Photo shoot

Friday the 27th- Photo shoot

On Friday the 27th we shot some photos of objects that we would like to do in our final shoot. We had a full shoot set up in one of our classrooms of where we had a white background set out for the background of our images, an interfit exiso flash light at 150 watt with a soft box over to defuse the light so that it would not be so harsh in our image. We also had a circular lastolight silver reflection, which bounced more light onto the image from the flash light to create brightness in the image, we also used pieces of plain white cards to reflect more light on the front and back of the image.
  As we started to take some images, we realized they wasn't all that good and so we have a move about of the white card and the reflector to see if we could create a better image. Fortunately this worked, and we got some really great images out of this photo shoot. One of my favorite images was of my Pandora ring of which I brought in the box of to capture an image, to create an advertisement. 

Here is my image from the photo shoot. In our next lesson on Monday the 30th, our tutor put our images onto Drop box so that we could view them quickly and easily. I decided which images I wanted to use to create my draft advertisements, to create some ideas and concepts for my final advertisement which I will create later on in the year. I feel this photo shoot really helped me into gaining knowledge on what I need to know for my final piece, and these draft advertisements would also be a massive help.

Monday the 30th - Photo shop 

  After making a choice on which images I liked best and which would be best to use for my advertisements, I then started to create my advertisements using photo shop. I found this quite easy as I am very familiar with Photoshop from my previous year of Photojournalism and Media Studies. I started by putting my image into Photoshop and cropped around it to delete the white background, and placed it with it own layer. After doing this I opened up and international sheet of colour A4 and placed my Pandora box layer onto this background, I wanted to almost blur the inside of the box into the background to make the sparkles of this ring stand out more. I did this by painting the background black with the Paint Bucket Tool, and burn tool to make the inside of the box darker and blend in with the background. However, after doing this the 'Pandora' sign inside the box lost it's colour and the outside of the box hand created a blue tinge to itself and so I need to fix this. Firstly, I just went over the writing with the dodge tool to brighten it up which worked really well and made the writing stand out. Secondly, I decided I would also do this for the top of the box which had turned a blueish colour due to the editing of contrast etc., however I could not just this by going over it with the dodge tool as it may of affected the background. And so, instead I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to select the area I wanted to change and then used the dodge tool to brighten up the area, this kept the background nice and neat and no lighten was added on to it. I was really happy with the result of my editing skills, and now all I needed to do was to add the logo of Pandora on to the advertisement. After doing this, I had finished my advertisement, here is the end result. 

I am really happy with my first finished draft advertisement, I think the black and the white contrast to create a well eye catching advert but not so much that the sparkles of the ring do not stand out. I think I could of changed a few things like the writing of the logo should match the colour of the box yet it doesn't do this very well, however I will known this for the next time. 

After creating my first advertisment, I moved on to planning on how to make the first. I decided that I would next edit the photo I took of the Lynx deodorant can and create an advertisement for the brand.

 After looking threw the image I had taken, again on Drop box, it allowed me to then look at all the images on their own before making a decision of which I would pick. Here is the image I chose to use to create my advertisement on men's lynx aftershave. I choose this particular picture because I felt that the highlights on the can itself would allow a bright image that would stand out to the audience. I realized that there is a few shadows, but these work well on the left hand side, yet not so much on the right hand side. However, this does no matter as I have drafted a plan that I will use the image as the filler on the font I use. By doing this, I do not need the background of the image in, as I will just fill the font with the can itself. My initial plan was to then to put an African themed background the text, which would overall create my advertisement. This would allow the audience to clearly see that it is Lynx Africa which is being advertised, and they would be able to see the obvious link of the Africa logo in the can and the African themed background. 

However, after putting together my advertisement in Photoshop, it didn't really go to plan and I am not really happy with the final piece. Despite this, I decided I would put it on to my blog so that I can look back and realize what went wrong and what I shouldn't of done, hopefully this will help me with my final advertisement which I will be doing in a few weeks. Here is the final Lynx advert. 

I feel that this advertisement could of been a lot better, yet it had still helped me into my knowledge of advertisement and will help in the future when I come to look back to it. I firstly put the deodorant can image into Photoshop and edited out the white background. I then opened another new page, with international white A4 paper, I selected the font I want to use within my advert and then filled this text by dragging my image of the can over the top of this. I then adjusted the contrast and brightness, so that the 'L' and the 'A' of my font would stand out more, catching the eyes of the viewers, I feel this went well however the contrast and brightness needed to mix in more to the middle and the get more darker towards to right of the font. After finishing adjusting my contrast and the font, I then found an image from Google to use as my background. I wanted an image of a sunset, to allow a sense of 'glow' to the writing'. I feel I have achieved this glow well, as the font almost sits on the trees etc. on the background, yet the sunset is perfectly allowing the font to appear with this glow, to express how if you wear this deodorant you make them 'glow'. I set my background to the right areas, allowing this glow of the font to really stand out, so that this meaning would get across then and make them want to buy the product. 

Finally, I decided to have a change from my inital ideas of fashion photography and moved onto the aspects of drinks advertising. After watching videos on these aspects, I felt confident with taking the image. We took an extremely clean coca-cola glass, to make sure they were no marks etc. to ruin the image. I placed the glass where I thought it would look best, with the lighting in the right place etc. and had a move about of the glass while taking photos of the glass, to make sure it was in the right place. Once 'the right place' for the glass was found, I then sprayed it with glycerine, which works just like a water spray to get little droplets on the glass however glycerine sticks to the glass, allowing them to stay on the glass for a long while. 

 Here is one of the image of which we took when practicing where to place our glass, which has glycerine on it. I feel that by doing this is allowed us to get better final images, as the glass was already in the right place and ready to capture pictures of. After placing the glass in the right place we then had to place the lighting and pieces of white card in the right place, to see where they needed to be. After deciding this we was ready to pour the coca-cola into the glass, and secondly then capture our images.

Here, is the image I chose to make my coca-cola advert with. I decided on this image because of the dark colors of the coke towards the bottom of the glass, which would contrast with a light background. Yet the dark colors work well with the large amount of bubbles and fizz which has appeared towards the top of the glass, as they two different textures almost even out in the glass. Also, I wanted to capture the glass pouring because I wanted to create an advert where the coke was pouring. After capturing this image, I felt very happy with the placement and lighting which I had used to capture the glass, and I felt the image would really well with what I wanted to edit on it in Photoshop, which would then create my advertisement. 

 I open my final image onto Photoshop, and cropped around the outside of the glass and the coke which we can see being poured into the glass. I then opened a new page, where I had opened an ice background, which I had found on Google images, on the page to place my coke glass on. I realized then that I needed to get the ice background inside of the glass where it still had the white background, and so I did this by cropping some of the ice background and duplicating the layer. I then placed this new layer underneath my coke glass, and reduced the opacity allowing the ice to look as if it behind the coke glass. I then got a coke glass of Google images which I placed in the top right hand corner, to then reflect with the placement of my image of the glass in the bottom left hand corner. By cloning the coke which was being poured out of the bottle, it allowed me to blend in the coke which appeared on my image, which evened out the look of the coke and matched the color of the coke which could be seen at the bottom of the glass in my image. With these two images placed correctly on the page, I then began to add my text. I looked up previous Coca-Cola adverts to see what the text had said on them, and then decided I would have a mixture. I found a re-make of the original coca-cola font on dafont.com and used this to write 'Coca-Cola' on my page, and then added the rest of my font. Here is my final Coca-Cola advertisement!