"Shop til you drop"/Shopaholic

[mattd85]

Hi all,

I wasn't sure if to post in here or the people section, I decided here as there not much of a person in the actual shot haha. This is my VERY 1st attempt at anything fashion related what so ever. My friend was entering a Nail Art Photography Competition and asked if I could help her out. The theme was 'Shopaholic'. We wanted to do something that wasn't generic and obvious, It was my suggestion to replicate something I had seen where a dead person's hand was shooting out of a grave, or where somebody is drowning and the last thing you see is the hand grasping for life. The idea being either the subject is rising from the grave of shopping to shop again haha or the subject was drowning in her obsession of shopping, I preferred the drowning explanation. Hope I explained myself, I'm crap when it comes to describing my ideas.

Anyway the lighting for this was a 3 light set up, 1 speedlight behind the set and to the left, 1 speedlight directly behind the arm pointing up and 1 speedlight snooted directly above and behind me. I didn't want the whole of the arm lit, more just rim lighting, but it was essential that the nails were back lit to show them up. We used bags, purses, shopping bags, jewelry, perfume, shoes, credit cards, I tried to use bold colours that would represent passion, addiction, envy, luxury and sex(women prefer shopping to sex, so I'm told ) but that would also compliment the nails.

OK, so this is the pic, I'm not expecting a lot of comments on this as I doubt it's everybodies cup of tea, but for my 1st attempt I was happy, and so was my friend.

Thanks

Matt



Shop til you drop! by mattd85, on Flickr

 

[DayDreamer]

It is not easy arranging the items for this type of shot. I remember when my daughter was doing A Level Art & had to do a painting of clothes tumbling out of our washing machine. Just how many times can you arrange, then rearrange, then rearrange, etc..

Back to the shot (IMVHO) I feel there should have been more space at the top, the fingers look too close to the top border, my temptation would have been to subtly desat the shot but subtly increasing the finger nails to really make the talons, claws or nails stand out more as I feel they are a little lost in the context of the 'assignment' - but just my thoughts

 

[mattd85]

Yes I definitely agree it needs more space at the top. It was a nice challenge.

Thanks.

Matt

 

[Elines]

Yes - agree with comments re space at top.

I may be being too formulaic but maybe it would be improved also with a less central vertical position ?maybe diagonally across the centre of the image?

But in any event I think like this, particularly the way you have the red talons against a black part of the background