"Beauty Confessional " - 3 new articles
Victoria's Secret opening in the UK??? London Fashion Update: Is it true that one of my favorite lingerie and fashion brands is finally coming to UK shores? Well Limited Shores announced today that Victoria's Secret will be opening a flagship store in the heart of London on the corner of New Bond Street and Brook Street. Perhaps they will get our own Rosie Huntington-Whiteley to open the store... that would draw crowds.. especially since she is going to be in the next Transformers movie. All great stuff! Only thing is we may have to wait till 2012! (sigh) I will be keeping my eyes open for more updates on this! Gene Kiegel : Confessions of a Fashion Photographer (Part 2 of 2) Here is part 2 of our interview with Fashion Photographer, Gene Kiegel. Yesterday, I showed you the man behind the lens, now we look at his work and let the photos do the talking. He discusses his inspirations, his views on the future of photography and his experiences of shooting iconic celebrities ( Paris Hilton, Bai Ling, Ice Cube, etc.) and models. Well, to be honest, the amount of information I've researched over the years and keep learning every day is probably more than any school would ever give me. Many teaching methods stress memorization and learning through practice, while I strive to understand the principles and theories behind what I do. For example, when I teach about lighting, I teach people to understand how the light works and how to control it vs. standard setups. I teach people to envision what they want to shoot and then shoot it. I want to teach them to be picture makers and not picture takers. I also think of a photograph as a medium to transfer people's energy. And it is a photographer's job to engage the person, bring out and capture that energy, so the viewers are then able to receive it and react to it. I also stress the importance of understanding yourself and what you like as a basis of developing your style and visual identity. Photography is about expressing yourself and everything that you stand for, you have to be true to your vision and not follow the latest trend of what you may have already seen in other photographer's work or publications or adverts. Then your work would look like everyone else's. So, why would anyone want to hire you in particular then ? 4. You have worked with a number of celebrities who stands out in your mind as the most memorable? So, it's these fun experiences and great photo shoots that got me recommendations of these actors to their agents and so forth and after I shot Paris Hilton for her music video debut that really seemed to put a seal of approval on my work for many clients and opened doors to many opportunities. Well I think it really depends on what your style is and what you want to achieve. I think that digital camera is a great learning tool due to its instant feedback, particularly when you work in the studio environment. But other than that, it's just another choice of a medium with its advantages and disadvantages. I don't agree that digital media should be replacing film. Like any form of medium, one compliments the other and so on. There are many legit reasons for using digital, especially for commercial reasons, and perhaps with time it would be able to catch up to the feeling of space, depth and artistry that only film currently delivers. In fact, when I started shooting, I was one of the first photographers who went completely digital, only discovering later on that film was a more appropriate media choice for my purposes. That's why for now, my preferred way of working is an organic process. I approach each project like a painter who is looking at his colour paint palette and choosing the colour scheme of his future painting. That's how I look at the film stock I use and the developing process methods I can use. I also search for lenses that give me a desired effect and also decide on which film format to shoot. It's also important to keep in mind what is the final intent and how it is going be presented. What printing technique is going to give it the desired effect or is it going strictly digital. If all you are trying to produce is an image that would look great on the screen – than go digital – the native process. I always find that my "organic" prints look much better printed rather then viewed on the screen, while the digital images look amazing on the screen but really can't hold their own in the print. Coming from IT background and also spending countless ours in front of the computer as it is, I want to minimize any additional unnecessary time with it. So, I'd rather stylize my shoots directly via the shooting / developing process rather than try to imitate a certain film effect through Photoshop. It really saves me overall time and makes the final image have much more depth to it. But I also thank my IT background because for years now, I've been able to be a "one man show", running my business, building my own PCs, my website, promos, doing mass emailing, learning all about printing, scanning, colour-profiling and so on. It's good to be friendly with technology. It is a combination of cinematic and voyeuristic. When I shoot models, I do it similarly to how you would direct a movie. I give everyone a story and a role to play in a given scenario to create the scene and then I wait for the magic to unfold. I also try to enter their world. It's very important for me that a model feels comfortable without any inhibitions. I want to understand that person to establish the unspoken mental connection and to bring their energy out and onto the image. While some of my imagery is quiet and ambient, other is purely "in your face" and concentrates on the emotions evoked. Well, I think some of that movement is quite obvious already. As we see now, that many of the high end advertising is now moving onto snapshot based images and commercials are being recorded via webcams and mobile phones. I think that there will be few select high end fashion labels that would still employ the usage of a single striking powerful photo image, but the demand would be very few and those photographers would have a hard time earning a living out of the few jobs they get. So, I believe that there will be a major split between people going into illustration, moving image and select few would be going into the world of fine art. Karen Elson for St John AW 2010It's a well known fact that Karen Elson is a great model but shes also recently proved that she can sing just as well. She recently released her new album "The Ghost Who Walks". In the past, models who have attempted music careers have done quite poorly. However, Karen's latest effort has charted at number 16 on the UK Indie Chart and the lead single has reached number 14 on the NME Singles Chart. Kudos to Karen, for proving that models can do more than just look pretty. Karen is also the face of St John Autumn Winter 2010 (pictured left). The campaign was shot by Greg Kadel. More Recent Articles |
Click here to safely unsubscribe now from "Beauty Confessional " or change your subscription or subscribe
Unsubscribe from all current and future newsletters powered by FeedBlitz
| Your requested content delivery powered by FeedBlitz, LLC, 9 Thoreau Way, Sudbury, MA 01776, USA. +1.978.776.9498 |








0 comments:
Post a Comment