Shoot Day

The shoot for the content of the website happened over two days. One location was a rapeseed oil field near Winchester. The other location was in the park opposite the University where some bluebells were growing, and also in the studio. 

Winchester - On the first shoot day I wanted to focus on getting the 'Texture' content for the website. For this I decided that I would go to a local woods which has a view of the countryside and look at the textures that I could find there. I spent most of the day walking around looking at the textures in the trees and on the ground. I also used a piece of material and experimented with the light reflecting through. I also put it over the textures, for instance the bark on trees, to see what imagery was reflected back. The only problem I really encountered here was the sunlight vanishing behind clouds. I had to wait for some time while the clouds disappeared otherwise the images were quite dull. It then began to rain, so I decided to leave and go to the next location. 

The next location was a field full of yellow rapeseed oil crops. Luckily the sun had come back out which made the images contrast against the blue of the sky. I spent the rest of the day here experimenting with the use of materials over the crops and also over the camera lens. I wanted the material to represent the chemicals that are found in everyday products, and the crops would represent the organic nature which is better for our skin and the environment. I decided that this location would best represent the 'Nature' content of the website, instead of 'Texture'. I think these images came out really well, the composition of them worked well along with the contrast of colours and textures. I didn't encounter any problems on this location other than the weather changing for the worst which meant that I had to go home earlier than intended. 

The Park - Since the location shoot in a field, I really wanted to find a location that had bluebells to create more of a contrast of colours to represent the multiple chemicals found in products. On the way to university one day I noticed there was bluebells in the park opposite. So I decided to get my model and shoot in the park. I wanted the bluebells to be surrounding the model, so she had to lie down on the ground. This location worked well for what I wanted to achieve. I once again used the material to represent the chemicals. I then also used the nature around to get some more content. I took pictures of the model surrounded by texture and nature. In the end, the images were the model was surrounded by bluebells didn't work because the sun was in the models eyes which ruined the poses. The images that did work included texture which was good for the content of the website. 

Studio - On the same day, I also had the studio booked. I decided to use a dark backdrop for the 'Pure' section of the website as I had this idea to shoot the curves and bones from the skin to show how one has freed their skin from the chemicals. I used one white board and one black board either side of the model initially to reflect the light. In the end, I just used the black board to create shadows on one side of the skin. I used two light at the beginning, one soft box and one honeycomb light. In the end I didn't need the honeycomb light. It took me some time to set up the camera settings and the lights which really consumed the time that I could spend on the makeup. If I had my own photographer, this time could have been spent on experimenting with more imagery. I am happy with how the images came out and in the end they didn't need much editing which was perfect for my time management. I also experimented with blurring the images, having a longer shutter speed to catch the model moving around with the material. I wanted that segment to represent the model trying to be freed from the chemicals that shrouded her skin. 

Overall I am happy with the locations that I chose to create the content for my website. I do however think that I should have used more studio time and gone to the beach and shot there like my proposal stipulated. I put not doing this down to poor time management which has affected my overall project.