I have designed two different Print products. One being a newspaper article and the other being a magazine layout.
The newspaper was the easiest of the two to design, as I am a to more familiar with the layout of a newspaper, as they all have very similar structures, whereas magazines have a much wider variety of layouts and design possibilities.
I think the newspaper is very affective, and one of my classmates even asked if my images had been in the paper, because he saw a print out of it and thought it was a photocopy, or nice version of the newspaper print. I really like the simplicity of newspaper spreads and I feel that my newspaper spread has worked really well.
The magazine was a bit harder, but instead of creating a design first, I started with the two colours red and black, creating the banner at the top and header, I then looked at the scope and how i could add it into my spread, and decided the best way to do this was putting a photo behind it. I then decided which images I wanted as background images, then made them slightly transparent. Trying to fit the text in proved much harder than it did with the newspaper spread, as magazines normally have much more creative ways of displaying text.
I do feel that both my products look very affective and somewhat professional and I am happy with how they have both turned out.
As I have been looking at large spaces and places where people will gather, I thought I should look at miniature photography, although I probably won’t use this technique within my own photos, I may be able to learn something that will improve the quality of my images and my project.
Tilt–shift photography is the use of camera movements on small- and medium-format cameras, and sometimes specifically refers to the use of tilt for selective focus, often for simulating a miniature scene.
This kind of photography is quite intriguing, because there are some images where is difficult to tell if the image is of a real life scene or a model.
An artist named Serena Malyon took a very different approach to tilt-shift photography, taking paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and editing them through photoshop to create this tilt-shift affect. I think these images are a really good example of how this effect can really change an image and the way the viewer looks at them. This also forces the viewer to look at certain details more than others, and actually prevents other bits of the image to be seen clearly.
Some photographers go to great lengths to make effective tilt-shift images, for example, the art design group Skrekkogle made a giant 50 cents, with the scale 20:1, to make other objects look small. I quite like this idea, because rather than photographing whole models, or real life, they’ve decided to mix the two to make the images even more confusing for viewers.
Olivio Barbieri mentioned that this kind of photography is good for showing off impressive structures, without all the business of crowds and it allows you to see the big picture without having to see the whole story.
“I was a little bit tired of the idea of photography allowing you to see everything,” Barbieri says. “After 9/11 the world had become a little bit blurred because things that seemed impossible happened. My desire was to look at the city again.”
Although I don’t think I will be using this style of photography within my project, I may try to experiment with it on a couple of images as I really like the effect, and it could add a different angle to my photo book.
These images show the progression of what I did with my images on photoshop. I started out trying to create a magazine type article, and experimented with colour, black a white, drop shadows, opacity of images, sizing etc.
When I got to the second draft, I though about doing a 4 xA4 spread, as I had so many images, but then realised that the second page of images didn’t really add all that much to the story, so decided to leave it.
I then tried to experiment with having no drop shadows and harsher lines with the images. Which then progressed to me making a Newspaper article instead of a magazine article.
I then experimented a little with different image layouts and then reached a final decision on how the images would be played out and so I started adding the text.
This was the final newspaper design I came up with, and I personaly think it looks fairly professional. I designed it in the same way as our local newspaper, the Jersey Evening Post is designed, copying the header to make it look more realistic, and using similar fonts and layouts.
When I finished the newspaper, I went back and designed a magazine, although this time I decided to split the page in half and make a clear centre point, as though it was presented the same as it would be in a magazine. This helped a lot with making the design look professional.
Originally the background images and the quote in the bottom right were black and white, but then I decided to keep the colour theme with the banner in the top left, and so made them red, which, for the background images, made the writing easier to read.
These are the pictures I have decided to use for my picture story. I feel that these were the best images from the weekend and they best represent the whole weekend, with a range of different images.
