Photo Shoot 1 - Stage

My idea for the front cover image was very complex, I didn't want to go for the plain studio photo. I wanted the image to scream R&B. I wanted to make sure everything in the photo was done on purpose e.g. costume, jewelry, pose, lighting, ect. However for such a photo I had to do a lot of practice until I got the right shot. The hard part of the photos were defiantly the lighting side, I had to do two separate photo shoots just to get the photo I wanted however the photo and the effort I put in to take it was worth it.

This contact sheet is from the first photo shoot, as you can tell I was attempting to do a silhoet look, the problem yet again was the lighting. I kept moving the lighting to get the best look and feel to the photo, but due to my limited knowledge it was hard to take the photo I wanted. I felt this photo shoot was a taster and a sort of test with model.

The second photo shoot went much better, once I showed the photos from the first photo shoot to my teacher she told me what I could do to improve, the main issue was in fact the sort of lights I was using and not the positioning. She taught me the basics on how to set up the new lighting which is know as "Continuous Lighting", these lights weren't as harsh to the models skin tone like the previous set of lights which I was using. As i finally worked the lighting I was able to put more attention to the positing and angels of the photos. As I wanted the photo to look like a live performance so I told the model she had to sing and really go for it as if she was really on stage, I wanted her to vision herself on that stage, all the emotions which would be portrayed by facial and body expressions. I took many successful photos in this photo shoot and with a bit of editing on Photo Shop it would create the idea photo which I really wanted to create. Lastly I was lucky enough to find the retro microphone which is very rare to find, the prop really concludes the R&B genre as a whole.

I was also able to get my teacher to take a photo of me taking a behind the scenes photo of the lighting set-up and the position of the model. The pose which the model is doing is a section which we had her just sit on a chair and do different poses. One of my favorite photos from this shoot was in this section and that's why I used it as my "Special Edition Front Cover". As you can see I clearly used continuous lighting which meant her the light didn't hit her skin as harsh as the first set of lights I used in the first photo shoot. However in this photo shoot I positioned one light behind her but to a slight angle to back light her and to complement that I added a light to the left side of her to give her front lit, but by placing the light further away the lighting became more natural. As I had the lights shining on her, her dress sparkled and gave the photo a really good effect.