Final portrait image

This is my final portrait image. I think the ring is the most striking piece of jewelry because it's quite big and nearly centered. I chose this photo because the tones of her skin are pale but not pale enough to get lost in the background where as in most of my other photos, this would have happened. The pose in this photo is a typical jewelry pose which makes it obvious as to what product I'm promoting. I like the way her red hair compliments the blue jewelry and how it seperates her skin from the background. I thought about having a coloured background and editing the image to create a scene similar to that of the actual Swarovski photos but when trying it out I thought this was the best way to display my promotional jewelry shots.

My portrait shoot

Promotional portrait research

For my portrait shoot I chose to promote some Swarovski branded jewelry. I started off by looking at how they promoted themselves to see what techniques and ideas I could pick up.

In all of these photos I have noticed that the Swarovski crystals are shown to be sharper then the model which makes them stand out rather than she being the focus of the image, this indicates importance and attracts attention to the product. The coloured backgrounds in these photos make them look more interesting as to what they would look like with plain white backgrounds. The flattering light makes the models look their best which is important to the company when trying to sell the product because it associates the product with beauty and perfection. The models have been edited to make them look better but to also to not allow them to take the attention away from the products.

 

I looked at some more promotional jewellery photography to get some ideas of what sort of images I could take rather than just replicating the current Swarovski promotional photos. The light is these photos are used in a way to smooth out the skin of the models and to reduce shadows on the face, this allows for an even skin tone which not only makes the models look better but makes the jewellery stand out too.

Shutter speed

These are some photos I took using shutter speeds below 1/20th of a second.

The light has made the models face look very smooth which is one thing I really like about this photo. The creeping dark shadow looks as though it's taking over. The small amount of his face which is being shown has a confusing expression, he's not in an obvious state of joy or sadness which makes the viewer think what he could possibly be feeling. If I was to analyse this photo deeper i'd say his eyes look sad but his mouth looks happy which makes the whole thing confusing. I like the look of this photo and how it will stimulate people's imaginations and get them creating different scenarios of what is going on in this photo.

This photo is very dark and sinister. I like the amount of dark there and the hoodie the boy is wearing because it gives him a thug like character which is an interesting character to be. In my opinion I got the lighting perfect for creating a scary, criminal theme.

I enjoyed adding colour to the images by messing around with glow sticks and think the outcomes are just as fun to look at as they were to make!

This photo looks very demonic. I like the scary facial expression, I think it goes well with the attempted narritve of an angry demon like being trying to get to someone. I don't like the big white mark caused by the model allowing his light to be shown to the camera within the exposure time, I will remove this mark using photoshop.

Large depth of field

My subject matter for these photos were insprired by William Eggleston.

William Eggleston

I like William Egglestons work because he takes photos of everyday things that we see all the time but don't think about or acknowledge. Most of his subject matter is domestic and recognisable.

Shallow depth of field

These are my photos showing a shallow depth of field.

The photo above has a very small depth of field. I really like this image because the colours are bright, vibrant and beautiful and the eye is drawn in by the sharp focal point then dragged around the wonderful smooth background. 

Final product image 2

This is my final Smarties promotional image. I am very happy with the way this turned out! I think the very vibrant colours give the image and product a sense of fun and the randomly placed Smarties add a child like quality. I made the colours brighter using photoshop and think they now look much better than what they did before!

Product image 2

I wanted to see what it would look like to take the common approach to advertising. It looks nice and clean but not very interesting and appealing.

I decided to have a play around with forming different shapes and pictures in a child like manner to capture fun and interesting photos. I layed the Smarties onto card and intended on editing out the seperation lines but didn't because I decided I didn't want to use any of these images as the final one. I like these photos very much and think they do bring a very child like aspect into the promotion which would be appealing to kids but I feel as though the packaging is too unfocused on, it all seems to be about the Smarties themselves and it's very important to show the packaging clearly. I liked all of the colours spilling all over the place and knew this was the route i'd take.

 

I found a set up that I liked so started playing around with focusing. After looking at these photos I decided that a different view would be better, one which allowed focus on each of the packets of Smarties.

Product research 2

I looked at the current promotional photos for Smarties to see if they gave me any ideas for my own shoot.

All of the photos I found were like this, the product with a plain white background. I think they're quite boring images, yeah they get to the point but these photos should be aimed at their target market which is children and children like colour, fun and crazyness. After looking at the current promotional photos I then went onto the TV adverts to see what techniques they used to grab attention and sell the product.



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2010

 The images above are stills I took from previous Smarties adverts from different years. I have noticed as the years go on, the less adverts are aimed at young children, this could be because they are hoping to appeal to a wider market or the generation of children now seem to be more mature than what they where back then. I think adverts should stay fun and exciting because for the age group which would eat this product the most, the fun and exciting adverts would have more appeal.

 

These are stills from a video I came across on YouTube of a stop animation using Smarties. I think this would be a fun way to display the product in advertising.