7 Deadly Sins
Wrath
Wrath is embodied in the individual who decides to emit fury instead of love. Wrath is usually associated with the colour red. An example of wrath being put into a modern day context would be when someone who is being told something they don't paricularly like such as criticism. Instead of using the criticism as help to improve their work, for example, they become very angry about it.
Greed
Greed is the desire for material wealth and gain. The colour associated with greed is usually orange. If I were to put greed into a modern day context I would say it is usually most common with money. People tend to get cought up in the idea of having alot of money and once they start to gain money they want more and more and find it hard to stop wanting. Greed is when you want more than you have. However this could also be with other materialistic things such as cars designer clothes etc.
Sloth
Sloth is the avoidance of physical work. The colour associated with sloth is purple. An example of sloth would be if someone has made a commitment to go to the gym but hasn't been yet. They are avoiding to do excercise which means that they are being lazy.
Gluttony
Gluttony is a great desire to consume more than an individual requires. The colour associated with gluttony is yellow. This sin is usually linked to the idea of consuming more food than one needs. For example someone who likes to sit on the sofa and eat a whole tub of ice cream to themselves knowing that they shouldn't eat the whole tub. However it doesn't always have to be related to food.
Envy
Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation. The colour associated with envy is green. For example, if someone sees another individual with a designer bag which they want they begin to whish they had it.
Pride
Pride is an excessive belief in one's own abilities. The colour associated with pride is blue. This could be someone thinking that they are better than others as they have a higher positioned status, role, ranking ect or it could be because they think they are better looking than someone else or better at something than someone else.
Lust
Lust is excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature. The colour associated with lust is pink. An example of this would be someone being physically attracted to another individual.
Ian Phillips Mclaren-Portrait Photographer
As I have chosen to do close-up shots of the face for my final piece, I think Ian Phillips Mclaren is a good photographer to research. Majority of his work consists of close-up shots of the face which is very similar to the theme I will be using in my work. As the themes are so simular I thought I could use him as one of my inspirations which will contribute towards my final piece because not only do I really like his work overall but I also like the way he has taken some photographs in black and white and others in colour with natural make-up to fashion photo's with dramatic make-up. I also like the way he uses different lighting techniques against plain backgrounds because even though the backgrounds and models tend to be basic the lighting used help creates different effects. I like the idea of innocine and purity that is portrayed in his photographs just like my second photographer who I have researched called Mario Testino. Just like Mclaren, Testino to photographs showing innocence and purity.
Experimentation
I have taken some pictures in the style of my first photographer. I attempted to take portrait head shots of my male and female models which I then experimented on in Photoshop. In some of the pictures I have changed them to black and white as Mclaren has done some black and white photography in his portfolio. Taking these pictures have helped me understand how lighting can affect pictures and help me to correct the mistakes in my final piece. Experimenting in photoshop has also helped me as it has increased my knowledge on how to use Photoshop.
The two images below are both identical to each other. The picture on the left is different to the one on the right as I have just changed the original picture to black and white without any other alterations. However the image on the right is slightly different to the one on the left as I first duplicated the layer and selected the backgroud on the original layer and deleted it. I then selected the duplicated layer and increase the brightness and contrass. This made the background look brighter without changing the brightness of the model. I did this as the last image on the right which has been taken by my artist has a very bright background and is also in black and white.
With the image on the left I only increased the brightness, but the image on the right I increased the lightness, brightness and saturation which gave a warmer glow to the skin colour and increased the brightness and lighness of the whole image. I think the image on the left looks similar to the last image from my photographers images as the image is black and white and very bright. It also looks very similar to Mario Testino's work as well as Mclaren's work. By photographing in Mclaren's style it helped me to realise that both of these photographers have a very similar style of work and one of the main similarities is that both photographers do high end fashion photography.
Mario Testino
Mario Testino is a well known global fashion photographer who has photographed for magazines such as Vanity Fair, V and Vogue. He also photographs for fashion houses such as Gucci, D&G and Versace. I really like Testino's work because I think his photographs are very innocent and pure. For example, the photographs he took of Beyonce appear to be very pure and angelic rather than sexy and edgy without eliminating the fashion element. I think he photographed her to come across pure due to the charity work she carries out all over the world which the coloured photo with children surrounding her, I think portrays. As I am using the idea of innocence and purity I thought he was an intresting and appropriate photographer to research. I have also used Testino as one of my inspirations for my final piece as well as Mclaren. Even though Testino takes all types of body shots I can still observe his work, annalyse it and compare it to Mclaren and take elements of both photographers and use it as an inspiration which will help me with the result of my final piece.
Moodboard
I created a moodboard which contains pictures from fashion magazines which inspired me with the final idea for my final piece. The pictures are mostly shoulder and head shots because it is the theme I will be using for my final piece. The moodboard has helped me draw up my sketches which roughly illustrate how I want my final pieces to look like. At first I wanted to do a dramatic hair and make-up theme with a white backdrop for each sin. However later I changed my mind and decided to do a simple hair and make-up theme but still using shoulder and head shots with a white background for each sin. I chose this theme instead of the dramatic hair and make-up theme becuase I like the idea of the simple make-up and white backdrop representing innocence but then inncoperating body language, face expressions and camera angles to highlight each sin. This moodboard has really helped me thing about camera angles, the model's hair, make-up, face expressions and the positioning ot the model, use of colours and lighting. Before starting on my final piece I took draft pictures experimenting with face expressions, lighting and camera angles.
Draft Photographs
Lust
In this draft i used Photoshop to completely cut out the background to see what the result would be if I decided I wanted to use a completely white background for the final photographs. I don't think i will be using a completely white background because I think it looks tacky as I can see the rough edges of around the photo.
Sloth
Pride
Wrath
Greed
To improve this picture for my final piece I'm not going to use an obvious object such as money because I want the story of the picture to be told more through the lighting and face expression of the model.
Sloth
Like sloth I am not going to be using an obvious object such as chocolates in my final piece because I want the lighting and the face expression to tell the story of the photograph.
