Shoot 1 - Work Record

In the first shoot of this exam, I will be taking close up images of different body parts of different women (for example, the arm) which I will later edit in Photoshop by adding a barcode to the area. This symbolises the objectification of women and how they are viewed as a 'product for men' in society. This is a replicate from one of my preparatory shoots as I was extremely pleased with the outcome and knew where I could improve to make them even better. Like before, I will shoot these images against a black background in order to keep them looking simple and so that the attention is not taken away from the barcode. But, this time I will be using a snoot with a light so that the light beam is directed specifically to the particular body part I am shooting, rather than a soft box which would illuminate the whole picture. In Photoshop, I will make my images black and white as I feel this will give a darker and more serious atmosphere than keeping them in colour - a choice I made after my first version of this shoot. I made this choice as I felt the use of black and white would create a blank canvas for the barcode and prevent any attention being drawn away from the barcode. 

Throughout the shoot, I encountered some problems with the lighting. At first, it did not seem bright enough and so I moved it closer and brought the brightness levels up. I also adjusted the ISO on my camera so it was more suitable for the lighting conditions. I then found that the light being so close made the models' skin look orange, which would later make it appear too dark when turned into a black and white image. In the end, I had to move the light further away and turn it back down. The images did come out quite dark, but I was able to fix this by using Levels and Brightness/Contrast in Photoshop. Overall, this was the only problem that I had and the rest of the shoot went exactly as planned in terms of what I had wanted to shoot and how long I expected it to take. During editing, I found it much easier to place the barcodes in the images this time in comparison to the preparatory shoot as I now knew exactly what to do and even found some new techniques to make it look better (for example, adding a gaussian blur made it look softer on the skin). As I wanted a high contrast in tones, I used the burn and dodge tools to made the black areas darker and the white areas lighter. The images turned out perfectly and I am very happy with the results.

Camera settings: 1/125, f/6.5, ISO 3200

This was my favourite image from the shoot as it is quite different from the others. In this image, you can see the barcode on the lower back of the model, but it is being slightly covered by her top. Whilst the barcode connotes how women are objectified in society, the way that the top is covering, or hiding, the barcode suggests that this is an underlying issue in society and that people are trying to cover up that that this still happens. I feel that the use of tones in this image helps connote how feminists are trying to break free from this as the whole image is dark, apart from her body. This could connote that she is trying to draw attention to her objectification and make people truly see what is happening. I feel that the barcode in this picture looks more natural as a result of it being partially covered and so I feel that this image best matches what I was hoping to achieve.

This was an image that I did not like. When I originally took the image in the studio, I thought that it would be one of my straight images due to the contrast in her skin tone and the black clothing. But, during editing, the black clothing was a problem as you could not make it out against the black background. It therefore makes her ankle look slightly out of place and there is a possibility that it is difficult to make out what is happening. When I tried adjusting the levels and the brightness to make the leg and shoe more prominent, the image began to look grainy and had a lot of noise. It also started to look to bright as I wanted the dark parts of my images to be as dark as possible. Whilst this image still is successful in holding the connotations of objectification, I felt that it did not look as aesthetically pleasing as my other straight images and so have decided that this image is my least favourite. 

Progression

For my next shoot, I will be furthering this shoot. I will use the same background, models and shoot the same parts of the body but I will be using temporary tattoos of barcodes in place of photoshopping them on. I feel that this will give the images a more natural looking finish. I have learnt from this shoot that I should explore more with the lighting and possibly use different equipment in order to get a brighter and more focussed light. I feel as though I was too rushed with the lighting and instead of focussing on finding out the problem, I played around with settings and positioning of the light until it looked good. Therefore, I will spend more time and put more effort into fixing the lighting rather than deciding to edit it later in Photoshop as the images will most likely have a nicer finish this way.