Establishing shot of the camping conditions, which shows the ‘true scouting spiriti’ as scouts are thought of as always camping in tents etc.Environmental portrait showing the kind of weather, as well as the youth of the majority of the competitors. I feel this image really represents what it feels like to be sat there, preparing to shoot.This is a Person at work/establishing shot, except showing a group of people, rather than just one person, I really like this photo because it contrasts to a lot of the other images, which show mainly young people shooting, as these are all the adults and leaders, who also get given small opportunities to do some shooting as well. This image also the typical idea of gun culture. Grown men ‘playing around’ with guns, which although is a less common thing in England, and Jersey, is a very loud topic in places like America.A kind of Relationship shot showing the group from Jersey as Ii want to focus my story around Jersey scouts and experiences
Observed portrait, showing the groups, with the adults demonstrating how to use the guns, and the younger people watching and listening.
Person at work shot, again showing a young person shooting, although this is similar to the environmental portrait, they are also quite different and show different types of environments where the shooting takes place.This is one of the photos I am less likely to use, as its very similar to the observed portrait, although it shows some older people within the audience, and shows slightly more of the necks which represent scouting.This is another image which I am less likely to use, which is a fairly wide detail shot, but it shows the competition aspect of the weekend, and although we didn’t go to Bisley with the hopes of winning any of them, I still think it shows quite a big part of the weekend.
As i’m doing an article on scouting and the shooting competition we went to in October I thought I’d make up the kind of article we usually hear about when things happen in scouting. All quotes have been made up and whilst it may not be a proper article and is a little bit gibberish, it helps to make my picture stories look professional. I have written it as if it was a reporter writing it, rather than myself as I found that a lot easier to do. I will be making a Newspaper spread and a magazine spread so that I can experiment with both styles.
For the title of my piece, a couple people suggested I call it ‘Shooting the Scouts’ as its a bit funny, and also has two meanings, the first with the fact that its a shooting competition with the scouts, and the second,obviously not actually shooting scouts with a gun, but instead with my camera.
Shooting the Scouts
Scouting is a big part of Jersey life, especially with young people of the island. Trips away to do activities in foreign countries are memories that always stick in those young people minds.
Thats why the Jersey Explorer Scouts try to go on as many trips as they can, having had a group of young people come back from the
back from the World Scout Jamboreee in Japan in August, they took a group of 9 young people to a Scout Shooting competition in England.
“We think it’s very important for the young people within our organisation to get the best experiences they can” says Greg Ruellen, the leader who was in charge of these young people. “These experiences are crucial for young people as it allows them to become more independent and see life outside of Jersey”.The Jersey Scout Assosiation don’t currently have a shooting group, so in comparison to some of the cometitors, scouts who are part of a group who practice shooting on a regular basis, the Explorer scouts representing Jersey, most of whom have only practiced shooting once or twice, were very under-experienced in comparison. Not that this bothered them in the slightest.
“None of us go with the aim to win anything, we have a Jersey trophy, which we give at the airport when we get back, for whoever did the best out of us, but we mainly just go because it’s a fun, social weekend, and we get to meet other scouts, explorers and leaders from other places, which is a big part of what scouting really is.” says Sammie Pitter (17), one of the Explorer scouts who went to the shooting competition.
It’s clear to see that these experiences help to give these young people a sense of maturity and responsibility, and they also help to give the parents of these young people a weekend to themselves.
The Explorers also have some other exciting experiences for their young people in the future, with a trip to Italy next summer, and the hope of a trip to hike Kilimanjaro in 2017, these young people have a lot to look forward to, and a lot of great memories they’ll come out with at the end of it all. Not to mention the life long friends they’ll have made in the process. “We couldn’t do it without all the effort our leaders put it, and it so we feel its really important to thank them for everything”.
Picture stories are often used for photojournalism and documentary photography as they allow pictures and words to be mixed together to make the story more visually interesting to make people want to read the article.
The most common images used in picture stories are:
– Person at Work, quite literally, a person at work, showing context of the work they’re doing
– Relationship Shot, normally showing the relationship between a couple of people or a person and a thing.
Photo by Dorothea Lange on Migrant Farm Families
– Establishing Shot, shows context and establishes the setting or what is happening in the story.
