Men in Skirts

I was in the studio recently with Rosie Bertuello. The styling and concept is completely down to this girl.  This was just a test shoot but - I already love it! I can see it's going to progress and she is really on to something. 

Rosie approached me and asked me to photograph this for her. For part of my FMP I am exploring off-screen space within photography. So I took this opportunity to experiment with this. She wanted crops anyway to portray her concept and I wanted to see if offscreen space can compare in the studio with location. Now these are not edit so bare with me (Rosie wanted black and white so thats why they are currently):

Off-screen space is world that is existing or occurring beyond the frame (public view of knowledge). It is the space that is imagined and not seen by the audience which can relate to areas behind the camera, outside the edges of the frame or noises. These evoke curiosity in man as we automatically want to know what is in the extended scene and often try to create our own narrative. 

This was just a little experiment for myself to see how it works in the studio without the help of scenery. I love the shots and concept alongside and I do feel like I want to know the extension of the scene. However, I feel this idea of the extended scene works better on location with a surrounding that completely changes the fashion story.

While in the studio with my beautiful model in front of me, I took the opportunity to take some portraits: 

All my recent test shoots for Body London have been black and white, and with Rosie wanting black and white I just sort of followed suit and everything I am dong lately has followed too. However I do really love the odd colour edits I have achieved like the one above and the one shot in this post. I definitely need to push myself towards colour more, I'm getting too comfortable in a monochrome scene.

Model: Edvin @ SUPA

Styling: Rosie Bertuello

Photography: Jessica Gates

Old Work

Here are a selection of a few I got earlier on in the year...

Styling: Rosie Buertello & Emily Grimes

Photography: Jessica Gates

More Moths

Following on from my previous post experimenting with the Swallowtail Moth, I've been playing around with a different species. This time I chose the Elephant Hawk Moth (again this is what I got from google, so correct me if I'm wrong).  

Starting off with a few more from the previous moth:

And continuing with newer experiments, I made a different kaleidoscope pattern using a different moth. By copying, reflecting and layering the same image repeatedly I created this pattern; and then played around with layering further and photo manipulation:

Using the pattern above and the black and white pattern from my previous post I combined the two, to  create these further variations: 

All Imagery: Jessica Gates

Moth Fabric

I made this pattern using a scan of what I believe to be (thanks to google) a Swallowtail Moth, multiplying and layering it in photoshop. 

I really liked the pattern created and wondered what it would look like as a print. So using layers in photoshop with an image from a recent test shoot I made this... weird, but I love it!

More Testing

If you've passed by my recently you would have seen several posts on what I have been up to... I've been keeping myself very busy with model test shoots, here is an update with my latest:

Photograhy: Jessica Gates
Hair/Makeup: Chhimmi  Gurung
Styling: Emily Grimes

So... I collect Bugs...

Over the summer I have been doing the very unusual thing of collecting dead bugs. Hold on now before you up and leave because you think I am a complete freak, I didn't go searching for the deceased - they found me (if thats any better)! They almost fell into my hands in a short space of time, it was as if I was meant to find them.

It started off when walking into the garden during the summer I saw a dragon fly, I walked up to it to take a closer look to discover he had sadly passed, so I (of course!) kept him in an old chinese takeaway pot. My brother then passed on the female stag beetle he found a few days earlier. 

What I believe to be Elephant Hawk Moth (the pink and green one) has a funny little story attached. It was flying around our kitchen and I was snapping away while my dad carefully held him with a wooden spatular!!! I was fascinated with it - It was so vibrant! The colour was incredible. Then after a few photos were taken it flew away and I couldn't find it until... 

...The next morning my mum enters the room holding 'her' mug, half asleep after her night shift and looks at me,

''Guess what I just found in my tea''

Turns out the little creature made his way to a 'safe' spot inside my mothers extra large mug which is kept on the kitchen side as to big to keep in the cupboard. She had poured in the boiling water, and as she went to remove the teabag thought she had accidentally put in two, until she took it out to discover what it was.

She was mortified! I was thrilled, not at its terrible hot bath experience (I hope he died before!), but that I could look at it in closer detail. I added him to my take away tub and the collecting continued. 

Mr (or Mrs) white moth was found randomly in my bedroom one morning. I was taking photographs of the silky blue moth one evening when I put it on a glass. This was during the summer so I left the window open, and the glass containing the moth next to it so it could fly out when it wanted to leave. In the morning he was gone like expected. Then some months later when travelling back to uni, I decided to take my bug collection with me, when lifting a box to put my stuff in, there it was (yes I do believe it is the same moth!) he wanted to be part of the gang! And the random lil fly, I found whilst unpacking my little pot of bodies. 

I haven't photographed them yet, but I scanned them at a high resolution to look at them in detail - I don't have a microscope so I am making use of what I do have! *WARNING* If you don't like bugs I suggest you avert your - but they really are interesting!

Test Shoots

If you have ever seen my instagram you would have more than likely noticed all the previews of studio work I have been posting lately. I am (and openly admit) a major instagram flooder #instaflooder! I just love instagram. Anyway... babble over, here are some more model test shots following on from a previous post:

I had set out to do these model portfolio shots in black and white... but while retouching them, which was ever so slight as the models were flawless, (darn to naturally beautiful!); I found myself keeping a few in colour.