'Between Photography and Illustration' by Louise Axby-Hirst

The above image was taken for an american lifestlye magazine, 'Milk Cow' The model Sarah Williams is all things american, I took a series of images for her portfolio that I will show in one of my future blogs. I decided to use the above image for a digital project I was working on, looking at photography and illustration working together. The camera’s customary concentration in the fashion and advertising industry is placed on the product, ‘clothes’ within these digital pieces it is replaced by illustration
In today’s world we are overpowered by thousands of advertisements and visual representations of products so our curiosity in the product has become lost, and we as the consumer require more than just the representational photograph to stimulate our senses.

The need for more to grasp our attention and trigger our desire for the product has resulted in the photographers, and creative directors pushing back the boundaries of the traditional. Fashion photography now has the ability to bridge the gap between the real and the imaginary, using narratives, life issues and symbolism, in this age of digital the fashion photographer’s limits are endless. The clothes and the models seem somewhat hidden beneath the photographer, stylist, and creative director’s vision. We only need to look at photographers such as David La Chapelle, and Steven Klien, to see the evolvement of fashion photography today. If we think of La Chapelles compilations that are packed with so much visual information that the fashion reference can almost be lost. Steven kliens images of Brad Pitt for vogue, where he was styled as a victim of male rape, shows us the advances that have been made under the title of fashion photography.

The post production technique I have chosen to apply to my own work seems to fall into the acceptance of fashion photography now. Instead of just a documented image of a styled model or garment, this technique has given me the opportunity to create my own self-expression of the image, creating something between photography and illustration, where the viewer of the image is faced with the juxtaposition of the real and the drawn.
My research into this postproduction technique has shown me that this is a digital trend within the fashion and advertising industry at the moment. We are seeing it more and more in magazines, on advertising billboards and campaigns, and it is being further influenced by photographers such as Rankin, who makes use of the style in his own work.
My main intention was to move away from the traditional and the expected, I wanted to create images that have a non-conformist approach to the conventional fashion image. Inspired by the abstract and intensely colourful pieces at the decode exhibition, and also the fashion illustrations of Julie verhoeven