For the many of you that do not know me, I’ll let you in on a little secret. I was, am, don’t think it’ll ever go away, huge One Direction fan. Going all the way back to late 2011, early 2012 when their first album dropped. 12 year old Jenny? HOOKED, swooned even my world was shaken. Of course the obsession was a little worse back then, it was as if I didn’t have a family for a few years. Huge apologies to my family, especially my brother for selling his bike for concert tickets. ANYWAYS yes, I love One Direction and the direction they all have gone in their solo careers! Such a different sound for all 5 of them, Harry especially. His first album was amazing and so different from what One Direction was doing but his second album Fine Line is where this shoot idea came to be. My friend Emily sent me a video of a girl who took photos based off Taylor Swift songs/specific lyrics. Immediately I knew I needed to do something like this but with who? Why, with Harry freaking Styles of course! Using Fine Line for this shoot was a no brainer. Compared to his first album, the songs and overall sound has that artsy vibe to it and ideas were pouring into my head. I landed on lyrics from 3 songs: Canyon Moon, Golden, and Falling.
Canyon Moon:
Okay I know I went in deep with how artsy this album is and that was the sole reason I used it for these photos. I stand by that full heartedly of course, but for this song in particular I had no artsy drive for it. It was picked only because my name is used and for that reason only. When Harry Styles, or lets be real here any of the boys, use your name in a song you run with it. I put the song here with the time to skip to for the lyrics below! Conveniently enough my friend Emily’s apartment has a yellow door, so all I had to do was dress in blue and get my pose on.
Golden:
There was no real specific lyric used from this song for these sets of photos. Throughout the whole song the word “golden” is said almost every other word. I mean it is the name of the song, the song is golden. So how do we put that into photos you may be wondering? With golden hour! I wanted to use the beautiful golden glow that the sun gives off at golden hour right before it goes down, and becomes what we call twilight hour. I wanted Emily to wear a shirt that closely resembled the white one harry wears at some points in his video, to really pull in that connection. Emily happened to have the perfect Harry Styles shirt and even jewelry to embody this song. All that was left was to find a location and get to shooting. We drove to a parking garage and ran to the very top to make sure the sun could hit her straight on and give her that golden glow. For the two photos where the sky is the only backdrop I did what any photographer would do; lay down on the dirty concrete for that optimal angle!
Falling:
Now grab your tissues because we saved the sad one for last. This song was the first one I knew I wanted to use. The first few lyrics alone were my sole inspiration and the creative drive I needed. This song can hit pretty deep and is one you might potentially cry in your car too. I would say Harry got pretty vulnerable with this song and the listener can really feel his pain throughout it. Now Harry is wearing some amazing outfits in this video, unfortunately none that Emily could closely replicate but we worked around that. She had the idea to wear a nice bralette with a robe but put her hair up messily in a clip. I loved the idea because it gave the sense of her trying to look okay and put together when really she is still being drowned by her emotions. Something I feel this song is portraying, I mean harry is wearing these incredible outfits in the video as a room fills with water. Whenever we get hurt and are sad we try to do whatever we can to lift ourselves up. We don’t want to hurt, our thoughts scare us, we can’t seem to see that light at the end of the tunnel. It’s a hard thing to pull yourself out of, you really do feel like you are drowning. We want to seem like we are fine to others, but when alone we fall apart. With the outfit now down I had to create the rest of the scene. I laid on the other side of her bed in order for it to leave an impression in the sheets and pillow. Giving the viewer the absence of another person and the idea that at a time, there used to be someone else there. I also wanted only one singular light source for these, a lamp or something soft for light. Nothing harsh or too bright, the softer the light the softer the photos feel and that was what I wanted. Soft light can help create that sad feeling this song gives off, anything else would feel too happy. I then told her to pour her a small glass of wine and be the embodiment of sadness. I think she nailed it.
