My message for my final outcome was simply “If you wouldn’t treat a human like this, why would you treat our animals like this?”. I feel like it’s simple however extremely effective, and that is what I wanted to portray through my final outcomes. I wanted to create a much deeper meaning than just a photograph. I wanted to capture emotion similar to capturing a raw photograph of an animal being put through the same torture for our Fashion Industry, in the moment. I styled my model in animal print, specifically leopard print, to show directly to my viewers the relation to an animal. I styled my Models hair to be messy, with twigs and leafs as I wanted to create a “rough” look, to show that my model had not being looking after her appearance, or has been through a lot. In terms of Animal Cruelty this would show how the animals aren’t cared for or looked after, and they are always dirty due to being put through a lot. Finally for my models makeup, i was inspired by using the leopard print pattern for face makeup to keep the animal characteristics in my image as well as adding cuts and bruises using eyeshadow and lip liners that I already owned in my makeup bag. These were very successful when creating bruises and markings, showing the physical pain the animals are also put through.

When it came to the photoshoot, I decided to use a plain background. I wanted the focus to be strictly on my model, to allow her to express the set emotions I needed for this shoot and to be directly forwarded to the viewer to grab attention and develop understanding of my message. My model did the best job at portraying the sadness and loneliness animals feel when being a victim to animal cruelty in the fashion industry, using facial expressions and body language to allow the viewer to automatically understand the emotion I want them to feel and understand. My aim was to simply show a human going through the same feelings as our animals, developing sympathy and knowledge on the topic, and spreading awareness. From my understanding, people naturally react more to emotion than anything else. So for me to be successful, I needed to capture as much emotion as possible to move on to my viewers and allow them to think differently.

For a few of the other photos I included props. These props being coat hangers on my models arm with garments hanging off, and my model looking betrayed and hurt. My idea for these shots were to show my model giving consumers their clothing, however the darker meaning is to show that the animals are giving you your clothing. These shots were just experimental at first, however while looking back mid photoshoot, I really liked the impact on the viewer, so decided to take some more. I loved how these photos turned out because it does visually show that the animals are a big part of the process of constructing garments, and they’re being tortured and killed for them. My models face shows the viewer the sadness and betrayal, allowing consumers to feel a sense of guilt, and hopefully allowing them to think when shopping and consuming in the future.

When editing my photos, I didn’t want to do too much, as I felt like this would take the focus away from the message and the emotion I wanted to portray. I edited some of the photos to black and white, to show minimal colour and create a dark and empty surrounding. This was to portray the loneliness and emptiness the animals would feel. And in two of my final outcomes, I edited a shadow of bars to show the physical and emotional sense of being trapped, either in cages or boxes. I feel like these were very effective, and didn’t look “overcrowded”.

Overall, I am pleased with my photos. It was my first time experimenting with these kind of emotions, or any emotions on such a deep level. I feel like it took a lot of emotional intelligence more than anything to successfully capture the emotions I wanted to portray. However, I feel like I was successful in it. I enjoyed this module a lot, it allowed me to develop so many skills as well as learn many more new ones! Although I wish I experimented more with test shots, I really lacked this area in my development and I feel like it would’ve benefited me leading up to my final outcomes. Throughout the modules this is something I really want to work on. I also would like to do more research, and not just researching online and in the library. But going to different places for inspiration and going above and beyond to capture as much information to create the best final outcomes. Overall throughout my self reflection, I can still see so much improvement just from these two modules and I’m motivated to keep on improving and learning more skills in the Fashion Industry.

For our week 5 workshop, we had to expand our knowledge in Surrealism and plan and shoot a photoshoot showing our knowledge and ideas. I really enjoyed researching about surrealism. I found the concept really interesting but also bizarre, which encouraged me to dive deeper into artists and what made something surreal. I noticed many aspects that are included in art work and photo shoots, like the pattern of melting clocks that were repeatedly noticed during my research. Surrealism is just so unique, and so creative. I researched a photographer called Ronen Goldman, who used editing to create the surrealism effect. I was amazed by his work and found it very clever how he interpreted ideas of commonly used phrases like “when life gives you lemons” or “tree-huggers”.

Moving on to my photoshoot, although I really enjoyed researching and was inspired by the whole concept. I really struggled to get my ideas out and turn them into reality. Although my final outcomes were “cool” photographs, they didn’t portray surrealism very clearly. It was more my editing that may show the concept a little bit more, as I used vibrancy and black point to create an unrealistic colour to life. I styled my model in bright and colourful clothing, keeping a bit of a random theme to show a surreal aspect. I also had painted on unusual patterns on to my models skin to also create that surreal vibe. However they still didn’t meet my expectations and I was dissatisfied with the outcomes. Although I’m unhappy with my photos, it has pushed me more to work with surrealism again. I am so interested in surrealism and I know that I can produce much better outcomes, as I have such good ideas inside my mind. I just feel like I should’ve added something a bit more different and “out there”.

