Evaluation

For my final major project, the equipment I used was a Nikon D3100 camera with a 18-55mm lens, a bounce and black reflector, two flashes each with a soft box, white and black Colouramas. The theme I was focusing on was Dance, which I narrowed down to Ballet. I wanted to tell a story with my images, the effect that ballet has on a dancers life. There is the passionate side that sees the dancers really letting themselves go with the music and enjoying their performances. It is all about their dancing and their body. This is what I have tried to get across with my silhouette images. You can't really see the models features because that isn't what you focus on when watching a ballet performance, but her body and her poses are bold and very striking and it is the first thing you notice when you look at the images. I chose to keep the bit of colour in it because I feel that it represents the passion around the dancer like an aura. I got a lot of inspiration from Nick Knight for these images. He produced a series of silhouette images with a lot of colour in them and I really liked the effect they had. If I was to do the shoot again I would take the time to find a professional ballerina to model for me because then I would be able to get shots of them on pointe, something my model was not able to do as she was not a ballerina. I chose the quote "dance is the hidden language of the soul" by Martha Graham because I think it fits with my story and my images really well. Because to dancers, ballet is their heart and soul and they use their body to communicate to the audience and to express themselves, like it is their own language. 

The other effect is the one that takes over the dancers life, the "dark side" as I call it. After watching the film 'the black swan' I realised that this dark side is very real in the life of a ballet dancer. The pressure to look good and be the best really gets on top of them and it can make them ill. To show this in images, I used a black backdrop and low key lighting to create a dramatic effect on the image. I think the image as a whole works really well, however I feel that the image looks a little bit grainy in some areas and if I were to do it again differently I would try to overcome this and ensure it is of a better quality. 

I now plan to print my two final images and hang them in size A2 frames at our end of year exhibition. 

This is my completed final silhouette image. I am going to frame it in an A3 or A2 frame, in the center leaving a gap at the top and bottom. I am also going to seperately print off my quote "Dance is the hidden language of the soul" by Martha Graham and place it underneath this image in the same frame. 

After I had finished shooting my silhouette photographs with the white background, I decided to keep the lighting as it was but change the background to have a go at shooting some more images. I thought that because I had decided against the black background with white silhouettes to show the dark side of ballet, I would try taking a different approach to representing it. I am very happy with how this image has turned out. I like the lighting on my model and how only a small bit of her body is lit up. I like the dark, gloomy effect it gives and I think it gets my message accross. In post editing I didn't do a lot, I just added a vintage action to give it a slightly different colour. I am going to hang this image in the exhibition alongside my silhouettes.

These are all my final images after the post-editing process. I am going to choose the best 9 and put them into a collage/grid ready to hang in the exhibition:

I chose not to include the next image because I think it is too similar to the last image. I didn't want to have two images that looked too much the same, I want every image to be different in my collage. The reason I chose the last one over this one is because I think it looks more ballet-like because of her legs, it looks more like she is in the middle of a dance.

I chose not to include the next image because I didn't think the pose was as good/strong as the other ones that I have chosen to include.

I chose not to include the next image because it is too similar to some of the pictures I have already chosen. The one above, where she has one arm up, and one where her hands are pointing outwards rather than inwards. I decided that I liked the other two more than this one.

I struggled to decide whether or not to add the following image. I like the image and the pose, but between this and the other one I was choosing between I decided I preferred the other one. If I was making a bigger collage with more images I would definitely choose to add this one.

I decided not to add the following image because after looking at it for a while I feel like the model does not look comfortable enough in that pose. I think it looks like she is struggling to balance and hold the pose comfortably. 

This is my editing process in photoshop step by step. First I opened the image in photoshop:

I used the clone tool to get rid of the background mess to ensure that the background is completely white (or as white as I can get it):

I then used the levels tool to darken the model and to whiten the background to pure white. (using the sliders from both side of the levels). I made sure I did not completely blacken out the model though as I want some colour to still show:

In this case, the colour in my pictures left a blue/purple haze which I really like.

I then created a new file with square dimensions so I could transfer the silhouette to it which will leave me with a square image ready for making my collage:

I used the lasso tool to select the silhouette and copy it to a new layer:

I then dragged the new layer to the square canvas and resized the silhouette so it fit inside the square:

And I was left with my fully edited image! :)

Contact Sheet

This is a contact sheet of all the images I took during my shoot:

I had an idea to alternate the grid from a white background to a black background (an example shown below) to show that there are two sides to ballet, the good side where dancers are happy and successful and get fun and enjoyment out of performing. And the dark side where it takes over their life and they are highly pressured to keep their shape etc. I have tested it out to see what it would look like but i'm not sure that I really like how it looks. Whilst it is very eye catching, I think it is too 'loud' and there is too much going on. I want it to be a little more subtle to match up more with my quote. 

Test shoot 2

I did a self portrait to test out  a lighting set up and see if it would work in creating a silhouette. In photoshop I used the clone tool to get rid of the obstructions and make the background all white, then I altered the black and white levels to brighten up the background and black out myself a bit more. I am happy with the end result and I like that there is a tiny bit of colour around the edge of my hair, although for my final images I would like there to be a bit more colour in it.

Light setup

This is the light set up that I used when I did a self portrait to practice creating a silhouette

Test shoot 1

This is a test shoot that I have done just to test out some ballet poses:

Ballet poses

I looked on google images to find some more ballet poses for some inspiration before i do a test shoot. These are what I found: