Category Archives: DIDP 2016-17

T3 Major Assignment: Photography Magazine

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Your job is to create your own photography magazine. You will provide the photographs, the design, and the layouts to create a new and dazzling magazine. Although you may have done things like this in the past, this will combine several skills together in a bigger way. This is the major assignment for term 3.

The topic of your magazine can be:
A) Hair (go work with Mr. Scarpino’s class and show off some different hair designs!)
B) Fashion
C) St. James Collegiate
D) Computers/Technology
E) Woodworking or Electronics (if you have an interest, work with Mr. Rogers or Ingram to find projects & tools to photograph and cover in your magazine.)
F) Something APPROVED by me. If you haven’t chosen one of the above, you need to TALK TO ME FIRST! You will have to start again if you do not follow that simple instruction.

You have been put in charge of a magazine showing off your best photographs related to a topic. You are responsible for taking good, high-quality photos of the subject of your magazine. Make sure that it’s something that you can easily photograph in school (or at home, if you really wish, but you need to have those ready to go so you’re not wasting time in class!) These will be the major photos in your magazine and you will need a LOT of them!

You need to SHOOT RAW images and then FIX THEM UP in Photoshop! Use your Photoshop skills to bring out the best in your photos.

For the layout & design of the pages (and perhaps logos, etc.) you could find good quality CREATIVE COMMONS images from one of the APPROVED sources to use as minor elements in the magazine. You will NEED TO PROVIDE ATTRIBUTION INFORMATION for ALL photos that you use!

Whatever you choose to do, you must have:

  • Make your document 8.5″ x 11″ so that we could print it out if you want later on. Use facing pages and have a .25″ bleed.
  • An appealing cover page that lists some of the content inside of your magazine.
  • At least 10 pages, all containing good quality content
  • At LEAST 3 different topics/sections. These should follow the same topic, but have a different focus. (eg. you could do sections on men’s hairstyles, women’s hairstyles, and kids’ hairstyles or if you’re covering fashion, do sections on pants/skirts, tops, and accessories, or something like that.)
  • Pages must be numbered! No page number on the front or back cover! You can decide whether there’s a separately numbered table of contents page or index. InDesign must do the numbering for you! (ie you can’t just add a text box on each page and write in your own number – CHEATING!)
  • It’s rare for a magazine article to contain only one photo. You could have one larger photo alongside text or multiple photos on most pages.
  • Remember that magazines have different articles with different authors. While it isn’t important for you to write a lot in your magazine (especially because it’s a photography magazine), you should have some appealing text setting the different articles apart. You should have an author listed close to the article title, and there should be some kind of text alongside the image(s).
  • PLACE all of your photos and modify the fitting options the way that you’d like.
  • Place AT LEAST one document file (an article or something that is written in Microsoft Word or something like that.)
  • Magazines contain advertising. Often, a lot of advertising…

KEEP YOUR WORK ORGANIZED! Keep ALL of the files you use in ONE folder. If you drop off the InDesign file without the pictures and other files you use, it will not work well and you will lose marks for sure!

The first step is to decide on a topic and create some content. This is going to be very important, because you’ll be marked on how realistic/interesting your magazine is. It should look like something that someone might actually buy.

You have a fair bit of creative freedom here, but you have to make sure that your content is appropriate and that it makes a good magazine. You also, of course, have to use all of the tools you’ve learned in InDesign to create this properly. You may wish to integrate work that you do in Photoshop as well. (ie create the logo for your magazine, create advertisements, etc.)

I have student samples that I can show you, so ask me if you’re interested in seeing what’s been done in previous years.

Congratulations on your new position! I look forward to reading your magazine!

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Yearbook Sales Advertisement

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Part of our job as the yearbook committee is to encourage students to buy their yearbook, and it’s time for us to do another “push” to try and get some more books sold.

Your job is to come up with a poster, a web ad, and/or a video that we can use to promote yearbook sales. If you like, you can use this year’s yearbook cover to show people what we’ve been working on. Use photos from the year so far (available from Mr. Robson) to get people excited about what they might see in the book. If you want, we can try to come up with some kind of contest or incentive to get people to purchase.

You could:

  • Use Photoshop or InDesign to create a poster. Make it 11 inches by 17 inches (or 17 x 11), with a resolution of 300 dpi. If you want to make something larger, you can, but we should talk about sizes and quality first.
  • Use Photoshop to create an advertisement for the school website. Make it “Web” size in Photoshop (800 pixels by 600 pixels, resolution of 72 dpi).
  • Do a video only if you know how to use iMovie or Premiere Pro well enough to do a good job. This isn’t about trying to learn how to make a movie, but it also needs to look good. If you don’t know how to do things like turn off the Ken Burns effect, add titles & transitions, adjust timing, etc., DON’T CHOOSE THIS!

Yearbooks are available in the office for $26 or online. You can use this QR code on your poster (click to see the full version, then save the image to your computer): qrcode

or you can add the following link: http://ybstore.friesens.com/stores/331349

Remind people that this is the one book that most people keep for the rest of their lives, and you will look at it regularly over the years to remember the people and events that happened during this important time of your life. High school is a big transitional time for you, and one that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. This book provides the best way of keeping track of this school and this year. It truly provides a lifetime of good memories, and is a great investment.

Use the text effects, borders, masks, adjustments, and other fancy tricks you’ve learned in Photoshop (you did complete those tutorials and exercises, right?…). Make your poster vibrant, interesting, and appealing.

