Credits

Photographer: Rossella Vanon
Set Design: Sinead Phillips and Rossella Vanon
Wardrobe Stylist: Debora Torres
Hair Stylist: Natalie Guest
Makeup: Katie Wilton
Model: Eleanor Cooper for Gingersnap
Photography Assistant: Eve Bow

Comments from Rossella and Sinead Phillips follow the images. Click on any image to see it larger.

 ”The Art of Denial”

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Design comments from Set Designer Sinead Phillips:

This was my first time working with this particular crew. However I had heard about Rossella before, and I had seen some of her previous work from colleagues in the industry who had worked with her. I believe I was recommended to Rossella through a mutual friend and work colleague. Rossella was looking for someone to help bring her idea to life – both through developing and brainstorming, and how to put it together technically.

On our first few meetings we discussed the concept and threw a few ideas around –  each time I came back with a few sketches of what we could do and so did she, and the best were picked. Rossella had a firm idea of the feel and overall look she wanted. We both spent two solid days of prepping for the set and background, drawing up the large scale makeshift gobos.

I unfortunately wasn’t available for the actual shoot, but I had discussed with Rossella beforehand the process, and a way to make ‘the set’ work. We did a couple of tests prior to the shoot, and sorted any problems long before the shoot took place. So I was pretty confident that all would go well on the day.

I have worked with projectors and gobos before. The shoot had only a small budget and we didn’t use ‘professional’ versions. The gobos were made out of huge sections of paper and card that the images had been cut into, and then reinforced. It was then just a matter of hanging and positioning then properly, and funneling the right amount of lighting and angling to get the image projected onto the background.

Photographic comments from fashion photographer Rossella Vanon:

This concept was something I had wanted to shoot for a little while but never quite found the right way to efficiently represent it in both a creative and narrative way. I love working on these conceptual briefs though, they really excite my brain and get my adrenalin going. So i put my mind to it, did a bit of research and drew a few (VERY basic) sketches to base my sets on.

I knew exactly what I wanted to portray in terms of idea and feelings, but the hard part was to find a creative representation of it that would be original, high fashion and personal. But it also needed to be descriptive and still truthful to the initial concept at the very same time.

I met the wardrobe stylist Debora prior to the shoot, to have a proper chat with her about the idea behind the project, and the origin and intensity of the feelings behind it. All the team members were provided with a mood board, where pictures and words were meant to give a pretty good idea of the story we were going to tell. But it is only on the shooting day itself that all the pieces fell into place. Once we went through the mood board all together, everyone came up with their personal ideas about how to best represent Denial in all of its forms with their own craft, so I had a lot of creative input on all sides throughout the shoot.

I had worked with the make up artist Katie Wilton and the wardrobe stylist Debora Torres on previous shoots. They are two very talented ladies and I thought about them straight away when I put this project together. We have collaborated several times and I’m always eager to work with them again. I met Eve Bow at a previous job, and I knew how efficient and passionate about photography she was. I needed a reliable and quick assistant on the day due to the large number of sets we had to change, and I knew she would have been just perfect for it.

Doing this shoot without an assistant would have been impossible considering all the enormous, delicate sheets of paper we had to carefully fold and unfold and stick to the ceiling! We had at least 11 different sheets with different shapes cut in. They all got matched to a specific outfit (and pose) and then secured to the ceiling at a certain distance from the background.

I was introduced to the lovely art director/set designer Sinead Phillips by a friend. Set designers can be amazingly hard to find. I was very lucky because she is adorable and extremely creative, and working with her has been a pleasure. Also through a recommendation, I got in touch with Natalie Guest, the hair stylist, who did a great job on the day and with whom I have worked with many times after that.

While it may look like it, we didn’t use a projector for this shoot. We didn’t have access to one, so we created our own way of projecting light shapes. Sinead and I spent several afternoons designing and cutting shapes into black background paper; that gave us total freedom over what to draw and in what size, but it was also a lot of work. Many of the designs have a lot of cut-in detail, and they were really delicate to handle during the making and the shoot. On set, we then used a flash light with a narrow snoot head placed behind the sheet of paper to have a strong but very tight beam of light go through the engraved design only. I had never used this lighting technique before and it took a bit of study beforehand to determine the right size and placement of the cut outs.

Creating the looks and sourcing the clothes is usually something I leave to the wardrobe stylist, unless there is a designer whose pieces I definitely want to use in the shoot. In the case of The Art of Denial, I had already gotten in touch with the very talented London-based designer Fabryan, whose outfits I had just seen at London Fashion Week in February 2010. I provided the stylist Debora with guidelines and reference images, and I showed her the garments I had already collected from Fabryan to make sure we would have continuity in all the outfits we were going to shoot. She then sourced the other clothes and created all the looks, sending me images of the collected pieces to make sure we were going in the right direction.

I found the model Eleanor via the modeling agency Gingersnap. I had never worked with her before, so at first I just hoped for the best. I soon found out how hard working and professional she was, and we had a great time on the shoot.  When i work on my own concepts I usually already have a pretty clear idea of how I would like the model to look like. Luckily, the agency Gingersnap had exactly what I was looking for. A beautiful but editorial-looking girl, pale skin and long red hair, regular features and big capturing eyes. A look that you don’t forget very easily.

For lighting, we had one flash head with a snoot grid behind the sheet of paper, sending light through the cut-in shape and pointing right at the background. We also had one main flash light with umbrella, very soft, on the model’s upper right hand side. We kept this lighting basically the same, as the changes in scenarios with the projected shapes seemed to be already quite significant.

I shot using my Canon 5D Mk II, with a 50mm F1.4 USM lens.  For lighting I used two Bowens 500R Gemini strobes, with a snoot and an umbrella.

I did very, very little post processing on these images – I had spent so long studying the lighting set up that I had the result I wanted already.

Selecting the final images was a big challenge. It’s a thin balance between so many factors: good composition, good poses, a sparkle in the model’s eye, a dress falling perfectly…it’s a tough choice. I usually go through at least 3 stages of selection, narrowing it down more and more. In the final series there has to be a strong continuity from shot to shot, so in the final selecting stage I also put the best images one next to the other on the screen to see which ones work the best together.

The bigger challenge was the narrative side of the shoot, trying to convey the different representation of the ‘Denial’ we were portraying, trying to tell the story, in each and every single image. Either the desperate attempt of hanging on to beautiful illusions, or the actual denial of the cruel truth. A lot of different elements had to come and work together, and it all had to look clear and easy to understand for the public, but also editorial and fashionable at the same time. The poses were the hardest part. They had to be extremely coherent with the light projections and create a little story with them, frame after frame.

I had a lot of fun on this shoot. It was a lot of effort, and not only during, but mainly BEFORE. I’m used to brainstorming and I always work around a concept anyway, but I had never had to plan sets in that much detail. I would have loved to have more lights and a proper projector to play with: who knows what we could have created then!

There is something about this shoot that makes it very different from the rest of my photography – it looks more ‘dark’ and it almost has an analogue feel to it. I believe that makes it a little harder for people to appreciate, but I still enjoy its quirky uniqueness with a smile, and every time I look at it i remember the long days spent kneeling down on the floor drawing flowers and sun rays and arrows and hearts on never-ending sheets of paper, listening to music and letting the creativity peacefully guide my hand.

Behind the scenes photos:

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