Funds.

I have to say that I am extremely low on funds at the moment. I have been shooting for a month and when I've finished the next two shoots I will be extremely skint. I will have produced 4 images and finished my season's series but I have received no feedback on any of these images! It appears that every thursday at the minute when I should be attending a crit, I've signed up for a masterclass, or its reading week, or just like next week I'm in london for yet again another masterclass. While I'm really excited about all these opportunities I'm signing up for I will have spent £250 on 4 shoots and had no feedback in order to improve.. While £250 may not seem alot, to a struggling student it is the difference between eating or not! I'm going to have to be brave and ask fellow students for feedback.

Summer

Shoot 3. Summer.

I'm in the process of planning my next shoot with Karen from Tulle and Candyfloss.

She has informed me she will be sending me pieces that are similar to those pictured above. I've chosen to use colourful pieces for this shoot as I want the shoot and the props to embody the feeling of warmth and sun and think pieces similar to these would work very well. 

With handmade bespoke headpieces there are no guarentee's with what they will look like as Karen only loans the pieces for 7 days so I usually receive them the day before the shoot and there is no time to reorder them. I do however have faith in Karen as she is creative minded like myself and we seem to be working really well together so far.

Kyle Grace Masterclass

I attended the Kyle Grace retouching masterclass on Thursday. I found it very informative to learn the methods of professional retouching. I noticed that my method is not too different from Kyle's method but I do still have alot to learn. He supplied us with links to youtube tutorials which I will be using soon to improve my skills even further.

While I enjoyed learning Kyle's methods what I didn't like about the class was that he went too fast over certain points and didn't give us a chance to take it in or try the methods for ourselves.

Sequencing workshop.

I attended the sequencing workshop at uni on Monday and found it very informative. It was really interesting the way that each group decided to sequence their set of 12/13 images they'd been given. In nearly every group there were a few images that I felt differently about and wanted to move in the sequence as I felt they didn't flow as well. However, every group had valid reasons for their sequences and therefor justified them.

The picture shows my groups sequence. The first two images are facing each other and of similar colour palettes and would make a great double page spread. The second two are of the same colour tones despite one being a landscape and the other portrait. Again the two black and white portraits mimic each other in composition and would make a good double page spread. On to the next line the next two images share similar qualities like both being portraits and strong contrasts. The next two are a little unusual as the woman sat on the edge of her bed is facing outwards not inwards but the colour tones go well. If I were to reverse the order of the two images to make her face inwards then she would not link well to the next image. The next two are both of similar tones and set on location and the last two both hold strong greens which ties them together.

In the past I haven't really thought too much about the sequencing of my work on my website so I think now I am better informed about it, it would be a good exercise to re-sequence it all. 

Shoot 2 Autumn.

I am still working in collaboration with Karen from Tulle and Candyfloss and for the Autumn shoot she sent me the following:

A headband headpiece

A neckpiece

She also sent a belt which I used wrapped around the models arm and a wrist cuff which I do not have images of.

The pieces we're gorgeous but I regret choosing all black pieces as when work together they were very over-powering.

Edit process

Above are the stages I went through to get my final image for this shoot. The first image is what the shot looked like after skin retouching. Everything looked flat and the orange background was not quite working well with the autumn and moody feeling I was trying to create. After failing to change the colour with the selective colour option, I then played around with several fill layers, opacities and styles to create the second image which sorted out my dull background. However this posed a new issue for me as the skin on the model was no longer the right colour and looked unusual. Using the base layer I made a duplicate of this and using layer masks I masked out the horrid skin colour revealing her natural skin tone with the edited background. This was great practice for me as it has been a while since I've had to edit something like this. Naturally I'd rather do everything in camera so I will need to think about my colour pallettes more carefully next time but this helped me practice some more complex editing techniques that will come in handy if I am to pursue a retouching career.