Photography. Bachelors full Portfolio

Willa Cornelius
Apr 10, 2023
3 min read

Updated: Mar 20, 2024

Bachelors degree completed with The Design School Southern Africa, now known as Vega. Subjects included: Graphic Design, Advanced Illustration, Business Practice, Advanced Photography, Art & Design Theory Research and Commercial Art.

What Projects to Expect in this Portfolio

Render Magazine Cover - Editorial Photography

WildMary - Self Portrait Photography

Picnic - Fine Art Photography

Greens - Food Photography

The Rundown Theatre - Storyboard Photography

Open Exposure - Night Photography

Boss - Decade Photography (1920)

Sweet and Sexy - Fashion Photography

West Coast South Africa - Texture Photography

Each project is unique and aim to portray high quality compositions, showcasing a wide spectrum of photography projects and campaigns worked on.

Render Magazine Cover. Editorial Photography

Contemporary Fashion Photography.

“ Contemporary fashion combined with elements that are associated with the South African Voortrekker community.”

By combining harsh colour contrasts, the model's intricate accessories are purposefully highlighted including her necklace, purple glove, flower ring and fiery red peppers.

Model: Sindee Lampen

Wild Mary. Self-Portrait Photography

Portrait Photography.

“ Taking a self-portrait that represents a characteristic of one's personality.”

There is often more to a person than meets the eye or than what someone's perspective of them may be. The colourful buttons in this artwork provide a glimpse into the various attributes a person may possess, highlighting that a single characteristic cannot define them.

Picnic. Double Exposure

Fine Art Photography.

“ Capture the character of an individual's reality through the use of Double Exposure”

With a picnic, a common interest in nature is shared. The double-exposed scene captured the literal overlapping feeling of an outdoor experience. The effect is created with a vintage Ricoh 35mm SLR Film Camera, by rolling back the film manually.

Models: Andrew Brooke, Karin Smith, Monique Pieterse

Greens. Delicious Food Photography

Food Photography.

“ Prettify vegetables, onions and peas, that are commonly as bland and unappetising.”

By focusing on vibrant colours, contracted with a bright background, the camera was able to capture the quality, structure and freshness of the vegetables.

Thriller Film. Title Sequence

Storyboard Photography.

“ The storyline followed is that of a Thiller Film of a girl haunting an abandoned theatre.”

By using long exposure and shadow effects, the theme could be well illustrated I made use of an old abandoned Theature located in Pretoria, Church square.

Models: Sindee Lampen, Erik Pistorius

Boss. Fashion

Decade Photography.

“ In the 1920’s probation started in America, this brought the rise of notorious gangsters that stood tall in fashionable suits, cigars and illegal alcohol.”

With the use of long exposure, within a dark space, it was possible to capture the ambulance and character of these notorious well-dressed men.

Models: Nathan Rayfield, Andre van Rooyen

Into the Night. Open Exposure

Night Photography.

“ Making use of artificial light, long exposures and interesting backgrounds to capture an individual's connection in a group, compared to being alone.”

The Union Building itself symbolises the unity of communion. Combining long exposure and making use of different faces, lights and architecture, it was possible to illustrate this unity and also the lack there off, with the use of a double exposure effect, that shows an individual facing only themselves alone on an isolated couch.

Models: Karin Smith, Charlie van Schalkwyk, Wilmarie Cornelius

Sweet and Sexy. Fashion

Fashion photography.

“ The objective of this project was to give exposure to a Design School Southern Africa’s Fashion design student, through the use of photography. ”

Paired with Michelle Herbst’s line, Sweet and Sexy, the focus became to illustrate the line quite literally. Each piece has extremely well-detailed elements to pull your attention to certain arrears on the garments. Fascinated by these elements, final compositions were paired with full portraits of the garments, along with closely detailed focused elements of these fashion pieces.

Fashion line of: Michelle Herbst

Model: Eloise Brooke

West Coast. Textures

Texture Photography.

“ Capturing textures up close in the West Coast, South Africa”

An additional portfolio entry. While travelling the west coast of South Africa with my family, we came across some of the most fascinating textures, within some of South Africa’s most incredible coastline scenes.