Fashion Photographer Research: Corrine Day

Corrine Day

The fashion photographer I have chosen to do research on is Corrine Day. She is a self-taught fashion photographer who captured fashion imagery differently from other fashion photographers. I believe Day used a documentary approach when creating her works, which (to me) stands out amongst the usual high-key studio photographs in most magazine spreads. I was really impressed at how this particular approach to fashion photography was able to capture the essence of the brand even if it felt simple and casual. To me, she perfectly captured the intimate moments between herself (photographer) and the model, which is refreshing in some way as for once, the model isn’t just a mannequin to don clothing on, but a human like the rest of us. Day has also been known to have inaugurated a new era of “grunge” style to fashion photography, and she was one of the few photographers who refused to photoshop flaws and blemishes off the models’ bodies. It’s something I really admire about her, as she wanted to move away from the concept of perfection in fashion photography, but rather she preferred capturing the intimate moments of the model interacting with their environments.

Shooting candid with Emanuel Ungaro Couture

I’ve decided to focus on the Emanuel Ungaro Couture campaign for Vogue Italia 2000 as I’m just blown away by the images Day took. It felt like I was witnessing “A Day in the Life” (pun intended) documentary where I follow the model go about her day in the countryside (at least based on the elements presented in the images). I really appreciate photographers that humanise their subjects, as mentioned above, because most of the time, models are usually just taught to behave like an object of sorts; like a mannequin designed to don every clothing.

Yet, in this series, we see the model interact with the environment she’s in, and we see these moments captured almost candidly, all while still showcasing the pieces of clothing for the campaign. It’s a very refreshing take to fashion photography, and it really strips off that idea that a fashion editorial photograph has to be tip-top perfect, from the hair and makeup to the lighting. I want to explore how I can create fascinating images using Day’s documentary approach in fashion photography. I think it will be interesting to shift away from the idea of perfection, and focus on something that’s a bit more raw; that’s taken in the moment.

Emanuel Ungaro Couture, Vogue Italia 2000

Falling – The Breathing Narrative Image

Falling

Falling is a simple, yet relatable moving image to portray how I feel at this current point in time of the semester – in this case, I feel like I’m endlessly falling and I have not had the time to breathe or stop. This GIF was inspired by Alice in Wonderland where Alice falls down the rabbit hole. I intended to use a single colour of blue to convey the emotion of melancholy as well, hence why I decided to illustrate this in a monochromatic colour scheme.

Technical Processes

Photoshop

I initially illustrated the girl in Photoshop, where I separated each limb and part of her body into different layers for the animation process later on.

I then attempted a technique called boiling, where I illustrated three incredibly similar, yet different backgrounds. This is so to create a more dynamic effect, as shown in the GIFs below. I also used the same technique for the motion lines.

Boiling technique (background)

Boiling technique (motion lines)

After Effects

After illustrating, I brought everything into After Effects layer by layer. Here was where I made full use of the Puppet tool to animate the wind blowing against her clothes and hair. The example below are the pins I placed on the girl’s left leg. As I wanted to mimic wind, I duplicated multiple key frames and placed them near each other so it would look like her pants was moving rapidly due to the wind.

Once I repeated those steps for each body part, I then proceeded to move the girl’s body via the Position tool. Below is an example of how I positioned the keyframes for the action of her falling body.

Lastly, I felt that there could have been some colour adjustments to the entire composition, hence I created a new adjustment layer, where I used Lumetri colour, as well as brightness and contrast, and sharpen.

Before colour adjustments

After colour adjustments

Artist References

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland has been a huge part of my childhood, hence when I thought about creating a moving image of me endlessly falling, I immediately thought of the scene where Alice falls down the rabbit hole. I took note of how her hair and outfit flew as she fell so as to better gauge how to draw my character.

Oamul Lu

I was fascinated at the simplicity of Oamul Lu’s GIFs, especially in this series I Found A Star. Once again, I studied how they achieved the effect of motion and falling through th simplest details like how the clothing moves against the wind and simple animations in the background using the boiling technique.

Kevin Lucbert

I was interested in creating a monochromatic visual, where I made use of the colour blue to invoke feelings of melancholy. Kevin Lucbert’s works in Blue Lines and Blue Lines II really stood out to me as he made of the colour blue in every single drawing in these series. While I don’t feel any form of sadness or melancholy in these works, I definitely felt a sense of calm, which I’m sure has got to do with the psychology of colour. As I usually work with a myriad of colours, I decided to challenge myself to stick to a single colour to create a visual.

