My initial task was to create a front cover and contents page for a college magazine. For that task, I had to produce photos that I was going to feature on the magazine myself using a Canon EOS 400D, and use a photo-editing software to edit the pictures and produce my products. I found that task moderately simple because I was proficient with the Adobe Photoshop CS3 software that I used to edit my images. However I was new to operating the camera and soft-box correctly, especially getting the camera to focus well on the subject, however, later on after a couple practices and experimenting, I’ve developed my skills and took decent quality photographs for my college magazine.
Since that task, I believe that my organisation of time has not become efficient much. I tried to stick to the deadlines set, and get work completed as quickly as possible t a high standard and effectively as I could with consideration and focus to my other subjects. I completed my research on time, and when I had to start working on creating my final products, I found my models very quickly. However, due to class organisation, a lot of time was lost and I had less time to produce my photos. But I was very familiar with the technologies and was in a very professional environment therefore I managed to produce high quality photographs to feature in my final product. This has showed that I have improved successfully in taking photos professionally.
Personally, I am very familiar with Photoshop, meaning that I was able to utilise special effects and different fonts on my college magazine product. However, this was my first time using Photoshop to create a magazine, therefore my quality of produce a final product was not at its maximum potential. But after a couple more practice, experimenting, developing and graphics lessons, you can see that have improved extremely in my use of photoshop.
This was also difficult for me as this was the first time that I have to plan many different articles and features to include into my magazine. This challenged me at my creativity skills; however this was good for me as it prepared me for my Music Magazine task. Looking back now, you can see the vast improvement of the quality of my work in both my Front cover and Contents page. As you can see, the image quality is much higher and my contents page has more features and my double page spread is very creative.
Initially, at the beginning of the AS Course, I honestly did not take time management seriously at all. I had spent too much time on one part of my product and result to spending less time on another part of my final product. However, as experiencing the work of passed AS students, I result to a shock in the amount of work needed to achieve a high grade therefore I started to act serious and planned my course. My time management and organisational skills have improved, not as much as I have expect, but better than nothing.
During my preliminary task I created a few draft layouts of my front cover and contents page. To be honest, these drafts didn't really help me as much as I have needed. However creating these drafts was good practice for the real thing, therefore, I have designed and sketched more than one plan for my music magazine. These drafts provided me with more help and options. This shows that the preliminary task also allowed me to learn how to draft page layouts efficiently.
During my initial task, my managing in terms of props and costumes were at quite poor standards. I had not effectively planned out my photoshoot or brought props. However, I improvised and used props in my pictures such as books, lab coats and a computer in the learning resource center. The locations I used were places such as the coridoors, the library, outside, and the engineering workshop. This was a perfect example of problem solving, which has helped me gain experience and preparation for my music magazine project.
When it came to my Music magazine project, I was more than prepared, with sufficient props, costume and planned modelling models. However, my model for my double page spread was not able to make it to the photoshoot, reason for it needed deeper planning. In the end I managed to plan it and produced a successful and creative main image. This shows that I developed effectively in time management and organisational skills since the beginning of my AS course.
I haven’t got enough time to get proficient feedback and evidence of my feedback, however I did get some feedback in person. Feedback had shown me that I have spent a lot of time on this project and there’s no correction required.
However I feel that my weaknesses were that a couple of my photos wasn’t at its highest quality due to incorrect setup of equipments, however I managed to fix the image to look high quality. Also, during my photoshoot, all of the photographs I took featured a black background, meaning the background were extremely difficult to extract out of the photograph, therefore it was impossible to place my models on any other backgrounds.
Overall I am extremely pleased with the outcome of my Music magazine product. I feel that the quality of my primary task product wasn’t at its maximum potential and I feel I could have done better, but I’ve learnt from those mistakes made and improved in my music magazine task.
