Mert and Marcus: Experimentation and Response

   During our project as promoter, I decided to do some research on famous fashion photographers and in this case, Mert and Marcus. I really liked their sense of style with their photographs and in particular, I was very inspired by their industrial photographs. I thought that this would relate very well with our current theme of Communism and portraying the military in a suitable area e.g industrial machinery, forests, fields and more. You will see from the photos below that I have tried to relate to their location rather than posing and styling. In relation to Comme Des Garcons, I would like to look at other photographers other than Cindy Sherman because I want to absorb as much inspiration as I possibly can for this project. Moreover, it encouraged me to take advantage of our practical space and considering we have industrial references within, it would be interesting to experiment with the area. On top of this, I was keen on taking the photos in the elevator because I thought that it portrayed a sense of entrapment within the army or being secretly gay, which is what my group is trying to present and create. On top of this, Mert and Marcus tend to have very dark moods within their shots, which was what I was trying to portray. Hence, this is the beginning to creating my photo shoot concept boards and experimentation with other photographers. I found this task to be challenging in the sense that the location was very limited with areas that I wanted to use, plus the model I chose had no reference or wearable garment that was red, which is the colour we were wanting to use as the collections mono colour for Comme Des Garcons. Below are some examples:

     Overall, I think this experimentation worked relatively well and I am glad with the turn out. If I could take this further, it would have been edited in more depth on photoshop, whether that was adding layers of images on top of the photograph to express the sense of japanese culture and militarism. Nonetheless, doing promotion for the first time has really made me understand the depth that there is within this industry, however it is so similar to design in the sense that there has to be a concept and extreme experimentations with how people will wear the garments and how they should be presented from the shoot.