Evaluation

I started off really enjoying this brief as I love fashion and beauty and was excited to learn all about makeup brands and photo shoots. I would say that I started off really strongly and I put a lot of effort in to complete the work and tasks given but half way through the term, I was ill for a while which really set me back on the amount of work I could complete but I tried my hardest to stay on track and keep up with what I needed to do. My favourite part of this project was getting our beauty brands and key words given to us and then going off to research them and coming up with ideas for mood boards and story boards to base our photo shoots around. I feel since I started this brief that I have definitely learned a lot about beauty brands and the fashion industry and I have had a lot of fun researching and developing ideas.

I am pleased with how my photos have turned out for my final photo shoot considering I left it until quite late to photograph in the studios but none the less I am very happy and I think my brand image turned out very good and all my ideas came together and worked well in the end. I edited my images and gave them some finishing touches to make them look more advert like. The idea of using a white background for my shoot with my model wearing pink lipstick and purple eye shadow I thought worked really well as this made certain features stand out on her face and made it look like a Givenchy beauty advert. I do wish i wouldn't have missed so much class time due to being ill during this past term but I am please with the amount of work that I have managed to complete over all.

Behind the shoot - makeup

   

   

These are some images I took after I had finished doing my model's makeup. I really like the purple eyeshadow paired up with the baby pink lip and I think this will really make her face stand out when she is photographed against the white background. My favourite part of this look is definitely the highlight, especially on her cheekbones as I think this really gives the effect of her face having a wet, dewy look to it.

These two images were the main inspiration for my makeup look although I didn't want my makeup to look completely similar so I just took some ideas from each look. I liked the first image as I liked the dewy glow that she has on her face and I wanted to do something similar for my makeup look but instead of making it look the same, I decided to use highlighter just to make it look slightly different. I like the second image for the bold purple eyes, strong blusher and baby pink lip. I took these ideas into consideration and changed them slightly, I added a lot of blush but also contoured my model's cheekbones to make it look slightly different, I also added a slightly darker pink lipstick to her lips to make them pop a bit more.

Notes from my photo shoot

Prior to my photo shoot, I made a few notes on what I wanted my photo shoot to go like, what lighting setup I was going to use and what the makeup was going to look like. I decided on my model wearing a velvet black laced up playsuit, I decided to go for purple eyes with a pink lip as Givenchy uses quite cool colours in their makeup adverts and I applied lots of highlighter to her face as I wanted her face to have a 'wet' look to it. For the backgrounds, I decided to just use white as I thought this would compliment my model's makeup a lot better than using a colour. I used a soft box and a beauty dish for the lighting with the beauty dish being the main source of light.

Givenchy mood board

This is my mood board for my brand which is Givenchy. When I was researching this brand, I noticed that they use a variety of different styles and poses in their adverts. I decided out of all the different styled poses that I liked this style the best, where there is quite harsh lighting on the model's face and typically uses a light background so the model almost blends into it. The makeup shows some sort of colour so that it pops and grabs your attention. In all the images, the model is looking straight towards the camera and I like the idea of my model doing this for my shoot.

Obscene mood board

This is my final mood board for the word I was given which was 'Obscene'. When researching this word, I came across many different meanings for it and for my photo shoot and research, I decided to look at how the word obscene meant sexual. For my shoot, I thought about having my model wearing a black outfit either made from lace or velvet and for it to look quite revealing. I think these images fit in well with the type of look and style I am going for. 

Favourite images from my Pinterest board

When creating my mood boards, I categorised them into different sections to give my word different meanings. One of them was 'The Human Body'. I feel like this image would fit in with this category but it could also link in with fashion as well as pornographic. Some people may look at this image and be offended by it as they may think that women's boobs should be covered up. I like this image as I don't think it's pornographic at all, I think it's just a very natural photo of a woman topless mixed in with a bit of fashion by adding a clear top and placing the model against a plain background and photographing her.

Another category I looked at was 'Fetishes'. Every person may have a completely different fetish, whether this be sexual or not. I found this image which shows a bondage style vintage image which is represented by the makeup brand No7. I like the link between makeup and fetish and I think this really works well together.

