For our third brief we have been tasked with creating a dramatic, colour, editorial portrait shot of an artist who must be either semi-proffessional or professional. The images we capture are to be used for the Sunday Times Weekend Magazine front cover and so I firstly researched the magazine to see what the layout would be:

From this I knew I wanted my subject in the centre of the frame with some space at the top, bottom, and sides.

Then I researched different editorial style shots of artists:

I liked both of these because they were a little out of the ordinary. For my first shoot I contacted Mary Gristwood, a local wedding violinist, and she was more than happy to help. I had planned to have sheets of music strung up with fishing wire to a background stand and then I was going to shoot her between it all, using my flash as a spotlight whilst metering for the rest of the image to be darker.

However, when I went out to do this shoot it was far too windy to be able to hang the sheets of music up and then my flash wouldn’t work for some reason. It was very frustrating as I had checked all my kit the night before and checked batteries etc. Once I got home my flash was working again so I’m not totally sure what went wrong. Regardless, I made do with what I had and got some nice moody shots of mary playing her violin and I used the long grass around us to add depth and texture by shooting in a way so that pieces of the grass were in front of the subject but out of focus:

I added a vignette to darken the corners and I also colour graded the image so that it was colder looking which I felt added drama to the image.

For my second shoot (which will be later this evening) I am drawing inspiration from this image by Irvin Serrano:

I contacted a friend who crochetes and knits commission pieces and asked her if she could create something similar with knitting so that I could use it to frame her. She knitted a few practice pieces and then came back to say it was doable and so she would knit a piece that we could use. I pan to use the knitting as a frame, with the middle cut/torn open. However, unlinke Serrano’s shot I plan to have a lot more of the subject in view as I also want to show the subject knitting, not just their face.

Once I have completed my shoot tonight I will update on how it went as well as post the images I take.

Bibliography

Online Sources

• https://magpile.com/the-sunday-times-magazine/feb-13/
• https://www.crazyaboutmagazines.com/ourshop/cat_55902-THE-SUNDAY-TIMES-Magazine-Back-Issues-cc-pg_34.html
• https://www.campaignlive.co.uk/article/sunday-times-magazine-celebrates-50-years-exhibition/1112194
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/gretatu/13488161884
• https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/arts/music/fredell-lack-violinist-dead.html
• https://irvinserrano.com/PORTFOLIO/Portrait/7
• https://www.marygristwood.com/