How To Identify a Beauty Brand? "Real Beauty"

   Dove has been one of the big beauty brands to take a different approach to advertising, which created the Real Beauty Campaign. The adverts showcase photos of regular women (in place of professional models). The ads invited passers-by to vote on whether a particular model was, for example, "Fat or Fab" or "Wrinkled or Wonderful", with the results of the votes updated and displayed on the billboard itself. Other ads also involved women of all different shapes, sizes, ethnicities etc in order to make the “everyday women” to see that womens beauty can come in different forms and questioning beauty standards. 

How To Identify a Beauty Brand? Celebrity

   Factor began experimenting with various compounds in an effort to develop a suitable make-up for film. By 1914 he had perfected his first cosmetic product, and with this major achievement to his credit, Max Factor became the authority on cosmetics in film-making. Soon movie stars were eager to sample his "flexible greasepaint".

   In the early years of the business Factor personally applied his products to actors and actresses. And he developed a reputation for being able to customise makeup to present actors and actresses in the best possible light on screen. This made Factors products even more desirable as he was using a celebrity based approach, by hiring gorgeous celebrities to wear their products and linking their products to the new rise of moving pictures. Among his most notable clients were Ben Turpin, Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, Pola Negri, Jean Harlow, Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Norma Shearer, Joan Crawford, and Judy Garland. As a result, virtually all of the major movie actresses were regular customers of the Max Factor beauty salon, located near Hollywood Boulevard.

How To Identify a Beauty Brand? Seasons

   Revlon was founded in the mid of the Great Depression, 1931, by Charles Revson and his brother Joseph along with a chemist, Charles Lachman, who added the "L" in the Revlon name. Starting with a single product, a new type of nail polish. Using pigments instead of dyes, Revlon developed  new shades of opaque nail polish. In 1937, Revlon then started selling their products in department stores and drug stores. By 1940, Revlon created an entire manicure line, and added lipstick to the collection. Revlon also created the idea of seasons for their products, by bringing out new colours and products each season to made the buyer think that they needed to renew their makeup every 6 months or to keep up with beauty and fashion trends and the seasons. Revlon promoted the idea of collecting colours and how make-up could be used as an accessory.

How To Identify a Beauty Brand? Medical

   Evelyn Lauder, an executive at Estée Lauder and member of the Lauder family, created the Clinique brand name and developed its line of products. Clinique has a medical look about the whole brand, to achieve this they use very minimal colours and minimal advertisements. Lauder was also the first person to wear the trademark white lab coat, now worn by Clinique Consultants worldwide, which also helps keep the medical view to their products alive. Clinique also claim to be fragrance free and hypoallergenic, which in fact is just made up terms to sell their products better as the term “fragrance free” just means they’ve used more chemicals in order to make the products seem fragrance free. It has now been said that the makeup and beauty industry can no longer make scientific claims like this as it falls under false advertisement.

Gobo Lighting

   In last weeks photography session we was taught our final set up of how to shoot a beauty/editorial image using a gobo. A gobo is a harsh single light that can project different designs onto backgrounds, people, or objects by using lazer cut out designs to block the light, therefore projecting the image that isn't blocked by the light. Compared to the other set up we was taught a few weeks back, this set up is a lot easier and quicker to set up. However, when setting up you have to keep in mind the power setting of the lights in this set up to make sure they don't overpower the gobo, therefore the design you wish to project onto an object/background won't be captured in the image at all.
   When shooting with the gobo we started shooting with the projection on the background which kind of created a 3D effect of the model, but not necessarily the desired effect I'd be looking for in my beauty shoot images. Another way of using the gobo is by projecting it onto the face (something I was very excited about doing), and whilst taking them I fell in love with the effect it gave! Especially because we was using a woods pattern on the face it looked so beautiful and mysterious so after today I will defiantly be looking into maybe working with gobos for my final images.
 

Rain

The saintly abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) likened rain to the vital energy of the soul, which makes the body flourish and "keeps it from drying out, as the rain moistens the earth. For when the rainfall is moderate and not excessive, the earth brings forth new life. But if it is inordinately heavy, it destroys the earth and drowns new shoots. From the soul there emanate certain forces to vitalise the body, just as rainwater with its moisture vitalises the earth..." 

Hildegard also compared tears and rainfall. "The spiritual person is so shaken with fear of the Lord as to break out in tears, just as clouds draw their water from the upper reaches and pour it forth as rain" thus the gift of repentance irrigates, fertilises the soul, "washing sin away."

