Planning first photo shoot

Planning photo shoot 1

Inspiration from Alice in Wonderland

1. Day & Time. I am going to do this photo shoot during the weekend when my little sister is off school. I am going to do it in the afternoon so that I get plenty of natural light coming through the windows.
2.  Style. In my photo shot I am going to use my little sister as a model. I am going to dress her up as a doll. The most important thing that I will have to concentrate on is her make up. I did a research of what kind of make up I am going to do. I need to remember about red cheeks, red or pink lips but not very bright, really long eyelashes that can be drawn on as well as bright coloured eye shadows that will match her dress that she is going to wear as well. She is also going to wear nice shoes that will match her dress. Another thing that I need to remember about is her hair, after the research I have found out that the most common hairstyle for dolls are curls. Therefore I have decided to curl her hair and maybe put a headband in or some big clips with nice flowers on them. My doll will be put in a box that I will make out of cardboard, it will be pink as most of the doll boxes. 
3. Location. I am going to use two locations in this photo shoot. One which is indoor location, basically just in my bedroom on the white wall and the other one which is out door location, but just in my back garden. I want to do two because I am not sure which one will look better, one or the other.
4. Time scale. The first thing that I will need to do is get the most important props ready, for example making the box and chair, I will need to do these two about two days before my photo shoot to make sure that they are ready for the photo shoot day. On the photo shoot day the first thing that I will need to do is to set up the place and all of the equipment like flash, tripod, teddy, box as well as the camera settings etc. This will take me approx. 20 minutes. Then I will be ready for getting the model ready, doing her make up and dressing her up will should take me no longer that half an hour. Then I am ready with my model for the photo shoot. Because I am working with my little sister I am not going to be able work long with her because eventually she will get bored, so I will to take some breaks every 15 minutes. 
5. Lighting. I will try and use as much as I can of the natural light therefore I am going to do my photo shot in the afternoon because that is the time of day when there is the most of the sunlight coming through my windows. Just in case the weather will not be good I will use some lamps that I have in my bedroom as well as extra flash.
6. Model release. I am working with a child so I will need their parent’s permission and their signature on the form to make sure that they give permission for their child photos to be published. I do not need any other permission because I am taking the photos at my house.
7. Health and safety and risk assessment. I have done the risk assessment, to make sure everything goes well especially that I am working with a child.
8. Equipment. Because my model (doll) will be in a box I will have to collect all of the equipment that I will need to make a quite bit box for dolls. I need some big cardboard and paint to paint it inside as well as outside. I will also try and make a big chair for her to make her look small, as she is actually a doll. I will use some old wood that I have in my back garden to try and create a big chair for her to sit on or at least stand next to it. Other equipment that I will need will be some really big teddy or any other really big toys to make her look small. I will also need some light maybe lamps and an extra flash because I am going to take these photos indoor, just in case it will be too dark I need to be ready and have flash or some extra light/lamps. I will also need a tripod even thought I will work indoor, I want to make sure that the photos are sharp. I will also use different lenses that I have to see which photos look best. I will use my standard lens, which is 18mm – 105mm f4.5 and my portrait lens, which is 50mm f1.4 to see which one will look better.
9. Back up plan. I will have few different dresses just incase something will go wrong so that I can always dress her up in a different one. It is going to be easy because I will be taking photos at home therefore I have everything that I need there. Another back up plan for the making of the chair that I want her to sit on, just in case the chair that I will make will not be very solid that there will be a risk of her sitting down on it I will place the teddy on a chair because it is a lot lighter that my model and I am going to make my model stand next to the chair so that there is no risk of her falling off the chair. Another thing is the box, if of any kind of reason I will not be able to make the box, I will still use the same location but just make her pose like a doll with the same equipments. 

RISK ASSESSMENT TEMPLATE FOR Fashion Project:

Assessment  Reference:	Mannequin	Activity Description:	Photo shoot
Date:	19.09.2014
Student	Marcelina Skrzypczynska	Review Date:	20.09.2014
Assessment Team Members:		Overall Potential Risk Factor:	5
Course Details:	ED Photography
	Level 3	Number of People Exposed:	2
	Year 2	Names of People Exposed:	Marcelina & Zuzanna
Building-Place & Exact Location	Home/Bedroom	Is This An Acceptable Risk?

Hazard	Persons At Risk and How	Existing Control Measures	Prob	Sev	Risk Level	Additional Control Measures	Prob	Sev	Risk Level
Slippery floor	Model, can slip/fall	Warn model to be careful	2	1	2	Clean the floor	2	1	2
Box	Can collapse	Make sure it’s stable	2	1	2	Warn the model about it	2	1	2

Assessment Conclusion

Overall the photo shoot went well, no injuries or any other harm to either photographer or model.

Dolls poses

Lenses

There are different kinds of lenses that can be used for different things. First very common lens is fixed focal lens, it’s a non-zoom lens. This kind of lens offer very good quality of an image, they are ideal for portrait photography when you are taking a lot of photos at the same focal length, they are 50mm lenses. Another popular lens is a short-range zoom lens is a standard, all-purpose lens, typically around 18–55mm. These are ideal for everyday photography, but do not very good for distant zoom. Wide angle lens, 16-35mm. It photographs wider angle of view than your eye can see. This lens is useful in architectural, interior and landscape photography where the photographer may not be able to move farther from the scene to photograph it. It is also a perfect lens for panoramic landscape photos. Another super wide lens, which is 10-16mm includes fish eye. Fish eye lens offer a full 180-degree viewing angle, but the image is distorted so that it looks like the centre of an image is closer to you and the edges look like they’re disappearing. It is very useful when trying to capture a wide, nearby scene. Another 70-120mm lens which is long lens make an object far away from you appears closer.

Techniques for photo shoot

The techniques that I am going to use in my photo shoots are different kinds of angles. I am going to use low and high angle to make it look interesting but I am mainly going to use eye level angle because my model will be a doll so she wouldn’t be able to look directly into the camera if I do low/high angle, but with eye level angle that would be possible to do. The format of the photo that I am going to use are going to be mainly portrait formats but I will also do some landscape format photos if I will include teddies and other subjects in a my photos. I am also going to experiment with depth of field, especially while using my portrait lens. I am also going to try and use the bokeh technique in my photos with my model. I going to use Christmas lights in the background as well as love hearts that I will cut out of black cardboard, to make some nice effect. I will also do some photos in black and white and also try and do colour popping. I am also going to use the rule of third as well as golden section technique to help me position the model and the rest of the equipment in the right place.

Lenses for photo shoot

The lenses that I am going to use in my photo shoot are 18mm – 105mm f4.5 and my portrait lens, which is 50mm f1.4 I would like to try them both out. I’m mostly going to use my 18-105mm lens because I’m used to taking photos with this lens and I’m confident with working with this lens. I think I can create some good photos with this lens and use it to take photos from different angles as well as concentrate about everything else in the photo. I want to use my portrait lens to concentrate more on the makeup of the model as well as hair and all the small details, I really think that this lens would work perfectly well.