Visual analysis of editorial fashion image

The image features a female young adult in her late teens/early 20s sitting on a low brick wall, pulling out a record from a box. The record she is pulling out is trojan explosion vinyl. She is sat on a slight left angle with her head facing to the right. The look on her face is quite plain with little emotion shown. 

The girls style indicates she could be a 60s skinhead girl which is shown through the ankle height Dr. Martens boots, bomber jacket with a shirt buttoned to the top and her punk hairstyle. She is wearing bright white socks and the rest of her clothes are dark coloured. Her hair is black and in a Chelsea cut, which is almost entirely shaved, leaving only bangs and fringes at the front.

Behind her is what looks to be a block of flats in a run down and urban area. The flats look to be on an estate with low maintenance. Just to the left of the wall, by her foot is broken scrap materials that have been left on the street. Just to the right of her is an old 60s style white car in the background.

Gavin Watson's image is in black and white with a low brightness, the colours are dull with little contrast. Her bright white socks clash the rest of her outfit creating emphasis on her shoes. It is framed so that she is placed in the middle, drawing attention to her, making her the focal point, also, the background of the image is blurred. The image is constructed in a way that we focus on the bottom half instead of the top through the blurred background. The horizontal and vertical lines on the building behind converge behind the girl which draws our eyes to look at her. Watson was assumably crouched with the camera. It is angled to the right and is at waist height which makes her fill most of the frame. There is little negative space however as the background is made less important and blurred, it creates a balance so the image doesn't feel uncomfortable or busy. The orthogonal lines created by the walls and street lead out of the frame and would converge on the car on the horizon line. This could be so we notice the car as it could have importance to the images background story. 

The image was shot in 2014 which contradicts the contents of it. The girl looks to be a 60s skinhead girl which is shown through her style, attitude and another pointer to which is that she is holding a trojan explosion record which was the genre of music loved within the subculture. The attitude of a skinhead was usually a moody one, in which they had little care about what others thought of them, this is shown in her body language and unbothered, and slightly intimidating, look on her face. 

After researching the background of the image I found it was part of a collection shot by Watson for Dr. Martens launch of the ‘Spirit of '69’ line, which is a capsule collection inspired by the skinhead uniform. This is why the form of the photograph leads our attention towards the skinhead girl and especially her shoes. 

Watson used the old fashioned car in the background to add to the style of the image and create the effect that the image was actually shot in the 60s. Using black and white makes the whole images mood feel more formal and serious. Due to the absence of colour the audience may think it is simple, however it intensifies the mood as is it allows us to concentrate on a subject without any other distracting elements.

In my opinion, the image lacks much excitement and is not very unique or original. However the way in which Watson has photographed the girl looks as if she was not set up or styled. He has managed to capture a moment of the past in the present day with little/no indication that it was actually not taken in the 60s. Gavin chose the perfect model to shoot, in the image she does not look uncomfortable but instead natural to make the audience believe what they are actually seeing. “What makes Gavin’s photos so special is that when you look at them, there’s clearly trust from the subject towards the photographer so it feels like you’re in the photo rather than just observing.”- Shane Meadows