Change of Idea - Organic Beauty

'Organic' by John Patrick, featured in ELLE magazine (Denmark) 2013.
http://www.organicbyjohnpatrick.com/blogs/news/8134215-
organic-by-john-patrick-featured-in-elle-denmark

Upon further reflection of my initial ideas I realised that my main concept was heavily focused on how makeup and our perception of beauty reacts to nature. My initial concept was to base my work on how the beauty we create is considered ruined by natural occurrences such as dirt, rain and sweat but to present the images in such a way that they remain beautiful. The use of the elements however inspired me further and I decided that I instead wanted to create a set of images whereby the model was the element, in many ways taking an alternative look at the definition of "Organic Beauty". Although my concept has changed slightly the choice of elements remains unaltered and within my body of work I will focus on creating representations for earth, fire and water. Realistically I would also like to create the fourth element of air, however I cannot think of a way in which this could be done to an editorial standard without it looking tacky. In addition is the use of makeup for this look which would be difficult as all three of the other elements can be artistically created through different makeup techniques. Due to these reasons I will most likely leave this out and instead focus on the 3 solid elements. In relation to the theme of "Organic Beauty" the use of water, heat and earth are all reoccurring elements within natural beauty treatments such as spas etc, reinforcing natures connection to our perception of beauty.
In regards to creating a body of work relevant to an organic focus I think my starting point of "Beauty is Boring" aided my transition greatly. It has allowed me to create a concept that is different from other perceptions of organic beauty, upon first reflection the reason this unit didn't appeal to me was predominantly due to the fact that I presumed it would be focused purely on advertising nature kind beauty products. Although that is a good thing, it doesn't exactly break the mould and demonstrated how limited my creative thought process was at this stage. By creating a concept that didn't work as effectively in the theme that I would have liked it to feature in I was able to push my idea forward into another genre to create an idea that is more abstract and artistic.
From this stage the development of my concept is key to a successful execution, for the creation of the makeup I need to best research techniques for replicating the elements that I have selected, accommodate appropriate lighting and decide on a style that will best compliment my images. I know that I would like to keep the makeup as a whole as natural as possible so that my model appears healthy in her own skin, this will then be accompanied by other selected medias to create my final look. As most of my elements feature a temperature difference my choice of lighting will also matter greatly as it is through this method that the makeup will make the most sense e.g. fire-sweat-warm lighting.