PHOTOSHOOT 1: QETINA.

The day of Qetina's shoot was on a Monday morning, and she turned up on time ready for me to style her. I dressed her in the tan dress over the top of a longer black dress, which was a good plan, considering that she is very tall and the tan dress would have been like a top on her. I also gave her a mustard coloured cropped jumper to change into after a few shots. I did her make-up as planned, with dark purple lipstick and some eyeliner and bronzer to contour her face. I put her in a wig for the first few shots as she recalled she had shorter hair when she found out her grandfather had died. I also liked the wig because it meant that I have a variety of looks even with the same clothing, because for some shots I put her in a large-rimmed black hat, which really worked with the funeral style. 

Qetina really co-operated with what I was instructing her to do and even posed herself without my instruction, which is why I love using her as a model. The lighting I used in the beginning was green and red, which creating an interesting duo-colour feeling. I used both flash and no flash, and played around and experimented with my camera settings. I mainly used a slow shutter speed to capture the movement and the colour more vividly, which gave the overall shoot an interesting aesthetic that could suit publications such as Rookie magazine. 

I changed the colour of the lighting several times: Sometimes I made it one colour, sometimes I used yellow acrylic over the flash to make the whole image yellow, other times I used two different gels on lights placed in particular order to get one colour on the front and a different colour on her shadow, etc. It was really fun to experiment with how I was using colour in the shoot and it was good to work out what was working and what wasn't.  

After quite a few shots of her in the wig, we decided to change up the shoot. She removed the wig, so that the last shots in the sequence would be her in the present paying tribute to her grandfather. To show this part of the narrative, I used all the pieces of cellophane that I'd discarded from using as a colour gel, and placed them all onto the sofa. I then got Qetina to sit beside the sofa and lay on the plastic, so that I would get portrait shots of her surrounded by a shining, textural background representing candlelight. I used the piece of yellow acrylic over the flash for this part of the shoot throughout, and used the setting of slow shutter speed. It produced beautiful results and I really like how experimental I got with this shoot for my final zine.