SHARNA
OSBORNE
MINI PROJECT
INSPIRATION PHOTOGRAPHS
ARTIST ANALYSIS
Sharna Osborne is a mixed media artist from New Zealand best known for her unique and creative magazine photo shoot images. She works and lives in east London, UK. Osborne follows the theme of identity as she makes her photographs as truthful and realistic as possible with an aspect of deformed dystopia. She also incorporates unusual, old yet modernistic techniques into her photographs to give them a distinctive characteristics compared to other magazine covers. Sharna Osborne also campaigns for fashion brands such as MSGM and endless vogue covers.
The location in which she usually photographs in is a studio, with lighting,backdrops and props. Osborne mainly uses plain coloured backgrounds,highlighting her model and their identity in the clothes that they are wearing. She makes sure that her main focus in every one of her photographs is the person that she is using. I think that this is an amazing touch to her work as she highlights people despite what they may/may not like about their appearances, showing that every one is unique and beautiful in their own way,shape or form.The mood that Sharna Osborne shows in her work is 'funky' , peculiar , obnoxious and original. She uses bright, artificial lighting to show the happiness and relaxing atmosphere in which I imagine her studio is set in. Sharna Osborne photographs her models in various different angles such as portrait , landscape , close up and wide angle shots. The tone and composition of Sharna Osborne's work shines a lively, positive light into her photographs. There also seems to be a lot of unused space in her photographs which gives the impact of freedom into her work, allowing space for her models to explore with movements and poses.
When I first looked at Osborne's photographs I was immediately excited by her use of collage and colour. I was taken back by her use of fashion and how truthful the texture of her models skin was as many large fashion industries today edit their models faces to fit the beauty trends and standards at the current time that they are photographing. I think that the image that she is trying to project when photographing is that 'it's OK to be different' and to 'accept yourself for who you are'. I think that this encourages others to be comfortable and confident in their own insecurities despite what others may think of them because 'confidence is key'. Her photography relates to social media and the impact that it has on others, telling people how to act and dress through images and making people live up to the impossible beauty and fashion standards that are being shared everywhere online in today's society.
In my opinion her work looks as if it came straight out of the 2000's with grainy,old, unclear texture most noticeable in her photographs but it is nearly impossible to distinct where she gets her inspiration from as there are many eras that she takes certain characteristics from and adds into her work, depending on what clothes/model she is photographing. Her work reminds of the 2000'a era because of the colours that she uses, the texture in her photographs and her confidence to be bold and new (as was encouraged in the 2000's) as well as showing people to rebel against the expected beauty standards. I can see that in her work, Osborne is never afraid to push boundaries and think outside of the box. A main characteristic that catches my eye when looking at her magazine covers is her use of overlay and editing. In her photographs she uses 'tacky' overlay to her advantage, making different images blend and link to one and other.
Overall, I love Sharna Osborne's work as it shines light on other people's insecurities, showing them that is natural to be different and teaching others to work towards their own identity instead of following somebody else's. I love her use of colour and texture, relating her photographs to child-like memories, the one time where we were truly ourselves and we had no care or worry in the world to think about.
PHOTOSHOOT PLAN
For this photoshoot, my objective is too create online collage edits and manual edits by using old magazines and pictures. I will be using ripped magazines in my manual collage to create the 2000's scrapbook affect but with my online edits I will go for a more modern, simple look. This is because in many collages that Osborne has been a part of I think what represents her 2000's asthetic best is the composition of vintage magazines, where I am also getting my insparation from. The photographs that I will be using will have the same composition and background as my first photoshoot but for some of my edits I will cut out only the model that I will be photographing. The way that I will compose these collages will project body positivity and finding your self worth, linking with this unit's focus which is Identity.
CONTACT SHEET
I took these photographs in the same location as I think that the plain white background gives off the effect of a real studio that these photographs would initially be taken in. I also wanted a consistent theme of minimalism flowing through my raw photographs so that when I add more photographs into it, they will not be too busy or have a messy composition. This can be one of the biggest challenges that I will face when editing my second photographs because when making collages, the overall layout of your photographs and the message that you are trying to project can easily be 'lost in translation' if there is too many different layers in your final development.
For this photoshoot, I decided to allow my model to have more control over what poses she does to create a more welcoming atmosphere projected through my photographs. I wanted to do this because I feel that when looking at Sharna Osborne's magazine's, the vibrancy of her models and their poses make the pictures more colourful and unique, stressing one of the messages that I think she sends to people viewing her work which is 'it is okay to be unique or different'.
