Final Magazine Cover Image

This was my final magazine cover image. However after speaking to peers I came to the conclusion that physical vandalism. So then after I took the image to the printer I decided to physically remove the face from the model by tearing into the page.

This is what happened:

I am really happy with the result and feel like the physical vandalism adds something to the cover which you really wouldn't expect. I think it also gives a deeper meaning to the piece which really makes you stop and wonder why the models eyes have been torn out. 

Evaluation

After researching, brainstorming and experimenting I began to look into influences for trends, and after a while I found that I kept going back to looking at magazine covers. This soon became the direction in which my work was heading and a magazine cover became my outcome. My thoughts have definitely changed since writing my project proposal. At the very beginning I thought mainly of my outcome being purely photographic, whereas in reality it has become much more of a fashion promotion and styling project with the final outcome being photographic. 

At the very beginning of this project I wrote a very rough weekly plan for my Final Major Project and this helped me a lot to stay on track with my work load. However as the weeks progressed I found myself steering away from the initial plan, as at the beginning I wasn’t entirely sure where this project was going to take me. Therefore I began to make another weekly plan which scheduled all of my work and made me more confident that I would complete all my work. At the beginning of each day throughout the project I made a more detailed list of the tasks that I needed to complete in order to produce a well thought-out outcome. I am a person who likes organisation and so these methods that I took regarding planning throughout my final major project were vital and deffinitely made the development through the project a lot smoother. In my blog I have recorded all of my thoughts throughout the project and it has been a place in which I evaluate my work. It has really helped to physically write out my thoughts throughout the project and has lead to a lot more development within my work. Without the blog I don’t think I would have thought this far into my theme, and if I had I think I would be completely lost in my thoughts without being able explain what I am trying to present in my work. My sketchbook has been a very useful place that I can record all of my work in a more visual way. My sketchbook is an organised place in which I can put down all my researching and experimentations. I have made it visually stimulating so it can help me in my development in my project. If my sketchbook wasn’t organised I feel as though my thoughts wouldn’t be organised and therefore my project would have been incredibly difficult to complete. 

One of my targets that were to be met was to research in many different ways and to take different routes to ensure that I have come up with the most interesting idea that I could have, because if I'm not interested in it, how do I expect others to be. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t just using websites for my research. Although I did use a lot of websites, I also used a lot of books, blogs and the general public. I used my Pinterest account a lot throughout the project and I would say that it was probably one of my most used form of research. I found it to be really quick to target the area in which I wished to research and it generated blogs, books and other websites to look at for research purposes. It was a big target of mine to complete a lot of experimentation throughout my final major project to ensure that the thought that have come about from development have been tested so I know what I like, what I don’t like and what actually worked.

Many things have happened that have influenced and caused development throughout the project. At the beginning of this project I began to become very unenthused with my project and the way in which it was heading. I knew that if I wasn’t enthusiastic about what I was doing then nobody else will be. I took myself away from my research and began being a bit more practical in the way that I was working. I started experimenting with carbon paper and a few random sketches. It wasn’t until I stamped my thumbprint on a page in my sketchbook that I started thinking about identity and what it means to have an identity, or in fact not to have one. This started to interest me, and I went down a phycology route within my research, this got me a lot more excited for my project, and I was finally starting to find a base for my project, and soon enough the ideas started rolling in. I found this a very clear point in my project that caused a lot of development, and because of it, my project went down an entirely different path to the way in which it was heading. I have always been interested in professional photoshoots and styling and I wanted to find a way to contribute this into my final outcome. When I started developments for the idea of fashion trends and fashion forecasting, I began to think about fashion magazines. After being told to ‘never judge a book by it’s cover’ as a child, and throughout my adolescence, I have found it very interesting, that no matter how many times we are told, it is incredibly hard to get out of the habit, and its for that reasoning that books and magazines try so hard to make sure that their covers are going to draw attention and get noticed. I wanted my own work to draw attention and get noticed, and it was because of this that I wanted to create a cover of sorts. 

Throughout the project I was involved in group reviews that were incredibly helpful within the development of my project. At each review, which happened at minimum of once a week, a tutor and a few other course members attended. It was really helpful to listen to and take on board advise from my peers and from a professional. I always made sure that I was open to criticism and if anything I craved for it more that I did praise, as it would make sure that I was doing all that I could to produce a successful project. It was in these group reviews that I was advised to be more practical when I was unenthusiastic about my project, this was very helpful to hear. I also asked for many one-to-one tutorials throughout the project as they were very informative and encouraging for me. At each tutorial advise was given and it was incredibly helpful to hear what it was that I could do to ensure my project was the best that I could produce.The fact that I had three tutors to have these tutorials with opposed to only having one was something that I was deffinitely grateful for as it meant that I was given advise from three different points of view, and it was very interesting to see what they liked compared to each other and what they each suggested I should do in order to take my project further. I was grateful that I could ask peers what they thought of my work. I made sure to hang up my work above my workstation for all to see as they would come over and give suggestions without me even asking, which I loved. 

I have taken a lot of things away from this project. One of these things is that I have liked making mistakes in this project. At first I started making mistakes and not really getting anywhere with my project, but it was from these mistakes that I was been able to create a base for my project and from that produced what I think are some really interesting ideas and outcomes. Some things that I would change about my approach to my project would be my time management, because although I have made schedules throughout the project, I would make sure they are realistic plans. I have developed key networking skills throughout this project and have become more confident to go out and speak to people throughout this project. After completing my week long work experience with French Connection I became a lot more confident and proactive in the way that I do things and I have even found some exciting summer internship work at a photography studio. Next year I will be completing my Foundation year at Ravensbourne in Fashion and Textiles which will lead to fashion promotion gateway. I am excited to be focusing on this specialism as I have always been heavily interested in this subject area and I used this past year to experience other specialisms and confirm my wanting to progress with fashion. 

Magazine Cover Initial Idea

I thought about how I wanted an unconventional looking magazine cover. That I wanted it similar in someways like its glamorous gloss image, yet completely different in other ways such as the model not even being aware of the fact that I am taking their picture.

Being a shy person I wasn't comfortable at first with taking strangers photos but as I began doing it it became a lot easier and the majority of the models were happy for me to take their picture. 

I went out to a Shopping centre and took lots of photographs of people shopping. I didn't focus on their genders, ages or race. In fact for most of the photographs I didn't actually want their face in the frame.

This was my first photoshoot for the project and it was to plan however I wasn't that happy with the images that came from it. I think that they were too unplanned. I wanted to replicate the glamor seen on famous fashion magazines such as Elle and Vogue, but show the less glamorous side of reality when it comes to shopping, and I wasn't sure that this was coming across. I was also aware of the fact that because my photographs were very spontaneous, I lost the quality in my images. 

The Degree Show Planning

I have thought about how It is that I would like to present my work for the degree show. My intention was to create something similar to a magazine cover that is likely to be framed and displayed at a fashion brand head quarters. I started thinking about this idea whilst I completed my work experience placement at French Connections HQ in Camden. I thought about the ways in which I can hang my cover for display and a few ideas came to mind. I could hang a large A1 printed version from the ceiling make making it eye level and quite striking to anyone that comes across it.  However after hearing that many other people on the course we're planning on displaying their work in a similar way, I started thinking about how mine wouldn't be as striking and draw as much attention, as there would be many other pieces of work doing the same task.

I then thought about displaying it in a simple Frame. It could be leaning against a plain wall or hung higher on the wall. What I think would be really effective about this idea is that surrounding the cover would be a lot of blank space which I think would really draw your eyes into my work and beg you to come closer to have a better look.

Work Experience Week Evaluation

Work Experience Day Five

Work Experience Day Four

Work Experience Day Three

Work Experience Day Two

Work Experience Day One

Photography Manipulation - Loss of Identity

I started thinking back to my original idea, as I wanted to take my photographs from my shoot further. This idea of fashion forecasting and people being obsessed by trends and being consumed by them came back into my head. I loved this idea and I deffinitely didn't want it to get lost in the midst of my work. I thought about how if people get too consumed by trends they almost loose their identity, and this as a topic in itself is one I am very interested in. I thought about how I can let this come across in my work. What if my model had missing features in the photograph. For example her eyes could be blacked out, either individually or by a black stripe. This could be done easily in Adobe Photoshop. But what about if i physically tore out the eyes, our if I spray painted a black line over the eyes. Or just drew one with a black marker pen. I think this would make it really interesting and I think I would deffinitely set it aside from other magazine covers.