Final

Alternate Colour Variation

Video

Protected: On Pointe – Found Narratives

Déjà Vu – The Hyperreal Still Image

Déjà Vu

Singapore is the 11th most-surveilled city in the world, according to UK comparison website Comparitech, and 3rd most-surveilled outside of China. According to the rankings released by Comparitech on 15 August based on a study of 120 cities, Chinese cities have some of the highest number of CCTV cameras per person.

The Online Citizen

I had a recurring dream that Singapore had an islandwide lockdown due to a world war. As a result, a strict curfew of 9pm was enforced and anyone who broke the curfew was subjected to imprisonment or fine or both. Banners that promote Singapore Police Force and Singapore Armed Forces were flown around via drones for everyone to see from inside their homes. This project was initially meant to turn my dream into reality, but I also realised that it can be perceived as an exaggeration of our current reality, especially being one of the most-surveilled city in the world. Hence, Déjà Vu attempts to reveal to Singaporeans a reality that’s familiar to them, even though the projected reality doesn’t exist.

Before

After

Camera Process

I’ve always admired how “futuristic” Eastpoint Mall looked at night. For this particular project, I shot the landscape of the multi-storey carpark nearest to Eastpoint Mall at night by placing it on a tripod and shooting it as a low ISO to avoid noise.

Digital Process

As I have many layers, I decided to break it down to the main segments.

The first main part I did was to clean up the palm tree that stood right in front of the mall. I also blocked out my dad’s car plate number as well as cleaned up the photograph a little. I ended up creating a stamp visible of the image to proceed with the digital manipulation.

The second main part I decided to do was put in a “sci-fi” building landscape behind the mall so as to re-emphasise the futuristic era I was hoping to portray. I added a gaussian blur to the building landscape so as to make it look like it blended well with the image as well as colour corrected it using selective colour and curves. To hide the edge of the sci fi buildings, I created a mask for the carpark and mall using the red channel for curves and cropped it and placed it over the sci fi buildings layer.

I managed to get a drone from Google and duplicated it to show the multiple drones in my dream. I also colour corrected them using selective colour. Lastly, I added some red and blue light flares by using the brush tool in the blending mode “Screen” to brush over the landscapes, both above the sci fi buildings and government drones.

I thought the moon looked beautiful in the original photograph, but I decided to make it more obvious by adding a full moon PNG from Google. I gave it a slight gaussian blur to seam it well with the sky as well as colour corrected it to fit the sky colour using selective colour and levels. I added a clouds render layer just to brush it over the moon to hide it like how the clouds were originally blocking parts of the moon in the original image.

I had to improvise on the banners by searching for a realistic white flag PNG on Google and used pen tool to crop out the flag pole to get the cloth being blown by the wind effect. I edited another photo I took of a futuristic soldier off Google with a slogan used for an SPF scholarship, and created a clipping mask over the cropped flag. As the banner was too overexposed for the image, I had to colour correct it using levels, selective colour and a dark brown colour fill overlay. I then intensified the shadows a bit more by adding another layer of the shite cloth on top in the blending mode “Multiply” as well as added a gradient overlay over.

I found a rope PNG on Google as well, lengthened it and used Liquify to make it look as though it’s flying through wind. I then reduce the exposure and contrast of the ropes using Curves to seam it better into the image.

I created a stamp visible of a projection I took off Google as well as text that I wrote and gave it a light gaussian blur to better blend it in into the side of the shopping mall. I changed the blending mode to “Screen” and masked out the edges so it would look as though it’s projected onto the wall.

Lastly, I decided to give it an overall blue hue to the image. I used colour balance in shadows, midtones and highlights to intensify the cyans and blues, used selective colour to intensify the reds, and used curves to give the image an overall contrast. I created a new layer and added a fog effect by brushing white over the entire image and changed the blending mode to “Soft Light”. Lastly, I sharpened and added gaussian grain.

Process (GIF)

Artist References

Sandara

Sandara is a local artist most known for her works on Deviant Art. It was a few years ago when I chanced upon this piece of an abandoned One-North MRT on Pinterest. I was really impressed at the reality she was able to create from the simplicity of the train station, from the rendering of the mossy walls to the yellow cinematic hue she added to the image and I was inspired to recreate my dream using the landscape near my home – Eastpoint Mall.