The more tools we have to promote the yearbook the more successful we’ll be. Consider making more than one project. You have to come up with at least one promotional item, but if you do more, you’ll get marks for that as well.

Quick Start Photoshop Creations

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In order to get working on creating some different files & documents in Photoshop, I’d like you to follow a series of short, simple tutorials designed to get you started with the program.

For each of the projects, you should download the supplied files and create the sample project. Do NOT hand these in.

You will use the skills learned in each tutorial and create an ORIGINAL project using your photos/designs, which you WILL hand in.

DSLR Vs. Point and Shoot Cameras

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You’ve probably heard about DSLR cameras, but the average person does not know the difference between this and the traditional point and shoot camera. Most people think that the difference is that one is compact and the other tends to be larger and bulky. This is usually right, but there is a very big difference in how the two operate. The main difference is how the photographer sees the scene.

Point and Shoot Cameras

dslr3 In a point-and-shoot camera, the viewfinder is a simple window through the body of the camera. You don’t see the real image formed by the camera lens, but you get a rough idea of what is in view.

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When a picture is taken, the Processor Chip (3) takes the light information from the Image Sensor-CCD (2) and stores it on the Memory Card (5). The Liveview LCD(4) then temporarily displays the picture that was taken.
The light passes through the Lens (1) directly onto the Image Sensor-CCD (2) which then uses the Processor Chip (3) to re-create and image of what the lens sees on the Liveview LCD (4). The result is a “liveview” of what the lens is seeing.

This has become the standard way that most people have learned to use digital cameras.

There are a few disadvantages:
1) The extra step of processing (the chip) what the lens sees before you get to see it on the viewfinder, means a split second delay in capturing a photo. If you taking a picture using the LiveView on the LCD, you are actually seeing things a split second after they have happened.

2) Because of their compact nature, Point and shoot cameras usually have a smaller sensor which means lower image quality.

3) Lenses/adjustments are 100% computer controlled which severely limits the types of photography you can do with your point and shoot camera.

There are, however, some definite advantages to point and shoot cameras including:

1) The cost of the average digital point and shoot is far less than a DSLR ($100-$300 vs. $600-$10,000)

2) The more compact nature of point a shoot camera makes it portable and more user-friendly. Hence you are more likely to carry it with you and capture pictures you might have otherwise missed out on.

3) They are pretty much idiot-proof. Set the camera to auto-mode and start clicking away! Many high-end point and shoot cameras allow you to set features like ISO and white balance, but even if you don’t know what you’re doing you’ll never miss out.

DSLR Cameras – (Digital Single Reflex)

dslr4The biggest difference in using a DSLR camera is that you don’t use the Liveview LCD to take photos. Instead, you use the eye-piece. This may seem like a bad thing at first, but the difference is that you are seeing the photo exactly as in would appear from the lens at the precise moment that it is happening. This means that the resulting photo is exactly what you see through the eyepiece.

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In a DSLR, light passes through the lens (1) and reflects off the Reflex Mirror (2) which is tilted at a 45 degree angle.

From there, the light travels through a Focusing Screen (5) and a Condensing Lens (6) before it is redirected by the Pentaprism (7) to the Eyepiece (8).

When a photo is taken, the Reflex Mirror (2) swings up as the Shutter (3) opens, exposing the Image Sensor – CCD (4) to the light from the lens. This is the distinct “click” sound that you hear when using a DSLR. The CCD then transfers the information to the Processor Chip (9) which then stores it on the Memory Card (10). The LCD (11) on the back of the camera then displays the resulting image.

There are a few big advantages to DSLR cameras:

1) The fact that there is no Liveview LCD give you a more precise picture.

2) Bigger body means a DSLR can accommodate a bigger sensor. This means a significant increase in image quality. The sensors in these cameras are also more expensive and thus, they tend to be more sensitive to light making DSLR cameras more adaptable to areas with low light and allowing you to capture photographs that would not be possible with a point and shoot camera.

3) A DSLR allows you complete control over features like shutter speed and aperture. The features are flexible because of their predominant use by professionals.

4) A DSLR also allows you to use a wide variety of lenses which allows for different kinds of photography. So you can use wide angle lenses, telescopic lenses, fish eye lenses, etc. The best part is that if you do want to bother with the controls you can always set the camera to auto mode and again, the camera should do a good job for you.

DSLR disadvantages include:

1) They tend to be bulky and heavy, with many attachments, lenses and accessories to lug around.

2) They can be expensive, but depending on your reason for purchasing, could be a good investment long-term.

3) DSLR cameras require maintenance. Frequent cleaning inside and out is must if you expect to preserve picture quality.

Here is another link with some great information: http://photographylife.com/dslr-vs-point-and-shoot-camera
And more good information here: http://digital-photography-school.com/should-you-buy-a-dslr-or-point-and-shoot-digital-camera/

And here’s a video that is somewhat helpful:

Click this link for another good one

Once you have all of that down and understand how cameras work and the difference between film and digital cameras, you are ready to complete Assignment 1: dslrvspointandshoot

Exploring Great Photos

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Today I would like you to go on Flickr and explore photos. Explain what you like about 3 different photos. Not the content (yeah, that flower is beautiful) but what did the photographer do to make that photo amazing?

Example

Below this post you should post a comment where you provide a link to the photos you choose and then EXPLAIN what you like about the photo – what did the photographer have to do or think about in order to make that photo so great?

Post a response as a comment attached to this post. You will need to include a link to the photo and you will need to EXPLAIN what the photographer DID to make it a great photo.