Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

The photography

The main image on the front page of my school magazine had little planning and technique as I didn't know how to capture a professional looking photograph whilst manipulating light, angles and facial expressions/direct address. My lack of knowledge ended up with a finished product that had no audience connection (no eye contact or immediate intimacy), it lacked focus/clarity. However the original concept of mise en scene was unique and represented my audience well as it gave off an urban vibe which replaced the lack of eye contact with the mise en scene setting to the audience.
The photograph fitted my genre perfectly as the two sixth former's are in uniform whilst holding the props of work and a mobile phone which represent the two different mind-sets of students in today's age, 'cool' and 'geek', everyone has both inside them and so the whole of my target audience can relate to situation in this photograph. The female model (me) had tied up hair without making to much effort which shows in my appearance, which compliment the learning attitude shown in the image.



In my music magazine the main image in my opinion is an extremely improved piece of photography as every element that can be manipulated in a photograph I took advantage of and I used to my full ability to represent the artists persona whilst also keeping it in my target audience interest zone whilst corresponding a theme with the personality and new album of the artist. I did this by creating the artists own identity that can be recognized by the audience and used to connect with them (his own style, background, personality). By having an understanding of the type of artist 'The creep' is, I could design the type of image I wanted to capture to present him to the audience in a way that would be representative of what the Creep is all about. The article is about the other side of the artist that the audience have never seen before, usually the Creep is quite hard faced and mysterious but now the Creep reveals his background and what events have changed him over his life, so I wanted to capture the two different sides of the Creep in my photo with a hint of vulnerability. I did this by using the skills i learnt in my research about the use of light and shadow effect and what they can signify.
The use of lighting in my image was made by directing a crystal flash light at the left side of the face from a side angle to create a shadow effect on the right side and would illuminate the green eye which corresponds with the iconic green color that is associated with the Creep , on my school magazine i had no lighting manipulation at all, just from natural daylight, so the improvement is evident.
I also edited this photo using Microsoft publisher as i increased the contrast of the image by 10% as anymore would of looked to fake and any less would of looked amateur. The research i did on music magazines made me realize the importance of a direct address, the direct eye contact with the audience automatically increases the intimacy between the audience and artist, mixed with the slight high angle of the shot makes the Creep look slightly out of his comfort zone so it creates vulnerability.
I am putting my vast photographic improvement down to the fact i watched you tube clips such as  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEcgySslGPA
I also practiced different shots and angles of a subject via an iPad which also showed me that the frame of the photograph is split up into 3 sections and 9 squares to create perfect composition and positioning.

Contents/double page photographs

with direct address ^

Different ways i learnt to edit my photographs

For my school magazine none of my photos were edited as i didn't understand how much a photograph can represent the whole magazine, so the photos in the school magazine looked amateur at best. However, the images i took for the creep were edited on Microsoft publisher as i tuned the contrast by +10%

  

The photographs i took for DJ Katy were edited on my iPhone 5, i took the photograph then added a musky filter too add a vintage tone, the filters also act as an airbrush tool to make the photo more professional. The filter adds more focus on my model as the light gets focused on her, this portrays the model as innocent as everything around her is darker. It looks as if she is oozing out purity.

I have also learnt how to select parts of a photograph and crop it using formats on publisher, also i realized the font i was using in my preliminary task on word was to popular and not original so i found a website called 'font space' where i found my own brand font that fitted in perfectly with how i wanted my brand font portrayed.