Ancient cave paintings reveal that in the civilisations of southeast Africa rain was symbolised by a snake coming down from heaven, a creature maybe linked with lightning as well. In other contexts a gigantic horned snake appears to have stood for rainwater. And in many ancient cosmologies clouds were thought of as reservoirs of rainwater, waiting to be split open by thunderbolts.

   Rain is nourishment for the earth and is known as the water of life. Rain takes many forms and can be anything from a gentle sprinkling and light watering of the earth, up to a torrid downpour and possible flooding; life giving on one hand and potentially death dealing on the other. Rain is a very serious affair, especially wherever water is scarce and/or crops are growing. An example of this is the world famous Native American rain dances, created to induce rain. 

   Rain drops can symbolise heaven's tears and the accompanying lighting can be seen as heaven's anger. For example, thunderbolts were the favoured weapon of Zeus. Rain is a symbol for tears, sorrow, anger, cleansing, renewal, forgiveness and more usually on a heavenly, worldly or very large sort of personal scale. Slang terms/phrases such as: "Don't rain on my parade", "Save it for a rainy day", and "It's raining cats and dogs”. From these slag phrases, it would seem that rain is more of an annoyance factor than a life/death matter.

Petrichor

   For my inspirational word chosen for me for this project of digital image production is "petrichor". The definition of petrichor is; "a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather". When I first googled my word and saw the definition I was quite disappointed and nervous as at first I wasn't sure how I could show or describe the definition in images let alone my final project which would be a beauty shoot, but after breaking down what the word actually means into just smell and rain I found some interesting ideas of what I could use for my face and hair charts. 

My original thoughts, colours and mood of when I thought of petrichor

This mood board was inspired by the aftermath of rain and all the things it can cause, such as mould, damp, floods, moss, fungi ect. 

I decided to take a look at fashion and beauty that have been inspired by rain, the outside and smell. 

Going with the fashion theme, I found designers that have used rain in their runway shows that have interesting concepts as to why they chose to use rain/water. 

As I felt I hadn't incorporated smell enough into my mood boards, I decided to look at perfume ads that involve water/rain. 

Lastly, I decided to take a look at typography that has either been inspired by rain or what I would personally use for my beauty advertisement.

Beauty Advert & Analysis: Part 2

   My first reaction and thoughts on this campaign was that it was genius! Just the whole concept of this shoot is something that needs to be talked about more in todays society, but it is also something that people are taking part in, in a form of self expression. Log onto any social media site and you’re bound to see todays generation breaking gender rolls from wearing make-up, the type of fashion the wear, and the jobs they wish to pursue. I’m just thankful that high fashion brands are jumping onboard on this new wave of men and women doing whatever they want with their bodies because gender rolls should never have happening in the first place, and it’s amazing to finally see this starting to break and not become such a big deal anymore. Another gender roll breaking campaign that has recently dropped is Jaden Smith for Louis Vuitton where he is modelling beside other female models but wearing their ‘womens' range of clothing. 

   The composition of this picture is very cropped so it just shows the models neck and face, again to draw attention to what they’re actually selling which is Tom Fords new range of lipsticks but also to get across the concept and keeping the image cropped almost makes you look at what is actually happening and how it’s perfectly normal for men to buy and wear beauty products. I think what else gets me even more interested in this image is the overall mood of the image. It’s kept very dark, defined and sexy which, again reenforces the idea of men wearing make-up can be seen as sexy.

Beauty Advert & Analysis

   When I decided to chose this image for my chosen beauty image I thought about what kind of beauty adverts always caught my eye, whether that be in the photography of the actual image, the model used, colour schemes, the concept and what’s actually happening in the image, or even just the product they’re selling to us. In this case, I chose this advert because of the colour scheme and the photography of the image itself.

     The first thing I’m drawn to when I look at this image are the colours used, the softness of her features like her eyes and lips are kept defined, bright but not overpowering which is perfectly complimented with her pale skin and messy platinum blonde hair hanging down her face to add texture to the look, and frame her face. The image is kept playful with the contrasting pops of neon colours on her nails and shirt but it doesn’t distract you from the main focus of the glossy lipgloss. The composition is also something to take note on, the photographer has made sure to keep her facial features in more or less the centre and symmetrical of the final image which automatically makes you look at her beautiful pale eyes and coral lips, the main focus of this campaign.

Beauty Advertising History

    Cosmetic companies like Max Factor and Revlon influenced beauty standards with powerful advertisements that included vivid prints and bright colours. Girls were shown posing against intensely pigmented backgrounds with their perfect hairstyles, their perfect outfits and their perfect smiles.

