The inspiration for the Creative Research in Fashion Communication project, came to me when I have started my research by visiting the «Victoria & Albert Fashion from Nature» exhibition. That exhibition made me realize the importance of nature in the fashion industry as the designers were always inspired from nature and more specifically flowers. A flower is a patient model moved only by the wind; a very attractive photographic object filled with beauty and colours. My special love for flowers led me to my decision of focusing on creative flowers photography for the purpose of the Research in Fashion Communication project. Flowers are inspiring the creative world in different industries such as artists and photographers. Examples include the artist Vincent Van Gogh and Clara Elsaesse and photographers such as Tim Walker and Nick Knight. As Andrew Moore and Christopher Garibaldi said in the book Flower power: The meaning of Flowers in Art, ‘The greatest flower artists have been those who have found beauty in truth; who have understood plants scientifically, but who have yet seen and described them with the eye and the hand of the artist.’ I find flower creative photography an experimental journey into a fantasy world. I have completed several photo-shoots with both film and digital cameras and I have observed flowers in a closer look. I have made several photo-shoots of the whole process from when flowers are ‘born’ until the time when they are ‘dead’ and decomposed. Moreover, I have made a photo-shoot of a park full of roses (Queens Mary park London) in order to examine the texture, colour and aesthetic that flowers have. My final outcomes/photoshoots was based on my research. Moreover, I have made 3 photo-shoots that were inspired from the research into artists and photographers who are using flowers in their work.
Through my research I have realised the importance of flowers in the human life. A flower is not just a meaningless object; it has a story, the existence of each one has got a meaning. It carries memories which come to life when in sight; memories related to feelings such as love, passion and happiness. Moreover, flowers can be related with the ‘flowers’ in our everyday life. In my case, my ‘flower’ is my grandfather, a lover of flowers, from whom I have great memories. This, in combination with the memory of my grandfather scoring the copper to make a copper plate led my decision of making copper plates myself.
For my Final Major Project I would like to expand the research I have done for flowers into fashion and create more photo-shoots based on the idea that flowers represent memories. I would like to experiment with both digital and film camera as I have already done in my research because I believe that by taking photos with a film camera the idea of memory will be expressed in a more appropriate and complete way. Some artists and photographers I would like to focus my research on are Duane Michals and Sam Taylor Wood. More specifically, I should like to focus my research on flowers and the idea of flowers in relation to human memory as well as human aging and the process of decay. As Andrew Moore and Christopher Garibaldi said in the book Flower Power: The meaning of Flowers in Art, the aphorism ‘all human life is like a flower’ makes manifest his long-held idea of identifying human existence with the symbolism of flowers’. To achieve in relating the idea of flowers with the human being I will experiment more with flowers from the time they are born until the time they decay and decompose. For this project I would also like to focus on fashion designers who were much inspired by flowers and produced floral collections throughout their career. This will give me inspirations about how I can play more with styling in order to give a more fashion related approach to the photo-shoots rather than an artistic approach. Furthermore, another photoshoot can be made by taking pictures of frozen flowers to symbolise the longing of people to freeze and hold for ever memories that come to life when looking at flowers. Another point I would like to cover is a narrative photoshoot in my grandfather’s house with a male and female model decorating the house with flowers and petals. For this photoshoot I would also like to create a film.
My aim for this project is to enrich my photo-shoots with all these emotions that flowers bring to people, creating a book with all the diverse, flower based, photo-shoots that have different points of view.