Photographing models when you aren't skilled at photography

 Saying I'm not skilled at photography would be an understatement, barely good enough is more accurate. I've been trying to get used to the more professional standard DSLRs that the uni has and for a while I was doing pretty well. I did 2 photo shoots with  my models and while I now realise I did make some relatively obvious and simple mistakes (not framing the model properly, having the photos be in the wrong format) none of these were awful they just gave me a bit of extra work to make them serviceable. I had had some trouble with the camera going out of focus but with some lens adjustment and some simple setting changes I could always get the image sharp enough to draw from (probably not to be a usable photograph in it's own right though).

When it came to my third model however the camera just would not focus, at all. The worst thing was some of the images looked okay on the camera at least only to be a blurry mess when I uploaded the photos. I've since realised how to properly focus a camera and make sure it stays focused but that doesn't change that I've wasted a session with a model (one unwilling to come in again). Some of the photos are actually usable because although I'm awful at photography I can make up for it with my drawings, however I can't really use the photos to make large scale work that I'm thinking of because too much of the detail has simply been lost.
I can always take more photos of other models but I'm ideally going for a specific style that is hard to find in Huddersfield, even the current models are a pretty big compromise. I'm going to start being less uptight about the models I work from though otherwise I simply won't have enough material to work from to create what I want to achieve.
Since taking these photos I have been to a photography workshop and now know where I went wrong and how to take far far clearer and visually appealing photos.

Books of Research

I've talked about things I've searched earlier in my blog but due to not having or taking note of the books I've took information from I never actually mentioned the original books I got the information that backs my research from. I recently realised it would be best if I took not of these books so have tried to track them down.

Dolphin, G. (2004). Everything in Vogue. Manchester: Cornerhouse Publications 

Packer, W. (1980). The Art og Vogue Covers 1909-1940. Twickenham, Hamlyn Publishing

These are the only two I can re-find at the moment, there were at least a couple more. Both books and the others, hopefully soon to be referenced were centred around art in fashion magazine (primarily Vogue) which helped me distinguish between the use of photograph and illustration within the magazine. Showing whether or not the kind of pictures I draw up are suitable for a magazine and not pale imitations or husks of what fashion illustration has seemed to  become

As a continuation of my style project I really need to start taking photos of my own. There are many problems with this as there is a particular style I want that is really quite hard to just come across, especially in Huddersfield, but I'll work with what I can get and am developing strategies to better achieve the aesthetic I want. An aspect that through my work I have discovered is almost as important as the style and aesthetic of the model is the pose of the figure. To practice arranging a pose and such I borrowed a camera and practised taking photos of my friends, the sort I'd take when I have actual models I would draw.
     
I had quite a bit of trouble with doing this, more than I thought. I looked through previous drawings and tried to get people in similar clothes but struggled to get anything I really like, especially at first. I did learn a lot though and improve over the day. I think my main problem was improvising the poses, I really need to make some template poses to give me a basis to work on. Another trouble I had was working around the type of clothing they were wearing. This hopefully wont be such an issue when I take my actual photos to work from as my models then will hopefully be wearing clothing more similar to the style I want and am used to drawing.

Jamie Hewlett

Jamie Hewlett is one of those artists I really like, about half the time, but always forget about. His work appeared on my tumblr the other day when I was just sort of browsing about for influence and I remembered how much I liked (some) of his work. Hewlett is most famous (and known by me) for his work behind the band the Gorillaz in which he has a very unique cartoonish but semi detailed and precise style. I really like how strong and defined his style is.

I was looking at his work trying to figure out if it related to my project at all when I came across a series of Tarot cards he had made.  The illustrations on these cards weren't particularly interesting to me but I really liked the card context of the work . I have been playing around with putting my work  into the context of a series, currently exploring this by making my work smaller and smaller and at the moment is very similar to card size itself.(http://mqltv.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/cartas-tarot-jamie-hewlett.jpg)
 These aspects were on my mind later when I saw three packs of cards on my bookshelf. I looked at these cards and decided it would be interesting to start drawing a series of work on these cards. This way the material itself interlinks the series of work naturally and not just because multiple similar drawings are put next to each other. It also adds another element to my work other than the figure itself which is something I've been thinking about lately.


His Gorillaz work and also his Tank Girl work have more of an influence on my comic work. The main problem (one of many) that I have with my comic project is figuring out a strong consistent style, the thing I most like about Hewlett's work. The thing about his work are there are some very distinct features to his figures that are throughout his work, similar angular, thin body shapes, pointed faces with a protruding jaw etc. In short there is less variety between the people he draws than there is in life. This sounds like it should be a negative but apparently it's not. There are a few reasons for this; his drawings are good, Jamie clearly knows what he's doing and is achieving the look he's going for, more than I can say for my work. This is something I really need to work on as I have no idea how I want my drawings to look like really.
(https://evaakessonscriticaljournal.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/01bff2a9.jpg)(http://www.phaidon.com/resource/sponge-finger.jpg)

