When creating my photobook unfortunately all of my screenshots were deleted, I had previously recorded screengrabs of the progress I had made throughout the 2 days of my mock and the days leading up to the mock, however I am able to provide a walkthrough of the making of my book as best as possible. I have screenshots of my book when the images were firs placed inside and my final layout. I can attempt to explain my process and decisions made with the pictures I can find. In my photobook, I wanted to display my photographs in a way which was interactive and interesting to the viewer, I also wanted to produce images that shined light on certain elements which would usually go unnoticed and unhighlighted due to it being a controversial or ignored topic. I wanted my book to have a clear and planned out structure of a front cover, inside front cover, contents page, 1st magazine cover, 1st set of images, 2nd magazine cover, 2nd set of images, 3rd magazine cover, 3rd set of images, essay, back inside cover and back cover. I chose for my 3 sections to be placed in this clear and effective structure, so that my viewer can understand what is in front of them and what message I am trying to convey.

Mock Best Criteria:

Here is the best level of criteria I was referring to throughout my Mock in order to maintain which grade I was aiming for, this helped me when setting my goals and attempting to complete my work to the best quality and calibre I could for the best grade I could achieve.

Here is the categorisations of images I used when choosing which images to include in my photobook. I chose to have green labelled images displaying work I liked and would possibly like to include in my photobook, however these images may need improvements such as editing or cropping before being included in my book. I also created blue images which display images that I think need to be included in my book and are ‘basically perfect’ however, I had too many blue images for my book, so I had to decided on my ‘best of the best images’ and create a new category of purple images that I knew were being included in the book in order to easily identify them when including images.

First Front Cover Idea:

I first chose to have my front cover as a montage of 9 images using my 3 chosen models throughout this project, this was to show them expressing their natural personalities and how they express themselves. This was also to show a more natural and positive light onto women and show them being happy and content in their natural state. I also decided to pair this with my title of ‘Through His Eyes: Exploring Female Gender Stereotypes, however, after careful consideration me and my teacher decided that this front cover would not be effective for my book and is too ‘different’ and not suitable for displaying what my work inside the book is about, it also does not give the audience a taste of what is going to be inside the book as none of these images can be seen displayed in the book, we also decided that the font was too much of an old-fashioned vibe and did not fit with my aesthetic. I instead decided to include this image into the back of the book as an inside back to my back cover as a small overview of the book when the viewer comes to the end of the book, after reading my essay.

Second and Chosen Front cover:

I then decided to replace this image with this front cover which is one whole image which stretches over to the front and back cover and still incorporates my 3 chosen models, but also gives the audience a taster as to what is going to be inside the book, I feel this was the correct decision to make. I also decided to change the font to a more modern day and casual font for the title, to show an impression of when it was made and that although it has many elements including the past, it is focusing on the present day and the changes and positive elements which must develop in order to support women through both the media and in general life. This large title is also accompanied by a subheading at the bottom of ‘By Rosie Shaw’ as an indicator that this is my photobook, which is also in the same font.

BEFORE EDITING AND WORKING ON LAYOUT:

Here is the initial layout of images in my Adobe Lightroom, after creating a folder named ‘book’ in my Lightroom and compiling all the images I would like to use and doing some final editing on the images, I chose my final images I would like to use in my book, I then pressed the create book icon and it compiled these images into this order for my book. This initial order was messy and did not have a strong layout that I could use for my final book. So, on the second day of my exam, I chose to start editing these images to fit the book and creating my magazine covers to be included into the book.

Front Cover, Inside Front Cover, Inside Back Cover, Back Cover:

I chose to have this image as my front and back cover (as explained above) in order to have a high quality and strong photograph of my 3 models across a front and back cover spread as It is a strong image that helps the viewer to see what Is going to be inside the book and what kind of images they are going to see. I like this photo because it comes across as mysterious and interesting and will make the viewer want to see more. I feel the most interesting element to this photo is my models, but also the flowers around them and this feeling of femininity, gentleness and happiness that is radiating from this, however this is in contrast with a dark and mysterious background accompanied with light highlighting my 3 models from the background and helping them to stand out from this dark backdrop. For my inside front cover, I wanted to maintain a traditional white cover which appears in most books before introducing my contents page. For my inside back cover, I chose to include my initial idea for my front cover so that this cover did not go to waste and so that I had a final overview for my book, I feel this adds a final bit of interest for the viewer.

