Although the trip was short I had an amazing time away from the UK in the sunshine hiking, cycling and enjoying my time with my friend. The whole time I was with my new film camera that I was super excited to use and grab pictures of natural – non-model pictures so that the website had a diversity of images on it and didn’t feel so commercial as that goes against the anti-consumerist viewpoint that I am trying to communicate with this project and what my research has been done on. I feel that the low-fi feel of black and white film further adds to their paired back and minimalist ideology. I have booked myself in for another photography workshop where I will learn how to digitise the film as that will make the most sense in order to get it on the website- portfolio, although I was planning to sign up to workshops where I could learn how to develop it – that might have to happen later on as it will still be a useful skill to have coming away from university. It was also a very productive trip as we discovered this hidden rocky beach that was a treacherous 1 hour cycle from our hotel but it was so worth it as it was such a unique place that perfectly matched my Pinterest mood boards for the beach photoshoot that I wanted to do so we managed to get a mix of both film and digital pictures. We ended up there by chance as we were on our way to a beach that was a 2-hour cycle for this shoot but we gave up and ended up at an even better place. As it was just us two and I don’t yet have the budget to fly models out to Mallorca it was me and her that were modelling so I developed a system to direct the photography while I was modelling where I would take pictures of her first to show her how to frame and angle it as well as incorporating her vision into it as she also has a great eye for composition and angles. She’s always been a great model as she’s very confident and comfortable in front of the camera and very good with movement directions that I give her so the pictures always turn out exactly how I want them. I think that my previous experience as a gymnastics coach gave me a good foundation for movement direction when it comes down to photography as I know how to communicate how the pose can be achieved without putting the model off and knocking down their confidence – it’s all about saying what TO do as opposed to saying what NOT to do, as well as a good amount of compliments and bravos. As a lot of the photography I am interested in doing is very much pose orientated – I do find it much easier to pose myself as it saves me a lot of explaining which comes along with its own challenges of back and forth to make sure I am actually doing what I think I am doing in my head as I am posing. Ultimately the photoshoot was very fun and I am very pleased with the pictures and have lots of content for social media moving on from it.
https://www.tiktok.com/@studioremoda/video/7329190935877733664
As film is finite – I also managed to gauge how I want to utilise it best by doing a digital version of the picture I want first through a series of adjustments and following with the film camera to make sure the pictures come out perfectly and am so excited to see how they turned out. A downside to all this is that the digital pictures were done on an iPhone which definitely compromises the quality of the pictures which also limits where and how I can use them. I will definitely want to book out a high-quality camera for another Seven Sisters as I want to have very high-quality RAW file pictures that will shine in a portfolio alongside the film photography.
Thinking of the week ahead, I am very much dreading it as I have been suffering with very severe eczema for a while and it only getting worse I have been through dermatologists and referrals and this week I will be doing a patch test in London which requires me to go in 3 TIMES! I managed to arrange it so that it is not on the days we have lectures starting off our portfolio and meeting design assistants but I will be spending a good 12-15 hours on the train which I despise but will give me good time to read and do some extra research.