'Emotions and feelings' was another of my categories. As makeup artists and designers, we can use makeup to completely change someone and make them look like a different person or to add emotion to their face. You've most probably heard the term 'feeling grey' when someone is feeling down or sad and I found this image really interesting as the makeup starts at the top of her face on her forehead and is dripping down her cheeks, neck and on to her chest. The shape of the makeup almost looks like she is crying and the silver I think is used to represent the grey as if the model is upset and crying.

Givenchy

Mood boards

Mood board 1:
Pornographic

When I first researched the word 'obscene' the first thing that came up was words such as 'pornographic', 'x-rated', 'erotic' and 'scandalous'. We would most often see these words on the cover of a magazine or in a movie, for example if a celebrity has posed nude for a photo shoot or done something that society doesn't agree with, these words would be plastered across with the image of them. These images I have used in the mood board show celebrities who have posed nude for magazines or photoshoots. The word 'scandalous' I would say is used against these celebrities to make them feel bad for posing for these photo shoots. As soon as we see this word with an image of a naked celebrity, we feel a sort of disgust for them like they have no dignity.

Mood board 2:
The human body

Seeing as my word was based around the body being on show, I decided to look at some images that show the body but not necessarily in a sexy or pornographic way. Majority of the images show the model wearing a small amount of clothing and very few of them show the model's face in the photo. They all show a different pose like one model is standing up and leaning over touching her toes and another one is on the floor, curled over in a ball. I think it's really interesting to see all these different images put together as you realise how different all people are and how different all our bodies are to each other.

Mood board 3:
Close ups of body parts

This category is similar to the previous one but I decided to look more at the detail of the human body. I found images where they are really up close to the models so you can really focus on every little crease, hair and detail on them. My favourite images are the ones of the faces as you can see their face as well as their eyes, eyebrows and nose and it is really fascinating to compare the three together. One of them has cream on their face, another has a wet gloss and the last one has freckles on her face. I find it very intriguing looking at images like this as no two parts of any human's body is the same, even when you look at two people's eyes, the detail is so completely different to each other. Everyone of these images shows uniqueness in humanity and the human body.

Mood board 4:
Colour on the body

What does colour mean? I liked the idea of colour on the body as every person is basically a blank canvas and with makeup and paint, we transform and change that to create our own masterpiece. We can use paint all over the body to create some real life looking body art or we can simply use some eyeshadow and lipstick to create a 'natural' beauty look. It's really interesting to look at how different we can make ourselves look.

I came across this link which shows accessories such as paint on the body to show how we express ourselves and how we use makeup to transform our skin like we are a piece of paper that we are painting. Some of the images show really close up details of the models with details such as bruising, paint and even scarring on themselves and others show paint on the models faces and bodies.

http://www.invigorate.com/2013/12/15/transient-fashion-skin/

Mood board 5:
Colour charts

I looked at some colour charts of people's skin tones as I thought it was quite captivating to see such a variety of colours and 'canvas bases' that we have to work with. I looked at some colour charts for certain colours that suit skin tones and also some adverts from makeup brands that talk about colour such as United Colours of Benetton, Bobbi Brown and Estee Lauder.

Mood board 6:
Mods and uniqueness

In my key original key word presentation, I talked about how the word 'Obscene' could also mean alternative people as well as pornographic. I think this word could be used to describe someone who stands out from the crowd and is different to most people, whether this be coloured hair, piercings, tattoos or something else, I like the idea of 'Uniqueness'. Some of these images are people who have deliberately made themselves unique and others are unique because they were born that way.

Mood board 7:
Feelings and emotions

As I said previously, it is up to us makeup artists to make someone look different and to essentially create a new character. We can show emotions and feelings through the power of makeup and art very well. A lot of these photos represent the emotion 'sad' or 'angry' as we can see the makeup smudged down the models' faces as if they have been crying or wiped their faces. Others show concentration, fear and paranoia. There is also one image which doesn't show the model's face and that is the one with the silver hands. When we say someone is feeling 'grey', we associate this with them feeling sad or down and I think this is a really clever way to represent someone's emotions through makeup.