Contents Page:

I chose to have a contents page in my book/magazine as I felt without it my magazine may come across as jumbled up or confusing which is not the approach I wanted to have. I created this contents page on the first day of my exam using the Canva app, this app helped me to create 3 headings and 3 paragraphs accompanied by an images for each which are my front covers slightly smaller next to them so that It is clear what each front cover and photoshoot was about and why they are placed in this order. I feel this added a potentially more BOOK like feel instead of a MAGAZINE feel to my magazine, however, I feel that my magazine does have many book qualities and is a slight hybrid of both book and magazine styles. I really like my chosen layout for this book and I feel it added a more luxurious feel to the book which helps my book stick out from others as a clear walkthrough of contents is provided for my readers.

Cover 1:

I decided to have a bright red background for the blak page before the magazine cover and surrounding it. This helps for hr cover to stand out and also to indicate that this is the first section of the book and makes the reader interested to see the contents of the book. I also feel that the contrast in bright colours such as red and yellows used in the front cover, with the black and white images inside works well for the approach I wanted to go for of women and girls being exploited and it being covered up with bright flashy colours in order to conceal these secrets and deep meanings that producers do not want audiences to pick up on.

Photoshoot 1:

Here is a (low quality) insight to my first photoshoot images that I chose to include in my book and the specific layout I chose so that the images did not clash with each other, I feel this is least favourite photoshoot, although it is a good, strong start to my book, I feel the other photoshoots include stronger and more interesting images, however I do like these images and how they relate to Cindy Sherman’s work. I also chose these images to go first as this is the oldest style of images that I was inspired by.

Cover 2:

This second magazine cover I particularly like as I think it is the most realistic and really makes the viewer want to turn the page. I chose have a plain purple page and have this colour also as a background for this magazine cover. I created this magazine cover in Canva and feel that my colour choses display a seemingly light-hearted bright girls magazine for promoting fashion and beauty products.

Photoshoot 2:

I really like this middle section photoshoot for my book as I feel these are my highest quality images which I took in the school’s lighting studio. I also edited these images in Adobe Photoshop and added small products into my images alongside logos and captions such as ‘smell, attract better’ in order to display this hidden meaning of the urge to be attractive that pushes women and girls in this generation to be as pretty, attractive and appealing as they can be in order to ‘fit in’. I like the attention to lighting in this photoshoot and how images with e.g. a red product, displays a red light onto my model, or a product with a pink product, displays a pink light onto my model, I feel that this makes my photographs look more professional and visually pleasing for a viewer.

Cover 3:

This cover is my second favourite out of the entire book, I particularly like the colours and decoration associated with this front cover, however, I dislike the shade of brown chosen for the page alongside it and the background of the image. This is because of the darkness accompanied with the light colours of the cover. However, the heading of ‘self love’ is the same colour as this page which helps it tie into the theme of the cover, however I feel a more lighter and inviting shade would be less harsh on the eyes and create a more easy-going and light-hearted shade of cream, to still tie into the themes.

I really like this final section photoshoot for my book as I feel these are a more interesting, formal aspect to my work which displays Helmut Newton inspired images, I took these at a friends house and decided to use grand furniture and bright colours in order to display themes of setting and objects that Helmut Newton did also. I also chose to have similar costume for all my models which was long black/navy dresses which is an aspect I feel paid off in these images, I also used sunglasses on my models to seem more traditional and higher class. I feel the editing of these images also helped with making them look more striking and eye-catching like Helmut Newton’s work is. I like how there is a mix of black and white images with coloured images which help to tie in the other two photoshoots as one was all black and white images and the other was all colour images. I feel these more dramatic and tableaux style images is a good end to my book and differ very much from my second photoshoot and its modern twist as this photoshoot focuses more on previous work by famous photographers like Helmut Newton.

In my final pages of my book, I have displayed my essay. I chose to have 1 blank white page separating this essay from my photographs to show that the photoshoot has ended and the essay has begun. My title of ‘Through His Eyes: Exploring Femininity and Gender Stereotypes- is displayed largely at the beginning of the essay at the top of the page to display that it is my essay. I used headings for each paragraph to indicate what it is about and I also used photographs of both photographers work such as Cindy Sherman and Helmut Newton, and also my own images to show examples of images I have made in response to these photographers, I also included my bibliography in my essay to show all the references I used throughout my essay such as quotes and information from the internet and websites. I really like how my essay was displayed and I feel that the layout matches the contents page which is a nice touch to my book and shows a theme throughout. Here is an example of how my layout of my essay is similar to my contents page.

AFTER EDITING: Here is a full final layout for my photobook.

Contact sheets

Best images

Here are two of my favourite images as I feel they both have really good composition and really capture the emotions of the images rather then just what is shown it really brings out the deeper meaning of the storyline.

