GCSE PHOTOGRAPHY IDENTITY
Kevin Mourad
DEXTER NAVY
Dextor Navy
WHO IS DEXTER NAVY?
Dexter Navy is a photographer and director born and based in west London. Dexter's rise to fame was extremely sudden and purely based on luck, though it is no argument that he deserves all the praise and attention. The story goes that in 2010 an editor for the popular i-D magazine was scrolling through the social media site Tumblr and stumbled upon Dexter Navy's blog where he, still a young teenager, was posting kodak pictures of his friends. This editor loved his talent and contacted him to do a set of portraits for the magazine. These skyrocketed him to fame and he still remains an incredibly popular photographer and director, his most famous work being his music videos he made for popular rappers, most frequently A$AP Rocky.
"I think youth is about how you feel. My granddad is 72, he has energy, he still plays soccer and he says he feels 17. It's not an age bracket or a style, it's not about saying you're young, it's the way you think" -Dexter Navy
One of the reasons I chose Dexter Navy's work is how much I relate to his early inspiration. Dexter Navy was raised in Notting Hill near Ladbroke Grove where I grew up and most of his work draws inspiration from the vibrant community based here. In west London there's such a mix of different cultures, religions and identities, most people being first or second generational immigrants, and growing up in that environment you're exposed to all of these different stories and different people. This influence can clearly be seen in Dexter Navy's work as he captures people's stories, rather than just pictures of them. He's also an outsider by choice, he uses film cameras not for nostalgia or for trends, but because he sees very few other artists manipulating film like him. He wants his work to stand out and look different. But really, at the center of it, what makes Dexter Navy's photography and film so intriguing and attractive is his childlike approach to photography and his clear vision when he takes photos.
Photoshoot plan
Contact Sheet 1
For my first photoshoot I want to take mostly portrait pictures as well as many close ups. I believe this setting embodies Dexter Navy's work as his early work is around London. I will use the close ups and landscape shots to layer on to the images as collage either more saturated or black and white. these will create interest and also imitate Dexter Navy's collage style meant to fit in magazines. I also hope to tell a story with these images and the collage will help achieve this effect. I took these images when the sun was setting, so the images are particularly yellow and gold in appearance.
I asked my model to take a range of close up shoots of their face and hands to show a link to the Dexter Navy angles that he uses.
Process logs - Creating a collage
STEP 1 add a lot of pictures to photoshop and crop one of the photos to make double its size.
STEP 2 select the pipette and get a color u want from the phot and add the ink on the cropped side
STEP 3 get the other photos you gathered and shrink it so it smaller nd fit it on the left side where your main picture is.
STEP 4 if you want to style it in a Dexter navy way increase the brightness and decease the contrast
Developments in the style of Dexter Navy
These are the edited developments of my initial photoshoot. I edited these in an attempt to imitate Dexter Navy's collage style. I believe I was quite successful in this but also do believe I can develop and improve my editing in his style further and will implement the techniques I learned more effectively in photoshoot 2. My images were inspired by Dexter Navy's collage works in zines where he played images together or put them in groups over another image or black background, but for these edits I decided to focus on replicating the effect used in the "Praise The Lord" music video where on one side of the screen he had shots from London and on the other shots from New York lining up in the middle. I was particularly inspired by this effect and as you can see I tried to replicate something similar. I also tried to experiment with mixing black and white with saturated colours like Dexter Navy does in his works about youth. These outcomes are most similar to Dexter Navy's photography work for Alexander Wang.
Experimenting double exposure
I have double exposed these photos of me because I was experimenting with different tools and I came across double exposure and I really liked it. I carried on doing it this way because I really like how it looks and the way it came out. I took these photographs in my classroom so then I edited them on Photoshop by pressing control c control v and then control v by doing this I copied and then pasted and finally turned it around once I turned it around I looked up color look up and picked a light shade therefor the images submerged into each other and that how you form double exposure.
The double exposure effect created a distorted image of several faces which I felt worked well with the yellowy tones of the sunlight on the model's face.
Experimenting with colour
First step is to ad your photo mine is double exposed and then you use the marquee tool to highlight it then you press gradient map
second step is to choose which color you want I went with the orange and blue
the final step is too press what channel you want to remove and there is 3 styles R G and S
For these edits, I experimented with different colours linking back to the work of Dexter Navy who also has saturated and vibrant colours in his work. I feel this series refines all my developments, as I used techniques from both my precious series. Overall I'm happy with the way these images turned out, I think they are striking due to vibrant colour and the double exposure makes a surreal, yet intriguing composition.