2. Analysing images At the beginning of the year, before starting our magazines we analysed pictures to get a feeling of what they could represent and this helped us when taking and choosing our images for the magazine. We learnt about how the mise-en-scene (everything that is in the picture. e.g.: props, etc.), lighting and camera angle can tell you what is going on in the picture and how each can represent something. Examples of these are how black and white is used to set the time, in the past and close up shots are used to show emotion and reaction. . We also talked about denotation and connation. Denotation is what we see and connotation is what it means. Denotation: Crowds, red carpet Connotation: fame, importance, status. This image depicts a girl being bullied. From her body language we can see that she is upset. You can see the people laughing behind her, but the fact that the girl isn't laughing gives the hint that they are laughing at her. The fact that the camera is from a low angle and you can see the people behind her look as if they are looming over her, makes it seem as if she feels inferior – or they feel superior. In the picture, people behind her are not in focus and the girl in front is, this shows that she's the main focus of the picture. The background looks like quite a large building, so it could be set in a school.
3. Comparison The royal Wolverhampton school magazine is very plain, with not many details. The college magazine has lots of information about what's inside the magazine but the School magazine doesn't really give the reader a clue about what's inside apart from the obvious, being that its a school magazine. Both of them have very bright colours on the front – the school magazine looks like its hand-painted/drawn and the college magazine is a picture with the person centred. The college magazine follows the eye flow but the Wolverhampton magazine doesn’t follow the eye flow, only because it does have not much small text at the top, which is all in one place and its not really a commercial magazine. The school magazine doesn't have any cover lines which doesn't give any information to the reader. Neither of the magazines have a dateline or a barcode (from what I can see). The school magazine does have a strap line but the college one doesn't. The Wolverhampton magazine give off a feeling of community and well-being,even though the strap line talks about the individual, because the main cover has a lot of people doing different things, for example, sitting and relaxing or playing cricket, it shows a feeling of a kind of peacefulness. Overall, the Wolverhampton school magazine seems more informative College magazine seems like a more like a conventional magazine.
4. Editing We also learnt about editing and improving pictures in Photoshop, for when we started to do that for our own images. I used this picture of a woman to start off with. The first picture wasn’t edited at all, so you ca see all her blemishes and even a scar. With the spot healing brush tool in Photoshop, I was able to cover up her blemishes and even her nose ring. I then blurred by selecting Gaussian blur the picture to make her complexion more smooth and then I rubbed out the blur on her eyes, lips and nose to highlight these features. I also rubbed out the blur on her hair to make the picture more realistic. I was also able to change the colour of her eyes by adding on a new layer, putting blue coloured dots where her eyes were, then I rubbed the colour out around her pupils so that the blue didn’t cover all of her eye and only her pupil. I then changed the layer with the blue dots to a soft light, to make it more realistic and not so vibrant. I was able to edit out a piece of paper from this picture by using the clone stamp tool. I selected an area and used the colour/texture and covered where the piece of paper was. This is useful for when I take the pictures for my magazine and there is something I don’t want in the picture.
6. Pictures from the photo-shoot. I didn’t choose this image because of the angle. The model in this image is facing too far to the other side and I would have preferred to have the model more face on. I also thought that it wouldn't have gone well on a magazine cover because shot it too close to the model – I didn’t leave enough room for the masthead. I didn’t choose this image because it was too close-up to be on the front cover and the masthead wouldn’t have been too visible. The photo also looks quite fake due to the pen lid being still on and the model pretending to write. Also, the picture isn't completely in focus. There wouldn’t have been enough room above her head for the mast head, the dateline and the strap line.
7. Pictures from the photo-shoot. I didn’t choose this picture because of the pose the model is doing. Her eyes are not open enough and her facial expression doesn’t look highly positive, which was not my aim for the front cover. However, the distance from the model would good for the cover because there is enough space above her head and around her. CHOSEN IMAGE This image was chosen because it had all the aspects I needed for my front cover. The models smile looks very realistic and not forced. She is not pretending to write so that adds to the believability when it comes to the pen lids being on. There is plenty of space above her head and around her for the masthead, the kickers and the explanatory's. I also like the angle that I took the picture from. Although, I would have liked there to have been less colour in the background to take away from the text and the model.
8. First draft feed back : The font is quite skinny and a bit hard to read. The masthead is really good and clear. The font does have a good colour scheme but the black font is quite hard to see against the busy background. You could give it an outline or a drop shadow to make it more visible. You could mirror her to make the eye flow more natural. the exam stress kicker could be moved to line up more with the others. A dateline should be added.
9. Second draft I added in a date line I flipped the image to match the eye flow better I made the text easier to read by giving it an out line of the opposite colour (e.g.: black with a white outline.) I took out a kicker and an explanatory to help with making the eye flow more natural. I also did this because I felt it was too busy with 3 kickers. I lined up the main kicker with the mast head.
