Photo Analysis

The main image of the cover is important as it depicts the theme of the entire magazine issue, for example for Eco Awareness Month, a nature or science magazine like National Geographic will probably have an environmental image as the main cover picture, as this goes hand in hand with the majority of the content. Also the main image of a magazine's cover roughly represents the audience, an example of this point is Men's Health which usually showcases muscular and fit men as the models, and a consumer of Men's Health magazine is most likely muscular and fit (or aspiring to be). I knew from the off that I wanted to produce a magazine for young women interested in pop so I chose a young female friend of mine, and I ordered a bunch of bright and trendy clothes like the ones which pop artists usually wear. I had my heart set on using the image to the left because I liked the colour's in it and I thought that the way light reflected off the jacket was very modern and contemporary. However I opted for the one to the right because I decided on a soft colour concept.

Behind Seah, the wall, the door, and her shadow were all unnecessary features so I selected them using the magic wand tool and deleted them, using photoshop. This made the canvas entirely transparent apart from the model. Then I made a new canvas and selected a pretty pink and blue hue and using a large but soft brush I created a gradient, and pasted the model into the centre. I think the cover definitely looks young and 'pop-ish', but not too young and childish which is something I wanted to make sure of because I find for mainstream youths within the 16-21 age quartile, there aren't many (affordable) magazines as such. I'm sure I've said this before but I blame the pop-ish style on the colours of the background and the outfit of Seah. So this is the final edited image:

Captivating imagery on contents pages is an intrinsic element because it provides a visual indication of what is inside the magazine and it helps break down the body of text which could look a bit intimidating or too formal left alone. I wanted bright and funky colours, so I was considering the two below on the left, however I chose the one on the right.

I chose the one on the right because the outfit is pastel and the model's facial expression and pose is interesting and different. I made a video s howing the editing process, and this was the finishing product:

This edit works well with the audience because polaroid camera's are certainly a revived device from the near past, with young adults enthusing over them due to Fuji Instax Mini Camera and so they're an interesting frame with a connotation that young people understand(, it should also be noted that it is unlikely a younger audience would know what polaroid camera is).

The editors letter didn't have any images apart from advertisement because I wanted to refine this page from clutter.

Double page spreads in magazines have a superiority sort of, compared to single page spreads, and so the audience expects great content and great imagery from double page spreads. Also double page spreads have to have the same theme as the cover or the magazine in general. Previously I had supported a soft colo ur palette through editing and the mis-en-scene c hoices, so for the double page spread I chose these two images:

I also made a video of the production of the double page spread, so until 2.26 this video shows how these images were edited:

When I was editing the pictures, I basically played around with various colours in spite of the fact I only intended to use two, these were all the combinations I made: