Exploring footwear. An investigation into aesthetic, cultural and artistic influences on shoe design.
Downloads
I've made a few free Windows backgrounds of some of my favourite images. These downloads have a Suzies Shoeseum logo embedded and copyright details. Just click the link and save; then set the image as a background.
Shoe: green slingbacks by Irregular Choice, 2007; Hosiery: Charnos boudoir sheer backseam stockings: 10 denier, natural shade. Photography: Digital photography: Nikon D200 camera and AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55 lens, various exposures and apertures, halogen floods; Photoshop post-production (levels adjustment, bleach bypass simulation, softening, cropping, background cloning/tweaking, rotating/flipping).
Green slingbacks by my favourite desiger-manufacturer, Irregular Choice. I have processed this shot with a lot of film grain simulatiom and bleached out the image for a fashion magazine look. This image is not in the gallery series as a small scale reproduction does not do it full justice - and the film grain is lost in resolving it down. The shoes is made of gorgeous green check cotton fabric, and so these shoes can never be worn outdoors - the graphic on the sole is also so vulnerable to wear that these are museum pieces to preserve in pristine condition - that's the agony of being a shoe curator - look but never wear - oh the pain the pain! I'm on MySpace now, so hopefully more folk will share this website homage to the best in quirky shoe design.
Shoes: Black patent sandals by Anne Michelle, 2007. Hosiery: none. Photography: Digital photography: Nikon D200 camera and AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55 lens, various exposures and apertures; Photoshop post-production (levels adjustment, exposure adjustment, bleach bypass simulation, softening, cropping, background cloning/tweaking.
11 August 2007: Gallery 1017 - see gallery 3 - a grainy, bleached out shoot of some kitten heel, faux-patent toe poast sandals sans hosiery. I have here exploited the fact that black does not reflect light and blasted the shot with flash and halogen light. Photography purists prefer a neutral light - I prefer the slight yellow cast that standard garage halogen lights give (at a fraction of the cost for a full rig!) I like this shoot for the purity of the skin tones and I have taken the colour saturation down a notch or two to produce this tightly composed set of images. This is a 1024x768 free windows background for you to download and install on your PC.
Shoes: Black matt leather crossover strap sandals by Bronx, 2007; Hosiery: Pretty Polly Naturals knee highs: 7 denier, Natural shade. Photography: Digital photography: Nikon D200 camera and AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55 lens, various exposures and apertures, some shots (the darker ones) taken without flash; Photoshop post-production (levels adjustment, exposure adjustment, bleach bypass simulation (applied multiple times), softening, cropping, background cloning/tweaking.
Stylish Bronx sandals in matt black leather with a luxurious golden lining that photographs very nicely. I have used a coarse linen patterned ethnic cloth as a backdrop and have experimented with underexposing the image, then boosting the exposure in Photoshop which gives a distressed antiqued colour cast to the images, then applying multiple application of bleach bypass simulation, further distressing the image. The images look better in large scale - the granular texture is better represented - and I have included this free windows background blow-up of image sz_n_1016-053.jpg from the gallery 3.
Shoes: Red patent stilletto with transparent panels and heels; Schuh 2004. This design was produced in purple, red, blue and orange to my knowlege. Hosiery: Nutmeg shade "Italia" by Pretty Polly. Photography: digital photography with multiple slave flash units and multiple halogen lighting with no minimal Photoshop post-production (unsharp mask, levels).
Schuh red patent stillettos. This is one of my favourite shoots. These shoes are so dramatic. Absolutely impractical and absolutely wonderful.
I played around a bit with the image in photoshop, applying subtle amounts of a free photoshop plugin "BleachBypass" that I downloaded from the www from Red Paw Media The BleachBypass plugin emulates the bleach bypass, or bleach skip technique that involves the partial or complete skipping of the bleaching stage during the processing of a colour film. It prevents the silver from being removed from the negative, and the result is a contrasty image with muted colours. The result looks like Three Kings or Saving Private Ryan.
Shoes: wooden sole, leather upper mules by Schuh; 2003. Hosiery bronze shade stockings by Charnos. Photography: digital photography with multiple slave flash units with no minimal Photoshop post-production (levels).
This early shoot - number 34 from May 2003 - was the first time I succeded with my burnt out background photography technique. Lots of background light and slave flashes and a few white sheets. No expensive studio lights, just 150w halogen floods from a DIY store. The whole lighting rig cost less than £25-00.
As with all of my downloads, this one has a Suzies Shoeseum logo embedded and copyright details. Just click the link and save; then set the image as background.
Copyright and ownership
All images and texts (unless otherwise stated) © Susan Graves 2000 - 2008