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The photo in my previous entry was taken of my model, by me.
There were a few minor faults in the photo taken, and things that I felt needed to be blended into the picture and changed.
For example, on his face, next to his nose, there was a visible spot, and on the wall right at the top there was a big orange mark, these are defects that do not need to be in the picture.
Original photo:
Edited photo:
Although the changes are minor, they would be significant defects that would be noticed in a magazine. Celebrities are presented to all audiences as having no defects visible on them, and their surroundings are key to being perfect. By editing these out it means my magazine is more realistic in terms of being the same as real music magazines portray the celebrities.
On the 11th of March I met with my model. We went to the Water Gardens, Harlow, as originally planned, and went to Esquires. In Esquires we sat down, and then an idea came that it would also be a good idea, for him to have a cup of coffee, so we could use that in the photos as a prop, to make the atmosphere as a whole, laid back. The first couple of shots I felt did not go as well as I had hoped, because I found where we were sat did not have a good enough background. We moved to a sofa in the corner of the coffee house, where the background was the wall, that clearly indicated it was a coffee house, and gave a more official feel to the photos.
The rest of the photos in the coffee house I felt went very well, especially the few where my model sat back with his arms across the sofa, smiling at the camera, as if he is just laughing or about to laugh:
Some imagines I found were successful but in certain ones there are unecessary elements such as other people in the background.
I also took a picture of another male model that I spoke to, which I will put on the front cover to act as a poster, this image went successful too.
On the 6th of March I spoke to my model. Orginally, I thought that it would be a good idea to use a female model, so that the main audience my magazine is aimed at, being young girls, could relate to her and look upon her as a new role model. After looking at the ideas I had originally thought of, and comparing them with a new idea, I realised, in my opinion, that trying to introduce a new female artist as a role model would be hard, because young girls are less likely to pay attention to a new female artist, than they are to a new male artist. I decided that it would be best to use a male model, and introduce him as a new recording artist.
My model will feature on the front cover and double page spread of the magazine. The double page spread will contain photos of him, and also a personal interview with him, typically finding out what type of girl he is interested in, so that it captures my audience in the desired way.
On the 6th March I spoke to my model and told him what photographs I was looking at taking, where they would take place and the expected duration of the photoshoot. I thought and explained to him that spending a couple of hours with him would allow me to take a variety of shots, and allow me to have a greater choice in what shots I felt worked, and what I wanted to use in my magazine.
The setting I felt appropriate, was the Water Gardens, Harlow. In the Water Gardens, there are well known coffee shops, one with a particular setting inside that I thought I could base my 'interview' in, which was Esquires. I would mainly use these photos for the double page spread, there are several sofas in the coffee house, which would give the look that the interview was very relaxed, therefore leading the audience to believe that it was, and making them feel more relaxed reading it, and it would make it seem more personal too.
I hope to and will achieve a numerous amount of shots, including close-ups, medium close-ups, and specifically long shots. I feel that these would work as the setting of the Water Gardens is a peaceful place, and I could have my model stand in different positions, and changing the way he is dressed to fit the picture well, i.e. I have the idea of him, in a few shots having his collar up, to give that 'cool' feeling, so my audience will see it too.
My second model
I spoke to my second model, whom I want to take a picture of and put it as a special edition in the magazine as a poster. I spoke to him and said that the setting in which I wanted to take it would be somewhere with a white background so that the image of him as a poster stood out. I said the photoshoot would take around an hour just to get the lighting and positioning right.
For my final magazine I have decided to go with the genre, Pop.
The typical audience for my magazine is a young girl. I imagine her to be 13 years old, going through the 'trauma' of falling in and out of love, having so many unanswered questions about boys, being able to identify with other girls on how hard things can be at their time of life. Typically 'fancying' male pop stars, and looking up to girl pop stars, as their role models.
On Monday 23rd February, we designed a spider diagram in groups and wrote all the key features that we believed were in relation to different music genres. The main ones we looked at was Pop, Hip Hop, Dance and Rock. On Wednesday 25th February, we were given the task to look at different music genres and decide whether what our spider diagrams originally contained were not far off what the magazines actually had.
My group's main focus was the genre Pop. We thought the colours are generally vibrant, bright colours that are attractive and keep the attention of the eye. We believed the main audience to be young girls and some young boys, aged between 12-15. Typical Artists were people like Girls Aloud, The Ting Tings etc. The lanauge used in the songs can sometimes contain abbreviations that young people commonly use, like "lol" (laugh out loud) and "bff" (best friends forever).
When studying the magazine, we found ourselves to be mainly correct. However what surprised us was that the magazine was not aimed at boys what so ever. The colour scheme we believed to be correct, although it indicated it was only for girls because the main colour was pink, and it also had what young girls would class as "heart throbs".
Zac Effron, who is known as a main model for the girls at a young age, almost featured on literally every page. The adverts in the magazine were aimed at a young audience, girl products were also advertised.
There were a lot of pages on love and there were also quizzes, and things like celebrity love matches, doing a quiz and finding out who you match with in the celebrity world, all of these being of course, boys.
Throughout the magazine there were random posters of men idols.
The magazine also contained free gifts, which attracts the reader, but the gifts were a free Pineapple dance bag and also a free huge poster of Zac Effron.
The main things we thought this magazine would contain were correct, however we found it quite strange that it was even more so than we believed. Like the content was so much more girly than we thought.
Pop is most definitely aimed at a girl audience, ages ranging from 11-15.
The magazine clearly identified this.
On Wednesday 28th January, we were given the task to create a front cover, using the pictures we had taken the previous week, and make it into a front cover for a nature magazine, using photoshop.
We got into groups of around 2 or 3 and used photoshop together in our groups.
Once the pictures were uploaded onto the computer from the previous lesson we decided to use a medium close up of a picture that was taken of ducks. This included two ducks, one on the far left hand side of the photo and one on the far right hand side.
Originally we uploaded the picture onto photoshop, and managed to get it directly into the middle of the page. Then made the background above and below the picture green and had black writing at the top and the bottom, we also included a paw print to show that the magazine is based around animals in nature.
However, after this we decided that to make it look more professional, we should have the ducks as the background instead so that it took up the whole page. Once we done this we realised it looked much better and quite a bit more professional. However, we had previously cut out a picture from an image we found online of ducklings and put it onto our magazine, looking back at this we realised it didn't look quite as good, and removed it.
We also included some puffs on the front cover to show what was to come inside the magazine.
If I was to do this magazine again I would try to use photoshop a bit more often before hand as I am still struggling to learn all the different features of photoshop.
I also feel that planning is quite crucial as well, creating a magazine without being entirely sure what affect you're going for, can actually lead to it not turning out so well. Therefore I will ensure that when it comes that I create my magazine, a lot of planning will go into it. I will also plan what audience I am aiming at, as I will need to gain an understanding of what they will want to see in the magazine.
(photo to be included once uploaded)
On Friday 30th of January, our class had a photoshop tutorial from the ICT technician Mark. He explained all the different things we could use to edit our pictures. He also showed us how to have different layers of the magazine we are designing, so if ever you make a mistake, you do not have to start from the beginning, you can just go on to the original layer of the work.
He also explained that when cutting a picture out from another picture, and putting it into the original, you have to use the tool called lasoo, but also, you have to heighten the percentage that the picture is feathered, because if not, then the edges will be really rough.
I definitely learnt a lot from this lesson and took down a lot of notes but I feel that I will personally need a lot of practice to get used to photoshop, as it didn't feel enough just to watch and listen. I will find images and make them into a magazine front cover, so I can get used to the tools that are appropriate to use etc.