You expect magazine covers to be glossy and clean so to find one that almost looks like it has been purposefully vandalised would certainly make it interesting. 

For this idea I found inspiration from the photographer Antoine Gregor. He takes photographs of people looking at their phones in various different settings, and later manipulates them to look as though the peoples faces are being sucked quite terrifyingly into their phones. The fact that this obviously isn't happening in the sense that the naked eye can see it means that people in the photo when it was originally shot are completely unaware and just see it as someone simply looking at their phones. I think this concept is really interesting and helped me to come up with my own way of manipulating my photography. 

Photoshoot Day

When it came to the photoshoot I was really happy with my model, the location, and what I had for styling. My model was Zanna Long, my location was at her home, against a very simple warm toned wall, and for styling I had my many, many receipts. 

I began with the shots that I had planned. With Zanna covered with the large piece of paper made by attaching many of the receipts together. I styled her just as I had practiced on the mannequin beforehand. Some other planned shots were of Zanna's head and eyes being covered in loose receipts. I think these shots came out really well and so I decided to then go with my instincts and shoot whatever ideas came into my head. There was some really good natural sunlight coming in from the bay window in the house and so I used this, and it meant that I didn't have to hire out any equipment that would make getting to the location for the shoot difficult. 

I took advantage of the natural light and placed Zanna in front of the window, seated on a stool, although I made sure it was covered in the receipts so it wasn't visible, and placed Zanna's back to some clear double doors which gave an unplanned yet interesting beachy vibe to the shot. In this shot I also attached the receipts in an unplanned way. I tucked them into the straps of the leotard in a rough way, and the photos that came from it were some of my favourite from the shoot. 

I was really happy with my shoot, but I could deffinitely take it further with more experimentation. 

Preparations For My Photoshoot

To begin preparing for my photoshoot I started thinking about a model. If I wanted to create a Magazine cover, picking a model was integral. I am running out of time in this project with only about 3 weeks left to finish. Luckily a friend of mine is very photogenic and with my planned hair and make up looks, will be the perfect person to be my glamorous model for my magazine cover. 

I created 4 mood boards to prepare for my photoshoot, casting, costume, hair and make up, and location. The casting was pretty simple as I had had my model in mind for a short while. Costume was quite simple as well as my receipts would cover the majority of the body. All I needed my model to wear was a simple black leotard, my model being a dancer had plenty of these of easy access to her. I thought about make up and hair for a while and came to the conclusion that it was best for her to stay somewhat natural with a small amount of foundation to ensure her skin was clear and a small amount of eyeliner and mascara. My model is 17 and therefore somewhat younger than the models you expect to see on globally known magazines like vogue for example. I wanted my audience to be adolescent as they are the most open to change, and therefore I wanted to reflect this age in my model. For location I also wanted it to be simple as the main focus is the receipts covering the model and therefore I don't want a background with a lot of things going on that may detract attention from the main message of the cover.

  

Combining the Receipts into One Large Piece

After completing the styling workshop I came to the conclusion that my photoshoot would probably work a lot better if the receipts were joined together to form a large roughly 1 metre by 1 metre piece of material. I would then be able to drape it more easily over my model and/or pin it to fin the model it a more interesting way. I would experiment with this before hand on a mannequin. 

I thought about different ways that I could join up my receipts. I experimented with a few of these ideas to see what would work most effectively. First I tried a more fashion textiles approach by hand sewing the receipts together. For the experimentation I chose to do hand sewing as it more available to me at the time, but had this been the best option I probably would have used a sewing machine. I did however chose against this option as it took a lot of time, and had I of used a sewing machine I would have mostly found it quite fiddly trying to line up each individual receipt. For another experiment I tried simple glue stick. This was quite quick and actually worked surprisingly well. It dries quick and seeing as it was paper and not fabric it held well. I thought about using other glue types such as hot glue and PVA, however this would just cause unnecessary mess and wouldn't be as quick drying, especially the PVA glue.

