Work Diary - Shoot 11

Evaluation

For this shoot, I wanted to photograph the patterns found in peoples manicures, as part of inspiration from one of my photographers Nick Fancher. He shot a picture of a woman holding a mug with her bright, colourful and patterned nails, which I wanted to interpret in my own style. I purchased two packs of false nails, one black and white set and the other a colour explosion set. I applied these nails to each hand of Danielle's and experimented with different compositions to see what would display the patterns in the most effective way. I shot these pictures in the studio, using two light boxes and a white rolled sheet acting as the backdrop. I used light boxes because this creates diffused light, which spreads evenly over Danielle's face and casts a soft light over the whole subject. If I was to use a snoot in this shoot, it would have cast shadows over one half of the frame, which would have made the images dramatic and bold, which isn't the intention I was going for as the nails are supposed to be the focal point of each picture, not Danielle modelling them.

I got Danielle to place her hands infront of her face for this shot, where she put her fingers neatly together whilst I composed the piece to make either side of the frame feature an equal amount of her hands. By photographing both hands, I have displayed the two different patterns on her nails, both contrasting eachother when it comes to the colour and pattern. I then used the technique selective colour to allow the colours of the nails to contrast with the background, as the nails are the focal point, so this emphasises this point. I used the curves and levels tool in Photoshop to enhance the brightness of this picture, and the saturation tool to allow the bright colours to emerge from the frame. 

I then experimented with the composition of having Danielle take a photograph of her with her phone to display the patterns in her nails against the phone case, and also display the patterns in the phone case. This could have perhaps been more effective if the phone case was clear, as this would portray the nails in a clearer way. The doughnut images on the case interrupt with the pattern in her nails, so this doesn't act as an effective base to portray her manicure, however, I still like the framing of this image and feel that having the model take a photo of herself whilst having her photo taken is quite an interesting concept, despite the lack of success that comes out of displaying the focal point (the pattern). 

Progression

I will be progressing from this shoot by using Danielle and her nails again, but this time by using Carl Kleiner's work as inspiration. I will be using shoot 12 as a development shoot from shoot 2, where I manipulated my images and added surreal themes, using items of confectionery to add the wow factor to each image. In this shoot I will be using Liquorice Allsorts and Starbursts instead of M&M's.