My evaluation

Media and their Audiences:

For this unit I had to take photographs and use pictures from the internet to create 18 images for 6 different topics:

·         Advertising

·         Cinema

·         Television

·         Radio

·         Print

·         New media

Overall my final images illustrate well. They each tell a different story for instance, one of my radio images illustrates a girl dancing on the brief top of a radio and another image of mine - cinema image 3, illustrates a girl watching a 3D film come to life. The images are clear and are easy to understand.

I have a few images that I think are strong such as television image one – a girl sitting down watching herself on the Television. I think this because the image looks detailed and has turned out to be one of my favourites.  Also, another strong image is advertising image 2 because it is a decent quality image and is edited really well and it took me a while to get it just right.  I think that the images that I have made are creative and imaginative.    

My weakest images I would say are radio image 3 because the girl is not cut out properly and the background does not say much for the whole image. If I was to re-do it I would cut out the girl as it should be and change the background to an up beat image that suggest dance/music. Also I think cinema image 2 is a weak image because it looks too empty and if I was to modify it I would fill all of the seats to make the image look more realistic as it is too obvious that it has been edited.

I used Photoshop to edit my images. Once I had inserted the images that I was going to edit I used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to cut round people or objects and fixed them up by putting the images together. It was like doing a puzzle. In some images there are quite a few layers used, for example advertising image 3 has 40 layers and cinema image 3 has 137 layers. There are loads of layers because in advertising image 3 the wallpaper in the background is made by there is this squared piece of pattern and I had to copy and paste the same image numerous times to fill the background so that it looks like real wallpaper, there is also a Television layer, 4 of the same person so four different layers, a sofa layer and a advert layer. The more layers that are used the bigger the file size is going to be as cinema image 3 file size is 67,665KB, this is because of the 137 layers. An example of how I went about editing is I inserted a photograph for a image that I was going to make, and used the Polygonal Lasso Tool to cut out bits of the photograph that I do not want to used such as the background of the photograph, and then once I have finished editing the photograph I drag it over to an image that I got from the internet (the background image), an example of what background image from the internet that I used is for cinema image 3 where I have used a picture of the inside the cinemas with the big screen, seats and lights and I just drag the photograph over to the internet image and make it look like the person in the photograph is actually sitting on one of those seats. For the photograph, whilst I was editing it and after I cut around the person in the photo and placed her where I wanted her to be, I had to make a few more adjustments such as resizing the person not too small or not too big so that it does in the end look like the person is involved with the image from the internet. In some pictures I had to even the colour contrast with the photograph that I took with the images I uploaded from the internet. Some images had up 10 different images in one picture and one picture has 63 different images. The one with the most layers turned out to be the most detailed image as for the image that has 63 layers – print image 3, is very detailed as it looks almost perfectly done however if you look at it for a while or look at it closely you will see that it isn’t exactly perfect because you can just about see that the hands of the person in the image that is holding the newspaper is a separate layer to the actual person. The image that has 10 layers is also detailed but not from the fullest, and one may say that there could be things added to make it look realistic, even if it is only just the littlest thing.

In my opinion I think that a majority of my images are good high quality as the lighting has turned out better than what I expected and the contrast looks just about even which is good because it makes the overall image look less like it has been edited. Also, in images like advertising image 1 and television image 1 the image that I uploaded from the internet has a bright contrast so I had to make sure that the photograph I took contrast didn’t look like it has been raining or what not, so I evened out the contrast of the photograph with the picture from the internet. I think that it looks good overall. I also think that the image is a high quality because the quantity of the image it is clear and obvious whereas in some images like print image 1 it is a little blurry because the background seems to be a smaller size file to the photograph; and what makes the image seem okay is that it is obvious what the image is even if it is a little fuzzy.

When I presented my exhibition to an audience I got plenty of feedback. The majority of the people I asked thought that my editing skills look artistic and professional. The most popular images are television image 1 and advertising image 1. The people who chose these images as their favourites said it was because they looks realistic and they like the advert that is used and also because they think it looks creative. Most of the people I asked said they wouldn’t change any of my images but some said that they would change Television image 3 because they do not understand it and radio image 3 because the girl is not cut out properly other than that they liked it. Overall, people that I asked liked my finished images; they thought that looked realistic and professionally edited.

People and Their Heroes

For this task I had to ask six people - who I was taking photographs of, who their hero are and then find a picture of their hero on the internet, and to then take photographs of the people and then combine the photographs so that there will be six different images, one of each person with their hero.

For my six images I did:

·         A girl sitting next to Beyonce

·         A lady getting married to Martin Luther King

·         A girl shaking hands with Michael Jackson

·         A lady standing next to Tom Cruise with their arm round each other

·         A man shaking hands with Arnold Schwarzenegger

·         A girl standing next to the Wanted

My images have illustrated the brief well, in fact some images I think that it doesn’t look like they have been edited. For instance in image 1 you can see clearly that the image is of Beyonce with a girl sitting next to her and they are both smiling and facing the camera. The only thing that gives away that this image has been edited is the background. Other than that it is hard to tell it has been edited. Also, image 2 looks realistic and well illustrated as it is clearly obvious that it is of a lady getting married to Martin Luther King. It is hard to tell it has been edited mainly because the image is in black and white. Even though a majority of the images I have created are obvious some image aren’t as easy to understand such as image 3, as it implies a few things such as a girl is taking of Michael Jackson’s glove, a girl shaking hands with Michael Jackson or the girl and Michael staring at each others hands.

For image 1 (the Beyonce one) I took a photo of the girl sitting down with her body turned slightly and facing the camera. For image 2 I took a photograph of the woman standing with her right arm linking a random person simply because the photo will be edited to make the woman look like she is linking arms with Martin Luther King and the random person will be edited out. For image 3 I took a photograph of a girl standing with her right hand holding someone’s hand which will be edited to make it look like she is holding Michael Jackson’s hand. For image 4 I took a photograph of a woman with her arm up looking like her arm is around Tom Cruise so that the overall image will look like she is standing next to Tom Cruise with their arms around each other. For image 5 I took a photograph of a man standing with his body turned facing to the left with his hands out shaking Arnold Schwarzenegger’s hand. For image 6 I took a picture of a girl standing facing the cameras with both hands on a shoulder one each side.

I created these final images by using the Polygonal Lasso Tool to cut around the photographs and then placing them to the internet images. In some images used from the internet I cut around the celebrities and inserted a separate background. I also made sure that the contrast of the photograph fits in well with the image from the internet.

I think that the quality of the images is good because the lighting has turned out better than what I thought it would to begin with and the contrast of the images are well done however, image 4 the image used from the internet has different light contrast to the photograph so if I was to re-do this image again I would know what to improve.

My audience thought my images are creative, artistic and look realistic and professionally made. When I asked my audience what changes would you make a majority replied that they wouldn’t change any of it where as a few claimed that they would change image 3 because you can tell the background is separate to the actual image and others mentioned that they would change image 5 because the girl seems higher than the boy band – the Wanted.  

Story Illustration

For this task I had to read the story Mr Loveday’s Little Outing and take photographs to create final images to illustrate the story.

The photographs I decided to take were:

·         The front cover – a photograph of a wall with bared gates in front of it

·         Second image – is of a noose (a rope)

·         Third image – is a pile of unopened enveloped addressed to Mr Lord Moping

·         Fourth image – is of library books

Overall, my images turned out fine. At first when I was planning what photographs I was going to take for each page I didn’t think it would turn out right. What I mean is I thought it wouldn’t fit in with the story but it did and in my opinion I think it is pretty good. Personally, I think that each image illustrates the story well as it is very obvious what each image means and if you read the page that is next to the photograph you can clearly see why that image is used. The front cover – the photograph of a wall with bared gates in front of it, expresses many meanings such as a prison, someplace locked away so no one can escape and a mental home.   

For the front cover I chose to do a photograph of a wall with bared gates in front of it because after reading the whole story I noticed that the story is located in a mental home so I thought it would be a good idea to do what I did so it won’t give the story away. I chose to do a photograph of a noose for the second page because the page next to it said ‘father’s attempted suicide’. For the third page I chose to take a photograph of a pile of unopened envelopes addressed to Mr Lord Moping because the page next to this image talks about ‘Write to me about it. That’s it. Put it in black and white.’ I chose to take a photograph of library books because on the page next to this image it says ‘Angela disappeared into the library’.

I created my photograph by using a digital camera and then once I took my photographs I uploaded them to the computer and then made sure that they were the right size for the booklet by cropping them. I then made the images black and white and for the fourth image the photo of library books, I blurred the words so it couldn’t be read. I used Photoshop for this and I then opened Quark Xpress to insert the final images.

I got a range of different feedback, mostly good and helpful. Many thought that the images are creative, unique, very simple but good and says a lot about the story, interesting and one or two said the photography is good. Some mentioned that the photographs were boring and they didn’t like that there were no people in it.

I think that the photographs are decent high quality images and the size of some of the images is quite high for instance the book case image is 1,528 KB. The lighting of the images work well with the story. Some of the images suggest death as in image 2 were there is a photograph of a noose suggest suicide before even reading the story.  

Throughout this unit I have realised what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. For instance I am good at editing and I think that’s what I have done mostly well on whereas for my camera work it’s not bad but it isn’t perfect either. I think I need to work on my camera work a little and also another weakness is research. When I was looking for images to use of the internet it took up too much time just finding some images so I would say that research was a big weakness of mine.

Overall, this unit has taught me many things from editing like the professionals edit, know what kind of photograph to take for a certain image and so much more. I have developed my editing skills by knowing how to change and improve the colour contrast of an image and developed how to cut out neatly and accurately.