Bryony Bolland & Saskia Hadley

So, last week I did a commissioned shoot for NUCA Fashion Students, Bryony Bolland & Saskia Hadley. We worked with Joy Cruickshank, who modeled for my Solstice project.
As they were commissioned, they were shot under the direction of Bryony & Saskia themselves. My style for Fashion is usually on location so it was great to be in the studio for a change! Whereas I like to be quite surreal with my colours, it was also interesting to keep the photos very sleek, modern and clinical.

Bryony's dress was from her Deconstruct/Reconstruct university brief. In this project they were given clothing from Cancer Research UK that did not sell on the shop floor, the clothes were then broken down and used to create cutting edge garments. I am unaware what clothes were used to put together Bryony's work but believe it is fair to say that she has successfully transformed the clothes with no trace of the unwanted, charity shop clothes.
To compliment the dark & edgy dress, Joy was styled with her hair slicked back; bold, black eyes & dark cheekbones - all effectively creating a dark canvas for the beautiful, hand-made collar.
click on the photos to see them larger. 

Straight after shooting Bryony's dress, Bryony & Saskia got to work transforming Joy into Saskia's modern, pastel dress that is reminiscent of 60s fashion.
Saskia's dress is from their first university brief 'Connections'. This project encouraged the students to investigate recent trends and the collaborations between designers and high street stores. For the first project of the first year at university, Saskia's work is of a high standard and has a dynamic use of colour.
Joy momentarily went from a shoot that required attitude to a conflicting shoot that was very bright & playful. Joy made this transition easily & needed little direction - signs of a very good model! Joy was now styled with basic  make-up that was, once again, reminiscent of Twiggy.

                                               

Altogether, it was a fantastic experience. Within 2 hours, at most, I had shot two completely different photo shoots. I'm sure there's a lot more to come from Bryony & Saskia and I hope to work with them again in the future.

Check out Bryony's blog here!


- Charlotte

Long time, no see.

Hello!

Apologies for not updating recently, I have been very busy with my final project of second year.
However, I'm now all finished and already starting to prep for my third and final year - it's all very daunting!

My recent project, entitled 'Solstice', is a Spring/Summer Fashion series and is heavily inspired by Piero della Francesca and several other Christian Artists.
I worked with a fantastic team of models; Joy Cruickshank, Poppy Keith, Catherine Wilson & Frances Roberson. I also worked with make-up artist, Emily Kissock and NUCA Fashion students, Bryony Bolland & Jade Searby who helped as stylists.
We shot over a couple of days and everyone was simply brilliant!

I submitted my portrait of Joy to Vogue Italia and it was accepted!
You can see it here

Since hand-in, it's been much more relaxed and I've just about finished finalising this project.


I've recently been organising work for over and good news!!
In two weeks I'm going to be moving to London and working as a Rankin's Post Production Assistant for 3 months!! I'm very excited and it still hasn't really sunk in yet...
I've got a few photoshoots planned in my final weeks before I start but otherwise I'll be relatively quiet over summer with new work.

Next Monday I am shooting for Bryony Bolland so expect new work shortly!

Charlotte

Test shoot with Stephanie

So after lots of research, i'm finally getting to the fun bit.
I have 5 shoots this week; all equipped with models, stylists & a make-up artist. It's all very daunting yet exciting at the same time.
This is probably the biggest project i've done so far. 
Today, I went around my chosen locations with my housemate, Steph, to do a final test shoot.
As they were just being taken for research/sketchbook work, I wasn't expecting anything special. However, I was pleasantly surprised as these two came out rather lovely. Very pink, very 'spring'.

I'm onto the exciting bit of my project now, so expect more frequent updates. 


- Charlotte

Charlotte's Ely expedition

So, i've been submerged in my research for my current project and I havn't really had chance to start shooting.

I'm looking at Medieval, Gothic and Renaissance Christian Art as 'The Church' is my chosen theme - we had to choose between the church, the suit and vodka for our brief. So over Easter I took a little trip to my local, magnificent cathedral in Ely.