I worked independently to create, style and photograph a character responding to a topic within sustainability and climate change.  I planned and developed on to an idea of creating a character that overconsumed due to their obsession with social media and fashion trends. They always want to impress others with their flashy and trendy fashion choices. However, fashion trends change constantly, leading to my character over consuming, and just throwing away when it’s not longer a trend, also contributing to waste.

Therefore i styled my character in trendy items, that were already owned to show sustainability in my shoot, like a Moncler coat, Ugg boots, a Burberry scarf, a Jacquemus bag and a Louis Vuitton bracelet. These are all items that were trending on social media at the time. I also went for an  autumn/winter themed outfit, due to the outside surroundings and contrasted darker autumn like colours like beige, brown, white and black. I asked my model to curl her hair due to this hairstyle being trendy and do a full face of makeup using social media makeup trends. These trends are usually influenced by Fashion Influencers who also promote trends and also fast fashion / overconsuming.  I then proceeded to use an outside location to portray how brands and influencers on social media use an outside background into manipulating their audience and viewers into thinking they’re eco friendly and big nature lovers. For one of the shots my model posed walking through the park, using her phone to portray the obsession of social media and constantly being on their devices. I edited both of my final photos, increasing the black point as well as the saturation – only very slightly. I also used an automatic setting on my camera (Nikon D3500) named dark lighting, that allows me to create a colder and more autumn like setting / vibe.Editing the black point and saturation, as well as using the automatic camera setting allowed me to also enhance the leaves on the ground in one of my final shots.

I enjoyed this task as it allowed me to work with my own ideas and easily observe my own creativity and development. This photoshoot has definitely been one of my most successful ones yet, in terms of looking professional and turning my ideas in to reality in the best way I could’ve. My personal development using my camera was shown clearly, especially when comparing  them to my last photographs. I enjoyed being independent and having the chance to understand myself while I perform creative tasks, like my creativity, development, how I deal with problem solving and trial and error etc.

One of our workshops during this week was to portray a character from a made up tribe based on 21st century youth culture responding to climate change. We was then put in to random groups, which for me is beneficial when developing on to skills like team work, creativity, communication skills and critical thinking. Working in groups allows me to explore other peoples creativity and ideas and for me to learn on working collaboratively efficiently as well as how other people portray ideas. In the Fashion Industry, you normally work with others very closely and collaborate with one another. So it’s a very important skill, and for me has developed well since being in University.

As a group we worked together to brainstorm ideas for our character and their tribe. We all individually was drawn to the idea of using denim. As denim material is very damaging to make and struggles to be sustainable, this is because the process wastes a lot of water. Although, denim is very durable, known to have a long life expectancy. As well as Denim never goes out of trend, decreasing over consumption and waste, slowing down the encouragement and urge of contributing to the damage the industry causes. We then linked the idea of Denim and the Colour Blue, and for our aim to respond to climate change, we automatically linked the ideas of water, blue and denim to the ocean.  We discussed further ideas from the ocean and originally wanted to use a green screen behind the model of water, and use draping of fabrics to portray the movement of the ocean. However due to time and limited equipment, our idea wasn’t able to become reality. We continued to think of our backstory and tribe. We wanted our tribe to portray a strict rule of only using denim, showing the durability of the material and therefore decreasing over consumption, as this is the only material they wear. They think about the earth and do not want to encourage landfills and other damaging aspects. And if they only wear denim, they can’t be encouraged to over consume in fast paced trends and cheap bad quality items.

We styled our model using the technique of layering. Our photo process behind this was due to the character and their tribe spending a lot of their time outside and in colder wetter conditions. Due to our strict rule of only denim, we layered the model in a pair of baggy jeans, a skirt, another pair of denims styled into a top and then finally a denim jacket. This was a successful choice, and I liked how all the different shades of blue worked together, also portraying different colours of the ocean.

First we decided to use an original thought of draping blue fabric in the background to portray water and the movement. We used our surrounding area to pin the blue fabric to other fabrics like curtains etc. We took a few shots however as a group we decided our idea turned out to be not as successful as we hoped! We then searched for other suitable locations, but we couldn’t agree on something that would portray our ideas and thoughts, and show the viewers the character and their tribe. We was finally drawn to the outside, due to our character and their tribe being an outdoor group. Our model posed sat on a wall near a tree, showing the audience their close relationship to nature.

Unfortunately as a group we wasn’t overall impressed with our final shots, as we wanted to use our original idea of using a green screen and creating lighting and successful draping effects to portray our model in the ocean. However, the workshop was still beneficial when developing my skills of working in a group and learning to collaborate efficiently.

