Testino took this shot for Madonna as her 1998 album cover for 'Ray Of Light'.
He has worked closely with her throughout the years and they have become good friends, Madonna even attended his birthday party in 2014 and performed 'Happy Birthday' for him. This photo has been taken in a studio, with what seems to be some form of soft-box lighting. The colour blue is very prominent in the photo as it connects everything together; Background, clothing and eyes. This makes the image more aesthetically pleasing as it all coordinates nicely together and works cohesively as a vibrant image that is fun and full of life. Although the image is heavily consumed by a cool tone of blue, the image still seems warm as the skin tone and hair of the model balances it out. Also, part of the blue background has warm undertones, making it seem like more of a turquoise than a blue, resulting in the photo having a more warm feel to it. There is a clear tonal range in this photo but there are not massive contrasts of light and dark, as most of the image is quite bright and it is all balanced out well. As I can see from the frozen motion of the hair, this photo has clearly been taken with a fast-shutter speed. This means that the lighting must have been bright in order to have a well-balanced exposure when taking this photo; this would have been simple to achieve, as it was taken in a studio where the lighting can be completely controlled. |
I started my exploration focusing on head shots as I felt that was portraiture in its most natural form. But as I expended my exploration to full body shots and more diverse concepts of fashion portraiture I found my style. I tried to create shape and visual purpose in all my photos as this is something very important to me. I like the shapes created by the body in this photo and I feel that the positioning of the models arms and legs work well with the clothing which is also something I discovered in my personal exploration - the photos need to work well with the clothing and present them in an attractive and interesting way. |
As the project progressed I ventured from studio work and did some location shoots. I also got bolder with my editing and experimented more with colours and textures, instead of focusing on white balance and exposure as I did when editing the studio shoot photographs. From this photo you can see a growth in my style of fashion photography and how I can mould to both editorial and more documentary style fashion portraiture. |