Final Year Portfolio Promotion

Maria Dowsett

Fashion Communication at the University of Brighton

Figuring Out Branding and Logos

Keeping your branding the same is one of the most important things when trying to maintain a consistent brand or image. As a photographer, all I really need is a logo that I can upload to my website, business cards, perhaps social media and CV. I have never previously designed a logo for myself so…

Cecil Beaton: Bright Young Things at the NPG

I knew I wanted to see the Cecil Beaton exhibition as soon as I saw it advertised. I learned of him in college and have since used his images to inspire a lot of my own work. All of the images in this exhibition were flawless and I really enjoy myself whilst trying not to…

Dora Maar at the Tate Modern

I decided to go on an exhibition trip to London sooner rather than later and it proved a good idea seeing as the Tate closed 5 days after I visited. I wanted to see the Dora Maar exhibition as it had been recommended to me with people telling me there were a few mannequin photographs…

Who Do I Want To Work For?

The first question when starting this portfolio project is, who do I ultimately want to work for? When starting to think about this database, I have thought about the likelihood of having to start with internships as a way of getting into the companies listed. For photographic jobs I think I’d need to start with…

Shoot One: In Amsterdam

The research leading up to this shoot focused on mannequins being photographed as real people. Having started from Guy Bourdin’s series ‘Walking Legs’ I knew I wanted a shoot where the mannequins were shown to be engaging in human-like behaviour and wanting to be disguised as such. My main inspiration for this was Peter Livingston’s…

Mannequins in Fashion and Art Reference 1

There were a lot more references involving mannequins than I had expected when looking into mannequins, art and photography. I also found a really helpful online article – https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mannequins-in-art_b_483333 – which gave me a lot of the references that I have looked at in my sketchbook. Cindy Sherman’s Sex Pictures Intended by the artist to shock…

Guy Bourdin: A Starting Point

My creative research project was all about death… and I didn’t quite know where to go from there when moving into my FMP. I started to look at loss, bereavement and mourning and really couldn’t anchor myself in the research I was undertaking. Mainly because I have little experience of these things myself and as…

Skull and Still Life Test Shoot

Firstly Damien Hirst I was looking at Damien Hirst’s work on memento mori as it’s not photography or fine art based but still encapsulates the theme in its own way. Like everything Hirst does, the piece doesn’t shy away from what it is. It revels in it. It is meant to be expensive and it…

Looking at Vanitas

A still life artwork which includes various symbolic objects designed to remind the viewer of their mortality and of the worthlessness of worldly goods and pleasures. The term originally comes from the opening lines of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible: ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’ Vanitas…

‘Danse Macabre’ Test Shoot

The Danse Macabre, also called the Dance of Death, is an artistic genre of allegory of the Late Middle Ages on the universality of death: no matter one’s station in life, the Dance Macabre unites all. In the Danse Macabre, skeletons escort living humans to their graves in a lively waltz. Kings, knights, and commoners…

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