When selecting which images that I wanted to develop, I made sure that there was a large amount of negative space around my model so that I can easily overlay the images of my choice without taking away the details of my raw images. Similar to my first photoshoot, an important factor that I had to think about was the way that the lighting affects the mood of my final edit. I wanted to choose a photograph that had bright lighting but was not overexposed and just like my first set of edits, had a wide range of poses and angles that were prominent in my photographs.
DEVELOPMENTS
When composing these edits, I ripped out different pages of magazines out that had a similar colour link to the background that I put my image ontop. I used materials such as card, paper and blue tack. I think that creating
these images was fairly easy as the magazines that I took pages out of were art and photography based. This meant that the colours and style of photographs in the magazine related to what kind of collage I was trying to make, allowing me to use a wider range of colours. I made these collages by using the ripped up pages and texts as a background layer and then placing my image on top. I think that this was most effective because it allowed for there to be a good range of different shades and colours in the background whilst allowing the focus of my image, which was the model, stay prominent in each of my photographs.
For this collaging, my goal was to create a 2000's futuristic magazine based off of scrapbooks. I think that I achieved this as the way that I ripped the page off the magazine and stuck them together made each separate element or image that I was using coherent with each other. I believe this made my collage successful because it allowed for there to be a large amount of 'noise' in the background of the photograph whilst having my final composition sharp and clean. One of the greatest challenges. that I faced when creating these was trying to get the right amount of different backgrounds to interlink with each other. I found this difficult because I could not colour match different photographs as best as I wanted due to me taking them out of a magazine. I think that this made some of the photographs that I used very repetitive including the text and message that I was trying to project.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
For these edits, I wanted to further develop my collages and experiment with different hues and tones of colours. I decided to print out my collages and overlay makeup such as lipstick, blush, vaseline, lipgloss ect. After taking those photographs I also decided to turn the colouring of the photograph into a light pink. This warm tone links to both Sharna Osborne and Identity as they both explore the more 'female' colours such as pink and red. I edited these photographs by increasing contrast between the images as well as increasing brightness to help smooth out the harsher colour pictured in my photographs. I also tried out a new technique in editing my photographs by using the 'colour look up' setting on photoshop. This allowed me to turn my image into something with a more prominent pink and red hue. It also allowed me to highlight the makeup used as the brighter colours were originally red and partly pink. This allowed me to accentuate different hues or parts of my photograph as some of them contained bolder colours than the others.
ADDING BORDERS
To further edit my photographs, I decided to add borders using photoshop. I tried a new technique in photoshop and extended the canvas of my photographs to reveal a white background instead of adding a traditional border. I found editing these easy to do as the process was simple and efficient,. I chose the colour white because I believe that it makes my photographs look neater and also highlights the lighter colours that are shown in my developments. Overall I think that my developments turned out really well as choosing the colour white as a border made my photographs look neater than without one. I am particularly happy with the outcome of these developments as i believe that the colours and composition techniques that i used complimented Sharna osborne's work and also added a more creative and personal element to my photographs.
DOUBLE COLLAGING
in order to further develop my collages i decided to overlay different photographs that i took of my compositions manually and experiments with ripping paper and complimentary colours. I printed out my previous collages and decided to overlayy different parts of different photographs that i took to create a new developments. When collaging, i thought about the different colours that were in the photographs so that i could subtly 'blend' different pieces of images ontop of each other. This made my developments quite busy and i ended up with less negative space than i originally had when i started. i think that the developments became harmonious due to the recurring colours and patterns that used. i would say that the overall composition of these collages were complex but i enjoyed working around the more abstract side to photography, something that i have not experimented with before.
OVERLAYING ON PHOTOSHOP
I decided to chose my favourite developments that i composed from my last development and overlay the most prominent objects or people that were depicted on the collage. I wanted to do this so that i could bring my collaging not only on to photoshop and expand my digital knowledge but to experiment with taking photographs outside of the border. i think that by placing the photographs between the between the border and the image that i was using created a 3d effect and brought my overlaying technique further. I have used the idea of overlaying different photographs that i took from the artist sharna osborne and developed it further by creating a more dramatic composition through collage. i find that the most successful factor from these developments was the coherency of the colours and additional images, something that i struggled with before. i also enjoyed creating compositions where i highlight specific parts of my piece and make them more prominent. i would say that experimenting with collage in these developments pushed me to think about the smaller details that are incorporated into larger compositions, therefore making my final developments most successful.