   While the ads showed one thing, reality painted an entirely different picture. Few print ads featured women of colour, and when they were included, they often modelled for beauty brands specifically targeted to their racial demographics. Additionally, women were marginalised in sexist ads that portrayed them as men-chasing damsels who needed superhero products to make them look pretty and feel accepted.

   During the XVI and XVII centuries, artists attacked the glorious image of the ideal body and they

started to represent imperfect and distorted bodies. Then, with the birth of photography in the XIX

century and its massive expansion in the next century, new problematics and questions about

corporal image arose. The body’s image turned into an object of consumption of easy access,

generating a complex social dynamic that still continues. The body’s use in advertising, from the beginning of the XX century, presented an ideal body, generally the feminine body. Women attempted to follow the proposed fashion by advertising posters (beautiful women must have wide hips, a thin waist, and an abundant bust, and they used corsets to adjust their bodies to the beauty parameter imposed by society.

   With the beginning of feminist manifestations in the twenties, women “rebelled”: they let down their hair and hid their curves with “flapper” dresses, turning into androgynous beings. After the economic crisis, a decade later, fashion changed again: the curves in women over-evaluated as a

representation of the feminine, fertility and well-being. The slender woman started to be seen as

sickly in that moment. This vision of the feminine body changed again during the sixties, when the thin British model Twiggy turned into the ideal of beauty. Feminist manifestations to denounce women’s position in the society then arose. The case allows us to refer to the creation of stereotypes of the feminine body, and quoting Craing Owens: “The stereotype is an instrument to subjugate; its function is to produce ideological subjects that can be inserted softly within institutions, governments, economies and of a more crucial way, in the sexual identity”. Happiness, channeled through beauty; “Ugly people do not know happiness”, that is what millions of advertisements try to say, which encourages us to be or to turn into beautiful beings”, has caused big troubles in the world since fashion began to idealise the human body, making this a malleable, influenceable, and extremely vulnerable substance, at the beginning directed to women, and currently to the masculine gender too.

    But a new report published by The NPD Group found that "consumer attitudes have changed, and beauty is viewed differently than it was in years past." The report said that while spending grew among the U.S. prestige beauty market, the fewest amount of people purchased beauty products in 2014 than in the last six years. Karen Grant, global beauty industry analyst, added that women may be finding fulfilment once associated with beauty products from other experiences. Perhaps sensing the shift in consumers' mindsets, beauty companies have branded their messages differently than ever before. For example, Make Up For Ever released un-retouched ads in 2011, and Dove launched its "Love Your Curls" campaign just this year. Both examples challenge unrealistic beauty standards and promote self-acceptance. 

New Lighting Set Up

   In our first digital image lesson back we was taught a whole new lighting set up that is perfect for our upcoming product which is to create and shoot beauty advert. In this first lesson we was told we'd learn two different set ups and this was the first one we have been advised to use for this project, this is because due to the light set up, placement and reflector walls it creates an overall softness to the image yet still maintaining definition to the image which is very popular in editorial shoots.  

What You'll Need:

1. 2 soft boxes
2. 1 beauty dish
3. 2 tripods
4. C-stands & diffusers
5. 1 boom stand
6. 1 camera & 50 / 85 / 100 lens
7. sync lead

   These three images above was shot with a 100 lens which is perfect for extreme close ups like on the eyes and lips. The images was also shot without a reflector which overall made the images look dark and not as bright as you'd want them to be when trying to create the illusion of lighter eyes or shiner lips, and this was the outcome after we placed a metallic reflector under the face.

   As you can see these images are so much more appealing and eye catching to look at compared to the images above as they're so much more brighter. However these images aren't amazing or great, they was trial and error to get the perfect lighting and also to practice on getting the selected facial features in focus.

'Who Do You Think You Are? David Bailey?' Feedback

   Looking at my first semesters feedback for this project, I was pleasantly surprised at how positive my feedback was! After not really coming from a very photography based background, I was rather nervous to see how this part of the project would turn out but after getting used to setting up, camera settings and using lights it turns out I really do enjoy photography. And also hearing what Chris had to say about my work really meant a lot and makes me want to work so much harder to achieve bigger, and better outcomes.
   My only criticism of my photos was to show a variety of poses in models next time round when shooting, and for my blog to be more critical towards my research and work. Which looking back at my blog and final images, I defiantly agree with what Chris and Sharon had to say and will take all these comments onboard when it comes to second semester.