Casting

For this project we will be using a model for our shoot production week, and after advise from Victoria she said it would be best to cast a girl who is tall, thin and has a slightly unusual look to them, these are the models that we thought might work:

Kerri 

Ellie 

Heather 

Natalia 

After showing these images to Victoria, she suggested that it would best to go for Natalia for the model and we agreed with the suggestion.

Sketches for New Set

These are some Sketches that we came up with for the design of new set:

So after these sketches we decided that our set is going to be a central abstract sculptural piece to better reflect our concept for this project, however, we are yet unsure of what the sculpture is going to be made out of, so far we have discussed making the sculpture out of mdf sheets or make it out of plaster?

Inspiration for New Set

From this new idea for the set, I have looked into Cubism as a source of Inspiration for this new set and looking at George Braque and Pablo Picasso:

Georges Braque 

Influenced by his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspectives created work that seem questioned the role of shape with painting. When I look at his work it makes me think and look at the individual complex shapes that make up the painting. In terms of colour the use of dull colours such as browns, greys and blacks  works well with the use of strong sharp lines within the work.

Pablo Picasso 

Like Braque, Picasso has been one of most influential artists of the 20th century, again like Braque Picasso primarily uses shape in his work which was developed alongside Georges Braque. Again I like the use of the complicated shapes which I think tries to probe the mind of the viewer of a deeper meaning behind the paintings of Picasso. 

Change of Set

After various tutorials, it was advised that we needed to change our set because it was thought that ideas for our first set were over complicated and  unachievable and it did not fit with our concept and that it would be better to go for a more modern/ futuristic set to better fit our theme. From this we were advised to look into industrial sculpture and architecture. We created these mood boards for this new theme for our new set:

We also looked at Architect  Daniel Libeskind to take inspiration from:

 Daniel Libeskind

Contextual Research

Identity 

•Identity is a person's conception and expression of their individuality or group affiliations.
•Identity may be defined as the distinctive characteristic belonging to any given individual, or shared by all members of a particular social category or group.
•Many people gain a sense of positive self-esteem from their identity groups, which furthers a sense of community and belonging.

Gender Identity 

•Gender identity refers to a person's private sense of, and subjective experience of, their own gender.
•This is generally described as one's private sense of being a man or a woman, consisting primarily of the acceptance of membership into a category of people: male or female.
•Each of us has a biological sex — whether we are female, male, or intersex. Our gender is our social and legal status as men or women.
•Each of us has a gender and gender identity. Our gender identity is our deepest feelings about our gender. We express our gender identity in the way that we act masculine, feminine, neither, or both.

Gender Identity Disorder

•Most children begin to identify themselves as either a boy or a girl between the ages of three and four years old. They engage in play that their family and friends connect with their gender; what psychologists call the 'gender role'. Some can seem to take longer than others to understand and embrace their gender role.
•For a very small number, this passing uncertainty and discomfort, known as gender dysmorphia, can develop into gender identity disorder.

•A major difficulty with gender identity disorder is that it's a rare condition.
•Estimates vary from one or two people in every 100,000 to about one person in every 12,000 . This means that people who have gender identity disorder can experience profound loneliness.

Test Shoot

This was our first Test shoot for the project, here we have chosen a few images from the test shoot:

We also made a contact sheet to show all the other images from the shoot: 

Ellie and Jill by David Bromley

From this test shoot I think what is working is the type of lighting being used because I am liking the definition of the subject, especially around the face on the first set of images with the which has a nice contrast of the highlights and shadows. However, I think that the window is not working and we need to remove that as a light source possibly?

Initial Ideas for Styling

In terms of Styling, we liked this idea of going with a more tailored fashion look. We have created these mood boards to visualize our ideas: