E-mailing Photographers 1st Reply

http://www.billdobbinsphotography.com/

Bill Dobbins Photography 

I am a photography student from Peterborough in the UK. One of our latest briefs is themed around the topic, beauty. I had a hard time defining beauty as it isn't defined by fact but is actually subjected to opinion. It saddened me how many people turn to fashion and artificial beauty when the brief was set for us. Having said this it did have a subconscious effect on how I was going to engage with my vision of beauty. 

I finally came across your work on body sculpture and was inspired by the way your models were wearing their skin as opposed to wearing clothes. It inspired me right away and I decided to plan and book my test shoot in the college studio straight away. I have attached three of the practice images to this email in hope that you will look at them and give feedback on how I can improve when I come to do my final shoot in the near future. 

I look forward to hearing from you

Glenn Woolsey 

Reply:

Glenn, the camera was invented in the 1830s and I bet the next day somebody asked a woman to pose in the nude.  There have been so many images like this shot that it's pretty hard to come up with anything new.   I would advise looking at as many photos as possible and going to galleries and museums to look at paintings and statues.   Then use the fact that digital photography can be done without spending a lot of money on film and processing and shoot, shoot, shoot.  Let you skills and vison develop over time.  Gone are the days when photo students could only afford to expose a roll or two of film a week

I'm in a different category because the women I specialize in have bodies that have never been available to artists before.   So almost any traditional approach I use in shooting them looks new because they look new.   You job is to find some kind of unique contribution you can make.  But that usually takes time and practice to develop and evolve.

Good luck,

Bill Dobbins

I will use his advice with the new brief that has been set. 

Plan

For my next camera phone shoot I will be using these to help me with my aladdin sane/David Bowie inspired shoot. 

Beauty

Beauty

Beauty

So I have obtained my new brief, the theme is beauty. I wanted to define beauty however this proved impossible as everyone has their own opinion on what is beautiful and what isn't. I brainstormed a few ideas, things that came to mind were; fashion, landscapes, nature etc.

I wanted to do start with something I could experiment with. I got lucky when I found an old film photography book in my photography room which had loads of really interesting ideas which I could replicate into my beauty images. I came across a photographer called Peter Kovach. He used body parts of women to make sculptures.

I did try some of my own body sculptures however it was hard for my models to recreate the image as they weren't as flexible as the women in the image. This is something I could look into and try to get a better image.  

Digital Camera Edits