Monday 7 October 2013

"You don't take a photograph, you make it" - Ansel Adams


LCS Editorial Shoot: Day 1


Viewing shots in Shoreditch
The make up station!
Being a third of the way through at LCS, the time had come for out first editorial shoot. The thought of the shoot conjured both excitement and nausea within me, being mine and many other of my classmates first time doing anything of the sort. 

 We had been given the brief ‘Urban Decay’ when we first started and had spent the previous weeks preparing.  
Looking around the room on the day of the shoot it was apparent that over these weeks we had all developed on 'Urban Decay' in very different ways.  We were told we could interpret urban decay how we wanted, which I took very literally. I personally veered away from the more street 'hip hop' aspect of the term urban (not because I didn’t think that was a good angle to go from, as those who did base their look on this had stunning looks) but because, if there's one thing you will learn about me over these blogs, I can never do anything simply. 

I worked through many ideas, flitting from one to the other, until I finally settled. My vision first sprang from going through my Banksy book, and wanting follow through with the idea coming from a piece of his work. I settled on ‘fallen angel’, thinking I could somehow loosely link the fallen with decay. I then moved onto looking at the words ‘Urban’ and ‘Decay’ separately. The dictionary definition of Urban is ‘living in a city’ or ‘characteristic of or accustomed to cities; citified: He is a city type’. What flashes into my mind when I think of city is the city slicker, the business mogul, the high flyers.. those people you see wandering around canary wharf in their two piece suits with the financial times tucked under their arm, eyes ahead, knowing where they are going and god forbid you try and stop them from getting to their much more important destination. I love them, they give off such an air of success that you half begin to want to follow them just to discover how important they are (i’ve never actually done that btw, please don’t read into that wrong). 

Banksy's Fallen Angel

So I went with this angle for the urban aspect instead. Now to Decay, one of the definitions is ‘to decline in excellence, prosperity health etc.; deteriorate’ , bingo. My interpretation of urban decay was going to be based around the idea of a high powered business woman declining in stature, or falling from grace, inspired by the Banksy piece. For the look I used extremely bright pieces to form my suit, to in keep with the brightness that is usually associated with urban apparel. To try and characterize the fallen in the look, I first had the idea of using angel wings in the piece, but after chatting with our tutors, they helped me come to realise that I needed to avoid the look becoming too costume, and keep it high end. With this I created a high necked feather collar, to try and add a divine and innocent aspect to the ensemble.

The shoot itself was a fantastic experience, taking place in the edgy region of Shoreditch in East London, known for its independent retailers and quirky atmosphere. We were lucky enough to be working with a stealth team of experts team, with our photographer (Edu Torez), make up artists (Martitn Carter and Rebecca) and our mentors (Wendy, Dan and Siobhan) helping us throughout the day. We all learnt many tips throughout the day that we can easily take with us and use on future jobs and any other experiences, from where to stand in parallel with the photographer, to what you should bring to the shoot in prep. One thing I certainly learnt is to never fold up your pieces and cram them to the bottom of your bag before hopping on a tube, that only ends in a stylists worst nightmare....creases. All the looks were interesting and dynamic, creating highly individual shots each time. The shoot was a great way to gage our creativity and an look into the world of editorial. Learning throughout the day and opening our eyes to a fast paced, artistic and pretty exhausting realm. 

The LCS crew!

Fancy injecting some colour into your suits like my fallen angel? Here are some examples of what is out there to enable you to do so (maybe leave the feathered collar at home though).. 

For the ladies:



For the gents:




Also links to stylish tweeters and make up marvels to follow featured in this blog, Martin and Emma:

https://twitter.com/mrfacemakeup

https://twitter.com/RebeccaMcM_MUA


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