From the Deep

Both Oily and metalic, still and fluid, Roseanna Velin and I have created more creatures for you to gaze upon.

The complete image

The Uncontrollability of Love

(To see the completed image visit www.flashyourjak.com )
So November has arrived and Shout Festival has begun. Tonight in fact is the official launch at the MAC centre in Birmingham. As part of SHOUT festival I was commissioned to make a piece of photographic art that would go on display around Birmingham in the form of posters.
After some thought thinking about what I wanted to do I decided to make my own construction based on a painting by my favorite artist Sir Edward Burne Jones.
The picture I chose was 'Cupid's Hunting Field' shown below.

This painting lightly comments on the fact that love is blind, using the mythological figure of Cupid to describe this. I took this as a starting point and began to apply it to myself creating a darker more ethereal version of the image. I decided I needed a set building so got the help of two BCU theatre and performance design students Sarah Verblis and Sarah Mcintyre. These girls helped bring everything together and worked through the night to help accomplish my vision.
All the maidens in the picture were replaced with men who were modeled by Justin Focus, Mike Simon, James Shroll, Daniel Ingram, Vincent Chase, and Kyle Finn. They all took to modeling different aspects of love, such as love lost and future love except for James Shroll who took the role of Cupid.
Each make-up look was completed by Gavin Pickle who was assisted by Connie Ball. He worked closely with the brief to create these amazing looks.
The images shall be on display in various locations around Birmingham. To see the completed image visit www.flashyourjak.com

Black lines

Today's shoot was a different direction on the last one I did, focusing on a more modern feel. Kind of inspired by people in pop music and such. It was fun, so I can't complain.

Studio experimentation

I've decided to start studying again, and today I was trying out some simple things in the studio. So here are my explorations of soft studio light, the male for and black and white photography.

Incoming

Today I went shopping for some props as my shoot is quickly approaching. It's time for me to pull my finger out and hope that it all comes together! There is a lot let to do so it's going to be a tough week. Its time to get this belt and hat customised!

Homunculus

I like taking self portraits and it's something I would like to explore further as I don't really take many pictures of myself. Gavin from Irregular Attraction put up a competition called Pretty Different where he wanted people to send in their make-up pictures. I decided to head down to the studio and make a self portrait. As always the studio was fully booked, but also as usual it was empty so I just grabbed an empty space and set to work. I had intended to make something 'pretty different' to this but I ran out of time. I also recorded it so check out the video too (Right click and watch on youtube until I get my blog width sorted out!).
As a fan of animes such as Full Metal Alchemist this reminds me of a homunculus or some kind of creature. I'd love to be able to have skin that colour!

Negative space and studio shoots

It's been a long time coming for this blog but I'm finally ready to put up some of the shots from shoots I did recently. Before uni came to an end I organised some shoots with a couple of guys called Xander Bliss and Liam Wild and I made this shoot based around negative space. Below are a couple of my favorite images from the shoot.
On that same day I did another studio shoot with them because they brought a suitcase full of the best clothes so how could I resist?Then later on that week there was Romeo Draven and here's a shot from that shoot too.