Paul Rousteau

Whilst researching i found an artist named Paul Rousteau, a French artist whois known for his colour-bending approach to photography. He experiments with a mixture of techniques, ranging from overexposing or making his photos out of focus to using light sensitive paper in order to get his kaleidoscopic colourful images. The images he creates are made to look dream like and almost like hallucinations with bright vivid colours, creating a distorted view on reality. Not only do i love his images but i was also really inspired by experimenting in this way to create different distorted images. I feel that by using these techniques to distort the images it takes away the identity and the gender of the model almost completely as the faces are disfigured in a way that it could be anyone. In this project i am exploring the idea of gender and identity within fashion and so this artist really inspired me when it came to the kind of experimenting i wanted to.

My Own Photoshoot

 

Set up and styling

In order to experiment with different techniques of distortion i wanted to create my own images. To do this i set up this home studio using a pink piece of fabric as the backdrop, a ring light for lighting the front of the images and then i used two lamps either side to create back lighting. For the styling in this photoshoot i didn’t really have a vision in mind i just knew i wanted it to be vivid colours and to work with layering multiple pieces so i brought all my most psychedelic and colourful pieces to the shoot. For the make up and hair i was inspired by a few images i had pinned to my project board so i wanted to try and recreate them in my own colours and style.

The Results

These are the contact sheets i made for the results of the photoshoot, showcasing all the photographs i took. For this photoshoot i wanted to experiment with different ways of distorting my images in the style of Rousteau. In the first section of this photoshoot i just wanted to take simple images of my model to showcase both the outfit and make up/hair i had done. For this shoot i had brought different supplies in order to be able to experiment with different types of distortion, one of them being holographic see through film, so for the second half of this shoot i experimented with different ways to use this; covering the lense with it, scrunching it in front of the lens etc. I feel that this worked really well and created different vivid colours and reflections which make these images look as if the model is in some sort of bubble or a dream. The other supply i brought was an A4 sized magnifying glass and i wanted to experiment with bending this and the different ways to put it in front of the lens that distorts the images. I like how these images look the most as i feel like they’re the most distorted and worked really well to create the kaliedascope effect that i originally set out to create, i also like the vivid colours and effects that this technique created. In warping the models face i feel it takes away the gender and identity which is exactly what i set out to do and i love how the images look and feel, almost Tim Walker style in creating dream like scenery.

 

Scans

To distort some of these photos even further and continue with the experimentations of distorting and warping images i printed out some of my favourite shots from the photoshoot. I then went and used the scanner in the library and tried out different techniques of moving the images around in different ways whilst they were scanning. This created even more distortion on the images and i loved how some of the final images turned out. When i first started researching into Paul Rousteau i wasn’t sure on how i would be able to recreate his distorted images but after experimenting with all these different techniques i feel that these images are exactly the style i set out to create and it is something i would like to continue to work with when it comes to the final major project. My plan from here is to experiment with taking these static images and making a moving image out of them, a small video or tiktok to show the process and final results.

These are the finals from the experimentations i did using the printer scanners. I love how they turned out and i want to carry on experimenting with this kind of style.