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PPD

The Fashion Journalism unit has been very challenging and, at times, extremely difficult, however, it has also been very rewarding. I have developed new skillset and discovered a whole new area of interests that I did not know I had.

When we started this unit I knew a little about the fashion part, as I was more interested in the journalism part, mainly writing – writing has always been a great interest to me. Conversely, as part of my development in this unit I have gained a big interest in taken professional photographs, which I had never done before.

The interest started already back in November 2016, when we had our Basic Lighting Workshop; in this workshop we got given a professional Canon camera and were taught the basics on how to use it. Playing with the technicalities, we took several images of each other, both outside and inside. We learned about shutter speed, aperture and exposure, as well as the difference between manual and automatic focus.

I found this workshop extremely rewarding, as it helped me to develop a new interest for taken photos, especially street styles. I began to pay attention to the people walking on the streets and if I found someone of interest, I would take a picture of them.

We had an opportunity to go to Copenhagen Fashion Week with LCF, so I went. I had initially booked off a professional Canon camera from the Lime Grove Media Store to take with me on the trip. I was extremely pleased that I took the camera with me, as I got some great street style photos, which are also featured in my magazine Poison.

In February we had a drawing factory workshop, where we could choose between Illustration and Knitting; I chose Illustration as I thought it applied best to my course. It was a lecture of drawing our own street style images on parchment paper using chalks and paint. We were then prompted to draw with our opposite hand – in my case right hand, to create an artsy illustration. The final outcome of the illustrations turned out great and I am very pleased with them. These can be found in my blog.

As the final outcome of this unit, we had to create a fashion magazine of 20 pages plus front cover + back cover. Furthermore, our fashion magazine had to be supported by a research Tumblr blog. I had never created a blog before, so let alone creating a magazine, this was extremely challenging for me. However, I managed to create the blog and post several research posts in there.

My magazine, called Poi$on, was developed over time with a couple of different ideas; but most importantly, I wanted it to be simple and different. A social political fashion based magazine, which explores the issues in the fashion industry, is what I had in mind. I thought to create this, as it is very rare that you hear or read about the issues in the industry.

From conducting different styles interviews to writing opinion pieces – I have learned a lot in this unit and it is definitely skills that I will take with me in the future.

One major thing to learn is time management. Having a full time job next to studying part time has proved extremely challenging, especially in the run-up to the deadline. This skill is something I need to work on going forward.

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Development pages

The above is an image of my development pages, from front cover to back cover. All the pages are outlining roughly my ideas for each page.

When I actually created the magazine in Indesign, I had to change a lot of things.

The unit handbook outlines that we needed to create a 2 pages plus front cover + back cover fashion magazine, which equals 22 pages in total. I created a new document in Indesign with 22 pages in total, finished the booklet, exported it to single pages in PDF and went to Printroom to print it out. 

Unfortunately, I was unable to print it out due to printing restrictions; when printing a magazine or any other booklet, the pages needs to be multiplied by four, which means that I needed at least 24 pages. As I only had 22 pages in total, printing the magazine out would leave two blank pages at the end of the magazine. 

I decided to add two more pages, Furthermore, I have changed the layout a bit, as otherwise the images and text in the middle of the pages would be cut when printing it. 

As seen in the two images there has been a lot of development from initially creating pages by hand to actually creating the pages in an Indesign document. The two last pages I added are credits as well as my contact details.

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Poi$on

The Printroom, where I printed my magazine, could not perfect bind it, because it needs to be a minimum of 40 pages. Since I only have 24 pages in my magazine - including front and back cover - they told me that a stable binding would be the best solution.

Therefore, I cheated and found a perfect bound magazine and edited it in Photoshop. The above images illustrates my magazine in perfect bound version, which is what I wanted it to be. Unfortunately, I was unable to have my magazine perfect bound, so I created an illustration in Photoshop to show how it would look like if it was perfect bound.  By using the Quick Selection Tool in Photoshop, I copied my own cover and pasted it onto an image of a perfect bound magazine. 

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Streetstyles of London

These are the three chosen images of streetstyle. All photos are taken in London.

I chose these images to be featured in my spread of London Streetstyle, since they are the most interested shots taken in London. 

Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Streetstyles of Paris

I took quite a few photos for this event in Paris - the Céline fashion show. 

There were so many people who caught my eye, if I could choose all of the photos I took I would have, but I can’t. So these are my seven chosen images, which I will feature inside the magazine. 

Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Streetstyles of Copenhagen

Although I took many more photos in Copenhagen for the fashion week in February 2017, I have selected the above six images to be featured in my magazine.

None of the images have been filtered or retouched, as I think they are gorgeous and doesn’t need editing. Mainly, because to me streetstyle has to be natural and it’s all about what’s captured with your camera in the exact moment you spot an interesting trend on the street. 

Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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I have chosen to call my magazine Poison, as I think it illustrates quite well what my concept is - social, political issues in the fashion industry. 

The above screenshots are my own illustrations visualising the typographies I might use for the title of my magazine.  It’s important to choose a typography that represents the concept appropriately and typographies can have different meanings. For instance, Times New Roman and Arial are quite serious typographies, as they are often used in articles, journals, reports etc.  I will use a more serious typography for my articles inside the magazine, as the topics discussed are serious in the sense that they denotes political issues and bad experiences, but also it’s concerning fashion that matters to the environment.

As shown above, I have in all versions of the title chosen to have one of two letters flipped to create a mirrored effect. This is to represent that the environment in the fashion industry is not always straight forward and perfect, but there are issues, which has a negative impact on the environment and the people.  I chose to input the ‘s’ in Poison as a dollar-sign to indicate that it’s very much about the money in the fashion industry.

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi

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Reflection of photo shoot with Josef Abela

Photo shoot 23/02/2017 in studio 3A at Lime Grove, LCF

I had already booked the studio off, as I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do, but I also wanted to try taking photos in a real studio to get the feel of what it’s like. 

Minimalistic, raw, edgy, nakedness, vulnerability; these were some of the key words i had written down before the shoot, as this is what I wanted the pictures to represent. 

When I got to the studio in the morning, I did have some issues setting up the white backdrop by myself, however, I managed in the end.  While waiting for Josef, my model, I turned on a great playlist on Spotify to get into the mood. 

When Josef came he was well prepared; I had asked of him to bring his faux fur coat, some high wasted trousers and military boots. He brought all that and more, which was amazing. 

I started with a short briefing of what I my vision was and as he had already tried standing in front of the camera before, he understood straight away. We then discussed what to wear and agreed for him to wear his ripped jeans with the fur coat, instead of the high wasted trousers, as it looked better. 

The energy in the room was really good and the atmosphere was relaxed, so we were very productive while having fun. 

I guided and advised him throughout the shoot, telling him where and how to sit, stand and look. 

I had different chairs and lightning as well, to ensure I shot the perfect photo. 

Having a white backdrop as background and just a chair for him to sit on, my vision of minimalism was achieved. 

Overall, I am really satisfied with the photos I took and it was a really good experience, which I enjoyed. 

The final eight photos I have chosen to post on my blog will follow.

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Model: Josef Abela Photographer: Charlotte Legradi