Fashion Photography & Professional Practice

We had a workshop and induction on how to use two different types of cameras; one which we were already fairly accustomed to using - a standard Canon digital camera as well as a Japanese manufactured film camera I had never used prior to this session - a Zenza Bronica SQB. Shown below this camera is very different to a digital camera, with a lot more steps in order to take a photo. The left shows the pop up lens in which you look into to take a photo, and on the right there is a picture of two different film cameras - one set up normally with a handle on the right and the other with the part which holds the film exposed.

It was new to me as you had to disconnect the insert the film, wind some bits, focus the lens (no autofocus) twist some other bits, just to take one photo - and you were limited to the amount of photographic slides you had for each photo - for us that was 15 - so each photo you took needed to be perfect - otherwise you've wasted some expensive film. The shutter, as I noticed also made this funny sort of click/pop sound when it was released. Still although I didn't enjoy using it as much (especially in a practical sense as someone born in the 2000s who is used to taking photos using easy-to-use modern equipment) it was interesting to use and play around with something rather vintage. It was almost like a toy to me with all the little buttons, twisting bits, shutting parts, the pop up lens and how you could take it apart and put it back together.

Using the equipment above I created a range of immersive shots using edited imagery as a canvas projected onto a blank wall (from the ink blot workshop combined with some other images I thought were interesting) with different people, including myself in a few of the shots to try and add to the chaotic scene I created. I had to balance the projector on a book in order to adjust its angle to control what part of the subject it shined on.

I definitely wouldn't say fashion photography is either my strength or my passion but as usual I enjoyed experimenting with different media to create art. I also adjusted the settings on the Canon digital camera to create different effects.

Stage 1

On the contact sheet below it shows the range of different outcomes I produced simply using one of my background images which I created in photoshop with people standing in front. As you can see the first few were relatively underexposed so not much could be seen. The sharp contrast was something I really liked about these photos towards the end.

Stage 2

After I made this contact sheet of images I produced using the equipment we had (including the projector, the digital cameras as well as the white sheet worn by Rowan in a few of the pictures), I picked my favourite images from this collection to edit. This is like the process photographers use when choosing what images to use for a magazine - choosing from a range of similar images with slight differences. I find using a contact sheet is easiest when displaying all my work at once. Also similar to professional practice, the outcome, or publication, which are the pictures of my final favourite images selected - all come from the contact sheet. Here are my edited images; I only picked the well lit ones from the original outcomes:

From these images I have selected a few to be posted on my instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/yadavh.uca/) which is the final stage of my professional practice process.