After learning the theoretical aspect of the various camera works such as the shot types, angles, composition and movements, I put it into practice by using an iPhone 13 camera.

Attached below are some of the photographs I took for this practice photoshoot. As this was my first attempt at handling the phone to take pictures while giving importance to technical elements, it can be seen in this photographs a lot of mistakes and instability when holding the camera etc.

Venue: Cafe Chocolattie

Models: My mother and sister

1. Two shot:

It is evident through this shot, that although the subjects are not conversing with each other that there is some sort of relationship between them. The two shot not only establishes relationship but I think it gives additional information about the situation. Here it is shown that the subjects are going through the menu trying to pick their orders.

2. Establishing shot:

I focused more on the composition when taking these shots. The coffee shop I took these shots at, had really beautiful lighting that helped with the shots. The lighting played a main role in the picture with its reflections.

3. Over the shoulder (OTS) shot:

Although I took this shot easily and it fulfills its purpose of showing the relationship between the subjects and includes the audience in the shot, I was not necessarily satisfied with it.

I only noticed that I had not photographed the off-screen subject's shoulder properly when I was compiling the photos later in the day. I was also not happy with how the backlighting is reflecting off the menu that the text on it is unclear.

These mistakes however emphasized the importance of taking more than one photograph of each shot and checking them immediately to see if they've turned out as expected.

4. Master shot:

Here once again I wanted to incorporate the mise-en-scene available at the coffee shop. The flowers on the side added more colour to photograph.

5. Dutch angle:

Although, Dutch angle shots are used mostly to show discomfort, I attempted to try the shot just to see if I can use it in my own product and I liked how it turned out. The dark lighting backed up by the photo mural reflecting on the subject's T-shirt, unintentionally built dark colour palette with brown, black and white, enhancing the photograph a lot.

I initially struggled to capture the shots smoothly but after taking some trial shots I was able to get the hang of it, and my hands were somewhat steadier than they were before. Most of the photographs were taken by hand, however for some shots I used a tripod. 

I did all my first designs on a very basic online software called ‘Canva’ and although it was useful for designing my first drafts it had limitations when it came to advanced designing in terms of layouts and typography.

However my Media Studies teacher then introduced me to 3 different softwares that would be of use to me when I map and produce my second drafts and the final product: Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Illustrator CS6 and Adobe InDesign CS6. 

I was not at all familiar with these softwares and I wanted to familiarise myself with them before I started with the actual designing process. I started off by practicing on Photoshop with the help of some tutorials. Then I was able to move on to InDesign where I was able to use some templates to help designing the magazine more professionally.

Attached below are time-lapses, screenshots and documents of the basic layouts and designs I made to get a better handle on the software. 

[Some images in the above design were taken from Google Photos. Text used was taken from Pinterest.]

I noticed when designing the above design I need more practice in terms of layout and typography. Knowing that, I put more focus into developing those areas in particular.

[Image of Lela Smith taken from Google Photos.]

 

[Recordings of few designs I made on InDesign. Text and images are taken from the Internet.]

 

[Newspaper design made on InDesign. Text and Images from Internet.]

[Interactive brochure design made on InDesign. Text and Images from Internet.]

Adobe Photoshop CS6 is a fairly new software to me as I have never used such advanced software before for any editing works. Thus I did some practice work and experimented with the software to understand the functioning of its tools properly.

These are a compilation of some of my editing works which I did regularly every weekend.

[All source images belong to the rightful owners.]

1. Image manipulations

6. Liquify tool

7. Night view

[Original image edited using Photoshop.]

Learning outcome:

I realised that Photoshop has a lot of advanced features that I could make use of to create a good final product. However I also understood that I was fairly new to the software which means I will have to continue practicing and playing around with Photoshop to be able to create a creative and well put together final product. I could see my works improve over time as well.

Note: I have organised the designs based on the tool I used. The time lines I did them are different to the above order.