– Detail shot, shows a detail of a situation, like what someones holding, or a detail of the environment.
Photo by Brandon Stanton from his work on Humans of New York
– Environmental Portrait, a shot of a person or a few people in the environment which hold the meaning for the story.
Photo by Brandon Stanton from his work on Humans of New York
– Formal Portrait
– Observed Portrait, taking photos without the subject aware that you’re there.
Photo by Brandon Stanton from his work on Humans of New York
To be able to understand how to make an effective photo story to display my photographs I am going to analyse some existing photo stories and see what I think does and doesn’t work well. First i’ll look at magazine photo stories.
From looking at and comparing these there photo stories, the first thing that I notice particularly is the type of font used for these articles is mainly san-serif.
The last two examples use serif fonts for their titles, but all three use sans serif fonts for the rest of their text. This is because it looks smart and modern and is easy to read, hardly any magazines use cursive fonts either because they’re difficult to read and look very messy and unprofessional.
As the first article is more of a timeline of events, theres no particular establishing shot, because theres no one location of the story they’re trying to get across. The second magazine’s establishing shot , whilst isn’t the biggest image, is still a pretty big photo, so although it isn’t the main focus of the story, it still gives across information to the viewer. The last article uses and environmental portrait as an establishing shot. It shows all the people involved and an idea of the location of this story.
All three of these articles have four images within a double page spread and quite a small portion of text to go along with them. Although these seem to be the most formal types of articles, others may have one main image as the background, and bigger, bolder text overlapping images etc, which is quite common within music magazines, which tend to have a sense of high energy, often to capture the energy of the artists of the concerts and festivals they’re reviewing and writing about.
Some quotes (if the subjects of the story have been interviewed) which represent what the story is about in a few words tend to be bolder and larger than the rest of the text, they’re sometimes quite unusual quotes, to make the viewer want to read the rest of the article so they can find out the context of which they said that sentence.
“Street photography is photography that features the chance encounters and random accidents within public places. Street photography does not necessitate the presence of a street or even the urban environment.”
Nils Jorgensen is a good example of Street photography, although quite humorous street photography. His photos, although appear like they might be staged, are mostly spur of the moment images where he’s seen something happening at the perfect moment to take a photo, exactly like Documentary Photography, except instead of focusing on political issues or ‘newsworthy’ subjects, he has chosen to try and take more humorous photos among the public.
Some of his images are more ‘artsy’ photos, but the majority seem to show either something unusual, that doesn’t normally happen, or photos taken at just the right moment to be funny.
The way he takes his photos is similar to the way that I have been taking photos for my ‘Gatherings’ project, the majority of the time I don’t go out know exactly what and where i’ll be taking photos, but I take my camera and if I see a moment or place worth photographing, i’ll take a photo. Jorgensen doesn’t do a whole ‘photo shoot’ where everything is planned and he has organised people to be there etc, he just waits for the right moment and captures what is naturally happening around him.
Another photographer who takes this style of images is Todd Gross. Again, he goes into the public and when he see’s something interesting happening, he photographs it.
I think this style of photography really intrigues me because a lot of the time, street photography and photojournalism/documentary photography is used to show all the bad stuff happening, fights, police, gun violence, political issues, but this style of street photography is used to make people smile about all the little coincidences or funny moments happening everywhere, and it reminds you that not everything that is worth photographing and reporting has to be serious.
This kind of photography also reminded me of Andreas Gursky, he takes very large scale images, but then focuses in on individual things happening within the image, for example with this large image of a swimming pool, he cropped down to point out all the individual things going on in a situation, which you may not ordinarily notice when looking at the photograph as a whole, whilst it may not be humorous as such, it shows all the different things all happening at the same time, like little fights in the pool or an intimate moment between certain people.