I went by myself and ended up taking the tour. Amongst families and elders, I stuck out like a sore thumb.

However, I could now tell you more facts about Ely Cathedral than I could about anything else.

Ely Cathedral is very beautiful and if you're in the area, I definitely suggest you take a visit.

Please excuse, these are just snapshots for sketchbook purposes. 

An Artist called Anneke Kaai was exhibiting at Ely Cathedral; Her work shown was a series of surreal painting images inspiring by her christianity.
You can find her work here

I simply just did not understand the above sign.

- Charlotte

Like me?

I've just set up a Facebook page for my Photography.
Please go 'like' me, i'm lonely. 

I think, I hope, I now have all forms of social networking covered.
Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn... Please do let me know if i'm missing out on something!


- Charlotte

Touching the Void

Charlotte Simpson: New-found Mountaineer Extraordinaire. 

For someone who is scared of heights & hates rock climbing, climbing the highest mountain in England isn't exactly one of my favourite past times.
I was, however, persuaded to spend last weekend in the Lake District to climb 3209ft up to the summit of Scafell Pike. Although at times I found it very hard (In particular, when I had to ascend a rock face by 'scrambling' up it) it was a brilliant experience that I will no doubt do again.
I took my Pentax P30 & captured some of the beautiful scenery. I believe I went to the Lake District when I was younger but I was too young to remember how beautiful & quaint it really is.
Sadly my film got a bit 'stressed' apparently, so the images aren't great & don't do the scenery justice but hey!
Click on the images to view properly!

Sadly we were amongst clouds when we were at the peak.

At some point around midday on Saturday, 31st March 2012... I was the highest person in England.

I've still got half a roll of film in my camera from the weekend so i'll possibly add some more soon. I'm going to Blackpool this week, so i'm sure i'll finish the film off while i'm there. 

- Charlotte 

Hello!

So! I'm just about to finish my second year at university and I've decided to start up a blog just as things are starting to get serious & interesting.

It's fairly daunting that after the long summer holidays, I'll be going into my final year of education. When I left school at 16, I went straight to college to study Photography as a full-time National Diploma; So after my 3rd year at university, it's going to be the first time I haven't been in education since I first started school. 

So I'll be going into the big, wide world and ideally, this blog will be documenting me 'making it' into the Photography industry. I guess this blog is going to be 'professional' but it will still be relatively informal while maintaining relevance. 

Like I said, I'm a 19 year old, second year Photography student at Norwich University College of the Arts. Although I am versatile, my main passion lies in Fine Art and Fashion Photography. I personally find a lot of Fashion Photography rather bland and uninspiring so my main aim is to bring my Fine Art style into Fashion to create exciting and innovative images. Before I even think of becoming a high-end Fashion photographer with said style, I first have to focus on graduating with a high-class degree. When I graduate, I would have spent 5 years dedicating my education solely on Photography so I want a degree that reflects my hard work & dedication over the years. 

These two photos above are from a recent brief set by Hoare Lea - an engineering consultancy firm. This project really showed my versatility with Photography. Creating photos for the office space of an engineering consultancy isn't really 'my thing'. Yet I still worked hard at creating these abstract images that convey the feel of Hoare Lea in my own creative manner. 

Now these two photos were from another recent university project that was a bit more up my street. It was another live brief for the D&AD awards, set by Rankin. The brief was relatively open but the final images are aimed to be shown in Rankin's magazine Hunger. 

This was a key project for me as I picked up the style of hand-colouring. It was exactly what I needed to convey the fine border between Fine Art and Fashion and also to add my own physical touch to the images - to make the photos mine.
Hand-colouring is a technique that I'm currently refining in my work and hopefully will have some new hand-coloured photos to post on here soon! 

Lastly, go check out my work here, there & everywhere.
www.charlottesimpson.com

I think I have posted enough for today & plenty to describe my history, passion and style in Photography :) I intend on keeping this regularly updated, so keep a look out for a less biographical post soon. 

- Charlotte