Induction Project

Induction Evaluation

While doing the photography for my front cover, I used manual focus on the cameras. The focus rings and zoom are both fairly easy to use and get into focus however it does take concentration. I feel that my photograph was of good proportion and clarity for a first attempt. The ‘T-stance’ is useful for photography because it helps you to keep your balance and hold the camera more still. This helps for a clearer image. The ‘T-stance’ helped me a lot with my photography as normally I would be unable to keep proper balance and my hands would be shaking a lot making the photo unclear. Portrait and landscape mode is very helpful for taking a photograph in context. With creating a magazine front cover, my photograph needed to be in portrait mode. By taking the photograph this way, it fitted better into the page and looked more professional. If I had taken it landscape, the image would not fit properly into the page and would look very badly prepared. My image was in focus but it took a couple of attempts to get it there. This was because I have never used manual focus or zoom on a camera before but I think that I have done pretty well with it and using manual focus and zoom will not be a problem in the future. Lighting is very difficult to get in to a photograph, especially with never having to consider it before. The lighting style I used was side lighting but I also put my subject in a sort of ‘box-like’ section of the building to get shaded background and the brickwork. I feel that the lighting could have been better and I was stood too close to the subject as the flash effected the lighting choices and I thought it was going to be a problem but in the end, I chose to work with it and it did actually make my photograph look professional. I tried my hardest to comply to the rule of thirds and for my photographs to turn out well composed but my eye line was slightly too low. In order for the picture to be better next time, I will need it to be in better lighting and to move the eye line slightly higher. My subject listened well to how I wanted him to behave and helped me form a professional image. The fact that I already spoke to my subject and the fact we were already friends helped also as it made the whole experience of my first attempt at photography enjoyable.

            On Photoshop, I used a range of tools to make my magazine front cover. I used the transformation tool to resize my image; the fx button to add drop shadows and effects; adding and removing layers; leading and kerning/tracking and finally, the elliptical marquee tool to create a button sell line. Personally, I found resizing the image using the transformation tool quite difficult because I kept removing my finger from the shift key too early and getting a stretched image. Finally, I did manage but it took a few attempts. Using kerning and leading was easy in my opinion and I enjoyed getting the different effects on my text. I think that my texts were well controlled and their placement looks professional. I do however think that I can improve by making my front cover a bit more full because it feels as though it has a lot of empty space. I added effects and drop shadows on a few of my texts and that was to make sure they stood out more on the page. I edited the opacity and length of the drop shadows using the fx tool to add depth to the image. The font I chose to use was a preset Photoshop font and this was due to the feel I wanted my magazine to have. I wanted my magazine to seem edgy therefore I chose a serif font that has lots of straight edges to add to the feel. I chose a green colour scheme to fit in with the image I was using as my subject is wearing a green shirt in the picture. This was to make sure that all of the colours fit together.

            In my opinion, I like the colour scheme of my magazine cover and that it fits all together nicely with the image but I think that it could be improved by adding more into it as it has a lot of blank space.