Some of the gatherings I want to take will be in Public spaces, and in some cases on public transport, namely the buses. When doing some research on Street photography I came across Nick Turpin, over three winters he used the dark evenings to discretely photograph the top decks of the london double decker buses. About his own work he said
“the pictures reveal intimate moments of commuters journeys between work and home, a strange lost time that they fill by reading, sleeping, staring, thinking and engaged with their tablets and phones” – Nick Turpin
I personally really like these images because of the blurriness and distortion of them. I love the way the smudges and drips and steam on the glass, it gives the same effect as when people overlay images of textures, like writing or trees to add more depth to the image or make it seem weathered.
Without even having to use an overlay like this, Turpin’s images have this kind of texture.
Because of this texture the people are mostly clear but their surroundings are very blurred and just appear as colour, which is how it tends to feel when you’re sat on a bus, trying to ignore the people around you.
“People in transit tend to adopt a small temporary territory, their seat, their bit of window, their half of the arm rest and they diligently ignore those around them in the hope of being themselves ignored. Words are not spoken, eye contact is not made. You will not see these people again, emotional investment is considered pointless.” – Nick Turpin
The distortion means you can’t see every detail of the person perfectly, again like if you were on the bus yourself, you may remember the colour of someones hair who was sat in front of you, or what book someone was reading, but you never pay full attention to every detail of any particular person, and in these photos, although you are being almost forced to study what the person looks like and is doing, you can’t fully, because of the blur.
Although I am particularly intrigued by these photos, there are other photographers who have done transport photography, (mentioned by Turpin himself on his own blog), but they have all adopted their own style/way of framing their images, with Turpin, he frames the image around the window, similarly, so did photographer John Schabel. He took the images from the end of an airport runway using a 500mm reflex lens with a 2x teleconverter lens, without anyone’s permission, the grainy images show the passengers in their thought before the plane takes off.
He frames the people within the plane window,which focuses the viewer in on the small and centred ‘action’ of the image. Some of the images, like with Turpin, have rain and distortion, which only adds more mystery to the image.
Another photographer who did transport photography, but looking at it from a completely different angle is Christophe Agou. He took a closer and more personal approach to transport photography with no window between him and his subjects. Whilst they still don’t seem to realise that they are being photographed and so are still shown in they own mental bubble.
I find this style of photography really interesting as well, because of how personal the images feel. I want to try and take photos of gatherings and public places, but I want to try and remove the personal-ness. Partly because its very hard to take up close and personal images without people noticing, and also because I want to show of the places, not so much the people within the places, but I may experiment with me personal images of people in public places, and see how they could fit into the photo book I plan on making when i’ve gathered all the images.
There are certain boundaries that define what photojournalism is. With documentary photography, the photographers have to be moral and stick to the ‘Code of Ethics’. Whilst not law, they are generally the rules people would abide by just going on moral instinct.
Documentary Photography is meant to be an honest representation of what is happening in the world, it’s meant to document it, and so dishonest photojournalism, whilst may be believed by some, is not proper photojournalism. They are meant to be impartial on situations, not showing a biased view, but the whole view of a situation.
In a way everyone sets the standards of Photojournalism, because we all have our own choices of what is and isn’t morally right or wrong.
The main, or most important points from this code of ethics for me are (to simplify the text below from NPPA):
Accuracy in representation;
Being complete and providing context;
Avoid Stereotyping;
Treating ALL subjects with respect;
Not manipulating images to alter the viewers perception of the image;
Not paying sources;
Not accepting compensation from sources;
Avoiding political involvements;
Being unobtrusive.
CODE OF ETHICS
(https://nppa.org/code_of_ethics)
Beaccurateand comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work to avoid presenting one’s own biases in the work.
Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime or tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an overriding and justifiable need to see.
While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to, alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images’ content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in any way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for information or participation.
Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek to influence coverage.
Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.
Ideally, visual journalists should:
Strive to ensure that the public’s business is conducted in public. Defend the rights of access for all journalists.
Think proactively, as a student of psychology, sociology, politics and art to develop a unique vision and presentation. Work with a voracious appetite for current events and contemporary visual media.
