Mario Testino was born in 1954 on October 30th in Lima in Peru.He was the oldest of 6 children.From a young age Testino wanted to be a priest and then went on to study economics and then went to London to study photography he funded this by being a waiter. In 1982 he moved to London permanently to peruse his career in photography.He even died his hair pink so people who notice him more as a photographer and this made him stand out and be very unique. He went on to do a lot of charity work including for Elton Johns aids foundation. He has won a lot for his charitable work such as honorary fellowship of the royal photographic society in 2011. His work is very distinctive and very successful. He has shot for magazines such as vogue and vanity fair and done shoots for designer labels such as Gucci, Burberry and Micheal Kors. He has also worked with many famous people such as Kate Moss, Angelia Jolie, Beyonce and all of the royals. He is known for being one of the worlds most famous fashion photographers as he has published in total 7 books of his work and his work has featured in exhibition at galleries all over the world, His series called "portraits" that was presented in the nation art gallery in London is known for being the second most successful exhibition of all time for 10 years having the highest viewing rate it the went on tour to different countries around the world.After his shoot of Princess Diana he became official photographer for many royal events such as prince Harry's 18th birthday and prince William and Kate's engagement photos . In an interview he said he preferred working with a DSLR as he felt this gave him for freedom as in the past you would have to wait for images to be developed and now you can see the results straight after taking them however he does miss the element of surprise you get when using film. He also went onto say that when he is doing his personal projects he will use film. One of his inspiration Irving Penn and i feel like this does reflect in some of his work especially his black and white work. He now also has an honorary OBE for his contribution to the fashion industry.He said that one of the hardest parts was photographing celebrities as they have an idea of how they want to look and Testino wants to stray away from that. He also says he spends years trying to perfect everything and that really perfect is not that great it's more about capturing the emotion even if the make up isn't done or the hair isn't right. I think this is such an insuring message as many photographers spend ages trying to perfect their images to the point where they loose the beauty of the image and it shows that perfection is not always sucessful and imperfections can work in your favour. His lighting set up seems to be only 1 or two lights in a studio environment maybe one lighting the background this is what i want to focus on when creating my images and also the bright colours he uses as i feel this is a very strong aspect in his work and what makes his work so distinctive.
Vogue
Mario Testino's work has featured intentionally in vogue as he is named as one of the most creative photographers out there when it comes to fashion photography. He has done issues for all places all over the world such as China Japan and Germany for his Germany edition he focused on blondes as he thought they were beautiful he focused on both black and white skin colours as he said this was something fresh for German vogue. The images were shot in Monaco. I like the fact he went with natural blonde but also synthetic blonde as with the black skin tone he used wigs. The images are very flattering and do show the beauty of blondes. he quotes that " blondes have more fun and its interesting the way people perceive you when your blonde."i think this is a very true point. The main factor to this issue was Miley cyrus as she brings an element of today into the issues by being a very successful musician and she brings the transformation of her being someone made for her and her self which she has now become herself and who she wanted to be. He chose to go with adaptations to Marilyn as he wanted her to from a youth icon to world icon. He has also done vogue for Japan he went exploring around japan before his shoot to get inspiration and ideas as he said it is a good way to get a feel of how people stand and act and things that stand out. He started by looking at classical elements of japan and bringing them into today. He wanted to focus on obsession as in Japan everything is over the top. He also brought japan to London by using an English model and bringing the more classical side to japan i think these images worked really well as they are sophisticated and has elements of japan in the clothing they are very extravagant and bold just like Japan yet with a very sophisticated element to them.
Towel Series
This series was inspired when he saw Kate Moss in a white robe and a dressing gown when she was preparing for a shoot.This has now become an on going series for Testino he said that "I think girls and guys feel this freedom of being able to express themselves as there is no predetermined way of how they put the towel on.You can do whatever you want..wear it however you want." I think this quote is so inspirational as I feel this is the way everyone should feel this way about clothing and society as I feel people should be people should not worry what society thinks. I also think these image show lots of natural beauty as they all have natural make up and a lot of skin is shown. They are very flattering images as many of Testinos work is and this is what portray in my work
Brainstorm
here are some of my test shots i did for my Mario Testino shoot as i was trying to get the lighting right i feel some of these images were to dark had way to much of a vignette around them and they just didn't look flawless enough for the effect i wanted as they all looked a bit dark and it brought out some bits i did't need to enhance and it just wasn't giving the flawless finish i wanted, These were shot at f.5 a shutter speed of 1/8 and a iso 100 The first ones where to bright and i felt like they washed the model out and the studio light was also to close to the face creating this really harsh light that did not like i then moved the light back so it created more of a vignette feel the soft box helped a lot on making these images appear flattering as this created soft light to my images,. I think it would of been good to use a beauty dish instead of a soft box to really make the light flattering and so you could see lots more detail.
