Three Fates Design Challenge Part III: Photography & Aesthetic

   Hi friends! As I start thinking about styling and shooting photos of the Nusa cowl - my contribution to the Three Fates Design Challenge with Ariel - I wanted to talk a little bit about the photography and overall aesthetic of my work. Whenever I begin to approach the task of visually representing a design, these are always the avenues that I explore first.


 

Styling

I want people to be able to look at my patterns and recognize a sense of both character and aesthetic context, based solely on visual information. For me, a huge part of that is in styling. In each shoot, I think about garment type, silhouette, proportion, color, drape, and fit, all working together with the designed garment to frame it in the best possible light. Currently I release most of my designs independently, which means that I either model or shoot almost everything I release - and that gives me final say on the image and presentation of my work, which is a great position to be in as a designer!

It's important to me that the styling of my designs is bright and dynamic, with colors and proportions that complement and showcase each piece. I also want to give a sense of my own personal style, so I tend to choose outfits that I would actually wear. One of my biggest goals as a designer is to create things that are not only fun to knit, but are also essentially functional, so I try to express that easiness and wearability in the styling as much as possible.

 

Photography

As much as I love writing (and oh, I do, I really do!) I've found more and more that I would rather create the narrative of a design through a really great photograph.

A single photograph is an incredibly efficient method of conveying information: it can tell the viewer about color, fit, construction, ease, wearability, style, and mood, and all in a few seconds! It would take a lot more words to do the same job, and probably only half as well. To me, well-executed photography is an awesome, and surprisingly natural, way to fling open the door and invite the viewer to experience the world of your imagining.

And as far as actually getting that image that I want, I've found four things to be very important:

 

1) The model & photographer are on good terms, with a high level of mutual respect and excellent communication skills. Modeling and photography are both physically - and sometimes emotionally - demanding activities. My best shoots are always between friends or kindred collaborators, and it makes the whole thing so much more fun when you can pull a silly face every now and again. And in-the-moment joy really does come through in photographs, I think!

2) Good, natural lighting. I've seen this advice a lot of other places, but I've found it to be so true: diffuse natural light is where it's at. Cloudy or lightly shaded conditions have always given me the cleanest images, best colors, and easiest post-processing. I think natural lighting tends to be especially well-suited to knitwear photography because it gives photos a soft, approachable look and feeling.

 

3) Appropriate background. I try to choose backgrounds that give a good amount of contrast with the outfit; that set a scene but don't unnecessarily distract the eye. I avoid having signs, people, objects, or other extraneous elements in my backdrops - that is, unless they are just way too cool not to include. Personally, I'm a sucker for industrial & urban spaces, bright colors, and natural (especially water-oriented) backgrounds.

4) If you have a stray cat hair or weird folded-up hem, fix it as soon as you see it. Photoshop is a powerful tool, but it's a lot more work to fix something in post-processing than it is to lint-roll a sweater.

 

Editing

The last - and perhaps most important - element of this whole thing is the editing process. Although for the most part, I want to show my work in the best possible light, I also want to be transparent about the fact that I have bad ideas, and I make bad things, and that is part of the process too. For every ten ideas I have, maybe one is a good one. I've had to learn how to recognize the bad ones for their badness, but also, for their potential goodness; over time, I've found that there's almost always a lesson in bad design. I've also had to learn how to cultivate the good ones after I've found them: to give them plenty of food and light and water, to help them become what they need to be.

Those two photos above are an example of what you haven't seen - what I've edited away - and the reasons are pretty simple. The first photo, on the left, is from one of my failed Talus shoots. This photo just doesn't work! I like the pose and the railing, but the colors are washed out, the hat isn't particularly visible, and the image isn't representative of me or my design aesthetic. It's visual oatmeal.

The second photo doesn't work on two levels: first, the background is too busy, and the combination of sunlight and forest canopy gave a green cast to the photo that I couldn't color correct without killing the lovely color of the cowl. Second, this is a design that just doesn't quite make it: it's knit in one of my favorite yarns, but the size I made is weird, and it's hard to wear, which means that it's a no-go. I had it test-knit and everything, but after a bit of consideration, I decided not to release it. In the end, integrity of vision is important, and it's better to be fearless and fail at it than to be too afraid to try something amazing.

