Intro
For this unit, I will be able to get a greater understanding of the different roles and responsibilities for a fashion stylist and to discuss the changes of fashion styles throughout the span of six different decades and by the end of this unit, I will able to know and understand the importance of the how and why also the different ways of styling a photo shoot.
Assignment 1
What are the roles and responsibilities of a Fashion stylist?
A stylist is a key person who plays a vital role within the fashion industry. This role involves promoting and advertising a particular fashion brand. The role varies depending on the clients and the product they wish to promote to the buyer.
Their responsibilities are to work alongside fashion designers. This involves photographic images, catwalk, film and branding. A stylist may also be involved in using magazines to showcase their fashion.
As a fashion Stylist, there are many different roles and responsibilities that are required. For example, in a film and tv set, they would pick out the right type of outfits that would be suitable for the film/tv show.
They would work closely with performers, getting to know them and what is required to enhance their performances. This would entail obtaining samples for the best attire for special events and anywhere they are in the public view. if they end up working for music people when their job will be to get the samples for things like promotional shoot and upcoming tour they will need to work alongside client and brand. If it is so that their client can look great and stand out on the red carpet or help sell and promotional tours
one of their primary responsibilities is to be expected to show up at fashion shows and completely up to date trends. The styles must work closely with the photographer to make sure their ideas work in films and photography.
Many stylists are sometimes assigned to be a host on TV shows which allows them to collaborate with other bands
Editorial fashion stylists would mostly work for magazine labels and retail brands on a photographic shoot in studio and location.
All fashion stylists and editorial fashion stylists are expected to work alongside the photographer and creative director, to dress and fit the models whilst creatively style the garments until they meet the labels brands needs. Furthermore, as part of their job role, they will be needing to work long hours and travel a lot this will be down to the clients getting in touch throughout night and day. it would be often tiring but extremely creative.
If they are needed to work on a photoshoot they will need to get the clothing and make sure it fits the model and they will be expected to arranged to borrow props and items for the photographic set finally they are needed to work very well with the team to create a visual piece of art.
( behind the scene image/ screen shot of a stylish at work )
Assignment 2
Fashion photography
I see Michael Jackson as a good example for the evolution of fashion during these six decades spanning 1950s-2000s, due to him being an iconic worldwide entertainer throughout those times.
Denim material has survived at the forefront of fashion, initially as jeans for men but now includes other items of clothing for men and women. However, during the late '90s and all the way through the 00's jeans took on more of a chance as ripped jean became the fashion so manufacturers started to rub sandpaper on the jeans so that they can rip easily and even making jeans pre-ripped at the knee caps also the use of the sandpaper helps to give jeans the different type of shading that they are known for today.
Fashion post WW2
The fashion that had a big impact at the start of the decade due to the second world war which meant that resource was small for clothing so it started off without much change however it didn't take long for it to rebuild.
People would even dress smart to go to things events like a football match and other sporting events during these times the only thing that might of warn to the even to show off what team you were supporting were mostly the team's scarfs
The fashion in the '50s
Male
The fashion for men throughout the '50s was to either look smart and respectful or to be casual with an ever-growing American influence.
Female
Fashion for females during this era showed off their glamour and prettiness this was illustrated by the bright colours of clothes and a massive range of fashion styles from flowing dresses and skirts to figure-hugging pants.
unlike the fashion for the males, the females had many different fashion styles from top and shirt to pants ( that look like today's Jeggings ) and event big floppy sun hats
Fashion photographer from the 50's - Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon is an American historical photographer, who started his journey as a photographer at the early age of 12 when he joined the (YMHA) Young Man Hebrew Association working as an adverting photographer.
During the second world war, he joined the Armed Forces as serving photographer's mate second class in the US Merchant Marines. After two years he left to work as a fashion photographer and studying with art director Alexey Brodevithc. Then at the age of 22 he went on to become a freelance photographer working mostly for Harpers Bazaar.
Given the era when he was working in the only type of photography that Avedon would have access to was black and white film, and colour film photography. In fashion photography you had to get it right the first time as editing images in post-production wouldn't really be a thing back in the time of when he was working as a fashion photographer.
When working alongside Alexey Brodevithc he was sent to Paris to cover the latest collections from Premier Fashion House. During his time at Harpers Bazaar he helped to represent a new direction for fashion photography this allowed to be an influence on others and still continues to influence many generations of photographers.
His style of photography has an influence of movement replace the static lifeless poses, preferring to work outside and on-location capturing lively street scenes with the use of mostly advisable lighting. His models are shown to be showcasing their natural femininity.
He said himself that for this work he wanted to show that we all dress well, and he wanted to capture good people by merging them together with the way he feels socially and the way we live and turn it into a story.
