Onesie Task for HND Photography Students

To celebrate the uniqueness of Northumberland and the uniqueness of  The All-in-One Company through story telling, our very own Kate Dawson, Director of The All-in-One Company set the HND Photography Students at Northumberland college a task in which the students had to create unique onesies to fit alongside the students story telling project - while staying true to the North East. Rebecca Robinson was one of the students that completed the assignment. 'This book was the hardest so far, all we were given was a blank sketch book, and brief. A lot of it depended on our own creativity. ' Rebecca started off with a mind map of ideas of what will make her work book work. Such as; all the props she may need, storyline ideas, sketches, Photoshop - digital manipulation, location, lighting and research.   Rebecca went with the idea of of basing her project on fairytale, or children's stories of some sort. After listing a few of the most popular fairytales and children's stories, Rebecca decided to go with Little Red Riding Hood - with a Tim Burton ending. '...because this project was involved digital manipulation, I thought Little Red Riding Hood was a good story as I could make it dark and mysterious'. After deciding on her models, who just so happened to be her Daughter and partner, it was now time to  research costumes. Rebecca decided to go with Little Red Riding Hood's costume and the Wolf's costume. After researching the costumes, Rebecca had a play about on our onesie builder to come up with the perfect onesie alternatives. For he daughter's Little Red Riding Hood's costume, Rebecca designed a onesie in Heart Red Polar Fleece. She then thought that it wouldn't be complete without an apron and cape. So our development team got together and designed a White Polar Fleece apron and Red Polar Fleece Cape. The Wolf suit onesie was then designed in our Charcoal Cuddle Fleece fabric, completed with Wolf ears, tail, and feet. Our development team even added some White Polar Fleece claws to finish off the look. When her suits were delivered, Rebecca then took some studio shots of her models in the onesies. 'I love the onesies, especially the colour in the Little Red Riding Hood onesie. I'm going to add a wolf mask to complete the wolf onesie'. Once her costumes were sorted, Rebecca then did some research into the history of Little Red Riding Hood. Rebecca found that the story has been changed in several ways over the years, however the theme has more or less stayed the same with the wood/forest setting and  Red Riding Hood and the Wolf remaining the lead characters.   From this, Rebecca was then able to think further into her location and still life shots; Still life; Basket, Red Cape, Table with Tea Cake. Location; Humford Woods, Plessey Woods, Cragside Cottages, Derelict house in Newbiggin. After putting her ideas together, Rebecca could then come up with her storyline- Red Riding Hood leaves the house to visit her Grandma for a tea party, someone is following her in the woods, she goes to her Grandmas house - a derelict house in the woods, to find her grandmother has passed away. It turns out that the wolf is actually the ghost of grandma - an angel. Rebecca then researched some story telling photographers - one of which was Annie Leibovitz, who is considered one of America's best portrait photographers. Who then inspired her thoughts for her landscape images of her woods scene. 'As part of my Red Riding Hood story, Red has to go into the woods to visit grandma's house. So, I need to look for woods that not only look scary for a Little Girl to walk through but I need some pretty scenery for some of my images so it look's deceptive to enter. I took a visit to a local country park called Plessey Woods to scout for locations'.

Plessey Woods Country Park is set in 100 acres of woodland, meadows and riverside, it is an ideal place for a family day out.

After shooting some of her location scenes, Rebecca then went on to shoot some derelict buildings for Grandma's House.

'I went location scouting and found a derelict building on the way into Newbiggin-by-the-Sea. The property hasn't been lived in for a long time'.

Rebecca then went on to do research on photographer Tim Walker. Tim has gone on to work as a British fashion photographer who regularly shoots for 'Vogue', 'W' magazine and 'Love' magazine.

'The more I am planning for my photoshoot, the more I am thinking I need to change my story as I can't seem to connect the story I have created. I can't tie in the wolf anywhere, so I think I am going to tweek my plot and make it more Tim Burton'.

'I through around a lot of ideas, and it took a lot of attempts to try and make it work, but one day while driving around it suddenly clicked'.

In the new plot, Red Riding hood goes to sleep in her nice cosy bed in her lovely little cottage. She starts to dream she is entering the scary woods that no one dares to enter. She feels like she is being watched, and as the full moon papers, Red Riding Hood changes into the Wolf.

After figuring out her final plot, Rebecca then started to play around with Photoshop and digital manipulation to create the entrance of the woods.

Rebecca took an image she had found on Google images that she used for inspiration - along with the the image she took of the pathway in the woods to create 'The Eye of the Woods'.

She then took a photo of her daughters eye.

'As my daughter is my Little Red Riding Hood and my Wolf I thought it would be best to use her eye'.

She cut out the eye and blended the two images together. She then cut out the eye and merged the two images together on Photoshop.

She then took Little Red Riding Hood from one of her Studio shots, cut her out, and place her on the pathway.

Rebecca then played around with colours, first experimenting with making the image duller and in black and white.

''It looks more spooky but I think the red needs to be a bit lighter so you can see her'.

Once the image was complete Rebecca then went Cottage and Bridge scouting at Cragside.

Cragside country house was the first ever house in the world, to be lit using hydroelectric power. It sits in the civil parish of Cartington in Northumberland, England. It is a garden of breath-taking drama- whatever the season with 5 lakes, one of Europe's largest rock gardens, and over 7 million trees and shrubs.

Rebecca then researched Ansel Adams - a famous landscape photographer.

Which then inspired her at her Cottage Shoot at Cragside.

She took various photo's of Red Riding Hood coming out on the cottage.

'I like the way Red's eyes are looking at the side. She looks mischievous. I like the contrast in the black and white but again, I like the colour of Red's onesie.'

Next up was the Bridge shoot, where Rebecca experimented with different shots with Red and the Wolf.

Rebecca then used digital manipulation again to turn her wood scene into night time - as the ones Rebecca took were taken through the day, and edited in a Full moon she had sourced from Google images.

Now that the scene was set, it was now time to edit in Red Riding Hood and the Wolf - to make it look like she was changing into the Wolf under the full moon.

After choosing her final images, Rebecca was then able to put them together to tell her story;

At the end of the project Rebecca was graded 2 distinctions and has sold 3 'Eye of  The Woods' photograph!

'I found this project challenging, however I am impressed with the outcome of the images I have created. Although it was difficult, I enjoyed it all at the same time'.