My Photography Project – A Cute Girl in Beautiful Red Skirt
As a photography student, I have a lot of assignments, projects, and exhibitions to be done. One of my latest assignment was given by my lecturer last winter for our mid-semester examinations. As I really enjoyed working on this project, I decided to share some of the photos that I submitted for this purpose through this article.
The title of this project is “The Girl in the Red Skirt.” My lecturer told me to take photographs of that reflects warmth as well as mysterious feelings. Somehow, I was very puzzled by the theme. There is no further explanation about the type of the subjects, the technical requirements, as well as the limitation of the theme interpretation. Confused, I tried to take a look at a lot of references online. Finally, I found great concept then immediately contacted one of my friends to be a model for this project.
Please let me know your opinion about the photos in this article. Just for your information, I can’t upload the best pictures because they were selected for exhibitions. Although the pics in the photos are not the best, but somehow I still love them very much.
Constructing the basic concept
The idea of this photography work is to take a photo of innocent-looking girl with simple outfit. I wanted to emphasize her innocence, therefore I thought too glamourous dresses would ruin it. As for reference, I looked at the story of Alice in Wonderland. The story worked like a charm for me in finding the idea related to the given theme for this project. The world where Alice lives is very beautiful, filled with cute-looking creatures, but it also has hidden mysterious, even fearful atmosphere within it.
The mystery hidden behind the cuteness and beauty of the subject is the main thing that I’d like to show in my photographs. In order to find the technical concept such as the pose of the model, the composition, and the secondary objects; I consult to my photographer friends. Most of them told me that I should play with the color to convey my intention to the viewers. I have to select two different contrasting colors in order to enhance the two different aspects / atmospheres within the photos. By considering their opinion and also reading various references, I decided to pick “The Girl in the Red Skirt” as the title of my project.
Working with the model
The model of this photoshoot is my college friend, Lina. She is from China, and we worked in several different photography projects before this event. As a model, she is very passionate about photography and modeling. Working with her is always a fun thing to do, especially when we didn’t have constrained deadline to complete the work. The moment when I contacted my friend, she just completed her exam so that she would be available at the D-day of the photoshoot. Lina gave me a lot of ideas for this project, including the use of various properties such as balloon and necklace.
For this project, I found a lot of challenges, especially in finding the most appropriate model for the theme. She should have cute, innocent looks; but at the same time also need to have a feeling of mysterious and enigmatic. At first, I doubted that I could find these qualities within Lina. However, after I told her about the concepts and about my doubt, she said that she would work her best to be able to appropriately show the concepts within the photos. Indeed, she did that very well.
The photoshoot
The overall process of the photoshoot was very good. We arrived early morning at the location and immediately started the work. It took about two hours to complete the first session of the project. As it was early morning, we somehow managed to work more productively and efficiently. There were some moments when I had her to stay still for long time, and I think they were the only difficult things to do during the photoshoot.
After two hours of work, we took a lunch break. During the break, I found a lot of more great ideas for the next photoshoot. I told my idea to the model, and she said that it was very good. Without no preparation, we executed my completely new concepts in the second half of the photoshoot. The results are amazingly good, but it is somehow unfortunate that I can’t show it in this article.
I completed the photoshoot session for a total of eight hours work. I immediately went home and edited some of the photos for another two hours, then submitted to my college website just ten hours before the deadline. I was very happy when they announced that I got good results, and some of the photos were even selected for exhibitions in a famous art gallery in my city.