EDIT 1

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

I took the original image and changed it into black and white to create a more dramatic and moody atmosphere. By removing the colour, I tried to emphasize the shadows and contrasts, which helped in adding a sense of darkness and confusion. Through my editing, I enhanced these elements to give the image an intense, almost unsettling feel, giving a sense of uncertainty and confusion.

Here are the slight changes I made to the image.

EDIT 2

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

Again here, I took a different image and changed it to black and white to give off a more ominous and mysterious mood. By taking away the colour, I highlighted the contrasts and shadows, which expressed the sense of unease. Through some extra editing, I amplified these dark elements to create a feeling of uncertainty, adding a dramatic and intense effect to the image. I also added a blur on the images to show the confusion and representing being lost.

Virtual copy

Created a double to keep the original image and still be able to edit and play with the copy.

Edit 3

lightroom editing

Edit 4

Lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

Edit 5

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

Edit 6

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

edit 7

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

edit 8

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

edit 9

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

edit 10

lightroom editing

Here is the original image ^

edit 11

lightroom editing

edit 12

lightroom editing

edit 13

lightroom editing

edit 14

lightroom editing

Writing page for the photobook

Font : perpetua tilting mt

Narrative –

• 3 words – My faith journey.
• A sentence – I want to represent my journey to finding my faith and the emotions that come with it.
• A paragraph – I would really like to use documentary photography to represent in detail the journey of finding my faith using hidden messages and drawings to show the emotions I had felt in specific moments.

My Photobook Design

• How you want your book to look and feel – I want my book to look ominous and eye catching, something that would really grab the readers attention and make them want to properly look through and understand the stories behind my images. To make this happen I am planning on using one of my darker images to give that feel. I would like it to feel somewhat lightweight with a nice smooth feel to it.

• Paper and ink – I am going to be using black & white images in the first half of the photobook therefore I wanted the paper to be black to make sure the photos looked well and fit the book. for those black pages I used white text to make sure it was visible. However for the second half of the photobook, it was all light images so I used white paper this was also representing the light at the end of darkness for these pages I used black text to make it stand out.

• Format, size and orientation – With the sizing of my images, every image within the photobook was A4 and filled the whole page. The orientation of all images within the book were portrait images.

• Binding and cover – For my photobook I decided on a hard cover I chose this as for me it seemed like the best fit and it was the most aesthetically pleasing. For the actual look of the cover I had used an image which I created to represent my faith and made it an image wrap going around the whole cover to create a mysterious effect so that it draws the readers attention closer and making them want to open the book and look through it.

• Title

For the title I had a few ideas, I originally came up with calling it “chosen” I had originally decided on this as it was relevant to the fact that I feel chosen by God. However I then also decided that I also liked the name “ichthus” This one has a lot of meaning, in Greek this word means ‘fish of Jesus’. It has more hidden meaning than just that, each letter stands for something individually. the overall meaning is ‘Jesus Christ Son Of God Saviour’ I felt this would have been a really good title for my photobook as it represents what my photobook was about and the story behind it. In the end I decided to call it ‘Captured by the Spirit’, I decided on this as it not only incorporates the fact I captured the images with my camera but also the fact that the Holy Spirit had entered me almost as if it was representing the fact it captured my life. I really liked the fact it was representing two things at once, one being the literal camera capture of photographs and the other being the metaphorical capture of being taken by the faith.

• Editing and sequencing – for my images I am going to edit them according to which side of the photobook they are going in, for the first half of the photobook the images are going to be in black & white to represent the confusion and uncertainty of life before finding faith so for these images I will edit them with a higher contrast, less whites and emphasizing the blacks and darker parts of the images whilst having the black & white filter on them. Whereas for the second half of the images they will not have a black and white filter they will have a bright enlightening filter (N7) representing the light, peace and joy life brings after finding faith.

• Images and text – For my images I have half and half to create the storyline, the first half of the photobook I have made all of the images black & white to represent the darkness of being lost before finding faith. Then the second half of the images in the photobook were in full colour with a lot of calming and cool colours to represent the joys and peace after finding faith and the feelings it brings with it. For my photobook I have decided to use a bible verse as a quote every once in a while throughout the photobook.

The whole idea :

For my personal study project I have chosen to explore the theme of faith and religion through documentary photography. As I had grown up in a completely atheist household finding my way in faith is very special to me and has been an incredible journey as it’s one I’ve had to navigate by myself. Within this project I aim to present my journey with faith and how it has changed my life but to also represent how much things can change and the emotions surrounding these changes before and during my walk of faith. I intend to create a series of both landscape and portrait images of both myself and anything to do with the events in which I attend as a Christian.

