I can't believe I haven't posted in 3 months. It's not intentional - my final university project has finally arrived, and I have just 10 weeks to finish everything off. Luckily for me, the dissertation part of the deadline has been and gone (I passed!) and now I've just got to focus on creating my zine, Femme Sole, and fundraising so I can have a print run of 50+. The first official editorial, where I collaborated with Midge of Modern Girl Blitz, took place about a month ago, but in order to keep the contents of the zine safe and secret I unfortunately cannot show you these photos. But here's a little preview:

What I can show you, however, are my photographs from this year's Norwich Fashion Week. I've been recruited as a work experience photographer for the Evening News/EDP/Norwich Fashion Week, and have been given assignments for catwalks, events and videos. The first event I attended, IonFashIon at The Forum, was the official launch night for the fashion week, and featured garments and jewellery from local retailers as well as the competitors for a local model contest who showcased their talent on the catwalk. For my brief I was asked to take a video, something I'm not overly confident in particularly as I only had my little Canon 500D at hand. In between video clips, however, I did take some photos. These are a selection of my favourites from the night:

Edits, zines, and work experience.

I finally handed in the first half of my project for the year on Friday. I was fortunate enough to have finished everything the night before, so didn't have the panic of the last-minute rush like a lot of my class mates; that doesn't relieve the stress, however, and even now I am panicking at the mere thought of getting my results in a couple of week's time. Luckily, I finished the first edition of my zine completely on time:

Woohoo! Now, I still have a few things I wanna do to it, so think of this as a draft version - I have an illustrator on board who is gonna fill in the blank pages, and a couple more outfits I wanna shoot with to turn it from a 4-outfit look book into a 30-page zine. I also want to play around with the photos a little bit more, maybe take some photographs to work as busy, patterned backgrounds in the photos where the fabric is quite plain. I experimented a little with my favourite photo of Jude, and am totally smitten with the result. Fingers crossed I can make more photos that look just as awesome!

There are a few things going on at the moment that I can't wait to blog about - next week I have a work experience placement for Bentlys Records where I'll be photographing two of their bands as they perform around the city and then at a gig in the evening. I also have some work experience with the Evening News coming up at a later date! As well as this, I have a job interview tomorrow, after being unexpectedly fired, which I'm pretty nervous about - and on top of that I'm in talks with an up-and-coming clothing brand, to photograph their collection for display in the next edition of Femme Sole! I really can't wait to be able to share all of these photos on here, and I hope whoever is reading this is excited to see some new work too.

For my latest project I have decided to look at fashion photography, and using it as a tool to showcase the work of the designer specifically as opposed to an over-the-top set or the celebrity of the model. First up in this series is the work of 3 NUCA Fashion Design students, and their end-of-year work from their first year at university. After talking, discussing ideas and sharing inspiration over the summer we had very specific ideas for what we wanted to get out of the photoshoots, and from circus themes to a tie-dye background we spent the entire afternoon arranging lighting, posing models and battling 6-foot-tall pieces of polystyrene wrapped in reflective material. This is only the first of many photoshoots, however, and the images will become more refined as I practice my technique. 

For the first-year's end of year work they were given the brief of creating a collaboration between the work of a design house and that of a high-street brand, and to create a garment representing this. I began with the work of Jess Long, who had chosen to combine the work of 'quirky chic' designer label Miu Miu with the on-trend high street store River Island. Taking inspiration from clowns and the circus, Jess's dress takes elements of many of the recent summer trends; from bold polka-dots to heavily-contrasting colours, to a wide, ruffled collar, the dress is almost surreal in its nature. The material used to create the garment adds a softness to the photograph as a whole, despite the harsh blacks of the polkadots or the conflicting green and purple tones, and we chose to use soft lighting in the image both from the front and behind to add to this. 

Next was the work of Georgie Gilbert. Georgie's collaboration was between Mary katrantzou, who uses household objects as inspiration for her vibrant print designs, and Whistles, a high street store that caters for women seeking a feminine silhouette and classic cuts. Georgie took inspiration from the concept of afternoon tea and the structure of a teacup, and used these elements to create a soft and feminine floral dress that really compliments the wearer. For this photograph we used the soft, pastel colours in the dress and projected them onto the background to create a gradient that adds a dream-like nature to the image as a whole. 

Finally, we shot a simple test shot for designer Kristen Loveday. Kristen's project was based on a collaboration between a designer called Sybilla and the high street brand Coast, and she took inspiration from the work of painter Jack Vettriano. The work of Vettriano is filled with elegance, just as Kristen's dress is, but also contains an element of seduction. The deep v of the back reflects this seduction, as does the romantic and feminine drape of the material used. Kristen and I are currently in the process of setting up a location shoot to show off the retro vibe of the dress, and as such I should have more work to share on this blog very soon.

Summer is definitely coming to an end.

Catwalks at Graduate Fashion Week

Not only did my AAA pass at Graduate Fashion Week allow me to access a lot of areas that were out of bounds for the general public, it also meant that I could get into the catwalk shows as a member of the press, blag a front-row seat, and photograph away to my heart's content. The photos I took of the catwalks and the designs weren't going to be used on the official GFW blog, I knew that much, because there was already a designated photographer/writer team who were covering them. That meant that I could take as many photos as I wanted, but had to be careful; if I'd spent too much time away from my own designated tasks it would've looked like I was slacking off, and as a result I only went to 4 catwalk shows. Out of those 4 I only took photos at 3 - Salford, East London, and the university I was most impressed with design-wise and show-wise, UCA Rochester. These are my favourite photos from each show.

East London:

Salford:

  

UCA Rochester:

  

   

What I really liked about the work of the UCA Rochester students was the amazing diversity between all of the designers, and the amount of effort that appeared to have gone into not just the designs but the show itself. The catwalk show opened up in silence, with a faded milky light on the entrance to the catwalk. From the empty, sterile environment two figures emerged, dressed like scientists in white coats, and reached out for a row of coat hangers that had been suspended above the stage. Under the discerning gaze of the entire audience, they dressed the first model in his outfit, left the stage, and then - just like that - the music began, the lights intensified, and the models starting walking. Each set was something new, and brilliant. The decorations used to adorn the models was extremely imaginative, and every set of clothing had a perfectly apt song choice to accompany them down the catwalk. Not only that, the students had gone to the effort of creating a fashion magazine, which was placed on the seats of those in the front few rows, entitled Geist. I read through this magazine on the hour-long journey home, and was really impressed. From interesting case studies about unpaid interns, to androgynous fashion shoots, the magazine is well researched, well presented, and was very well received. It might have been because UCA Rochester was the last show I got to see before I came back to Norwich, but it really seemed like there was something special about the work I saw.

A few sneak peek photos from Krakow

I'm going to be heading into the university to use the 35mm negative scanners tomorrow, but for now here are a few sneak peek photos from the 3 days I spent in Krakow. Though the trip was fraught with disaster - on the first day I fell off a high curb and my ankle was the size of a golfball; on the second day one of my films failed entirely - the photos I did get look fantastic, and I'm very excited to start sequencing the images and creating the book. These are just two images I got of traditional musicians, taken on two different days, at the Florianska Gate that leads from the Old Town Market Square to the Barbican.