Photoshoot Planning

 My planning for my photoshoot started by doing some quick sketches of my initial ideas and writing the cover lines and content for my contents pages. From here, I started to develop my ideas of how my images would relate to the content of the magazine and looked at finding locations for my photoshoots.

 

I had a good idea of what I wanted to create for my first cover (issue 2) and contents page but less of an idea for my second (issue 1). I decided to go out and take some photos in the countryside as that is what is near me, to see if I could get any inspiration for the kind of photos I wanted to take.

I wanted to make sure that the mise-en-scene I used helped to create an obvious representation of a farmer after deciding on the story that I was going to have on my cover. I thought that using a celebrity’s likeness would help it appeal to the target audience more and allow me to include an older social group even though the magazine is targeted at 16–25-year-olds.  

I then had a look at other magazine front covers and contents pages, from the real-life genre as well as other genres that I could take design ideas from, such as fashion, beauty, and lifestyle magazines, that are a lot more visual focused and tend to appeal more to my target audience. I created a blogpost of my design inspiration and how that has influenced my choices of shots, locations, and lighting.

 

I then started shooting, taking test photos to see what sort of lighting and angles that I wanted to use, as well as going to my location at various times of day to see what the lighting would be like.

 

The first photoshoot I did was for my issue 2 cover page. I chose to take close up shots of my model’s head and shoulders against a blue block-colour background. She had bright and bold makeup to denote that she is glamorous and a pop star. I chose her as she is representative of the female audience that would read my magazine. I used white studio lighting to achieve a clear image with bright colours - which I practiced in natural lighting, but it didn’t give the same effect - and placed the camera at eye level with the subject, so that it gave the effect that the audience is looking directly at my model. I also chose to use the same format, but different mise-en-scene for taking one of the images for my website, changing the model’s hair and make-up and selecting a different background.

 

The simple, bright mise-en-scene for the shoot fits well with the brand I wanted to create for my magazine and allowed me to use my inspiration research to add graphic text to the cover in post-production, making it look eye catching to the target audience.

 

I then shot my second photoshoot, for issue 1 of my magazine outdoors in the countryside, which required me to use a slightly more medium shot in order to get the background that I wanted into the shot. It also required me to change my camera mode several times to adapt to the natural lighting. My model wore a checked shirt which is stereotypical of a farming lifestyle, and I made sure that the images included scenery of farm animals and fields. I also took a few other photos for my website using a similar technique.

I also shot some other photos to go on my website and on my contents pages, taking into consideration the stories that I had written for the contents pages. Using both the canon 70D camera I had used for my cover images and my smartphone to take pictures that I thought I could use for the contents pages when I did not have the camera with me. I took some images that were long and medium shots to make sure that I had a range of images and angles in various locations to represent the contents of my magazine.