I found this link which shows people who have been called names and how this can have an impact on their lives. Through the power of makeup, makeup artists have wrote the words on the model's faces and bodies to show how hurtful mean and horrible words can have on people.

http://kindnessblog.com/2014/05/22/these-shocking-photos-show-the-scars-you-cant-normally-see-and-theyre-horrifying/

This second link I found I thought was really useful as it shows Lush's makeup range supposed to match your makeup to your mood. You pick a colour depending on how you're feeling and when you turn that colour over, it tells you your mood. I found this quite interesting and quite a unique way of choosing your makeup colours.

http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/beauty/beauty-beat/whats-your-emotional-makeup-20120707-21nlv.html

Mood board 8:
Culture and difference

Obscene, like I said previously may be about being different to people. I decided to look into 'Culture' and people who have very different looks. It is intriguing to see how people from all around the world do their makeup, dress and style their hair. For example, in Japan they have Geisha girls who have very pale faces with red lipstick and wear a kimono whereas in countries like Africa, the locals have to go through certain traditions such as stretching their ears and lips to fit in with their community.

Mood board 9:
Shock

When you see a pornographic image, it may be quite a shock to some people and they might feel quite disgusted. There are certain images that when seen by our eyes, we are shocked unsettled about them. I researched some images that I thought seemed quite shocking to people's eyes. As you can see, some of the images are uncomfortable to look at such as the staple in the eyes or the zipped tongue for example. There are other images where they contain weird and bright colours on a model's face but they are still quite shocking to look at.

Mood board 10:
Fetish

Every person has a fetish, whether that be sexual or not. Seeing as my word was based around being pornographic and sexual, I decided to look at some fetishes that are sexualised. I cam across some makeup adverts for the brand No7. I was intrigued by these and liked the combination between makeup and a sexual fetish. Some of these images may offend people or they might be judgemental about them but they are no different to images we may see of celebrities in magazines or even in a music video.

Mood board 11:
Catwalk fashion

My last category was catwalk fashion. I enjoy seeing images of different designs and outfits on the catwalks but I wanted to show designs that you wouldn't normally see, outfits that include very whacky and outstanding bright colours that may look like they have just come from a circus of a kid's birthday party. This links in with the theme of being unique and standing out, it's all about bringing that to the catwalk so it is becoming more and more normal to people.

Feedback from my presentation

In class, we presented our mood boards that we had created on our key word we had been given. I presented my mood board which I had created on Pinterest and I got a lot of helpful feedback back from my tutor as well as my classmates.

My tutor told me that I should create my mood board as an actual mood board on word as opposed to showing my images through Pinterest. She showed me some interesting magazines which gave me some ideas as to what kind of photos I should show for my word. Some ideas I got were of close up body parts, eyelashes crossed over in weird patterns, the feel of objects on the body like fur and grass etc and weirdly cut fringes.

My tutor gave me an interesting idea to look at people's fetishes. I thought this would be very interesting to look into as every person has a completely different fetish so to look into this more and investigate and incorporate it into my work would be quite fun.

I liked the idea of paint and colour on the body as my word is Obscene and to cover the body in none natural objects is quite rebellious and going against the normal. I wanted to focus on the human body quite a lot as my word is based around people, I want to look at small details like maybe focus on a very small piece of a part of the body like the hairs on someone's leg or armpit for example. I want to use images that may offend people and make them shocked, this is because my word is about going against society and standing out so images that offend people are usually things that people are against or we don't see everyday.

I would like to research more into looking at what makes people different, for example different body shapes, cultures, hair colour, body parts etc. Every person in this world is unique and society, especially these days have become very judgemental against people who are different to what we deem as normal.

What does colour mean? Investigate this more and find out the meanings behind different colours.

Look at:

• uniqueness
• feelings
• emotions
• ideas
• texture - are you using a brush/hand?

My Key Word

OBSCENE - but what does it mean?