Strive for total and unrestricted access to subjects, recommend alternatives to shallow or rushed opportunities, seek a diversity of viewpoints, and work to show unpopular or unnoticed points of view.
Avoid political, civic and business involvements or other employment that compromise or give the appearance of compromising one’s own journalistic independence.
Strive to be unobtrusive and humble in dealing with subjects.
Respect the integrity of the photographic moment.
Strive by example and influence to maintain the spirit and high standards expressed in this code. When confronted with situations in which the proper action is not clear, seek the counsel of those who exhibit the highest standards of the profession. Visual journalists should continuously study their craft and the ethics that guide it.
One example of not abiding to the code of ethics is Giovanni Trioli.
Giovanni Trioli entered the World Press Photo awards, and won. However he was later revoked this award after controversy over some of the images.
One of the photographs that was part of a winning package at the World Press Photo awards. This image, and a few others came under scrutiny over whether they broke contest rules.
“The World Press Photo Contest must be based on trust in the photographers who enter their work and in their professional ethics,” Lars Boering, the managing director of World Press Photo, said in a statement on Wednesday. “We now have a clear case of misleading information and this changes the way the story is perceived. A rule has now been broken, and a line has been crossed.”
Some of the photos, for example the one above with the intimate scene within the car, were staged photos, (“staging is defined as something that would not have happened without the photographer’s involvement.”) which goes against the rules, as they are meant to be Contemporary Issues, photographed in a photojournalistic way, following the code of ethics etc.
“Mr. Troilo had photographed his cousin having sex with a woman in the back of a car, using a remote-control flash to illuminate the steamy back seat. By putting a flash in the car, critics had said, Mr. Troilo effectively staged the photo, violating the rules of the contest.”
It also went under scrutiny as to whether it violated the privacy of those in the images, but Trioli had said “This is not a stolen photo of a couple caught unawares” that he followed his cousin on a night when his cousin had planned to have sex and that he had his cousin’s consent.
“The decision to rescind the award came a day after a leading photojournalism festival, Visa Pour L’Image, said it would not show any World Press Photos this year to protest what it said were staged photos.”
“If they stand by what they say, that you cannot stage events in photojournalism, then this set of pictures should be disqualified.”Greg Marinovich, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer from South Africa who has served on the World Press Photo jury twice.
On the weekend I went to a shooting competition in England and so I thought it would be a good opportunity to take photos as the shooting community is very big and I knew there would be lots of people there. As we were flying there I was also able to get some more photos at the airport, which this time was Gatwick (bigger than the last one I went to).
I then went through and have picked the best images from the weekend, some are of big gatherings, empty places, close ups on one person, or just of my friends who were on the trip with me. Although there’s still quite a lot of images now, I will hopefully narrow it down more for when I create my picture story.
I really like this image because of the focus, and also partly because of how real it feels, I think that it shows perfectly what it’s like to be sat there, preparing for Field target when its cold and a bit damp. The use of thirds works really well too, because it allows you to see the person and their body expression, but still allows you to see the context of where he is. I also think the perspective within the image works well, as the likes are all straight and show the perspective of the field, with the lines of tape on the floor all going in towards the centre, it directs the viewers eye to the vanishing point, which is in the top centre of the image. The gun and the tin of pellets are to the right of the shooter, and so framing the image like this further represents what it’s like to be sat there. As most people are right handed, they’re focusing more heavily on whats happening on the right side of their body. Having the gun and pellets in the very centre of the image highlights where the image was taken and what was occurring at the time.
This is another of my favourite images from the weekend. I like this image because it represents what most people think of with gun culture, old men with guns, except here its controlled, unlike the gun culture of America. The composition is good as well, with all the men in the lower right two thirds, and all the straight lines around give the image perspective, and as the surroundings are all quite brown and boring, it means the men in the centre are the focus of the image and what the viewer will look at first.
These images where my favourites in terms of the actual shooting, but there were other images I took whilst I was away which apply more to gatherings and community, and so I will be able to use these later when I make a photo book on Gatherings.