Photoshoot one & two –

Concept –

For my first photoshoot I want to explore the feeling of being lost in the dark and confused while trying to find my way before finding my faith. To capture this I plan on using a low-light setting perhaps on a day when its quite gloomy, foggy and I would go to a forest or somewhere dark to show the confusion and lost emotions. Ill experiment with shadows and dramatic contrasts to create a sense of isolation and searching. This photoshoot will represent the emotional struggle and uncertainty before finding clarity and faith.

Location –

I went around the Island to different Locations, some of the images were taken on St Brelades beach while others were taken at St Peters reservoir and I had even taken some near my house and some from random nature walks on the island.

Equipment –

• camera
• tripod
• clothing to change into
• cross necklace
• bible

Artist reference for this shoot –

• Henri-Cartier Bresson
• Arnold Newman

Here are my final images that I will be printing and placing on a board to present my Images. I chose these images as I think they are some of my strongest and there is a lot of variety. I will be printing the black and white studio photos in A3 and the rest in A5.

Evaluation

Overall, I believe that my personal study on the difficulties of being an athlete was successful. I was able to use my knowledge of different portrait lighting from past areas of study , especially with Rembrandt lighting, to create many interesting shots in the studio. Manipulating light also bring attention to detail in areas of the photograph that I would like, further enhancing the final images from the studio. Outside of the studio, I believe my photoshoots with Tony helped add a story to my personal study, creating a deeper meaning to it all. It also helped me form a photo book that wasn’t bland and had some story to it. However, I only had a limited number of photos to use with tony in it so next time I will improve by taking more photoshoots, as well as having more of a variety of images to chose from, making it easier to create a meaningful photobook. My documentary photos on the court where my some of my strongest, as I wasn’t afraid to get close to the side court. But ,unfortunately, my photos where saving as a compressed format in the camera, making a lot of them unusable for the photobook. Edited photos was also slightly lacking in my personal study since It was difficult to find artist reference for a lot of my documentary photos on the court. I also believe I could of done more photoshoots, especially with some relating to Tom Wood, an artist i rigorously analysis and didn’t use as much as I originally planned.

Despite these setbacks, my in-depth research of a wide variety of photographers, as well as photographic methods helped me create a good starting base to create a well formulated personal study.

Creating a Virtual Gallery.

My Chosen Gallery Image:

When creating my virtual gallery I like to first begin with choosing a good, strong empty gallery image which will display my images to their best quality and will look good whilst being displayed, I like to have a white wall image which shows light onto the pictures as if they are in a real gallery, whilst being displayed on black canvases.

My Chosen Images:

I then chose my best images from my first photoshoot that I wanted to be displayed in order to show off my work in the best way possible and show the best images from this shoot to be put into a virtual gallery. I chose these 4 images specifically as I feel this amount of pictures fitted the layout of my chosen virtual gallery the most.

Creating Virtual Gallery:

I first started by importing a virtual gallery into Adobe Photoshop and positioned it to fit the shape well. I then imported my 5 images and fitted them to the best scale on these evenly sized picture frames. I quite like how the images do not completely fi the frames as it shows each image is different and displays them all in a way that is not too boring on the eye and stays interesting and different when viewing each different picture.

Shadows and Perspectives:

For this specific chosen empty gallery image, I did not have to work on my chosen perspectives such as tilting them as if they are on e.g. a side-on wall facing inwards, as all 5 images are facing forwards. This means that instead I had to focus on the shadows that would occur if these images were to be on a wall. For this i used the drop shadow icon. To achieve this..

I first double clicked my chosen layer which contained the image I wanted to create a shadow for first…

Then appears the layer style tool bar which allows me to add my drop shadow my clicking the ‘drop shadow’ icon at the bottom.

I am then able to choose the opacity, distance, spread, size and angle in which I want my shadow to be. I need my shadow to be below the images as this is the perspective that is created when an image is presented on a wall facing forwards.

Here is my final first outcome of a virtual gallery of my images, feel this is a good first virtual gallery displaying 5 images from the first section of my book. This is the photoshoot is used to represent a 1960’s/1970’s women’s fashion and lifestyle magazine which is used to influence the styles and choices day-to-day, of women that were living during this period.

My Next Virtual Gallery.

My Chosen Images.

These are my 4 chosen images for my virtual gallery, I feel these images are the strongest from the second section of my magazine which is a photoshoot dedicated to my modern day girls magazine section of my magazine. This section is demonstrating a magazine targeted at teenage girls and younger adults and the unrealistic beauty standards that are forced upon them. I decided to create my virtual gallery on Artsteps this time, in order to create more variety in my virtual galleries and show different methods of presenting my work. I found using Artsteps particularly confusing, but after getting an understanding of how it works, I was able to figure out the instructions and way to create this gallery.

