Note to the examiner

Dear person marking this work,


I would like first to thank you for taking the time to review and look  around my blog which works as a home for my work. I would also like to say how much I value some of the skills that I have learned during the teaching of this course, which I hope to use later in life (such as photoshop techniques).

Final Magazine

Evaluation Question 7

One of the major skills that I learned from the preliminary task was basic photoshop etiquette. Having never used photoshop before, it was quite the steep learning curve. Simple things such as selecting layers instead of clicking on an image or text and which tools to use for what eventually became very intuitive. If it wasn’t for the preliminary task, I would have spent a large percentage of my time just trying to work out how to do things which would have restricted how creative I could have been.

The second thing that I learned from the preliminary task was not to use such a blank cover or contents page. There is a big difference between minimalist and blank, not only was my preliminary task blank (devoid of any decent page furniture) but where I tried to fill in empty spaces and add interesting features, it came out looking tacky and unprofessional.

Thirdly, I learned which poses look bad and managed to find a pose that looked good based off my preliminary cover. The main difference between the pose on my preliminary cover and the pose on my final cover is the artist tilting his body away from the camera slightly instead of directly into the lens, this makes the artist seem more natural and also gives off a feeling of discontent or angst which would subconsciously be reciprocated in my target audience, allowing them to associate themselves with the artist more easily. Without the preliminary task I would have spent more time taking photos of my artist in positions that I thought would look good (facing the camera directly) and would have not come out with a decent image of my artist doing a suitable pose. This would most certainly have left my magazine looking worse off.

Evaluation Question 6

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Photo editing software:
Photoshop allowed me to change the colouration of photos, or remove blemishes e.t.c post taking them. I used this a lot when using abstract techniques to try and make my cover image stand out. This can be done by using effects or simply altering the contrast and brightness. Another way is to blur or sharpen images in a way that makes certain areas of the photo's subject stand out against the background and foreground, another popular way is putting parts of the image in front of the masthead or making a border around the image with the colours emphasising the subject. Another thing that I learned from the process of constructing this product is how to add subtle page furniture in an attempt to create motifs. One motif I attempted to establish consisted of using the brush tool to block out the eyes of the subject on the cover. I also utilised the same tool behind the page numbers so that it appeared on all of the pages not just the cover.

 











Camera: 
The techniques I learned to use for the camera are mainly related to lighting and subject composition.
For example, in my preliminary task my artist looked straight into the camera and also had his body facing towards the camera. I realised that this framing does not look professional or inline with the style i was hoping to achieve. So instead i decided to have my artist turn to the side and look away from the camera, tis created a much more stylish photo and fitted with the rest of my cover and magazine more.

  














Blogger:
I used a blog as a way of keeping track of what work I have done and what work i was yet to do. Blogger provided a very user friendly way of achieving a sort of 'digital portfolio.' This meant I was able to complete work from home and different computers around the school with it all remaining in one place. It also makes it easier for teachers and peers to comment on my work meaning i could improve what I have done post-upload.
The ability to access work from anywhere on virtually any device was extremely valuable and stopped me from losing work or notes like i often do when they are in physical form. It also makes the organisation of notes and completed pieces of work very simple and easy to do.

Evaluation Question 5

Evaluation Question 4

(Click on image)

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 3 from miloomahoney