Creating the Editorial Story - White Lights And Dark Knights

I'm glad I keep a selection of images from photoshoots I like from over the years in a, Fashion, Editorial, Modelling all-in-one general folder on my computer, so that every now and again; I come across images that I know have never been made public. I also like that I have blog posts that were made at or near the time I did some of those photoshoots as they often contain snippets of information about the work that I have long since forgotten. And yet these details were an important part of why a final picture ended up looking the way it does today. The White Lights and Dark Knights editorial is a perfect example of this. I shot three fashion stories and several portraits for issue 3 of Le Magazine. One story was a collage collaboration with a photo artist. Then there was a more straight forward studio shoot; which regardless of how good it looked I ended up spending a lot of time in post finessing to bring out it's more ethereal qualities. Then there was this story White Light.. which; after we had shot the pictures, changed direction almost entirely!!! Now this is something that never usually happens.

We had worked quite intensively on all the shoot concepts and planning; the how, what, where, when. This one was initially conceived as a shoot that could use patterns either projected or dropped in using Photoshop. We decided Photoshopping the pattern in after would be the simplest approach but; for reasons I can no longer recall the pattern concept went right out the window. (Was it a Florence Broadhurst concept that ran into a rights issue?) Clearly there was something about what had been planned in the vintage aspect to the styling, that started me thinking about the Russian Constructivists. Their use of geometric shapes and primary colours as a possible alternative to the  type of pattern idea we had started with. So the concept that we ended up with started out with me proposing a series like the red square and oblique lines image that I prepared above. But this did not seem to hit the mark for the magazine so we moved on... continued below.

Whilst doing my research on the Constructivists I started falling in love with the period portraits of the artists that I was seeing (now there's a recurring theme in my photography..) Shots of the pavilions they had built for exhibitions and the posters they produced for their shows. By this time we had already shot the images with model Sammy Raine against a basic white background and, thinking Constructivistly I dug out some night shots of the super structure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge that I had taken years earlier with my trusty Canon Pro1 top of the line Point-and-Shoot.. back in 2006!

This concept was given the go ahead and then it was just down to me doing the most complex image compositing I had ever done. On the plus side, being inspired by Russian Constructivism collage works by El Lissitzky and ‎Alexander Rodchenko meant that the pictures should not be perfectly rendered into the background. The original opening page is above, below are the original images without magazine text along with some of the pictures as they were made before becoming part of the collage images.

Sammie and I having a Monroe Moment..

Outtake from original series.

My concept and working title for the opening of the story.

The vintage inspired garments from Mrs Press combined with the slightly crazy Vivien Westwood shoes, the old stole from Coco Collectables. It all works perfectly against Sydney’s largest Art Deco structure the Sydney Harbour Bridge! After lifting model Sammy off the white background (so to speak) and dropping her over the night bridge scenes , post processing was mostly about blending B&W layers to deliver our Constructivist; now a little bit Film Noir feeling final images. I'd like to think that all the artists from whom I found my inspiration would be happy with the way the final images turned out. Even lovely Florence the unseen idea that got us started; was known to like women and design a little on the edge.

Model, Sammy Raine
Styling, Rhiannon Bulley
Hair & Make Up, Lisa Sciberras

To book your photoshoot, simply call or email Kent now!

Book Me Here

Kent Johnson, Sydney, Australia.

0433 796 863

kent@artcommunication.com.au

www.kentjohnsonphotography.com.au

www.fashionphotographysydney.blogspot.com/

Facebook Twitter Instagram

Finding Creative Inspiration in Everyday Moments.

Where do creative ideas come from? They are the basis of good pictures and they are certainly not born in isolation. My ideas at least are often a convergence of what I have seen, studied, experienced, that are then gelled into form by something.. Like last night. It's Sunday, I am walking down Crown Street near the Surry Hills primary school. The weather is rainy, it's dark so it's just the glow of street lights.. Then across the road, I notice a young woman wearing a, white with black polka dots pants suit striding ahead of a group of four. She looks great out in front; dark hair, tall, immaculately turned out. I drag my eyes away and search the trailing group to see it's composition, how many girls, guys? It's all guys! It's one immaculately turned out woman leading a tight knit group of four guys who are themselves engaged in cross conversation between themselves; perhaps that is why they are lagging back. There is a great animation between the group and an invisible thread tying them to the woman striding ahead in the polka dot pant's suit. It's a fantastic vision and it's real! Too real for my liking; the guys are wearing jeans and sweatshirts, she looks great, maximum effort; they look pretty unexceptional, but hey, it is an Australian story.. (Sorry guys, I know we do try sometimes, myself included.)

So why am I writing all this down? In part it's so I remember the scene a little better, and also to ask a question. Does this scene, this tableaux sound at all familiar? I ask because to me it really does. As soon as I saw it was only men following the woman, and the distance, and the communing of the men, my mind referenced the storehouse of images that lives somewhere in my head. And it came up with this image by Ruth Orkin, American girl in Italy.  www.orkinphoto.com/american-girl/

Though the picture in my head was not as finely detailed as the actual image itself.. I also wrongly mentally attributed this image to a French photographer who is equally famous for "stolen moment" pictures, the photographer Robert Doisneau. Arguably Robert's most famous picture is Le baiser de l'hotel de ville (Kiss by the Hotel de Ville).. and I am pretty certain that it is because I am familiar with these photographs and similar great works of photography that I was able to see a photograph when I saw the men led by the woman in polka dots last night. All of which makes for a bit of a which came first, the chicken or the egg kind of situation.

Of course looking at this famous image this morning I can see how the woman's stride struck a cord for me. The central four men, the two on each side of the woman have a dialogue that centres on the woman; and no doubt that was happening too, but between the men themselves last night. So something very different really but also great similar energies, at least as I saw them.

