Claire Luxton

Artist Analysis

Claire Luxton is a magnificent British artist and photographer working with installation, poetry and painting as well. All her artworks are based on the idea of identity between humans and nature. In her photoshoots, Claire shows the fragility of these two elements and relation between them. Her portfolio is full of fascinating works. All of them are really colorful and bright, unique and inimitable. This attracts a lot of people and makes Claire Luxton a sought after photographer.

Claire Luxton is a great photographer based in Britain. All of her works are portraits with different elements of nature. Claire said that her artworks are all inspired by literature, history and film. As she said in one of her interviews, she loves to reveal the contrast between "beauty and pain, love and sorrow". Claire Luxton also mentioned that she has a "romantics cinematic brain" and small delicate events in everyday life always inspire her practice. In her works she creates a really powerful emotional atmosphere. To do so, Claire uses a lot of effective and interesting media such as plants, dead flowers, fake blood, medical plasters and a lot of other equipment. I think all of these nuances are the reason why the ideas for her photoshoots are always so exciting and spectacular.

This photographer already had a lot of successful exhibitions all around the world. For example, "Botanica", "Christie's Collectors Club" and "Avalon". As well as solo exhibitions, Claire had group ones. To create those

exhibitions she collaborated with different artists and photographers. The examples of group

exhibitions are: "Hope & Other Stories", "Paris Photo Off" and "London Art Fair".

When we look at Claire Luxton's portfolio we can see a great multiplicity of different ideas. All

of them are unique and magnificent. We can also notice several basic concepts that this

photographer follows all the time. Firstly, it must be said that Claire is a portrait photographer.

Portrait photography, or portraiture, is a type of photography based on capturing the personality

of a person or even group of people by using different interesting techniques. This suggests that

portrait photographers should work with people quite a lot. However, the majority of Claire's works

are photographs of herself, so she is not only a producer and a photographer but also a model. I

think that this also links to the idea of identity.

If we take a look at Claire's works we can notice that all of them are really clear and the quality is

really good. This is the result of capturing photographs with a digital camera and using high

aperture. This reduces the risk of getting grainy and blurry images. All of Claire Luxton's photographs are really vibrant and bright, all of the colors are saturated and intense. This helps the photographer to create really interesting images. I would even say that when you look at those images you can feel multiplicity of different emotions. To create such vibrant colors you can also use a tool called Hue/Saturation or Brightness/Contrast in photoshop. All these techniques help Claire to create really impressive and exciting photoshoots.

Photoshoot Plan

To create an exciting photoshoot inspired by the impressive photographer Claire Luxton we need to consider some basic concepts. These concepts and techniques are going to be quite similar to the techniques that this photographer uses to create her artworks. For example, the first method is capturing images using digital camera. This will help us to reduce the risk of getting blurry and grainy photos. We need to capture images using artificial lighting. This concept will make our photographs look much more professional. All of the colors need to be bright and vibrant. This is one of the most important concepts of Claire Luxton's works. We can capture images under the water or using plants and flowers. Capturing photographs under the water will create an interesting effect of rippled surface. We can put some colorful bath bombs into the water so the compositions will become much more interesting.

Concepts

1. Lighting

To create this photoshoot we will need to use only artificial lighting. This will help us to capture exciting and professional-looking images. The artificial light will also make all the colors bright and vibrant.

2. Camera angle

If we look through Claire Luxton's portfolio we can notice that she is capturing her images from different angles. This means that we can use any of these camera angles: the bird's-eye view, eye level or low angle. But the fact that she is a portrait photographer suggests that we might need to use "eye level" camera angle for the majority of our photographs.

3. Shot length

To capture images inspired by Claire Luxton's works we can use any of these framings: long shot, medium shot, close-up or extreme close-up. But I think that it's much better to use medium shot or capture close-ups images. We can experiment with all of those framings to make the photoshoot really interesting.

4. Media

To create an exciting photoshoot we can use a lot of interesting media. For example, we can use water, colorful bath bombs, plants and flowers, medical plasters, glitter and many other things.

Photoshoot

Contact Sheets

The majority of the images were captured under the water. I used colorful bath bombs to make the water green. I thought that this will make my photographs look really nice. I also experimented with such things as glitter and plants. You can see the examples of me using glitter on the fourth and the fifth contact sheets. Thanks to the unusual media that I used to

Here you can see several contact sheets for the first half of my photoshoot. Creating these sheets is really useful when you have a great number of photographs but you need to choose the most successful ones. When you decide what images are the best ones you can edit them. To make this process easier, you can label some images, circle or cross them. For example, if you captured an image from the wrong angle you can label it as "wrong angle". As an example of labeled photos you can take a quick look at DSC_4444.JPG and DSC_4445.JPG or DSC_ 4458.JPG and DSC_4460.JPG. These images are presented on my fourth contact sheet.

To create my photoshoot in the style of Claire Luxton I used different types of lighting: natural and artificial. Unfortunately natural lighting made my images really dark. This means that they became underexposed. Examples of underexposed photographs are images labeled as "DSC_4281.JPG" - "DSC_4285.JPG" and "DSC_4289.JPG" - "DSC_4291.JPG". These images are presented on my first contact sheet. The idea of using artificial lighting was much better because this type of lighting made my images bright and colorful.

create my photoshoot my images look really interesting. A bit later I will start editing my images. I will try to use double exposure, mirroring and many other interesting techniques.