And cutting the chaff, so that only I see the truly spectacular failures? That is why I love editing.

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Whew! Thanks for reading! Ariel has her own post on the subject over here, and the links to the previous posts are below.

Three Fates Design Challenge

Part I: Swatching
Cory
Ariel

Part 2: Color Inspiration
Cory
Ariel

Photoshoot: Bad Religion Jacket

Standing on the floor of a crowded concert, there is this moment when the world feels as if it has turned to black and white: when the room is dark and hung with smoke, and the crowd is moving like a many-limbed animal, and the lights of the stage are so bright that you can't keep your eyes open.

 

The floor and the air and your chest pulse with sound. The air is heavy with heat. And when the right notes hit, you can feel electricity humming through your skin.

 Afterwards, you walk outside into the night air, and the cold of it shocks your lungs. Noise still echoes in your ears like radio static, and color has settled on the world again: the golden backlit hot dog stand outside the venue, the shimmy cobalt dress and spindly black heels of the girl hailing a cab, the smeared red and blue and green of sirens and traffic lights on the wet pavement.

  

And in the ebb of darkness, your calves aching from dancing and the roots of your hair damp with sweat, you nod wordlessly to the mop-headed strangers ducking out of the venue door as you wait for your friends to appear. Their eyes are black with the recognition of that same feeling you're feeling, out here in the dark:

tonight we were here, you and I, and we were cool.

Details

Photography: Cory Ellen Boberg
Model: Marisa Rockett
Bad Religion Jacket: Designed & constructed by Marisa Rockett

The Clara Gown

Every holiday season when I was little, my mom took my brother and me to see Pacific Northwest Ballet's production of The Nutcracker. We'd dress up - me in a pink polka-dotted dress, my brother in slacks and a polo - and drive to the city lit up with Christmas lights. I remember watching the dancers float across the stage from our high-up seats - Clara in her fluttery nightgown, the Nutcracker prince in his red suit, the company in their long tutus and pointe shoes - completely enthralled. 

Then, at intermission, I'd sit in women's powder room at the opera house, the air dark except for the soft yellow glow of the globe lights lining the vanity mirrors. In that moment, feeling the pinch and swish of my pretty dress, waiting to change into the footed pajamas my mom brought, I felt a parallel of things: safety and warmth, the reassuring weight of my fleece pajamas in my hands; and beyond it, another, more darkly lit room, whose features I could not yet see - but whose very existence was electric.

It was the first time I recognized a threshold between the world I knew and the world that is; the first time that I saw beauty and darkness coexisting. That experience has become a touchstone of my identity, and one that has had a huge influence on my work - and on my ballgown in particular.

So when the final runway photos of Clara were released just a few days ago, it seemed very appropriate that I should write my final thoughts about her this time of year.

Well, first off, in August I submitted her for adjudication.

And she passed!

I got to hang out and chat with all my friends & family afterwards, and share the work that had been such an immense time commitment and physical, technical, and emotional challenge. It was very weird to be in the same position that I had seen as the pinnacle of achievement for my entire career at school - this project that I had seen so many respected senior students grow and flourish from - and realize that I had reached it.

Just a few weeks later, in September, I walked the runway at our annual NYFA fashion show. This year, we featured 25 years (!!) of original ballgown designs. I think it really shows how diverse each designer's vision and aesthetic truly is. 

When I look back at this experience almost six months later, I am still totally overwhelmed and proud. Ballgown was a turning point, not only in my design work, but also in my personal life: I emerged from that workroom a more confident, dedicated, and curious person, and I think it continues to expand my boundaries of ambition and creative energy.

And on the other side - even though the process itself was lonely at times, the warmth and support of community I felt by sharing my work on this blog was incredible.

Blogging ballgown was completely unplanned. I didn't expect to have the time or mental energy to write about the experience in any sort of meaningful way, so it was more than a little surprising that blogging became an integral part of my creative process during ballgown. It was incredibly gratifying and humbling at the same time.

So thank you again, to everyone who has reached out to me - then or now - to share an experience, or tell me that you enjoy the blog, or just to say hi. It meant (and means) a great deal to me.

