Front Cover

I'm really quite proud of this front cover as I think it looks nearly the same as a cover of a magazine but with not too much distraction of too many images and words so the images that are on their can speak for themselves. I really like the subtitles I've given the fake news stories as well since they're just the right amount of outrageous and I'm pretty proud of the layout I made since I closely followed a recent layout from a similar magazine. 

On the critical side of things, I'm not sure if this piece actually says what I want it to say... It feels like it's lacking in something and I'm not sure what that is.... It's a very underwhelming feeling since I worked so hard on this piece. Maybe this isn't the way to go after all of that.

Photoshop...

I haven't properly used Photoshop in about three years (since I prefer to use adobe lightroom for my images as it's simple and quick and made for photographers and not graphic designers.) So using Photoshop for this project is quite daunting as well as exciting.

I thought I'd take my old A level teachers advice from years ago and follow some relevant tutorials on making magazine covers and Photoshopping people.

I followed this tutorial -

http://www.tutorialstraining.com/cstutorials/advertisingdesign/magazine/twistrcodedtutorial.htm

I found it very helpful as well as using relevant techniques to edit the look of smoother skin, shinier hair, bigger eyes etc. that are all used in magazines.

After three hours of perfecting this image as well as adding the red banners I gave up and went to bed. I found it frustrating not knowing what I was doing as well as not having a clear idea of what I wanted it to look like.
I vowed that I'd get up the next morning and finish the job, no matter how frustrating or how long it took me.

And this is the final outcome of that day. I'll blog about it on it's own in the next post.

Front Cover

I've been toying with the idea in my head of having a front cover of a celebrity magazine, but instead of different celebrities in different photographic situations (Shoot, paparazzi etc) It'll just be me in those situations.
I thought that this would critique the fact that anyone can be a celebrity these days as well as reiterate that these 'celebrities' are just normal people like myself and who are we to judge and maybe care about what they get up to?

I see these magazine covers as a sign of what people who read these publications actually want to read about and find them quite humorous as well as severely depressing (Since most of them are about celebrities and misfortune, infidelity, drug and alcohol abuse, depression etc)

I think I'll experiment with the images that I've already shot and see. I'm a little dubious on getting the layout completely correct and not distracting from the actual images themselves. After all people only notice bad design!

Something

I've failed to point out in this project is that I am simultaneously writing my dissertation on female self-portraiture, so naturally all my research for that has subconsciously fed into this project and vice verse. 

As my dissertation is a piece of writing and all my research is written (either in note format or long hand) I'll include copies of the relevant research in my physical work book and not in this research journal.

Because of this similarity of projects, I've had a tough time keeping them separate and not contaminating my practical project with political, psycho-analytical and social issues to confuse the finale outcome, but it is incredibly hard to let the relevant information come through that way. So I'll just spiel out everything then pin point what it actually is I was to define at the end of this project.... I guess?

Shoot 5 - Hotel Room (2)

I shot another few images whilst in the hotel room. I wanted a kind of 'hidden camera' but not paparazzi feel to the images. A little bit x-rated, infrared kind of image.

I shot a lot of these images and I think these two are probably the best ones from the bunch.
Again, I'm not sure how to display these yet but I'm please with the results.

Shoot 4 - Hotel Room (1)

I recently did a shoot situated in a very plain hotel room:

I wanted to get the feel of being spied on by the paparazzi so I hid the camera on the windowsill and let some of the curtain drift in front of the lens. I placed the camera on the windowsill as that's where the paparazzi would be shooting from if the hotel room was on the ground floor. I also wanted the curtain to interact with the lens as the paparazzi wouldn't be able to move it out of the way of the shot.

These three shots are what I would pick for the edit. Plus I think they go well together as a sequence. I imagine something like 'Superstar caught binge eating in hotel room with friends' Or something along those lines...

I'm pretty pleased with these shots!

Rut

I guess I've hit a kind of rut with this project. Dissertation work and my personal life have taken over for a while and I just have no motivation to actually shoot images anymore. I guess this is a common thing, you research your way out of a passion. Because all the magic and visual appeal is ruined once you know all the tricks and the depressive theories behind the images we see every day. I feel entirely disenchanted. It's ruined a hobby but in the process I've learned a lot.
Tomorrow I'm going to write for 3 hours on my dissertation then shoot for the rest of the day. It has to happen.