Mario Testino

Mario Testino is a peruvian fashion photographer who uses lots of formal elements in his work such as colour, form, texture and tone. In 1997 Mario shot Diana, Princess of Wales for her Vanity Fair which is commonly known as his career high point and has encouraged the British Royal Family to choose him to shoot them on frequent occasions since. Testino is widely known for his persistence of shooting Gisele Bundchen (who as of May 2014 became spokeswoman for the iconic Chanel No. 5) and is credited with elevating her to supermodel status. Other notable faces that Mario Testino has photographed over his career are Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell and Madonna. As well as his celebrity shoot he has worked for many a fashion house in his time inlcluding Gucci and Versace. 

I chose to study Mario Testino because I adore the bright colours used in a lot of his photography, I love the way the use of bright colours are combined with the form shown in studio shoots which Testino obviously does. I find Mario Testino's photographs interesting and intriguing due to the dramatic makeup used in his photographs which creates attitudes, other elements that help add to the attitude and message of the photographs is the styling and setup used.

 I love this photograph because I think the use of colour and form show off the contours of the womans face, form is used by shining bright light into the front of her face and shadowing her hollows of her cheeks, colour is used to emphasize the main features of her face; eyes and mouth. An additional formal element used in this photograph is texture, texture is shown on her skin, her lips and the fur she is wearing. I like this photograph because I think it is a representation of the entire fashion world in one photograph.

This photograph is one of the famous shots from Diana, Princess of Wales' Vanity Fair campaign. The use of tone is in this photograph because every colour in the photograph is the same except they are different tones, the darkness of her roots and shadows around her collar bones are also shown in different tones. Form is also used to emphasize these same shadows. I love this photograph because it captures a natural air of Princess Di that the press were never able to capture, she looks carefree and willing, unlike the way she was when she was being hounded by paparazzi. 

In this image Testino uses Form, Tone and Colour. He uses colour and tone together, he creates a red hue that acts as a filter and spills delicately over Emma Watson, the tone comes in and adds shades of lighter and darker red over the lighter and darker areas, Form also ties in with this formula due to the fact that in the shadowy areas that are caught behind the lights the tone makes the photograph darker. I like this photograph because of the way the colour fades in from one side of the photo and out from the other.

In this image Mario Testino puts form into practice in a very basic but very vocal way. This is my explanation due to the fact the colour scheme stays repetitive throughout Miley's outfit, makeup, hair and the backdrop ties in with all of these things, even the pale porcelain white of her skin ties in with the colour scheme put into place, form is employed by the use of lights to echo the shadows and emphasize areas of the photograph. I love the simplicity of this photograph.

Mario Testino has increased my interest in joining Colour, Form and Tone together to create these powerful pieces which allow an attitude of arrogance and promiscuity. As I mentioned in my annotation of these images, the form in these photographs is shown by using severe studio lights to create light and dark areas, these light and dark areas are then enhanced by toning the photographs e.g. black and white, however Testino introduces a twist on the classic tone experiment. Testino uses colourful hues as seen above to show tone in a modern way, so instead of dark black grey areas there may be plum coloured areas to represent black or lilac to represent white. I would very much like to experiment with this type of editing or toning in my own photography. Another technique of Testino's that I wish to use would be the dramatic carefree way in which he manages to set up his models for example his shots look almost relaxed and tense at the same time - if that's even possible. I love that as a fashion photographer Testino focuses on people and clothes, his collection 'Portraits' was extremely successful and it traveled all over the world to places like Milan, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Mexico City, and Boston.

I believe the hype - that Mario Testino is one of the greatest fashion photographers of the recent times. As it is a personal dream to shoot for fashion houses Testino is a particular inspiration to me therefore I hold him in such high regard that I would love to do shoots like his one day.

Since studying Mario Testino I have done some shoots which I chose to experiment with the colours of my photographs similar to the Emma Watson photograph above, here is an example. This is how Mario Testino influenced me, I loved his use of colour when I studied him so I put it into action with this photograph.