Michael McCluskey

Another photographer I did some research on was Michael McCluskey, who is most well known for his “sci-fi cult classic” photographs. I was immediately drawn to the colours in these two images that create such an eerie and extraterrestrial effect on simple landscapes. This inspired me to make use of colour to better tell my narrative.

Google Drive Link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VvzzjeYuOea3E1FVJYqSbAkNQKxqDxiO/view?usp=sharing

Void – The Narrative Still Image

Void

Void is a single narrative image that represents the place in my mind I retreat back to whenever I want to escape reality. Here I sit silently in a corner with the mask I present to others taken off my face, as if I’m exhausted from interacting with the world. It is in this void where i find peace and comfort away from the busyness of life; it is here where I escape my responsibilities and dive into oblivion, for what better place is there in the world than a void where no one can reach you? Where you can finally exist – where you can finally be?

After

Before

Technical Decisions

The shot was taken with a Canon 6D on a 24-70mm f2.4 lens via timer and tripod with a single speedlite to further enhance the dim lighting. It was also taken outside my house by the corridor.

As for the digital process, I felt that it was necessary crop the image take away the element that I shot the photograph in reality. I also felt that cleaning away the stains and dirt on the walls and floor helped make the photograph look more put together. I played around with channel curves to add more depth into the image. I also made some hue adjustments to the wall and chair so as to make it a purer white, thus emphasising the emptiness. I found that desaturating my skin tone and giving it a pinker hue suited the aesthetic I was going for. Eventually I sharpened the image and added grain as a final touch.

Artist References

Lara Zankoul

I was inspired by this particular body of work by Zankoul titled Dimensions. As I tend to gravitate towards vibrant colours in my work, I often fail to see the beauty in plain empty spaces. I was drawn to how she makes use of shapes and lines within the space to create such beautiful compositions despite having the subject do so little. I thought that I could challenge myself through this project to make use of a plain empty space to tell a narrative.

Dimensions, Lara Zankoul, 2017

Dimensions, Lara Zankoul, 2017

Willy Vanderperre

Another photographer that I took inspiration from was Willy Vandeperre, especially in this particular campaign. I was personally drawn to the simplicity of the image, especially the pinkish faded skin tone against a plain white backdrop. This body of work is minimalistic, yet stunning as the contrast of the images created more defined looks in the models, which added more depth to the image. I thought that tweaking my own skin tone could help to further enhance my narrative better.

Jill Sander FW 16/17 Campaign, Willy Vandeperre

Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12XYk0BRdVbJ6yCzWKRacdW7wiV_jiHCk?usp=sharing

Project 4 – Final Project part 2

Quiet Moments

This photo series aims to portray the beauty of quiet moments in my household. Growing up in a family of assertive and dominant individuals, I tend to withdraw and give in to my family members. This has caused an emotional barrier between me and them and sometimes I come across as cold and unbothered. Capturing my family members in the candid is something I’m not used to especially since I see them most of the time, and I feel that I’ve taken them for granted somehow. I hope for this series to show how much I treasure these quiet moments regardless of how I behave around them.

Before & Afters

First Image

Second Image

Third Image

Fourth Image

Fifth Image

Sixth Image

*Before (left) and After photographs (right)

Camera Processes

This entire series was shot on analogue film. I shot all my photographs on Fujifilm Superia Premium 400 film. For some of the photographs, I made use of speed lights and LED continuous lighting to light my subjects.

Digital Processes

First Image

As the first image didn’t show my mother’s face, I skipped on separation frequency and jumped straight into cleaning. I cleaned out the reflection and smudges on the mirror that I found were distracting, as well as a few other minor details on the cupboard. I found the original image a little too reddish to my liking, but since the whole point of shooting on film was for the authenticity in its colour, I decided to tone down the reds using Hue/Saturation. I also made use of the Blue channel to adjust the exposure of the highlights and the shadows. I sharpened my photograph in the end to enhance the photo better.

Second Image

I was pleased with how this film turned out as it was greener than the other film pictures and I personally like the how the green hue makes the photo look almost “analogue-y”. What I did, however, was to tone it down a little, but not too much so as to retain the beauty of it, and I intensified the reds using Hue/Saturation to liven up my dad’s skintone.

Third Image

I didn’t feel that there was anything in particular I had to clean up with the healing brush and the clone stamp tool unlike the first picture. It wasn’t necessary to use the separation frequency here as well so I didn’t do it on my brother. Similarly, I reduced the reds hues using the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer but intensified the green just to give it more of a filmic look. In the end I added a gradient vignette to draw more focus onto the center that is my brother.

