Gustav Hoiland

By: gustavHoiland

Jan 27 2010

Category: china, fashion

1 Comment

There was one particularly beautiful and fashion conscious Venezuelan girl in my study abroad group in Shanghai.  She caught my eye.  And my lens.  But not my wallet (thankfully).

I’m very interested in shooting fashion, mostly because it entails working with people and making images that powerfully communicate some kind of a mood or emotion (ok ok ok, they catch the eye. hopefully.  and if they’re advertising, most people probably ignore them).  After all, it seems like fashion shots are commissioned to establish/reinforce a brand, show off the fleeting styles and colors of the moment, and … well, look great I suppose (and sell lots of clothes).  I’ve spent a good deal of time pouring through the archives on MarioTestino.com, one of the current kings of fashion photography.

So what’ve we got here?  Girl lying on bench, laughing (why would anyone lying down on a bench laugh?) and looking great.  And there’s a Longchamp handbag in the bottom left corner.  Did you notice that?  Probably not.  It’s a dark spot in a dark corner, far away from all of the eye catching parts of the image.  Does knowing that this was shot on an ancient city wall, perhaps thirty feet tall,  in China give it an extra boost of intrigue?

In full confession, I didn’t even notice the bag was in the frame until I was going through the day’s shots on my computer.  And if I remember correctly I probably only layered the words over this so I could share it with her and get some sort of a smile in return.