Assignment 4: Thoughts

Aim:
The object of Assignment 4 is to produce a photographic image to illustrate an imaginary book or magazine cover (ideally portrait format then?). I need to decide on a topic, and then think about how to get the theme or story across to a prospective reader (some thoughts below on this). I need to consider the areas of adjustment and manipulation and how they contribute to the successfulness of the cover (making the object stand out by fading/desaturating/darkening the background, or brightening the subject). Juxtaposition is a possible idea (combine two or more images together). Obviously this all has to be accompanied by some thoughts and notes and importantly for this assignment, my ethical justification (suggested by the previous exercises on manipulation degrees). Prints must be sent again to my tutor.

A few ideas:
Each of the ideas below have differing levels of (Photoshop) complexity and levels of manipulation.

• Out and out manipulation - e.g. a vampire image would make a good cover for a book for this genre, and would be fun. However it's not really an area of interest, and photographing people is not my strong point.
• Or something patterned - use one element from one image and copy/paste/rotate it to make a new pattern - something chaotic, or fractal, or something along these lines - this could be the cover of a photography or design magazine. This will test my Photoshop skills and has the chance of being a bit cliched.
• A pseudo-infra-red image - this is an area of interest for me (I have thought to convert my 30D at some point) could be used for a car magazine, or a camping magazine perhaps. Might be worth a try.
• A more simple manipulation of a skateboarder jumping off some steps or something similar - capture him/her flying through the air and then combine it all into one image - this would be good for a youth style magazine. Once again, not really my area of interest, and I can't think where I could take such photos easily.
• Front page of a Real Estate magazine - continue with the theme of houses and photograph the front of a house and combine different images - perhaps times of day, or simply remove any unwanted features and 'brighten' it all up to make it look posh and clean (remove blemishes etc), or add in a new sky for example? This is a possible one. I could start playing with some of the images I have taken for Assignment 5 as a starting point.

Resources:

• Practical Photoshop magazine often has some examples of manipulated images. I have some editions on my iPad which I will peruse some time for ideas. 
• Hotshoe, Photoworks and BJP are less focused on this area, so will be less useful, though they do always have other interesting articles, and sometimes discuss the ethical side of manipulation.

Finally:
This is a new area for me. I have never before tried to do any of the above ideas, so it's sure to be fun! I plan to do some more magazine reading to get some ideas and start trying things out. I'm sure my Photoshop skills will let me down, so I shall be doing some reading (and video watching) on CS6 also trying to make sure I know what more of the buttons do!