26.

Final image ideas 2 – Subject, researching and preparation

My second idea for a topic is to visually explore the non-academic side to Uni life. This dinking, partying, sex and drugs side of university I always found was the most important thing about university to most students I knew and talked to and for some of them they just picked any subject and came to university to live this sort of life style. I think for this reason it is important to portray this side of things. From a male point of view it pretty much entails getting drunk, going out and try to get with a girl. And from a girls perspective it seems to be going out, getting drunk and a lot of the time trying to stay away from guy who just want to bed them. This sort of endless chance and cycle that has become almost a stereotype of going out now is what I really want to portray. I really want to set these images in a real club as I have been so inspired by work of photographers who’s chose of backdrops, really enhances the over all impact and quality of their photographs.

Idea 1 – my first idea centres round the behaviour you see on dance floors, many a time I’ve seen groups of lad trying to dance with girl and the girls just look like they wish they would go away. I would like to do a theatrical take on this idea using dancers. I few weeks ago I help out by taking some photographs of so dance students as practice in the studio and I was really impressed with the way they looked. The elegance and grace you can capture when a dancer is performing can make for some pretty stunning images. I have an idea of a group of lads looking like there trying to drunkenly catch this dance whilst she is gracefully bounding away, her elegance juxtaposing the lad’s clumsy drunkenness. I also have another idea with the same set up where it looks as is the dancer is leading the lads on, almost charming them with her moves and they seem in trance are almost worshiping at her feet.

Society Social: The Lads Supper – My other idea for this subject is a take on “the last supper”. It deals with the idea of how men on a nigh out will almost worship any good looking girl they see and you often see a group of guys all clambering over one girl. My plan is to set the image at a bar or around a table and have drunken looking lads surrounding your archetypal pretty blonde girl and all be swooning over her. This idea is to also convey the idea that moral upheld by religions, such as no sex before marriage or in some religions no drinking, don’t have meaning or place in this sort of modern society.

 Location shoot – I have had the location of the Lava night club in mind for a while now and have always thought it would be an amazing place to do a photo shoot. I have been out to the club many times during my time as a student and in my second year we used it to film part of a TV show in. Since then I kept the contact details of the clubs manager and rang her to firstly see if it would be possible to use the club for a shoot during the day and secondly if I could come down and take some research images. I thought the club would be a perfect backdrop for my Uni night life inspired images as it has the most amazingly colourful, light up, dance floor and the rest of the club is furnished to a very high and classy looking standard. Here are some of the images and things I found out during my research shoot.

The dance floor - During my reckie of the club the dance floor technician demonstrated to me what exactly the dance floor could do. The floor itself can be light in array of different patterns and there are programs that control lighting patterns on the floor. You can also control coloured neon lights in the ceiling as well as strobe and disco ball lighting effects. After demonstrating to me what the floor could do I was most impressed by the following presets:

The dance floor fully light up – I thought the dance floor looked amazing when it was all light up, the range of colours and the over all look of the dance floor is stunning and I think could defiantly make for a backdrop for some stunning image ideas I’m formulating.

 
The catwalk setting – I loved this catwalk or run way look that lead up to the chrome plated stares, it could be used very effectively to draw the eye into an image a effectively the audience to what the main focus of the photograph was.

 
The bar – I thought the bar could be a good place to set this idea as it is one of the places where guys will approach girls. I was impressed by the layout of the bar in the club and the way it looked and was decorated with a bold red backboard. I also liked the sort of cut into disco balls on the wall it added to the symmetry of the bars over all look. But these mirror balls could prove a problem with flashes.

 
Booths – I also found this booth that was about three times the size of any of the other booths in the club, I liked the leather upholstery and thought that this could be another good place to set this image idea as having them sat down would resemble the painting more.

 What I thought – I was very impressed with the club as a whole, I think the dance floor is amazing and will help add a whole new dimension to my images that my studio ideas lack. I also think that the club has a lot more to offer in terms of setting other than just the dance floor which is a bonus. The staff also seemed helpful and the management seem to be willing to let me use the space for a small charge and maybe even for free but final negotiations are yet to take place, but I know I defiantly want to use the club as a location for some of my next images.