As a last note on community, I also wanted to mention and thank Bret Doss, the photographer who kindly gave me permission to use his beautiful photos for this post (and several others). He doesn't just have a sharp eye and talent for color & composition - he's also fun, and kind, and an all-around wonderful human being. He's contributed his talents to NYFA shows and projects for years, and if I thanked him a kabillion times for all that he does for us, it would never be enough.

Overall, I am so grateful for this experience, and I am so grateful for you. I look forward to the new challenges and experiences that the New Year will bring - and to sharing it with you all.

Happy holidays, and happy Friday.

Much love,

Cory

Color Correct All the Things?

 

So I was working in Photoshop tonight and was able to noodle around with color correction.  Out of curiosity, I practiced by trying to fix something that has been bugging me forever - namely, the crappy colors caused by our old porch.  When I got my new coat right before we went to Iceland, Lumberjack took some photos of me wearing it on said porch, and I was never happy with the colors in those photos.  Lo and behold, all I had to do in Photoshop was tweak the Blue saturation in the Hue/Saturation adjustment menu, and out came the true black I was looking for.  Sorcery!

(Also, in general, I hated that porch, because the color of the stucco made every single color look like crap.  Blacks turned blue, oranges looked vomitous, and blues and reds were almost impossible to photograph correctly.  The whole time we lived there, I missed the clean light of the Bellevue porch, which produced clean, beautiful colors with minimal post-processing.)

Sigh.  I loved that porch.

Once I saw a glimpse of how powerful the program can be, I fell down the rabbit hole a little bit, and grabbed more photos to play with color and how it affects the look and feel of the image.  I chose another one that I was never quite happy with: a photo of my Afternoon Tea shawlette.  In order to get the shawl to about the right color using iPhoto's color correction, I had to turn the background an odd shade of orange, which made the shawl look weirdly fluorescent.  The photo looks bright and beachy, and doesn't reflect the actual colors of pretty much anything in it.

 

Holy cats.  The difference is pretty intense.  Admittedly, I'm not sure which of these photos is really "better" - I think the orange/blue contrast in the original photo is interesting, but it's turning my skin orange too; in the second photo, everything - my skin, the shawl, the wall - is closer to its actual color, but now I look a little green, and the blue looks kinda gross with that washed-out brown, so obviously I didn't quite fix it.  (Damn you, shitty stucco.  You are the worst.)

Usually I do very little post-processing with my photos, mostly just in iPhoto, so doing color correction in Photoshop is a new endeavor for me.  Working on my portfolio has made me really interested in graphic design, and my aesthetic tends to lean heavily on photography, so now I'm even more curious about the nitty-gritty details of composition, color, and style.  (For example, why do certain photos within a set look "right" and others don't?  What makes an image compelling?  Is it possible to quantify a photograph's "rightness"?  What does "right" even mean, anyhow?  SO MANY QUESTIONS.)

I can't wait to fiddle around with it more!

siren call

I've finally started the finishing on the Delphine top, which I'm calling Siren because, well, it's red and lacey and it seemed appropriate. I'm a little nervous to crochet around the edges because I can barely hold a crochet hook correctly, much less actually use it on a knitted item. It's funny that I love everything about knitting, especially learning new techniques to make pieces more polished, but I'm practically allergic to crochet. I do want to learn, but I think the experience of totally screwing up a granny square at age 10 when I could happily knit a garter stitch rectangle with few, if any mistakes, just kinda cemented my apprehension about my crochet skills.

Moving on. I am so happy with the yarn choice for this top. Hopefully I'll finish it soon, and can lend it to Smith's to use as a store sample. This yarn, Mirasol Nuna, hasn't been selling very well, which is a shame because it's so beautiful and quite lovely to work with.

In other news, I'm seriously considering buying a D-SLR. I've been experimenting with depth of field with my point-and-shoot, which is an amazing Canon Powershot D-700 that has served me well, despite its unfortunate run-in with a floor and the total loss of memory that happens every time the camera is turned off. It's a bummer that there's no timestamp on all of my pictures, but I've gotta say that it takes beautiful pictures for a point-and-shoot.

I leave you with detail shot:

view kirinlemon's Siren

copyright © kirinlemon

view kirinlemon's Siren

copyright © kirinlemon