The task this week has been to meet with our groups and brainstorm ideas about the brief. For me this will work a little differently but the outcome will be the same, as I am not working in a group, but I have indeed held a meeting and brainstormed ideas.
Darren, whom I am working for on this live brief, came to our studio for an initial meeting with us and our two models for the shoot. The point of the meeting was so that Darren could view the studio space, see more of our work, brainstorm some concepts and ideas, and to also have our models try some of the garments (The latter being more for the sake of Darren that myself though it was helpful to see the colours of the garments and how they looked on our models. During the meeting I showed previous work of mine dealing with male fetish (examples above) and in doing so was able to quickly address one of Darrens first concerns witch was space. Having previously worked with photographers without their own studios, Darren had hired the studios himself and in doing so been able to hire ones with a lot of space, my studio is much smaller than these and he was concerned we might not have enough room for some of his ideas, showing him the images however proved that I was able to digitally extend backdrops and create much larger scale photos than he had imagined. We then went on to discuss the themeing of the shoot:
Key points for shoot theme:
- Construction theme
The shoot would take on an overall construction theme, this originated from the use of a diamond plate motif on the garments, and as such Darren is keen to use diamond plating somehow in the shoot, we have discussed the possibility of using boxes or stairs that are made of diamond plated steel, or possibly a diamond plate backdrop of some-kind. We also discussed the possibility of Construction site paraphernalia such as tool and boxes, though we wanted to move away from hardhats or any kind of clothing or garment like high-vis that would distract from the garments. We also discussed the idea of hiring scaffolding as a backdrop/prop, Research was to be done into the hiring of this and how it would work in the shoot.
- Masculine
The shoot should be masculine overall, as such Darren was interested in making sure that non of the poses would come of any other way. No allusions to femininity.
- Fetish and sexual
The garments, while fully functioning as Sportswear, Swimwear and Underwear, also carry with a clear sense of fetish, and this was to come across through the shoot. Again, posing would be important here, but this sexual style of shoot could shine through simply by virtue of the presence of almost naked models.
- Bigger guys, not the usual body type, body positive
At this point our models have already been found and agreed upon. Both models are men in their 20's/30's. Both are also bigger guys with hairier bodies. This clothing brand is being aimed at bigger guys in the LGBT cultural arena, particularly the "Bear" subculture that prides itself on the celebration of bigger more masculine guys (Often in protest of the slim and feminine portrayal of gay men in the mainstream media).
- Water Splash
One of the key shots Darren had talked about is a water splash shot similar to the one below that he found from google image search. We discussed the possibility of setting up a splash pool in the studio and came up with a couple of plans for how we could make one using pond lining, ultimately during the discussion we came to the conclusion that trying to do this shot for real would be an inefficient use of time and money as it would only make for one or two shots out of a series of about 40 total photos. However, I did mention this was something I could potentially put together in Photoshop, so after the shoot is done we will see if this is possible at all, but it was not a priority.
- Lighting and overall mood
Finally we got on to the lighting that would be used. Darren openly admitted that this wasn't something he had given much thought to, and would take my lead on this referring back to my previous work witch he had liked. Given the nature of the shoot, It made sense to me to go for a darker overall theme, comprising of strong shadows and dark backdrops. We discussed echoing some of the colours from the Garments previously, and I felt this could be achieved through the use of gelled lighting. I showed Darren previous work using stripboxes to add highlights and rimlights onto models, that could then be coloured with gels, he felt this would work very well. So for me, I was now looking at a Three light setup with a dark backdrop. A grided beauty dish to light our subjects while giving definition to facial structure and body shape, and also narrowing the light as to allow the gelled lights to be more saturated, and not light the background either. Two gelled stripboxes, either side and behind the models to add coloured rim lighting, again with honeycomb grids to control the light so we could keep the overall dark theme.
Editing and delivery of the images would be completed by myself. No over the top skin smoothing as that would contradict the body positive nature of the shoot, but still clean up the images to a professional standard. Delivery would be high resolution (36mp), high quality jpeg images via internet file transfer.
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