The One True Wey Magazine project analysis

 

This project was about creating a magazine about Weymouth using our own images we took ourselves while out in Weymouth. We were tasked with thinking up a theme and creating a magazine to be published on the Issuu website. With the use of photography, Photoshop editing and InDesign I created my own magazine.

Thought process

                When thinking of a unique ‘theme’ of Weymouth I thought about all the things people from outside Weymouth usually don’t see, like destroyed structure, littering and mess everywhere, and also the hidden gems of Weymouth that people usually miss out. When people think of Weymouth they think of the sunny beaches, the ice creams and the postcards. Nobody thinks ‘what is really in Weymouth?’ they only see what the council want them to see which is an expensive hotel room overlooking the popular Weymouth beach.

                This lead me to go into the back streets of Weymouth and find the ‘behind the scenes’ that tourists never see. I also took a look into Weymouth’s nightlife and the nature reserve and the beauty it has to offer, a beauty that most people tend to miss during their holiday.

 

The edit

                I took photographs all around the back streets of Weymouth, including the graffiti and destruction and decay in and around Weymouth town center. I also photographed some arcades and a the lasers on the seafront at night to show how Weymouth lights up at night as well as the Radipole lake wildlife preserve during the day.

                The magazine is eight pages long, the first being the cover. I wanted to have the magazine cut into ‘sections’. The first two pages being what the magazine will show and the night life of Weymouth, the next two being the wildlife preserve, then the next two showing the decay of Weymouth and finally the last page summarizing what the magazine shows. I made the last four pages ‘double pages’, one image covering the background for the two pages on the same topic with the images on the same topic over the front of it.

                Each page is made in the resolution of 4487 x 6826 at 300 ppi (pixels per inch) in Photoshop then put onto InDesign as TIF images.

 

Post production

                With a lot of the pictures I changed the contrast and colouring to fit the mood I was trying to convey, for example when looking at the beauty of the wildlife preserve and the birds I made the images brighter with a ‘warm’ orange filter over them. I did the complete opposite for the images showing the decay of Weymouth, making them darker and gloomier by turning down the contrast and brightness. A simple shadowing or colour change can change the mood of the page drastically.

                I chose to keep the text brief and descriptive in the magazine to keep interest and to make sure I didn’t repeat myself over several topics. I had a title for each page and double page so readers would not get confused at sudden changes in the topic, for example when the magazine is covering the nature reserve and then goes onto the dirt and decay of Weymouth.

                I chose to use a smart font that wasn’t silly or hard to read because personally I have never seen a magazine with a hard to read font. I made sure to keep the text symmetrical to the images or made in the same layout to the images. The font colour is made to stand out from the background depending on the page with added strokes and outer glows around the text to make it readable. The colour of the text goes hand in hand with the theme of the page, the main titles mainly being a bright blue to stand out from the rest of the text.

Ethical and legal considerations

                When taking photos in Weymouth I made sure to not invade on anyone’s privacy and/or property, like taking pictures of people without their permission or going into somebody’s garden. I did not claim any of the property I took photos of as my own. The software I used (adobe software) to edit the photos and pages were licensed at home and at the college. As far as ethical issues go, I feel I did not breach any limitations; I have kept confidentiality and have not represented anyone individually or insulted a group of people like a race or religion.

Reflection

                Through this project I have learnt a lot about photography, image editing, using adobe software, creating magazines and how to upload good quality images online.

                While taking photos I learnt exactly how to use depth of field, shutter speed and what modes DSLR cameras use. Through this project I have gained skills in taking more than ‘point and click’ photos and figuring out how to make a photo interesting and make people study more of the image. Even when I did not make the image interesting enough I still learnt how to edit them effectively. I really enjoyed using the focus on the camera to capture the key part of the image like a sing post in the wildlife reserve in the Radipole area and have the rest of the natural pathway fade of into the distance into a nice blur.

In Photoshop I edited a lot of my images to fit the topic and feel of the page more, for example when I was trying to get a nice picture of some of the wildlife in the nature reserve but unfortunately it was not a sunny day so to give a more warm and positive image of the lake and wildlife I added an orange filter and made the images brighter to ‘warm up’ the page and make it fit what I was originally trying to point out. This also goes for the grimier and messy parts of Weymouth where I took almost all the colour and contrast out of the images of destruction and structure damage in Weymouth because that topic is not ‘warm’ it is cold and disturbing. The feel of a page can be controlled by the colour of the text and images and how they are edited. 

Another effect I used was ‘tilt shift’, a tool I used to add blur to images I liked but did not have the desired effects. For example I had a pathway with a lot of litter on the floor but there was no blur, the houses and close up pathway took the attention away from the litter so I added the tilt shift blur which I changed to make the background and close up floor out of focus and the pathway with all the dirt and litter in focus with all the attention that the image was originally take for.

I made all the pages in Photoshop as PNG images but after uploading the magazine PDF to the website Issuu I saw the images were in really low quality so I took that magazine down and replaced it with a new PDF where each page was saved as a TIF image file. This is how I learnt how to make and upload high quality images and magazines to online websites.

 

                I believe the project was a success because the images do reflect what I was trying to say about Weymouth; What we normally don’t see or pay attention to in our everyday lives, what we find obscure.  I captured the ‘behind the scenes or Weymouth’, the hidden beauty and decay we don’t pay attention to and what Weymouth does not want ‘outsiders’ to see. I captured these images then edited and represented them in a way that conveys what I was trying to say about Weymouth.

                When I think what I could have improved I think of the layout of my images, I feel I wasn’t creative enough with the positioning and I should have edited some of the images more. I also think I could have re visited some of the locations I was covering in different weather, the day I went through the nature reserve it was very misty which rendered a lot of my images useless I wanted to use and the water was bleak. Overall I could have improved how I displayed my photos but I think I conveyed my idea well.