Fourth Image

While this film picture stands out the most from the rest, I am personally glad I was able to capture this candid moment of my father. However, I found that the photo was underexposed and the blues looked almost washed out, so I made use of Curves to add constrast to the photograph and Hue/Saturation to intensify the blue hue coming from the television. I added a gradient vignette and sharpened the photograph to draw more attention to my father.

Fifth Image

I used the healing brush and the clone stamp tool to clean up the glass door in the background as well as a few more minor details on the clothes rack. As my mother’s face is seen clearly this time round, I did a little bit of cleaning up of her face using separation frequency. However, since analogue film includes a grain overlay, there wasn’t much of texture I had to even out. The original photo had a really intense green hue to it so I toned down the highlights so the picture wouldn’t look so dramatic, and used selective colour to tone the whites to make them less magenta-y and more yellowy.

Sixth Image

This is my personal favourite of the series. In fact, I didn’t feel the need to edit this photo much. What I did was just to tone down the greens using Hue/Saturation by a touch and made the reds more yellowy in the light area using selective colour. I found that the original could have been clearer so I sharpened the subject.

Alternative Presentation Ideas

Ideally, I thought this series of my family would look great in a photo book. I initially wanted to write messages to each of my family members and overlapped them on top of the images, however I felt that it took away the focus from the photographs themselves. Hence, I did a little mock up of a photo book to see how that layout would look like if I were to ever want to print a photo book of this series.

Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KuCC0ogRdnQ6IWJnCzXInbCOHMrpTF90?usp=sharing

Project 3 – Final Project Pt. 1

Quiet Moments

Inspiration – Nan Goldin

Nan and Brian in bed, New York City, 1983

“Amanda in the Mirror”, Nan Goldin

I was inspired by the documentation style of Nan Goldin’s portraits. While it is clear that artificial lights were used in these images, there was still a sense of candidness and rawness to them as a whole, and everything appeared relatively authentic and true to what it is. I wanted to make use of analogue film to further bring out that “candidness” of my family members, as well as give it a style that suits me.

Before and Afters

First Image

BeforeAfter

Second Image

BeforeAfter

Third Image

BeforeAfter

Camera Processes

This entire series will be shot on analogue film. For this first part of the series, I shot my photographs on Fujifilm Superia Premium 400 film.

Digital Processes

First Image

As the first image didn’t show my mother’s face, I skipped on separation frequency and jumped straight into cleaning. I cleaned out the reflection and smudges on the mirror that I found were distracting, as well as a few other minor details on the cupboard. I found the original image too reddish to my liking, hence I decided to go with a warm, sepia-like tone for this photo series. Most of the colour corrects were tweaked with the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. I also made use of the Blue channel to adjust the exposure of the highlights and the shadows. Last but not least, I decided to add a few more colour gradient overlays of yellow to better suit the style I was working towards.

Second Image

I didn’t feel that there was anything in particular I had to clean up with the healing brush and the clone stamp tool unlike the first picture. It wasn’t necessary to use the separation frequency here as well so I didn’t do it on my brother. I wanted the colour scheme to look similar to the first image, so similarly, I reduced the reds hues using the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer. I used Colour Balance to reduce the redness and and some green hues to it to balance the contrast nicer. I found the original image a tad bit too saturated so I ended up reducing the vibrance of the photo and added a gradient overlay to create a vignette effect after.

Third Image

I used the healing brush and the clone stamp tool to clean up the glass door in the background as well as a few more minor details on the clothes rack. As my mother’s face is seen this time round, I did a little bit of cleaning up of her face using separation frequency. However, since analogue film includes a grain overlay, there wasn’t much of texture I had to even out. The original photo had a really intense green hue to it so I toned it down using the Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to fit the theme. I made used of the Blue Channel to adjust the exposure of the highlights and shadows so it wasn’t too overexposed and too contrasted. I made use of colour balance, selective colour and hue/saturation to adjust the reds, neutrals and the whites. This was to create that warm tone effect I was going for. Lastly, I added colour gradient overlays of yellow and oranges as a finishing touch, along with a radial gradient overlay for the vignette effect.

Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JgKxBMQDPx41RuUa4JAN9cDRQzx8yd87?usp=sharing

Photographer Research – Part 2

Nirav Patel

Nirav Patel shot by Kristina Kashtanova

The photographer I have chosen to research on is Nirav Patel, an editorial and portrait photographer based in San Francisco. What first drew me to Patel’s photographs was the portrait of a woman facing a mirror (Figure 1). It gave me a sense of comfort in a way I could not explain, but after reading more about Patel, most of his works seemed to portray the calm stillness and quiet moments in a turbulent world; a concept that I find myself very drawn to. The body of works that I was particularly interested in were the silhouettes of models standing in front of what appeared to be a projector (Figure 2). I was fascinated at how he made use of light to frame the subject, as well as to set a mood to the images. There is also something very intimate and vulnerable about these models in the portraits, and I also find this to be very comforting given that it was shot himself – a male photographer – in a day where women are still objectified in commercial photography practices. As someone who enjoys taking portraits out in broad daylight, I would like to attempt to play around with artificial lighting in my final assignment and see how I could make use of light to tell a story in different ways. I think it would be an interesting experience to see the difference a light source in a dim room could make when capturing the scene.

Works

Figure 1

Figure 2.1

Figure 2.2

Figure 2.3. Photos taken from http://www.niravpatelphoto.com/

Project 2: The Landscape

Boy on the Prairie

After

Before

Breaking the gender norm

This project aims to capture an alternate reality of what life could be like if society welcomes the concept of breaking gender norms. There are some gender roles that I personally abide to, but at the same time, I embrace others who steer clear from them. I believe that there is no one such rule as to how a certain gender should look or behave, hence the idea of a male model in a skirt.

Infrared Photography

A vintage Lincoln car sits in the driveway of an Indian Canyons residence

Seven Lakes Country Club

Science bit!

“Visible light” spectrum

Our eyes can only see a quite narrow wavelength of light. Often referred to as the “visible light” spectrum, this usually spans the wavelengths between 380 and 700 nanometers. Above 700 nanometers is a spectrum referred to as infrared, and most infrared photography is concerned with capturing the narrow band of wavelengths between 700 and 1000 nanometers – usually dubbed “near-infrared”, so as to separate it from the longer infrared wavelengths more associated with thermal imaging.

Rich Haridy, New Atlas

Technical Decisions

Camera Set-up

ighLighting schematic

The camera set up was simple; me with the camera, except that this time I decided to make use of artificial light. I placed the speedlite on a tripod and angled it towards my left. It was a lot of trial and error, especially since I took my photos in a park during the golden hour sun, where the sun occasionally came and went.

Editing Processes

Healing Brush, Frequency Separation, Dodge and Burn

As my subject has a model in it, I decided to attempt to perfect his complexion using the healing brush, frequency separation and dodge and burn.

Masks

Mask of sky

Mask of trees and grass

Mask of model

I created three different masks so that I could individually work on each subject and avoid overlapping filters over them.

Clouds Rendering

Lasso cutout; flipped horizontally and vertically

Mask and smudge tool; additional clouds render filter

I found that the clouds in the original image were cluttered to the right, so I rendered in some clouds on the left using clone stamp and the clouds render filter to balance out the image better.

Colour processes

With the idea of infrared photography in mind, I decided to go a little crazy on the colours. I attempted to change my grass and land a violet colour using the colour selection tool and the sky a much deeper blue using the colour balance tool. To me, this was the colour scheme that best suited my concept around embracing new norms. I found that the masks I created weren’t the cleanest, especially along the outlines of the grass and trees, hence I tried my best to clean it up by using the smudge tool. To make it look more realistic, I tweaked some colours on his skin tone as well as his outfit using the colour selection tool to make it look like he’s apart of the image.

After a little more experiments, I attempted to create an orange glow from the direction of the light source, and was quite pleased with how it made the photo pop.

Sharpen/Grain

I sharpened the photo in the end and added grain not only to the model, but to the entire picture. (I love grain)

Colour Variations

I wanted to see if the image worked on a different colour scheme. This variation is something I’m more comfortable with, however, I found the first colour scheme to be a lot more fitting to the theme.

Full Process (GIF)

Revised Version

After critique, I decided to touch up on the areas that I feel needed a bit more cleaning and refining. I lowered the opacity of the frequency separation to show the contrast of the skin against the light. I also cleaned the trees up a little bit as I felt that it was obviously rendered to appear pink. I made use of the Hue/Saturation adjustment to better show the shift in colour.

Before Revision

After Revision

Google Drive

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fKYw7OqREGSy3JxzJRbOf7PzbuG9wt3t?usp=sharing

Feeting – Still Image Short Film