It took me a couple of hours to attach as many receipts as it would to join the receipts to produce a larger piece of paper just over a metre squared in size. I thought this was an appropriate size as it would cover the majority of the body of my model. I made sure that I left a good amount of single receipts spare incase I did want to try a few shots using these in my shoot.

Making of Receipts

After writing out all of my ideas my thought process of what I want to represent in my work has become a lot clearer. I know that I would like to produce something that incorporates the photography and styling side of fashion promotion. I know that I want to represent people being obsesses with status and how much they have spent on something. I thought of a few ways that I could show this and two immediate ideas were the use of shopping bags and receipts. Two things that can quite easily be used in a photoshoot. 

I thought about receipts first as this might take a little longer to experiment with and my initial thought was that this would be more interesting out of the two. Being a 17 year old student, I don't have a lot of money to go out with and buy things that would help me to gain a large amount of receipts that would be enough to style someone in. I looked inside my purse and found 5 receipts, this deffinitely wasn't enough to style a whole body in, so I knew I would have to recreate these receipts to produce a lot more. I thought about tracing them and using different materials, but knowing that I didn't have a lot of time left on the project and I had only just started experimenting I thought that I would start with photocopying the receipts lots of times so that I would have plenty. To do this in the most effective way possible I stuck the 5 original receipts on an A4 page and photocopied that close to 40 times, meaning I had a total of about 200 receipts. I cut each one out and crumpled it to thin out the paper and produce the wrinkles that are commonly found on receipts after they are thrown into the bottom of your shopping bag. This worked really well and the receipts that had been printed out on standard paper, came out looking and feeling like the common receipt.

Stylist Workshop

During this project, an opportunity was brought about to attend a styling workshop, given by one of the tutors at Ravensbourne. Knowing that I was going to be preparing and completing my photoshoot very soon, I knew that this was an opportunity that I couldn't miss.  

I was asked to bring in any scrap fabric that I had, unfortunately I didn't have much in the way of interesting fabrics, however a friend that was also taking part in the workshop had a lot of different fabrics that represented cultures from all over the globe. Fortunately she was kind enough to share her amazing fabrics with me and we could work together to make some really interesting styles. I was actually very pleased that we worked together as it meant that I could see how someone else thought about things, and whether they could see things that I couldn't, or whether I could in fact see things that they couldn't. I had a total of 6 fabrics and I started with one fabric on a mannequin, pinning it to different areas and manipulating it to create different looks on the stand. After working with single fabrics for a while I began combining fabrics, starting with two and progressing to as many that I could pin without the pins working too hard to keep the the fabrics attached. I thought about twisting single pieces and then I thought about what would happen if I intertwined several pieces. After a while I even started cutting into the fabrics and seeing what  would happen then. 

I really enjoyed this workshop and it was very helpful as it helped me a lot to think about how I will style my receipts on my model when it comes to my photoshoot. I have previously thought about covering my model in single receipts however after working with 1mx1m pieces of fabric I have thought about the possibility of joining all my receipts together to create a large piece material that can either be draped or pinned to fit my model.

  

Sociology Research

I have been looking into the sociology factor of impulsive shopping. Ive been thinking about if your friends and the people you surrounded yourself with people that like to follow trends, you are more likely to be consumed into trends. I myself have been sucked into this. Seeing photos in magazines then later seeing your friends wearing the outfits, and eventually me wanting to buy and wear them. i have also thought about it not specifically being a piece of clothing but in fact a shop. There was a time when the shop Hollister was one of the most popular clothing stores and a lot of times there would be a large queue just to look around the store, where the majority of the time people would come out of the shop having bought a single body spray in the smallest size.

I think that peer pressure comes into this topic of trends quite a lot. If your friends and the people you surround yourself with are following the trends, you may feel like if you don't follow the trends that you will looked down upon and that you might feel like you don't properly fit in with that group.

Also if you socialise with your friends in your spare time and go shopping, you might feel bad and the 'odd' one if you don't buy something from the shop that everyone else is buying from. This would put you on the more external side of the locus of control spectrum as someone else is in control of your actions, whether you are realising it or not.