Will I do anything with the vision I saw that I am now sharing here, I really don't know? I am often inspired by things I see that I would like to work on in a shot; and sometimes I do (just click here); but mostly the ideas simply get stored in my head, waiting for a moment, an instant when they will inform the way I create an image that I am actually working on and make it better. And that for me is how inspiration really works, in the background, the subconscious, informing and creating new takes and hopefully new classics. Well you have to dream, don't you!

Would you like to see more of the wonderful work by the two photographers I mention above, just click the links below to visit their official web archives.
http://www.orkinphoto.com/
https://www.robert-doisneau.com/en/

Kent Johnson is a professional photographer working from Sydney, Australia.

Kent Johnson,
Sydney, Australia.

0433 796 863

kent@artcommunication.com.au

www.kentjohnsonphotography.com.au

www.fashionphotographysydney.blogspot.com/

Facebook Twitter

Mood Boards; that White-Gold Blue-Black Dress Internet Phenomenon & Contemporary Fashion Photography..

A few weeks back while talking with a model about shooting a fashion/portfolio test I was asked if I could supply a mood board for the shoot. Now this may seem to many quite a common and reasonable request; but considering our conversation and that the model had seen my shots of the location, shots from previous shoots at a similar location and as confirmed to me, a good slice of my website; I was a little surprised (but not shocked) to be asked for a mood board. To which I replied "it will be something like my pictures you have seen only with you, and at that location".

And the reply was, "but everyone uses mood boards"..

So what has any of this talk about mood boards and shooting on location (or anywhere) got to do with the; is it white and gold or brown and blue dress, the picture that took the internet and social networking by storm? My answer as to why I do not often use mood boards is in part due to a/the similarity with this whole dress/colour photograph fiasco; and to be fair I suppose if I was in conversation with a client I may have been a little more subtle, but here was my response about supplying a mood board for the planned shoot.

"Mood boards are for the visually illiterate who don't actually know what they are looking at; especially when looking at pictures." Ouch! Well keep reading below.

Mood boards? Location test shot books for use on editorial fashion shoots.

This was very well demonstrated with the The White-Gold Blue-Black Dress internet phenomenon. Visual people were able to look at the dress and the OTHER information the picture contained.. Washed out, Overexposed, Backlight (bright behind), and extrapolate out what was really going on both in and with the picture including an ability to read the correct colour. Black and Blue. (Unattractive dress? Well that's another story)..

So what does that have to do with Mood Boards?

The colour perception issue with that dress and an ability to read what is happening to make up the picture is just the tip of the iceberg. I lay the blame for the popularity of mood boards on the ease of digital photography. Ease of access to information, the lifting/collating of pictures you like and ease of publishing does not equal an ability to create great pictures or visual literacy. And many, very many 'Mood Boards' that I have seen do not communicate a mood at all. Their main use seems more akin to an IKEA instruction sheet for a series of parts (made from pictures one loves) to be assembled into a "new" and "Original" picture.. Of course Slicked Back Hair and Big Hair; dark moody light and bright sunshine.. (Conflicting visual themes have often been the main theme of many mood boards) don't laugh! Don't convey the same moods and usually can't be contained in the same shot/shoot/series of pictures. A Frankenstein approach to image creation is very likely going to give you a Frankenstein result, and if you don't know the Frankenstein story let me tell you, it does not end well for poor old Frankenstein!

I am all for being inspired by great work and I have my heroes of photography who have inspired me by their approach to image creation and the pictures themselves. Well made mood boards; which are more about mood than detail; and mood, you can play with vs detail which is pretty explicit; can be a great guide. But; the mood board really does need to be made by someone who understands the nature of visual language and how to interpret and show the feeling they are after through visual representations.

Notebook with Polaroids and drawings for studio swimwear shoot including inspiration postcard of
Australian champion swimmer Miss Beatrice Kerr.

While all artists work differently I think it would be fair to say that most working photographers are highly visually literate and are working on pictures and the art of looking every single day. Personally I am constantly photographing locations and situations that interest me with a view to future projects.

When it come to photo shoots where I need to have a real feeling for the location, the lighting, the time of day, how the end result will look. I go on technical scouts, sometimes with the client; pre-shoot the location; and on occasion make the little photo print books (mini-lab prints taped together) as a guide to the shots I am after. These pictures are often shared with the team via email, the little book brought on location as a guide, an inspiration, not an instruction manual.

My second ever fashion editorial for Mode magazine (way back in the day) was inspired by a picture postcard of Australian champion swimmer Miss Beatrice Kerr. In collaboration with fashion editor Kate Stead I designed then painted our huge backdrop for the shoot incorporating sea and sky. All from one inspirational picture.

It's important to grow your visual literacy through the actual process of creating, successes and failures. It is important to trust your team and the way they work; original work comes from original ideas not from a cut and paste approach to creativity. Look at what has been done; be inspired; experiment, don't be afraid to fail (not everything works that's OK), create something new. Be in the moment and go with the mood that takes you!

The final drawing for a painted backdrop for a swimwear fashion shoot.

Model and painted backdrop for a swimwear fashion shoot by Kent Johnson.

From 'Alice's Dreamtime'.

Title page, model and painted backdrop for a swimwear fashion shoot by Kent Johnson.

Fashion shoots made from the 'location' photo notebooks.
Alice's Dreamtime
Midnight Cowboy
Knitwear On Location

Telling Stories in Pictures all over the world..

Kent Johnson, Sydney, Australia.

0433 796 863

kent@artcommunication.com.au

www.kentjohnsonphotography.com.au

www.fashionphotographysydney.blogspot.com/

Facebook Twitter Instagram