The fashions in the '60s ( the swinging 60's)
Men
When the '60s came along the fashion for men didn't change much from the links of suit and tie and smooth shiny shoes but it had some dramatic changes as the Beatles grew in popularity helped to change the fashions especially during their time in America which helped to bring about and build what we know as the hippy look of long baggy clothing and men growing their hair long. This hippy look came along to show peace to the world and the chance to open up. The Beatles also helped with the change to the fashion because of their popularity it allowed being featured in things like magazines, posters and calendars from this it would have informed people to be inspired by how they dressed.
also, people would normally dress alike from the same type of fashion style including hairstyle but still tent to wear smart shoes.
Females
For women, the fashion started to change as well from tight long dresses all the way to skirts and even mini skirts as it was cheaper and easy to move around it especially when it came to dancing, as it allowed for more movement and better flow also it was seen as sexy when they had more skin showing including around the legs area being more free and accessible it was seen as a way to draw the males in. this change in the female's wardrobes was also down to them now wanting to please themselves and not others apart from their partners.
The '60s and '70s were driven by the younger generation as highlighted by the 'swinging sixties' and 'flower power.' This lead to more individualistic fashion.
Body figure has changed from being an hourglass shape to less defined form for women
There wasn't much difference to the clothing style beside pants getting higher up the body and wild hairstyles.
Fashion Photographer from the 60's - David Bailey
David Bailey was born in 1938 and said to be one of the greatest of all time photographers even though his body of work varied, during the 60's he became synonymous with London, alongside he helped to define the look of British fashion and style during the 60's
He is known to be as famous as most of his subjects. This lead to him becoming the principal inspiration for the lead photographer in the film Blow-Up in 1966 by Michelangelo Antonioni. Due to his quick rise of fame, he represented the new, young and working-class face of fashion photography.
The 70's
During the 70's people tended to wear clothing for going out to discos and clothes for every day use.
Females
Long flares started to become more of a thing as it was cheaper to make compared to dresses and skirts. Women also became more skinny and wanted to be taller so platform shoes and tall high heels started to become a thing even low cut tops were worn more often due to how much it cost to make clothes during this era. Bras were also worn less as it was believed to help women seam skinnier rather than the hourglass figure they previously preferred.
Fashion photographer from the 70's - Helmut Newton
Born in 1920 in Berlin and became a photographer before the events of world war 2 by getting an apprenticeship for Evo in 1938. This lead to him quickly rising to fame two years later working as a portrait photographer in Australia and fashion photographer then later to move on to work for the main photographer for the France Vogue in 1961.
Newton was known to work with a Rolex camera which would have made him become very constricted within the way he worked because he wouldn't have been able to shoot thousands of photos. It said that by Newtons models he would have used colour polaroid to check that if the lighting was right and the way the models are positioned once he was happy he would shoot 1 or 2 rolls of black and white film.
The 80's
The '80s saw changes to fashion from suits and ties as normal day wear to jeans and t-shirts also trainers started to become a thing bring in a hip hop trend to fashion wear.
Sportswear and neon colours also became a big thing which helped to create a significant change to the fashion during this time this would mostly be down to the growth of technology and science, this was used to create a lot of new patterns and materials. There were more films and tv series getting made, pop culture and different types of music was growing this allowed people to see what other people were wearing around the world more easily.
Cars and other forms of transport were more accessible to people were meant people was getting out and about a lot more which also lead to people feeling like they were getting lazy so people ended up doing workouts in their homes which I believe lead into people wearing sportswear in and outside. Fashion for men and women during the '80s wasn't too much different as they mostly dressed the same as each other.
Men were featured in fashion advertisements more compared to when it was only females getting featured in fashion magazines because men were able to express themselves the same as women since there were more options to choose from not just suits or even something that might have looked smart.
A fashion photographer who worked in the 80's - Bruce Weber
Bruce Weber ( 1946 - present)is an American photographer his work first appeared in GQ magazine in the late 1970s. He is well known for his classic Americana style and is possibly most famous for his work with male models for fashion houses including Abercrombie & Fitch, Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. In the 1980s and 1990's he had a major influence on man's fashion photography using images of males models in their underwear, this was both controversial and iconic and been seen in high fashion magazines like Vogue.
The 90's
During the '90s the tv hit show friends that were shown on tv for 10 years and ran from 1994 to 2004 through the shows as each year went on you see the change in fashion from the start of the show right thought until they moved into the next millennium
the 90's to me was the eras of branding and logos across there jumpers. flared came back into fashion but made from denim.
men and women would start to wearing simar clothing and hairstyles as the fashion for most people was drove by the media of
For women during the 90s would normally wear denim buttons shirts with coloured (red, green or purple jean, and black leather jackets, silk clothing for the posh moments, however, crop tops became a thing of fashion and remains to stay within fashion 20 years later.
