Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Poster Design




This week, we had a poster assignment for our Photoshop class. I used this assignment as an opportunity to design this poster for rhettfoxx.com.

Inspired by the name of this blog, I initially thought I would go with a treasure map motif, but found this getting to be too busy when I was doing the production.

Some of my first real photographic experience was shooting with Polaroids, and so I decided to add some Polaroid-sized masks to the photos to reference that. Naturally, I had an old song by one of my favorite bands bouncing around my head the rest of the day. ("Gentlemen Take Polaroids" by Japan)

This determined the overall size, as I wanted the Polaroids to print at the actual size of 3.5 x 4.5". The closest available standard poster size that would accommodate four Polaroids with adequate room for other elements and white space turned out to be 18 x 24".

While the first sketches involved a dotted line path, akin to the old Family Circle comics where one of the kids is wandering around the neighborhood, I soon hit on the idea of footprints instead. From there, it was obvious to go for high heeled footprints. Of course, individual layers of teeny footprints quickly add up to drive me nuts...

After playing with the type, I decided to leave just the short captions on the Polaroids and the URL in the huge font. I tried several placements of a shorter blurb telling just a bit more about the site, but wherever I placed it in whatever size, it wrecked the unity of the design. I figure the visual elements hit a good balance of information and intrigue to entice viewers into the site.

I may revisit this design in next term's Flash course to see about making it into an interactive splash page for the site.

Monday, May 12, 2008

On high heels and cars...

Note to self: when planning to wear heels somewhere, but driving there in flats, remember that if you want to swap shoes discreetly before exiting the vehicle, the heels can't have ankle straps.

Otherwise the steering wheel is in the way and it requires the stand beside car, put foot on driver's seat and buckle straps that way method, which of course risks flashing entirely too much thigh and ass if wearing a full skirt. Or walking in flats into a building and finding a bathroom for the switch.

My gentleman readers may of course hope I forget this little rule of thumb, should they ever meet me in person. ;D

(Clearly, this is Day 1 of remembering one of my New Year's resolutions about wearing skirts and heels out and about a little more often.)

Sunday, May 11, 2008

New index pic


Well, we have our first photographic addition to rhettfoxx.com in the form of a tinted scan of a shot I took sometime in early 2007. Originally shot on 35mm HP5+ with my old Pentax MX, this shot was a do-it-yourself endeavor all the way. I was taking classes at Focal Point at the time and so I took this as a still life for the basic film photography course and developed and printed it myself as part of my homework for the basic darkroom class (gotta love it when you're allowed to double dip!). I think it's printed on Ilford Cool White RC paper - if memory serves, this was before I discovered that Lens and Shutter still had the remnants of a horde of AGFA paper (RIP AGFA, we all miss you dearly).

The set-up was quite simple, being shot in the olden days before I bought any studio hot lights. I have an east facing window that I set up a little table in front of one sunny midday and I covered it with three metres of black satin from my overly large sewing stash and set up the heels on that.

The pink tint was added tonight in Photoshop as the original black and white version, while just lovely on its own and on FlickR, was far too harsh compared to the warm colors on my index page.

I have probably too many pairs of silver heels for some reason. Sometimes I think it has to do with a story I remember reading from when I was a little kid, about a princess using a magic scroll to escape through some labyrinthine fortress and she wore a pair of silver slippers. (I wish I remember the book's name.) Other times I think that's over-analyzing it too much and it's just related to my general preference for silver metallics over gold. In any case I think I have three pairs of silver heels at this time (one pair of mule sandals by Penny Loves Kenny, these pumps by Chinese Laundry, and a pair of mary-jane-like heels with X-straps whose manufacturer escapes me at the moment) and one pair of Steve Madden silver flats. Silver heels are always guaranteed to catch my eye and tempt me.

There are about three or four good shots of these in various configurations from that day, and this is the shot that has proven the most popular on my Flickr page. To date it's received 318 views and been favorited twice - not bad considering I don't really promote my work on Flickr and I rarely even post photos on any of the groups I belong to there. Only three of my shots surpass this total, two of which are other high heel shots. The third, inexplicably, is a shot of a transvestite in a minidress and neon pink thigh-high fishnet stockings from last August's Pride Parade here in Vancouver. (Not even the best transvestite shot I took that day. Your guess is as good as mine.)

Interestingly, my black and white shots are far more popular than my color high heel shots. I suppose despite - or maybe because of - the barrage of full-color images we stew in every day, there is still something magical about black and white photography.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

First addition to rhettfoxx.com

Well, it's not much, just a little icon, but I have made my first real update to rhettfoxx.com. It's the little R icon in the tab and address bar. Not much, but it'll do for now.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Coming soon: rhettfoxx.com

Well, looks like everything's going just ducky at DreamHost. I have registered rhettfoxx.com and will soon begin to populate it with content.

So you won't have to look at my pretty pink "under construction" page for too long. I promise.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Site structure set

Whilst waiting for my delicious burger at the campus pub this evening, I finalized (more or less) the structure of the Rhett Foxx site I'll be building soon.

Aside from the usual sections to be expected, I will organize the site by color.

But in the interests of being a tease, I won't reveal more than that. Yet.

Latest acquisition



This is a screen capture from stevemadden.com of the closest image on the site to my latest hunting trophy. As with so many things, I acquired them at Winners for under fifty bucks.

I suppose this means I can no longer bitch about not having a great pair of red heels, huh? Not so fast. I merely have a great pair of open-toe mary jane red heels. The hunt continues.

Now, I did say this blog is more related to high heel photography, and as such, I will be finding some time this weekend to take some artsy shots of these to share with you soon. I suspect it will be a good time for me to set up a new Flickr account just related to this project and this blog.

Anatomy of a classic from Style.com

See slideshow here.

It's a neat little summary of high heeled history. A little simplistic, though.

Naturally my favorites are those "sex pumps." Too bad they picked such a crappy shot of Dita von Teese, though.