Bibliography

Taylor, M. (2011). Tom Ford Biography. Available: http://www.vogue.co.uk/spy/biographies/tom-ford-biography. Last accessed 23rd Feb 16.

http://www.tomford.com/eye-quad/T1EL.html?dwvar_T1EL_color=HYN#start=2


http://video.vogue.com/watch/vogue-in-motion-series-trailer

Unit Evaluation

I have thoroughly enjoyed this project, I feel like I have learnt a lot about shooting advertising and editorial images and have really enjoyed the chance to be innovative and free with our designs and concepts, having this creative freedom has really inspired me and driven me to create work that I am proud of and also experiment with new photography techniques which I initially thought would be well beyond my abilities.

I feel like my skills in photography have progressed greatly from the last unit, I understand set ups and also how to create the shadows and mood that I want through lighting, I have also found a new love for post production and I think this shows in my final photos especially the Tom Ford images, this took a few attempts as my first drafts of the edits made the model look green, but after some constructive feedback I feel like I have created a professional looking image.

I had a few problems on both of my shoots, for my GLEAM shoot when I first shot it, I could not deal with the stress of trying to do such a complex shoot on my own as you have to go round and test every light because they all have a different colour gel on them, to solve this problem I simply just re shot all of my images and this benefited me greatly as the second time I perfected my lighting set up. For the Tom Ford shoot I had problems with lighting, I really wanted to shoot with the spotlight head but this was not available on the day, I think If I had got this then my images would have looked a lot more dramatic and would fit my brief better, but I had to keep calm and work with what I had and I do still believe I have still created a successful image.

The final thing that I think has let me down with my images is not shooting a front back and side image for my editorial shoot, my images are very similar and I should have been a bit more experimental with my posing and composition.

Overall I am really pleased with my progress, I feel like my skills have improved greatly compared to the last set of images that I created for Digital Image 1 and I thoroughly look forward to doing more shoots and playing with different lighting set ups and techniques.

Call Sheets

GLEAM Spray Test

For my GLEAM shoot I experimented by mixing glycerine, smashed up glitter and pigments and water to create texture and sheen on the skin. I have created one gold and one purple and this will be sprayed all over the hair. These are the test images to see what they would look like on the skin

GOLD

The first is the gold just sprayed on the skin out the bottle and the second is the gold rubbed in. This creates a beautiful glow.

 PURPLE

The first images again are of the purple sprayed onto the skin and then rubbed in. As you can see from the images the mixture is a lot thicker and creates like water droplets, and when rubbed in it sheers out and leaves chunky bits of glitter that will add texture to my models skin.

Tom Ford Final Edit

I think I edited my tom ford images poorly as I spent too much time trying to edit too many rather than focusing on one and making it perfect.

To create this I used the liquify tool to enlarge the eyes and lips and also tidy up the jawline and side of the face, I used the dodge and burn tool to increase the contrast of certain areas, and the clone stamp tool and the spot healing brush to make the skin look perfect whilst also using frequency seperation to keep the skin texture. I also covered over the tattoo on the models wrist.

I am really pleased with this final edit, the skin looks a lot more flawless and after Sharon's feedback about the dodgy fake tan I think the image looks a lot more professional now that it is gone. I do think my lighting let me down and my models skin tone is a little bit too tanned for my brand image, however I have done the best with what I had and stayed calm on the day, and this has showed in my final image.

Second Draft Moodboard GLEAM

This is my second draft of my gleam mood board, I have took into consideration the feedback about making sure all the lines are even to give the mood board a more professional look. I have also incorporated more pinks into my mood boards as this is what colour I have chosen for my makeup. I have also emphasised the theme of refraction more as this is what I am tying to create on the skin through glycerine mixed with pigment.

Tom Ford Story Board Final

This is the second draft that I have created for my Tom Ford shoot, this shows the lighting, composition, posing and also makeup and hair that I want for my images.

Makeup - Makeup will be a burgundy smokey eye with a bold orange lip, the face will be heavily contoured and the skin glowing. I will also be using eye gloss to make my images fit in with the word GLEAM.
Hair - Hair will either be slicked back off the face because my model has really fine short hair, I have been inspired by the middle Tom Ford image for this.
Model - My model has shoulder length fine dark brown hair and a warm complexion. I have chosen her for how well she photographs.
Styling - For styling I want my model to look naked and with prominent collar bones, I find this is the best way to make my images look quite sexual like Tom Ford advertisements.
Poses - I want to incorporate lots of poses with hands and also some holding the lipsticks for product shots.
Backdrop - I am going to shoot this image on a black background.
Lighting-  Dramatic spotlight lighting will be used to create a lots of highlights and shadows.
Composition - For the composition I want to have the head, shoulders and a tiny bit of chest in the shot.

The way this appeals to my brand is that the images are going to be really over the top and seductive, exclusive and the makeup will be heavy and beautifully applied. I want to highlight the beauty of the model and create glowing skin and wet look eyes to link with my word GLEAM.