I feel like when looking at pictures of my mum someone who due up in the '90s in her teen years I get the impression that people couldn't make up the mind about body temperature as it was known to have a sweater on whiles wearing shorts outdoors
Fashion photographer from the '90s - Ellen Von Unwerth
Ellen Von Unwerth became famous after working with Claudia Schiffer. Her work has appeared in many fashion magazines such as Vogue, Vanity fair and The Face. She has also with famous music icons such as Janet Jackson, Rihanna and Britney Spears. she was born in the 1950s and is still producing amazing work that still remains outstanding today.
The 2000's
I believe that the growth of technology played a big part in with the chances of fashion as people were able to use it to build on branding and making of clothing also this allowed to people to expand on coming up with different styles of clothing.
During these ten years, fashion couldn't be so different compared to the last few decades as it turned into nightwear clothing. wearing clothing like mini skirts and tops little to none of the clothing.
Due to the growth of the world of pop-culture, a lot of fashion trends were mirrored in everyday fashion.
People attitude to fashion has changed as it was like proud of class and wealth all the way to people wanting to be different and stand out creating a different type of groups of people.
Also, the use of fashion shows became more expensive to do but social media took over and change of the way fashion with the like of celebrity wearing clothing from big brands.
For me being someone who grew up during the '00s looking back I felt like it was just a calmer version of the '90s mixed up with the looks of the 70's the thought these time it was seen to be a change of many different tents with the fashion styles such emo, street, hip-hop, Athleisurewear and scene. throughout the early-mid and late 00's the was changes within the fashion.
Fashion photographer from the 00's - Rankin (John Rankin Waddell)
Rankin is a mega-famous fashion photographer who I chose to talk about as he was working as a fashion photographer during this decade. He is a British portrait photographer and director. He has photographed lots of a very famous including The Queen of England and David Bowie. Rankin has influenced many decades of portrait photography and dominated fashion photography. He didn't start shooting until the age of 21 and has not stopped working since he apparently works from 5.30 in the morning to 8.30 pm or even later, and describes his work as an addiction.
Conclusion
Through the years it is shown that fashion has changed from being smart and proud of class all the way to different gender and ethical groups this is because people feel like it is important to dress a different way to stand out and make a statement which then leads into people being like sheep following and copying others.
Fashion shows started to be become a thing and help to pull people away from the same type of fashion style that used to be the thing before the evolution of technology helped to make a change to things as more and more fashion designers came together. More fashion magazines were being made to help people become more selective on what to wear, the growth of female fashion designers which helped the industry to be more open-minded on things as it was a mostly male lead which only allowed for male influences on what the fashion would have been like during the times.
Overall it is easy in some ways to define different eras just by the fashion style of the time with each decade having its own iconic look to help identify one era from another.
We were split up into groups for this unit to work collaboratively, In my group the was Liam, Kayla, Billi, Amelia and Chloe. We completed different shoots for food and fashion photography.
Assignment 3 -Photoshoot
Food photography
Over the years the has been a big growth in food photography and it is even now encouraged by many restaurants to allow the diners to take shots of the dish and to upload it onto social media such as Instagram which can lead into the restaurants haeing new customers also it is free marketing for the restaurants. This growth of food photography has only picked up due to the rise of smartphones and them having a camera built-in as most people wouldn't really take a large DLSR with them to a restaurant to dine.
Digital Camera (2020) 'How to shoot ','Food, Glorious Food', (225), pp. 40-53.
For this part of the unit, we were put into groups and we have to work as a team to produce a collection of photoshoots that show different ways of styling food and fashion photos then to produce a final outcome from each one and see how we can turn it into a front cover of a magazine this is to allow the graphic design students to help out and interact with this side of the project.
Who is my target audiences Food magazine?
The target audience for food magazines can changes depending on the time of year with seasonal examples such as students at the beginning of the academic year (September/ October) would be the main target audience for budget meals. whereas during the Christmas holidays the target audiences would be aimed towards family hosting dinner parties. Generally, homeowners are the main target audience all year round such as after the new year to Easter time would mainly aim towards people dieting and throughout the Easter time, the magazines would target family with young children, coming up to the summertime change the target audiences back to those who are dieting. Throughout the summer seasons, bbq and outdoor eating will be advertised in the magazines.
As a group, our strategy to meet the target audience would be to try and mirror trending magazines such as recreating the type of tone and type of layout with the magazine for example if we were to do a summer theme we would use bright and colourful tone. If we were to do a magazine cover for the easter season then the use of pastel colours tone.
