Front cover ideas...

Now all of my photo shoots are finished and finalised as to what images I will be including to the final product. My thoughts are directed at how the book will be presented and what type of paper, front cover and text I will need to involve. 

My theme being dance related as well as make-up and hair design based I wanted to create an interesting front cover perhaps as an illustration and edited on the computer. I started to brain storm ideas as to what I would create that would represent these two aspects of the book. 

I started to sketch dancing figures in my sketchbook and thought up the idea of creating the effect of arranging my drawings into the shape of a 'kiss mark' to suggest beauty, design and dance.

Here below, is an example of the kind of idea I have envisaged however this is roughly hand drawn. 

I decided to scan my drawings into the computers at uni and save them as a digital picture. This led to me opening the scans into Photoshop and then filling in the figure with black ink to make it bold and clearer than a hand drawn and coloured in pictures. 

I wanted to try out this 'kiss mark' idea on Photoshop so I opened a white template of a lip design onto the software for guidance. 

I created many layers on Photoshop and experimented cropping down the scans and arranging them to face various directions on the lip design to create a hopefully effective illusion.

This was the first attempt at the final design for the front cover as I came across a problem with my computer and sadly after three hours of putting together this design I accidentally deleted the file so regrettably had to start from scratch again.  

However I believe everything must happen for a reason as the second design I put together again on Photoshop looked a great deal better than the first. The image below shows the new design at the bottom. As shown the new design displays a more flowing and artistic style whereas the first attempt looks a little amateur looking at the comparison now.  

This is my final front cover design and I am actually very pleased with the outcome and will use this as my front cover design perhaps without even needing a title because in a way my illustration design tells you what topics the book will touch upon subliminally. 

After another feedback session my tutor agreed with this idea so I am going ahead and making this image my final front cover logo. 

Tap Dance Theme

My final dance theme is Tap Dance, my aim was to create a Hollywood glamour style of shoot to touch upon the classic glamour dance films such as 'Singing in the Rain etc. 

I was a little apprehensive about doing this photo shoot as I hadn't been as planned for this theme as much as some other styles. Never the less I went ahead and constructed a photo shoot a little last minute and carried out a Hollywood glamour type of make-up design  with a modern messy hair style.

I attempted to add a vintage fur coat to set the theme of the idea for tap dance however the images that were  the result of this shoot did not come across as strongly dance related as most of the other final images I will be using for the book. 

The make-up look is clear and clean however after more reflection on this last shoot I have decided to cut this dance style out of the book and have nine stronger shoots to include to print. The images don't express the movement and theme of dance I am aiming for so sadly this shoot is one for the portfolio not for my Final Major Project. 

Jazz Dance Edits

The following images are the re-touched images from the 'Jazz' inspired shoot. As shown and previously mentioned I have darkened the background to a grey/black tone to enhance the gold and bronze tones in the make-up shine and the styling to accompany this colour scheme. 

I want to include four of these movement pose photographs in my book perhaps on a double page spread as I hope it will portray dance and the showbiz inspired glitzy Jazz theme.

Contemporary Edits

Below are the re-touched images from the 'contemporary theme shoot'. The shadow created on the back drop I think can work well with the theme of movement photography as well as trying out the staggering technique available on Photoshop. 

This re-touched image has good and bad aspects. A better aspect of the photo is the composition, its in keeping with the theme, the positioning is intended to display a strong correlation between the models to suggest flowing dance movements.  

However, the front model's lips do not look as bold and shapely as intended so this could be a reason not to include this particular shot for the book. Further editing may come in use and revamp the overall outcome. 

Lip colour experiment:

After analysing the faults in this shoot I wanted to attempt to change the lip colour to see if this would revive the intended outcome. The brightly coloured visors set the colour scheme off and I thought brightly coloured glossy lips would perhaps work better than the first attempt of two tone purple lips, so I gave it a shot and this is the finished product. 

After another feed back session my tutor agreed that the change of lip colour improves the image a great deal and rounds off the vibrant and modern feel to the shoot. 

This will be one of my final images for the book and I am pleased I went back and changed certain aspects of the look further to get to this point in the final stages of editing and choosing final images to print. 

Re-shoot on Contemporary Look

The contemporary dance themed shoot was carried out on the same day as my 'jazz' inspired shoot. Being lucky enough to get hold of a camera and professional lights this allowed me to experiment with composition. 

After a feed back session before Easter, my tutor advised me to perhaps interpret a photo shoot into the book that involves two models. This idea could work well with the chosen theme to this project so I decided to give this idea a go and contacted two models to contribute to this dance genre of 'Contemporary'. 

Here are some of the shots: 

With this idea I explored various ways of positioning the models to get as many strong double shots as possible to express the sense of dance and connection to movement. 

The styling was completely revamped as I wanted to create a whole new look. The black leotards are intended to make the models look smart and bold whilst drawing attention to the coloured visors. The aim was to display an extremely modernised look and with this theme in mind I decided to scrape the hair back into a tight pony tail and wrap the hair around the join to finish the style in a clean and effective way. 

I wanted to create a fairly simple make-up look as the first attempt at the contemporary theme, I found I was trying to add too many styles into one look and almost over complicated what should of been a bold and simple design. 

With this in mind I decided to keep a simple eye liner design as the eyes were to be covered by the brightly coloured visors. I wanted to focus the make-up look on the lip and did this by creating a two tone lip. 

However, after looking back at the images the purple lip colour has not turned out as brightly as I would of imagined it to look so after going through this issue with my tutor I want to attempt to edit the colour of the lips on Photoshop to see if I can create a more brightly coloured finish to make the look flow and stand out.  

Re-touched images are to come...... 

Re-shoot Contemporary Inspiration

Various fashion brands have caught my eye throughout this project and in particular House of Holland has been one brand that I enjoy looking at and taking inspiration from. 

The picture below has specifically attracted me due to the sense of movement displayed within the picture and also the added effect of there being two models. Their composition and positioning creates an interesting photograph and the use of make-up, hair and styling finish the look. Its fun, modern and playful style I think can reflect the idea of 'Contemporary dance' and I would like to interpret this into my re-shoot. 

Taking on board direction from my tutor, including a 'duo shoot' in the book would express diversity to my images and a change of pattern throughout the book. I would like to take this advice and see how I manage to direct two models and come up with hair and make-up designs fitting with the chosen theme. 

Pictures of the re-shoot are to follow........ 

Re-Shoot of Jazz Dance Theme

I decided to organise a re-shoot for the ‘Jazz’ theme during the Easter holidays and revamped the entire idea of make up, hair and styling bringing an improved make up look and colour scheme of black, gold and bronze into play and complimenting this new look with additional styling ideas to create a better image. 

The following images are the outcome of the re-shoot. They will need further re-touching to polish the image to make it suitable for printing in the book. 

In the re-touching stages I want to darken the background to a grey/black tone to compliment the gold shimmer and shine of the make-up and styling. Feed back session also helped a great deal as I received pointers as to how to present certain images from this shoot. 

A two page spread with two pictures on each could look effective and add to my aim of representing a sense of movement through the photography by using the images below to do this: 

I plan to use the same technique previously mentioned to edit these images to best display colours lighting and theme of this shoot.