CONCEPTUAL PORTRAITS : Test Shots, Mid Point Review & Crit :

I wanted to experiment with a couple of ideas, so I decided to do a couple of test shoots. My first idea was to show the feeling of being lost in your own emotions. I was inspired by images created by Mario Sanchez Nevado with paint on glass. I really liked them because they portray how I feel at the moment - I feel like I have so many emotions I just don't know what to think anymore. Here is an image from this test shoot :

I quite like the strong contrast between light and dark in this image, however, I don't really like much else about it. I think the image simply looks like someone stood behind a piece of glass with paint on it. I don't think that this idea is good grounds for an entire set of images. They would all look fairly similar and not have much variation. Doing this test shoot has made me realise that I don't want to work on this idea any further.

Test shoot 2 :

The other idea that I had was inspired by Bill Brandt's photographs of body parts. He photographs them in a way that makes them almost look like architecture. His poses are really strong and he takes his images from angles which makes body parts look almost larger than they are and less human like. I liked this idea but I wanted to create mine with a feminine element to them. Here are a few images from this shoot :

Here are some pictures from my test shoot inspired by images taken by Bill Brandt and Edward Weston. I really like how these shots have turned out, and I am going to develop on this idea for my final set of images. Now that I have decided to further this idea, I will use this photoshoot as my first one, and do more shoots to make up a set of images for my project. 

Critique:

Today we had a critique session where we showed the class our images and I got feedback on them. I presented these 4 images for critique. Here is some of the feedback that I got :

My class said that my idea was strong and unique. They said that their favourite image was the one with the hands and nails (4th one of the ones above). They said that they liked the aesthetics that I had used - the softness, black and white format and interesting angles. They said that individually some of the images have been shot in a different style, but as a set they work together. They made a connection between my work and the work of Horst. P. Horst because my images are quite feminine. They liked how I had lit the subject and edited my images to bring out lots of different tones of grey. 

Things to improve:

My class told me that it might be quite good to have images of different body parts such as shoulders and backs. Another thing someone suggested was taking pictures of the models faces to make the images more relatable - the body parts will now be assigned to a person. I will try this but I think I like the way that my images are quite abstract and they may not really need to be connected to a person.

Where to take the project:

Do another shoot, playing around with composition and try to take pictures of different body parts and faces. My class also said it might be a good idea to print my images really big to take them out of perspective as they will no longer be human size, they will be human body parts shot in an abstract way, printed in an abnormal size. I will consider this when printing my work.