During week 2 of Module 2, I looked into styling techniques that are commonly used by stylists and are also important skills to understand and be able to perform successfully. I really enjoyed this workshop, I worked in a group including the model and we only had materials and garments around us in the studio. This allowed us to use our creativity and collaborate together with ideas. There was a lot of trial and error while performing these techniques due to ideas not being successful in reality, critical thinking due to a lack of materials around us etc.

However, eventually we managed to become successful in portraying each technique on the model. My favourite technique was definitely the layering, which is above this blog, because of the different textures and colours of denim. It was a really effective example and was fun to throw together and see what we could create! I have now become very familiar with these techniques and I would definitely like to play with draping again in a different aspect. I think It’s such a beautiful styling technique that creates movement , and I feel like I would be very good at this particular skill, especially if I have the right equipment and materials! Draping is a technique that could create a lot of emotion and movement in specific shoots, especially elements like water and fire. Overall I definitely feel that this workshop was beneficial for me, as it allowed me to develop my creativity for future styling shoots, like draping, and also helped me understand why It’s a basic and important skill to understand for a Fashion Stylist.

This week I started a new module of Fashion Styling and Photography. I have been intrigued to learn more about these roles in the fashion industry for a while now as I feel like I have a lot of interest towards them. I love the creativity you can explore while creating meanings or visual concepts for the viewer, and how the Stylist and Photographer work together to make it reality. So far I have been experimenting with my own camera, that is a Nikon D3500, to develop my skills using a camera. I only experimented with the basics like how to download photos to your phone, how to use the easy operations and advanced operations etc. The “newbie” stuff. However, I do feel like I’ve managed to understand it quicker than I expected, although I still have a lot of areas to learn! I would love to be confident in using a camera without using the operations, and being able to adjust setting myself to achieve the goal I’m working towards depending on the photoshoot. While practising with my camera, I walked down into Brighton and visited the Beach near the pier, the Lanes and the Pavilion Garden. I felt like these areas would be the best to explore the skills in using a Camera and would be good to use to teach me the basics. While I was at the beach I focused on achieving a quality shot of the waves in action. At first I was using an operation that sets the camera and adjusts to take water movement in photographs. However, looking back at my captures, I feel like this is only suitable for waterfalls and other similar water movements, not for movement like waves as it blurs and become unclear so therefore becomes difficult to see the structure of the wave. So instead I used an operation with a faster shutting speed, like modes for sports, people or fast moving vehicles. This allowed me to take much more clear and in the moment shots of the waves, showing the structure, and as if you physically paused the wave for a moment. It took many attempts, but when I finally got home and went through all the photos that I had taken, I found one that was exactly what I was hoping for! So now I have a little bit more of an understanding how different shutting speeds affect photos, and what settings are most successful for this type of shoots and similar. However, I would like to now aim towards not using the operations and being able to adjust this all myself. Moving on to the photography through the Lanes, I found myself taking many photos of street art or aesthetically pleasing looking shops, just to again experiment with the basics of my camera and capturing photographs that look good quality and interesting. These were mostly just as I was walking past and were taken for personal interest, for example street art that looked really cool and interested me as I love to take my time admiring different forms of art, especially street art. When I was at home, I took my time to look a bit at the retouch menu on my camera. The retouch menu is where you can edit photos and add a variety of different aspects, and they can create such different meanings to your photos. I explored selective colour, cross screen and image illustration. Selective colour was really interesting to use because that’s the effect that can easily create a whole new meaning to a photo. I originally had taken a photo of some graffiti, surrounded by colourful stickers and posters with different meanings. It was a photo where the viewer could determine how they viewed it depending on the way you perceive things. However I edited it to only keep the red in and for everything else to become black and white. Just by removing the positive bright colouring, the picture almost turned quite aggressive looking. But when I used another photograph of the graffiti and edited it using the image illustration, everything looked like a poster or a cartoon, creating harsher black lines and the saturation and vibrancy being turned up, creating more of a positive meaning behind it rather than aggressive. I really enjoyed using the image illustration effect and seeing what works successfully and what doesn’t because I feel like it has to be a very particular vibe, person or object to make the effect work. I also edited photos using cross screen that is an affect that turns lights into “starbursts”, enhancing the photograph. This is really affective to use on pictures in the evening and night time as I felt like it created a very warm and cozy vibe to my photos. You can adjust the amount and size of the starbursts and I just feel like it’s a very small but effective edit you can use on your photographs to create a vibe and that emotion that makes you feel comforted. Overall I enjoyed experimenting and learning my camera and I’m motivated to continue learning the settings so I’m able to adjust different aspects by myself. I feel like it’s an area I could really develop my skills in, and I would love to learn all aspects about it. So I will continue doing research on Photographers as well as sustainability to understand how photography can also be sustainable.