of that and find something that reflected stereotypical ideas of body image. That’s when I came up with ballet. Ballet is all about perfection, and body image is an important part of that. Some women actually take it so far that they starve themselves so that their bones start to protrude on their back and chest. 

After looking through magazines, I found adverts from Balenciaga and Chanel that used reflections to enhance their image, which I thought related really well to my project because it could make my photograph look as if it was located in a dance studio. 

It was quite important to me to use a black model when choosing whom I wanted to cast for the shoot, to highlight the lack of diversity within professional ballet. Even though in the past few years, companies such as the Royal Ballet have tried to show that they do include other ethnicities in their casting, they tend to be Asian as opposed to people with an African origin. This is largely to do with the build of their bodies. Stereotypical ballerinas have almost no curves when it comes to the bust and bum areas, and many black/African women don't fit this description. 

I tried to keep the colours matching to my scheme that runs through my sketchbook so that it looks as if it flows nicely. 

This wasn't the outcome that I actually envisioned at the beginning of the week. I wanted a naturally dark background with spotlighting on the model, but in the space that I used I found this to be extremely difficult so I tried to develop the pictures on Photoshop using some of the techniques I learnt during the digital print week. 

The thing that I was happiest about was how my actual accessory piece turned out, but unfortunately I think that the angle of the model closest to the front of the photo highlights how thin and flimsy the piece is. The thing that surprised me the most from my outcome was how much I actually liked the layered effect of the two different images. I think it actually makes the model look really empowered which is something that I wanted to make sure I got across. I think if I have the time, I would like to reshoot as I don't think I am entirely happy with the original images that I started off with, but unfortunately I was running out of time and took the decision to work with the material that I had.