Redraft Photoshoot

Contact Sheets For The Redraft

Here you can see several contact sheets for my second photoshoot in the style of Claire Luxton. To create this photoshoot I used the Iphone 11 camera. This helped me to capture good-quality images and later I edited the most successful ones.

To create this photoshoot I used artificial lighting so my images are not underexposed and the colors are really bright and vivid. To make

my images more interesting I used a lot of interesting media. For example, I used plants, flowers and medical plasters. This is because my photoshoot was inspired by Claire Luxton's portfolio and if you look through it you can find several ideas quite similar to my photographs.

Developments

First Set Of Developments:

Second Set Of Developments:

Redraft Developments

To create this set of developments I used the "Hue/Saturation" tool. I wanted to change the color of the skin because I thought that this will make my images really unusual. When I changed the color of the skin I used the eraser tool. I erased some areas of the new layer to make my edited photographs look more real. For example, I erased the area inside of my eye and also some areas where the flowers were located. I did that because I really wanted to keep the flower's natural color, in my opinion, they don't need to be edited in any way.

Process

To show the process of editing my images in the style of Claire Luxton I decided to take a few screenshots. This might help me to explain what techniques I used and how I used them. To edit the majority of my photographs I used only two tools: Hue/Saturation and Brightness/Contrast. These helped me to create interesting colors and change the brightness of my images. All my edits are inspired by Claire Luxton's works.

Here is my edit from my redraft photoshoot. To edit this series of photographs I used Hue/Saturation tool as well. I also used an eraser tool to erase some bits of Hue/Saturation layer. This helped me to make my images look more natural just like Claire Luxton's works.

Further Developments

To create my fourth gallery of photographs called "Further Developments" I decided to experiment with the mirroring. I think that this is one of the most interesting techniques for editing on Photoshop. Also, I tried to use such techniques as double exposure and changing color of my images. To change the color I used a tool called "Hue/Saturation". I used this tool before and it helped me to create really interesting developments.

Highlighting Success

Finally, I decided to choose the most successful image from my photoshoot in the style of Claire Luxton. I think that this photograph is the best out of all my edited images from my first photoshoot. This image is really colorful, the colors are vibrant and bright. To create such interesting colors I used a tool on Photoshop called "Hue/Saturation". When I captured this picture I also added some glitter and plants in water. This made this image look much more interesting and more in the style of Claire Luxton. To end up, I would like to say that this image is definitely one of the best photographs I've ever captured.

Color Balance

To experiment with various techniques and tools on the Photoshop I decided to edit my images using the Color Balance Tool. This tool helps to create interesting shades and colors. It reduces the brightness of one color and increases the brightness of another. I chose this tool because Claire Luxton's portfolio is really vivid and vibrant, she experiments with the color and the lighting. I believe that this technique also creates really unusual timbres of colors, makes the image more live and exciting.

Creating GIFs

To expand my portfolio even more I decided to create a series of GIFs using my previous developments. I chose the most successful developments and opened them on Photoshop again. Then I changed the color using the tool called "Hue/saturation". Every time I changed the color and the tone just a bit and saved it as a new file. After that I opened the website called "gifmaker.me". I uploaded all of the images and changed the speed of the animation.

Additional Photoshoot

To explore the variety of interesting techniques I decided to capture a new photoshoot. To create it I printed some of my images on the tracing paper. After that I layered them one on another and recaptured it. This technique is really similar to Double Exposure. It helps to create really unusual compositions and also a 3D effect.

Contact Sheets

To choose the most successful photographs I created these contact sheets. I would say that all of those images are successful, however, I had to choose the best ones. Some of the images were a bit blurry or captured from the wrong angle.

In addition, I had to choose the best compositions. For example, if those layered images look quite weird I would not use them for my further developments and various experiments.

Later, I will use a wide range of different techniques to make those images much more interesting. For example, I will use a tool called "Hue/Saturation". This tool will make the images look more vibrant. I can also use a tool called "Color Balance". I used it for my previous developments. This tool reduces the brightness of one colors and decreases the brightness of another.

Developments

Here you can see I first set of developments. To create those I used the tool called "Sharpen tool" so the images are not blurry or grainy. I also used the tool called "Hue/Saturation" to make those photographs much more exciting. If we look through Claire Luxton's portfolio we can notice that her photoshoots are also really vibrant and exciting. I find that really interesting and unusual!

Experiments with Hue

This is my second set of developments and here I decided to experiment with hue. If you look at my previous developments you can notice that the colors look quite natural. Just like if the skin was actually painted with various colors. However here, you can see that the colors are even more saturated. This makes the photographs look unreal but really fascinating. I believe that this makes the images much more unique and unusual and these are ones of the most important concepts of Claire Luxton's photoshoots.

Compositions

I really wanted to experiment with my new photographs because I find the experiments really interesting. Here I decided to create a series of compositions using frames. I searched for those and found some on miss Fitton's website. I saved them and opened them on Photoshop. I also opened some of my developments. After that I layered the frames as the second layer and put my photographs under them. I experimented with the position of my photographs and also changed the color of some of those.

Creating GIFs

To end up, I decided to create series of GIFs. To create those I chose the most successful edits from my additional photoshoot. I opened them on Photoshop and started changing the color with the tool "Hue/Saturation". Every time I saved the edited image as a new file. After that I uploaded all of the images on the website called "gifmaker.me". After that I created the animation and changed its speed.