We were each given a key word by our tutor and with this, we had to create a mood board based on this word and also show the thinking behind the research. The word I was given was 'Obscene' and when I found out that this was my word, I wasn't 100% sure the exact meaning behind this so I did a little research to give myself a better idea.

When I first researched my key word, I was given a list of meanings which included some like 'pornographic', 'offensive' and 'immodest'. This word can be used to describe someone who is acting sexual in an indecent way but as I researched into this more, I realised that this is not the only meaning behind this word and there are intact several meanings to it. Every single person has their own idea of their standards of beauty, we all look at things differently and one person may find something beautiful and another person may not so you could use the word 'obscene' to express this, for example if someone has bright coloured hair you could say their hair was an 'obscene hairdo' and it's 'not normal' or if a person has a unique dress sense then you could call that obscene too.

Personally, I believe that this word means taking things to the extreme whether that be hair, clothing, makeup or nudity and it could mean good or bad depending on the context and the person's standards of beauty. 

I came up with a small mind map with a few words and ideas of what I thought the word meant to me. The map was quite mixed and included a few positive and some negative words which I think does work because that's what the beauty industry is - negative and positive, you will never be able to please everybody you meet and for every 10 people who think positively of you, there may be one who will think negatively of you but if that's your standard of beauty and you're happy then go ahead and be obscene.

I decided to split my research into two parts; the first one being about nudity and how that is seen as being outrageous and offensive to some and the second part being about bold hair, makeup and clothing and how this could also be quite extreme to some people and can either be seen as a good or a bad thing.

In the beauty industry, you are very likely to come across words such as 'gross', 'shocking' and 'dreadful' especially when you are working with celebrities as there are images of them all over magazines every single day with a boob hanging out or a nipple on show or them just acting in a way that some people may find rude or unacceptable but there are also people out there who choose to be obscene such as models who purposely pose naked for photoshoots and magazines but things have changed so much in the past few decades. When you think back to the Victorian Era, a woman's body was never spoken about and if anyone dared to even mention a lady's leg, it was very much frowned upon and women were thought quite little of and compared to animals that chicken thighs were called dark meat and no one would ever ask for a chicken breast so it is only in the past few decades that woman have been allowed to become more obscene and show off their bodies but I don't think this is a bad thing as we have seen men for many years being able to show off their bodies, this word is simply something made up in our society to try and make people be offended by our own human anatomy. 

I found a short article online from New York Times magazine from a professor named John McWhorter which said "Why do educated people use bad words? The definition of profanity is constantly revising and evolving based on what a culture is offended by, and because of the recent epidemic of sexual exploitation, there is no more controversy or shock toward it. It has become so natural that such words can be comfortably used by educated people. Permission to use profanity comes from culture, because culture defines what profanity is."

The second part of my word is exactly the same but about people's appearances. Over the past 20 years or so, coloured hair, piercings and tattoos have become more popular and 'normal' but there is still a divide in society between these people who are deemed 'normal' and people who experiment and express themselves with the way that they look. To some people, they might like the bold hair and expressive outfits but to others they might look down on these people and see them as being too extreme or may even find it offensive. I think both of these fit in well for the word 'Obscene' even though they both have completely different meanings but they can relate in a way.

https://uk.pinterest.com/philippamcgee/obscene/

I created my mood board and found images that I thought related to my key word. I found it quite difficult at first to find images that I thought fitted this word but after a while I got the hang of it and was really focused. I collected a variety of images, some were similar and others were completely different and I managed to incorporate the two meanings of the word that I had previously spoken about.

Colour was a big part of my mood board as when putting together images for my word, bright and bold imagery stood out to me the most when I pictured a collage. I found several images of weird and bold outfits from catwalks, I also found some very strong makeup looks to add to it as well as some other random photos that I thought fitted in with the theme.

I really like very strong and emphasised colours and makeup looks but I also like plain, black and white looks too so I thought this was important to have a bit of both in my mood board. From doing this research, I have found quite a few ideas that I would love to try out and experiment with to create my own looks.

Sources:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/IN-MY-OWN-WRITE-Whats-deemed-obscene-411132