Fashion story development
Since our formative feedback last week, I have come pretty far with my fashion story layout.
I began to cut the amount of images I had in my ‘maybe riders’ pile down by considering whether they tell the story of traditional hunting attire, whether they have something different to the other images, and of course thinking about aspects which make a good image.
It was important to me to include as many of the hunt rider’s accessories and things which I think are associated with the hunt as much as possible in the story, for example the horn, the whip, and other essentials associated with hunting such as the port, the scarlet coat, the traditional hunt buttons, the white gloves and small tack/horse details. It is important that hunt riders are exceptionally dressed to the standards required by the hunt, this is something I think is shown well through close up images of details.
This is an image taken by a peer in formative feedback on Friday 19th, it shows her suggestion of images to pick from my ‘riders fashion maybe’ pile
This photograph is the first group of ‘riders maybe’ images that I managed to cut down to. Theres 23 images, so still quite a few too many. I got to these by getting rid of anything I had doubts about, if i was doubting it, it left the pile. These images show a rounded view of hunting and the required attire with finer details and accessories to show the traditions. When reviewing my images, I noticed that the closer images showing detail work much better than the distanced shots. However I still feel it is important to include at least one of these so that the viewer can get an understanding of the hunt, it may be good to use an image like this at the beginning of the story to set the scene, or at the end for a nice rounded finish.
I have kept in a couple of images which are very similar at the moment, because one is either portrait or landscape so I will use the one which suits the design of the story the best.
These are my chosen images from the spectators group fashion.
These photographs show how I have started to group the spectators images together, and think about their sequencing, considering how they may look next to one another in a double page spread and how they may work together to tell the story of hunt spectators fashion.
A few of these images go well together for obvious visual reasons, such as the last two images with reference to their similar colours. However I’m not sure this would work on a double page spread, as the landscape image would be quite small, also it would not look like any fashion story I’ve seen online or in a magazine. Another couple which I think work well together is the first two images on the top left. These both show the ‘community’ of fox hunting and the personality and excitement to hunting. Many people think that hunting is a bad sport and something which shouldn’t happen, these images show a different side to this. Not that I’m trying to change anyone’s opinion by these images, as I’ve said before I am neither for nor against hunting, but these are interesting images which show a different perspective. I also like the group shots as they make a big ‘point’ about the spectators fashion, you can see the similarities in what ‘country people’ wear.
I particularly like the image on the bottom left, I like the composition, the colour and the fact that the spectator is paying attention to the camera, enjoying himself and the photograph being taken. I think this is a great image which for me, sums up the spectators at a hunt, following the hunt everywhere throughout the day in their vehicles, highlighting the fun of the hunt. Spectators often sit on the top of their cars to get the best view of the hunt going across the countryside. However, the general viewer of my story would not have this background knowledge, which is something I need to consider, so they could just appreciate the well composed portrait. Maybe when composing my spectators story, I need to think about using more text to create an understanding of the spectators, what they do and what they’re wearing. The spectators story compared to the riders fashion story is quite different because I feel that the images of the riders are more self explanatory and the viewer knows by the type of images I’ve taken (long shot, close up) that something is important and will get the gist. Where as the portraits of the spectators aren’t as well completed, I feel that they’re in a different league to my riders fashion story. This was not intentional. I think that maybe the riders attire is more visually interesting, the different viewpoints I’ve captured showing a range of classic traditions of the hunt, particularly the close ups showing texture.
Since I have managed to cut down the amount of images in my fashion story, I will be able to get valuable advice from my lecturers in my next tutorial on planning the sequence of my narrative. I feel that I am in a good place with the project to be able to do this next.