Sharons Feedback

The main thing that I wanted feedback on when showing my images to Sharon was if the photos looked too retouched or if to change anything in them to make them better for the brief. The main things that I got out of the tutorial is that my Tom Ford images need a little bit more work the things I need to change are...

• The white balance on the images as on some of the images they look a little bit green and this isn't very flattering.
• The skin needs to be flawless especially round areas on the chest where the fake tan is patchy.
• Bit of tidying up around the jaw and eyes with the liquify tool. 
• Change the nail colour.

I am 100% in agreement with the feedback that I have got from these images, I think I have spent too much time trying to edit too many images and I need to focus more on my favourite images that are suitable for the brief rather than just images that I like.

I think a lot of my feedback was very positive and constructive and I was delighted that my editorial images were described as 'innovative' as this is what I was going for.

What I need to do...

• Finish mood boards and story boards
• Edit Tom Ford Images.
• Evaluate Shoots.
• Apply brand templates to images.

Spotlight Lighting, Back Lighting, Gels & GABO's

To create something a little bit mote theartrical, we experimented with using a spotlight to take images, this head is attached to the boom or main light and is positioned above the model. This creates a really dramatic harsh light.

These first few images are of the spotlight with GABO's over the lens to create different patterns on the models face.

We then added a light behind the model to create a soft halo effect.

After that we experimented with holding gels over the spotlight to cast a coloured shadow onto the face, this is something that I thought looked amazing so is definitely something I want to play about with for my shoots.

Lens flare was created by gently blowing on the lens before taking a picture, this creates a very ethereal look paired with the backlight. 

This image was created by applying a gel to the backlight which cast red light onto the back of the model, this would be good for creating characters.

Finally by blocking out some of the light from the spotlight you can emphasise different features of the face, this is something that is often used in MAC campaigns.

Tom Ford Final Images and Evaluation

Evaluation

Despite the circumstances that I had for my shoot I am pretty happy with how my images turned out, on the day of shooting the makeup went smoothly, but I was unable to get a MAC to shoot tethered, a sync lead or a spotlight bulb due to the studios being extremely busy, this is something that I will have to keep in mind for next time because leaving my shoot to the last week of term left me with lack of equipment for my shoot. After getting a sync lead I had to improvise with my ligting and set up first a beauty dish in front of my model and then a soft box, and moved this and poly boards around my model to try and get the effect that I wanted. Because of this I don't think my images are as suitable for my brief as I would have liked them to be but I think my improvisation rather than sheer panic really saved the shoot, If I had more time I would have definitely shot this again, however I had to allow myself time for post-production. I still believe that I have shot some really strong images through and I am really happy with the makeup so this is what I think has saved my shoot.

Tom Ford Edits

These are the side by side images from my Tom Ford editorial shoot left being the Photoshopped images and the right being the Original. These images took a but more editing than the other shoot and sometimes I struggled making the images look not too overdone (see the first 2 images). Also on reflection I feel like some of the images look like the white balance is off still so this is something I am going to go back and correct. As you can see with images that have 3 in the photostrip, this is where I have been unhappy with my editing and gone back and made tweaks after saving to make it look less fake, although I think the fake look would suit my brief I feel that it takes away from the makeup. 

My main procedure on how to Photoshop these images was to use the clone stamp tool to remove blemishes and then apply a frequency separation filter to the images to smooth the skin but still keep the texture, then I used the burn tool round the eyes and also deepened the shadows on the face with it, on the images with the eyes open I used the burn and dodge tool around the pupil to make the eyes sparkle. I then adjusted the brightness and contrast to make the image more dramatic, and used the liquify tool to neaten up the jawline on some images and also the lips. To finish I then darkened the background.

Overall I am pretty happy with how the images look, but I think I still want to go back and re edit my favourite photos (maybe one or 2) that I want to use for my final image and make it perfect, rather than spending all my time trying to get all of them edited.

Editorial Shoots Edited

These photos show how I edited my images for my GLEAM shoot. There wasn't too much editing needed on these photos because of all the glitter I used altered the texture on the skin so the only retouching I needed was to change the white balance slightly, change the brightness and contrast, making the background black and also light use of the burn and dodge tool.

The problems that I had with my images was that you could see dirty footprints on the background so I burnt this out using the burn tool, I also cleaned up stray hairs doing this also, as you can see with the first image below, I have not used the burn tool as effectively as I would have liked so the image looks badly edited, I am not happy with my final image looking like this so I am going to go back and re edit the photo. 

If not for the background I used the burn tool slightly around the eye and on the pupil, and also used the dodge tool to make the eye shine. The use of these tools was mostly to create a greater contrast between the light and dark in my images.

I used the clone stamp tool twice on my images, once on the hand to correct a drip of glitter which didn't look good and on my close up image of the eye to correct some of the mascara which had dotted onto the lid as this did not look professional and was an easy fix.

Overall I am pleased with my edited images, I feel like these little tweaks really brought out the colours of the gels and have created some really dramatic images.