Zak Smith

I realised that my favourite artist, Zak Smith, is actually very useful for my current project. I recently bought The Zak Smith book 'Pictures of Girls' as I've wanted all of Zak's books for a while now and this one was reduced Amazon. I was gushing over it when I realised how similar his work was to mine. Being my favourite artist my work is pretty much influenced by his by default, but this is usually in a stylistic sense, in my use of ink and how to balance colour and black and whiteness. For the majority of my work this project however I've not used ink and been using colour in a different way so Zak's work didn't seem to have much sway. Looking through the book however I realised I'd been an idiot for missing the strong link between my current work is, not in style but simply subject matter. Unsurprisingly 'Pictures of Girls' is filled with Smith's various portraits of girls, girls with a strong sense of style, similar to the type of people I've been drawing but a bit more alternative. The girls he paints are usually very posed also like the pictures I've been drawing. This makes Smith's work very useful in figuring out how to compose the people in my drawings and how to convey different styles of clothing. I can look at how he uses these aspects to convey a personality from his models, which is also important to my work.

One of the most interesting aspects of Zak's work is his incredibly detailed backgrounds done heavily in ink that contrast the figure. My work completely lacks this using no or only abstract backgrounds. This is mainly due to wanting the work to be about the figure but seeing how Zak uses background to compliment the figure, improving the image but not detracting attention at all leads me to think that developing a background style for at least some of my types of work could work very well.

 (http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6699/1331/1600/v_in_corner_cd2.jpg)
(http://www.creativityfuse.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Temper-Acrylic-painting-by-Zak-Smith1.jpg)

Scott McCloud

Half for my Contextual studies and half for for my main project...and half because I wanted to I read 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud. This is a terrific book in which Scott talks about almost every aspect of comics you could think of, from history, to layouts, to philosophy, it is all covered.
Honestly it's crazy how much this guy knows about comics
The most relevant and helpful parts of the comic is the chapters about what happens in the gutter between panels and how time work in comics, both these are related.
He talks about how though not shown the audience makes assumptions about what happens outside the panel and how this works to not only fill in the missing spacial information but to fill in movement and time that passes. He describes this process as 'closure'. He talks about how comics can push this auto filling by the audience, changing setting while leaving a clear image of what is happening to the reader. He talks about the importance of the reader filling in in their own head what happens between the panel and how this makes comics a collaborative experience.
Scott then lists the types of panel to panel transitions, He lists 6 along with examples and when they would be used and the amount of closure they use, some leaving very little to the audience to do and some leave everything to them making the comic as much about what isn't there as is.
There's a lot more said about this which is very useful and interesting but I can't go on forever so I'll move on
Talking about time in comics McCloud hits on how time can move within one panel and how it can move across multiple panels and how the passage of time can be controlled within these. He talks in depth about how within comics time and space are one in the same (like it is in real life but way less complicated). The final main element he discusses is how the amount of visual information in a panel changes how long the panel lasts in a viewers mind and how this effects it's timing.

There is so much more to talk about but it would be just reciting the book. Not only that the information is so blatantly useful I don't even have to talk about how it effects my work. The essence though is there are a hell of a lot of variables to making a comic (I was already aware of this) and they are all very important. Taking them all into account takes a lot of practice time and effort. This makes me think I was right to just dive into making pages for my comic and although I'll make many mistakes (hopefully little ones) I'll learn and develop as I go seeing first hand the importance of these aspects.

More artist blogs

Wes Craig- http://wescraigcomics.tumblr.com/

First off can we just appreciate how nice Craig's blog looks, the banner at the top with his art style looks awesome and the black background really compliments his art. Like most of the artist's blogs I've looked at Craig mostly just posts pictures of his art, he posts a lot of progress shots of his comic pages. These progress pages are really interesting, mainly in how he draws his roughs, with some sort of black marker and how much detail he 'inks' before digitally colouring the pages (something I've been trying to figure out in my own work). The rest of the blog is notices about events he'll be attending and answering questions. At the side he has links to his other social media sites and where you can purchase his work but that's about it.

Eric Hibbeler- http://erichibbeler.tumblr.com/ 
Eric's blog is much like everyone else's. He only posts sketches though (very rarely completed work) accompanied with about a line of why he's done the sketch such as 'just practising poses' etc. At the top  he to has links to other places you can buy or see his work. I really like the layout of his blog, how you see two posts side by side and how visually impacting it is but also how simple the layout is. This whole aesthetic would simply be ruined if he posted large chunks of writing. The option to ask him questions is there but I imagine he answers these privately as I never see them come up on his blog.

Eric Scott Pfeiffer-http://ericscottpfeiffer.tumblr.com/
Eric posts a range of his work, from progress comic stuff to sketches to the sort of work that you can buy as prints and such.  He'll post a little line giving the work context and maybe saying how it was done but that's all and sometimes the posts will act as an advertisement for some upcoming project. He also has the typical links at the top of his page and the option to ask him questions, though these never appear on his blog. The layout isn't as nice as Craig's or Hibbeler's as the range of work gives an aesthetic dissonance the one by one large nature of how the work is posted and displayed just doesn't have the impact or beauty of how Hibbeler's work is displayed.