Here are images from my final shoot , i then went on to look at what images i could use that linked in with my theme. On some of them i did not like the angles or the way they were framed such as 0690 i put a cross above this as i felt this was not a good angle i felt like it didn't feel the frame enough it was to far away and didn't show enough detail as i wanted. When i first looked at my shots there were only 2 i was really happy with. These images were shot 1 f5 1/8 and iso 100 i felt these were the appropriate settings for the look I wanted to achieve.
My final image
These four images were shot In the style of Mario Testino who I find a very inspiring photographer as he creates some stunning images his style is very flattering as he had shot with many celebrities and shot for many issues of vogue. I find Testinos work inspiring as he does a lot of fashion photography but still manages to do something different each time. He has a wide imagination. During my research I discovered he got his inspiration from the things he saw around him and first he will take a snap shot of the thing that inspires him then he will go back and relate his work to it. I have looked at Mario testino's work and I now feel his work is very distinctive and you can tell when testino has done a image.
When brainstorming my ideas I looked at elements that made testinos work memorable or so unique. I had done some research before how on some of his work and I noticed they were all very glamorous or had an element of sexiness to them. However recently he had done a shoot with celebrities in towels and with towels on there heads I found this shoot very inspiring as it shows lots of natural beauty and I like the way they had the freedom to wear the towel however they wanted giving them the freedom of beauty. This series did inspire me and I wanted to go down the natural root even though many other of testinos shoots were very glamorous and there was lot of make up on the models. I also wanted to add that testino used a vignette in many of his images I wanted to add this to my work.
I started thinking about lighting set ups I could use and how I could achieve the look I wanted.I needed to use a soft box if I was going to create the soft light I wanted this soft light would be the main light source in my shoot.To create the vignette I then needed to add a back light facing the wall which was quite close to the wall to create this vignette style I chose a white back ground as I felt it was appropriate for this kind of shoot if I have had more choice of colour instead of black and white I would of experimented with more different coloured back grounds
I did some test shots for my shoot to help me get my lighting set up right and what camera I needed. I started by setting up the studio lighting up. I placed the light on the back wall and then the soft box behind me to the left this created a little shadow on the right side of the face which I did like the effect of I then started to look at my settings it took me a while to get my settings right I experimented till I felt I had the right ones I then checked on the light meter that I had the right setting I ended up with the settings f.4.5 1/8 and iso 100. These gave me the right kind of look I wanted and worked really well with my lighting setting up.
When it came to my shoot it went very smoothly I set up my lights the way I did in the test shoot and I put in the same settings as my test shoot. However in my shoot I did turn the lights up and down as I wasn't happy with the lights as I felt they were washing the model out so I turned both lights down just a touch. I went for natural make up as I felt this related to testinos towel shoot he did and chose to use the dressing gown as well and quite natural poses.I didn't really have any struggles when doing my shoot I think was because I had done my test shoot first as I feel this really helped me when it came to my actual shoot I felt a lot calmer and confident.
When it came to choosing my final images I only had two I knew I defiantly wanted to use I looked at my images and narrowed it down to my final four I chose these as I thought they were linked to the inspiration I was given from testinos work. I used only basic editing with my final images such as curves and contrast and brightness I also used the spot tool just to get rid of an blemish I didn't want in my images as I wanted them to look flawless like testinos.
Overall I think this shoot was a success as I had no real issues at all during this project, I enjoyed looking a testinos work as I found it really inspiring as it is so unique it was a challenge to get it exactly like testinos as I do not have the professional equipment he has and he has also had many many years of experience. If I was to do this shoot again I would maybe look at exploring with different coloured back grounds and experiment at different angles and also look at using the beauty dish to get a lot of detail in the images more than when using a soft box. I would defiantly do work in style of testino again as he is one of favourite photographers.
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