Photoshoot 1 - sandwich falling sandwich
Contact sheet
Our first shoot as a group was the flying sandwich shoot. we discussed what we all wanted to achieve and we all had the responsibility for different ingredients. Liam modelled for us and our first attempt had the ingredients scattered all in different directions. We decided that it didn't look right and that if the ingredients were flying upwards it would be more realistic. eventually, we were with the shoot, however, we tried to keep the focus of the photograph on the sandwich without any other props apart from the wooden board. The lighting we used was a big softbox to make sure the illumination was even for the photograph.
The Edited Final Result
This is the final result with editing to remove the wire. I am quite happy with the results it came out better then we expected.
Photoshoot 2 - Sandwich
For our second photo shoot, we shot a ham and cheese salad sandwich. To make the image more vibrant we decide to add a chopping board instead of a plate to make it stand out more. We added the napkin and the boiled egg cut in half to make the image appealing.
Liam brought in salt and pepper mills to help make the final outcome to have a more professional feel as if it was in a real cafe. we used water and a paintbrush to make the bun look even fresher. The lighting we used was a softbox on one side and on the other side we used a snoot this gives both broader softer light and focuses on the subject matter.
Photoshoot 3 - chocolate
for this shoot we chose a mixture of milk chocolate and white chocolate buttons and a white Lindt chocolate that we arranged into a shape of a snowflake We crushed a twirl bar and sprinkled it on to the snowflake. The lighting we used was from the use of two softboxes set up on each side of the chocolate. The background is a black wooden board. I like the fact that our arrangement is seasonal for winter. I feel that we struggled to balance the tones evenly. It would have worked better if the light conditions were better controlled, using a bright light caused too many shadows which affected the balance.
Photoshoot 4 - doughnuts
For this shoot, we ended up using plain doughnuts and jam doughnuts, We placed a few doughnuts on a slate and covered them with a little bit of baking powder the light was placed above the doughnuts and a honey cone attachment. We metered the layout before taking the first initial shot and we got a reading at f5.6 and took some test shots to see if we had the correct setting, the light was set at f3 however, it was the outcome we were looking for because we had some areas that were too dark and other areas were too bright. We changed the attachment to a snoot to provide more narrow light plus we changed our shooting angle from shooting above to shooting from a 45-degree angle since we changed the attachment we had to re meter so we had a better contrast of lighting once we were happy with the way the doughnuts were lit we then tried shooting from many different angles.
We also attempted the shoot with adding the honey cone but this time had it coming off the side and giving a warmth feeling. Following this we all decided to just take a snoot and only ending up with one light coming from the side finally we felt like we were happy with it so we then just stuck to shooting from a different angle to get a more dramatic feel though the whole shoot had a plain black background. In addition to this, we decided to rearrange the doughnuts to allow from a bigger range of composition plus drawing hearts into the baking powder.
Later on, we then added the snoot back into the shoot and place both of the lights coming from either side of the doughnuts to try and get rid of the shadows.
Afterwards, we then came up with the idea of having a sieve and used even more flour or more baking powder featured in the shoot.
(Full contact sheet from the shoot.)
Photoshoot 5 - fashion
As a group, we wanted to try out creating some images for the fashion magazine. We styled Liam in a white shirt, black and black vest. We felt that this make him look smart and business-like, this gave him an air of authority. In addition to this, the shoot was taken from below which gives him a powerful persona. The inspiration for this image came from Platon photography of power people Vladimir Putin( as seen below).
add images
For this image, we wanted to highlight Liam face without the lighting being too harsh, therefore we did a soft Rembrandt with a singe snoot attachment to achieve this.
We chose to use a red chair because it felt more professional and made a bold statement. We felt like we needed to do a reshoot to try out different backgrounds. We chose to use a position outside against an orange wall. The lighting we used was two softboxes placed on either side of Liam. However, we had some issues with the lighting reflection on the wall and had to move the softboxes to prevent this from happening as we were unable to remove it no matter where we placed both softboxes we decided to remove the reflection in post-production. We also tried out different angles to produce both candid and more casual images.
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Assignment 4 - Final products and presentation
Final outcomes
As a group, we ended up producing seven different shoots for both the food and fashion side of for things this unit. Our next step would have been to create different examples of food and fashion magazines. However, due to lockdown for the pandemic, we were unable to complete the shoots in college. Also, we couldn't get together as a group and our communication was limited to group chats on Facebook. Using Photoshop, Billi and Michaela have put together some covers and updated us on their progress so that we could produce these magazines covers as a team.
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