At first i looked at Tim Walker, as his style of work is very creative and fantasy themed which is what I'm most interested in. As previously shown in my research, i looked at an image taken from his photo book series Storyteller. The image had the right elements in terms of lighting, styling and location but it didn't fit in with the theme i have chosen for major project.
For my major project i have chosen to base it on Witchcraft. I have always had a great interest in witches and the way they were convicted and tested and i want to create my own fictional story with elements of history and tales of witchcraft around the 1500/1600's.
I then looked at fine art photographer, Alex Stoddard. He created a series called, Tiny Fluttering Wings, which is a fantasy piece taking elements of witches and the fairytale Little Red Riding Hood. I love the piece as it is beautifully shot, the composition of the images are eye catching and the colour palette is moody yet hazy. With the bold colour of red in the costume, it symbolises danger to me, creating a sense of fear and suspense. Because i am already familiar with the fairytale story it draws inspiration from, I'm already in a sense of understanding the semiotics within the series. I think this works out well in his favour because his reimagined version is new and combines old stories together, making it exciting to see if it is different and has originality. This series worked perfectly with my chosen theme. Alongside the photographic project, Stoddard collaborated with cinematographer, Devin Schiro. They created a short art film, like an introductory piece to the images. This was an amazing discovery because for my final major project i want to create a picture series with a short introduction video. However, Stoddard doesn't have a critical amount of debate about his work, as he is still up and coming in the photographic world. I was able to find out primary information from both Stoddard and Schiro but there was not any critical debate other then student blog posts.
After coming to a bit of a holt with what direction i should take, i started looking at some inspiration i had collected for my major project research. One in particular was an image taken for W Magazine's 2012 issue, Spellbound photographed by fashion photographer Steven Meisel. I started looking at what the potential meaning behind the image was and if there was any debate on it but no results showed. Meisel is renowned for not talking about his work so i started looking at alternative routes. I found out who the set designer was on the shoot and emailed her in the hope she would tell me more about the series. She got back to me and told me more about the inspiration behind the piece and so in response to this new primary information, i decided to find something else to be the main focus of the essay and use this image as a comparison, relevant to the argument I'm trying to make.
I then continued my search, looking at fashion photographers who use witchcraft as their theme. I came across an article online about fashion designer, Alexander Mcqueen, who created a set in fall/winter 2007 entitled, In Memory of Elizabeth Howe, Salem 1692. What i found really interesting about this media platform of portraying witchcraft was it was all about the costume and the runway set up to captivate the audience. The runway was in the shape of a pentagram, where the girls walked in the lines showcasing his . Above in a three dimensional triangle, playing a surreal video of three girls with eery music playing causing a sense of suspense and power. Again, like the Meisel image, i wanted to use this as another argument point on a different media platform that uses witchcraft as its theme. I wanted to include this as how fashion portrays witchcraft and what kind of reaction this form of media receives from the audience.
From looking at the Mcqueen research, it led me in the direction of fashion photographer Nick Knight. In a great turn of events, i discovered that Knight has created a witch themed mini series called Aquellarre. This really sparked my attention as Knight has a substantial amount of information about himself as a practitioner and this project is shown on his website, SHOWstudio which tells me all about the project: inspiration, collaborators, location, the client and where it has been showcased. This is a really interesting piece to focus my essay on because it has a lot of depth to talk about and i have similar work to argue the ways in which paganism and witchcraft is portrayed in fashion lens based media platforms.
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