It's a wrap...

Yesterday I finished my final shoot and have all of my final images. All I have to do now is find the lucky images that make the cut for the book, edit them, create my indesign document and send it off to be printed. Getting closer but still a way to go.

My two models worked fantastically together. It definitely helped that they have been friends for yeard and that Luke understands how to behave in front of a camera but I have been really lucky, they also both look great in the images. Exactly the look I was going for, young, naive, natural.

Although the images have worked out to be great, I would have really appreciated a team behind me. Having a photographer who can work a camera with ease allowing me more focus on directing the pictures would have been so much easier and more convenient. I am really happy with the styling for the female model, she looks gorgeous, the dresses fit like a glove, they suit her and suit the theme and style of the story, I feel the male models' styling is very poor and could have been a lot better, but it allows more emphasis on Adriana's character so I guess it will not look too bad or obvious.

An up and a down...

This week, I went to Eastleigh to visit them and talk more about my final book design and see previous examples. Patrick filled out forms of all my book details, paper style, amount of pages, type of cover and bind etc so he could give me a cost estimate.

I decided on an A4 landscape, aluminium clip bind, approximately 30-40 pages half text half imagery, my text would be on translucent paper and images on silk paper, my cover black and glossy and I would order 5 for the moment, this was estimated at around £215 a lot cheaper than I thought! 

The agreed date to submit book to the company was the week commencing 27th April.

Later that day I received really bad news about my model. She died her hair blonde. Naturally I went into crazy panic mode, thinking the worst, thinking my project was ruined and there was no solution. I managed to see a picture of the damage and she had dip-dyed the ends of her hair a bright blonde, I had my final shoot starting early the next day with both models. I was planning of seeing her hair first, then potentially going out to my brunette hairspray, brunette extensions, or re-shooting all the previous shoots. I felt the latter was the most sensible idea so prepared to go out an buy more flowers to re-shoot the death scene and planned potential solutions to shoot on other days.
Once I met up with her in the morning I looked at her hair and you couldn't see any blonde. My sigh of relief must have echoed across the whole country! In the picture I saw there was a filter and effects, her hair actually looked like it was shining in the sun. Luckily this allowed me to not dig deeper into my budget and to not waste any more time than I already had been. 

Half way point...

After doing the first half of my shoots for Adriana's character images, I feel a lot calmer and confident in how my project is going. There is a couple of shoots I want to add to or re-shoot and that is the one in the green dress and the ones of Adriana crying as they are a little out of focus.

The unsuccessful shoot...

I planned to do my first and many shoots over the Easter weekend, my female model agreed to be free Saturday and Sunday as my male model was away on holiday for just over a week, allowing me to shoot all images of the girl alone. On the Friday the weather was forecast to rain all weekend, causing me to cancel 2 whole days of shooting putting me even more behind than I already was! Luckily she agreed to work with me the following Tuesday and Wednesday when the weather was hot and sunny!
Although I wanted to get shooting as soon as possible this gave me more time to organise locations and props. I went out and bought another of my tiaras for the shoot as one could be used to wear and one for throwing into the fire. I printed out and teas stained two letters the character would read. I found local parks 5 minutes drives away from my house. I found a local cottage and got permission from the owners to use as the cottage in my story and they were so kind and willing to help.

The extra organisation and confirming everything did allow me to have more confidence in shooting my picture so this small bump was actually a big benefit to me.

The lonely journey...

As my models' Easter holidays were approaching, I was trying to get a team together to assist me. I was incredibly unsuccessful as during Easter people are busy with their own work and go home! This is my fault for not being organised and leaving it too last minute. Luckily a close friend of mine allowed me to use her camera over the duration of 3 weeks for shooting and she gave me huge amount of advise in the best way to take picture which was really helpful! I also would have liked a little help and advice on styling as I have no real experience of direction in what suits individuals and projects. Instead I went on ASOS and went through all dresses from £0 - £50 in a size 8 choosing styles mid-length to long in a range of colours and floral patterns, I eventually ordered 13 dresses, a few too many than needed in case some did not fit or were not appropriate, I requested next day delivery and my order came to £480.
The next day I received an email informing me my order would arrive in 5 days time, this sent me into panic mode as I asked for next day delivery, Furious and worried I emailed and called until they ensured I would receive the dresses within the next 2 days. They arrived, one day late but I had them,

The discovery of Imagewise...

I had continued searching for printers in both the Southampton and Reading area and was really struggling so asked some of my peers who they had found and got in touch with, The company Imagewise kept cropping up so I emailed them and they called me straight away. I spoke with a man Patrick and he was amazingly helpful. He assured me they could print everything how I needed it and at a lower cost than expected in a short amount of time. I was getting very worried I wouldn't find anyone and when I finally did it would be tight with timings and be a huge amount of money.

Tutorial, planning shoots, writing stories...

After talking to my tutor about my overall final storyline, Jennifer told me not to worry so much about having narrative first. She recommended I go straight into shooting images I have imagined and love then the storyline will flow from that. This regained a huge amount of confidence for myself as I was starting to worry about accuracy and timings etc.

I went home and started to think of ideas, poses, places to take pictures I would love to create which worked a lot better, quicker and easier for me, and just as Jennifer said, the storyline wrote itself.

The final storyline came together incredibly quickly and I am so proud of myself for the words I wrote myself. I really fell in love with the tale and when I read it back I hope other feel as connected and touched as I do. Finger crossed my words are a success!