My Final Outcome:

My Next Virtual Gallery.

My Chosen Images.

These are my 5 chosen images for my virtual gallery, I feel these images are the strongest from the third and final section of my magazine which is a photoshoot dedicated to my modern day women’s magazine section of my magazine. This section is demonstrating a magazine targeted at women who may be transitioning into older age, or who may just be struggling with body image. It is a magazine which is highlighting the unrealistic beauty standards that are forced upon them in today’s age and how they are toxic and must be overcome. I also used Artsteps again for this virtual gallery in order to gain more confidence with using the software, for future purposes, such as my exam.

My Final Outcome:

Overall, I feel this process of creating virtual galleries has been successful for trying out new software and attempting to display my images in the best way possible. However, overall I feel I prefer to edit, input and display my images in Adobe Photoshop, and I feel for my exam work, this will be the best way possible to create my virtual galleries, although I think these three galleries have been mostly successful.

Throughout my gallery I presented it with similarties to my final photobook but also a little different I added all similar images together and not my images just what I would say our my best. This is the first part of my virtual gallery, I really liked these photos but the two of the people in the car without the writing werent my favourite, i liked that they showed inside of teenage life and laughing a different side of what some people might see the fun with being a teenager and with your friends. the distraction from other things. The over photos are just of the weather to even give a juxstaposing affect and Pathetic fallacy, even though the images seem to be happy and rain reflect sadness its because even though they are happy there is the dark truth inside of how they really feel and you cant always get away from it.

Again all these images have a similar relavance to eachother, as rhey are all the same guy, it goes well together even though i did not present it like this in the book, because as you can see its mainly his back turned or hiding his face in usally dark or sad places, only really one not is the skating photo this demonstrates more of the depressed and sad side of being a teenager, and shows teir escape, with doig certain activites even if that incudes walking alone at night, just to get air and escape. The arge photo next to all the images,of his face is a symbolic resembolince that life is tiring and drags on sometimes, yes life is actually eautful but just bein a teenager isnot an easy aspect but fight through it. I like these imaes because i think they show skills ofphotography especially the one of his face with the lighting, i also think the affect fromall of them is powerful and somehow says a lot even in a silent photograph.

This was more of my romantic side, another side of teeage life i think is overlooked, how watching the love in our lives be twisted by who we see like our parents or social media, but a usual quote iven to teenager is that ‘you dont know what love is your too young’ or ‘its never going to last’ and i think thats not true and there is another side to it sometmes you can find love and jst beause we are young doesnt mean that we dont know what ove is or that it doesnt exist, of course there are twisted and cmplicated sides to it but it still exisits in our lives. i like how these images correspond and contradict with eachogher, showing the loving side and the complicated sides, things even we worry about at our age even though we shouldnt have to.

This area of my gallery is of school, the rough effort side of school and what actually goes on. I especially like the two photosof the messy desk, i like the ffect of a spotlight on the photos almost like its a crime scene or a scary movie, which demonstates what it is, its a crime scene of the mess school makes all the work andeffort teenagers and students put into school.

This was the last few photos which I also really liked as they show a darker side to teenage life and also the fact that not all teenager have the easy life of school until their 18 and some have to cut it short and head straight into work to support their families lives and grow up a little too quickly, mainly i wanted to demonstarte all sorts of sides from what teenage life is like for everyone best i can. I also just genuinly really liked these photos as i think they give apowerful affect, i think the lighting on his face isnt the absoloute best but i like how they all link together.

My photo book its based on youth culture and identity. For this I took pictures at different parties and events that I went to and took snapshot images of my friends enjoying themselves and being authentic at these events. The story of my phonebooks starts off at a party and throughout these parties are separated with a filler image of one of my friends being hungover and drunks after the party by themselves. The first filler image however starts off with me and my friend having fun in a car symbolising that these parties and events are fun at first but continuing throughout the book the filler images are darker and makes you stop romanticising these parties. My books final images is a girl using a vape outside her window, this image is last in the book because it shows the aftermath of all the parties and that is isn’t fun when you wake up in the morning and it looks like she is thinking and regretting the night before.

My virtual gallery includes my favourite images of my nightlife photos. Overall, I think my favourite images are the far left and right ones. These two images I think go well together and I like the way they are presented in my photo book, as I used them twice, on the front cover and then in the book. The middle image is in the middle because its the biggest image of them all and also is the image with the most going on, you can see a live band in the background and also the girl holding hands dancing with another, It shows what my book represents.