Inspriational artist

I belong to an online organisation called 'The Shed'  where budding photographers, artists and other crafts people can display their wares.  The team behind the website handle all enquiries and sales to save the contributors the bother.

http://www.theshedgallery.com/exhibitor/jennifer-hollands

An artist who has been involved with The Shed since its conception has inspired for assignment 2 with her interpretation of the local landscape.  Hilary Buckley uses the patterns of local fields, in a way similar to David Hockney, in a 2-dimensional way and changes the colours to denote the seasons.

http://www.theshedgallery.com/exhibitor/hilary-buckley

Here's a couple of my favourite scenes which she created last year:

Painting titled Patterns of Marshwood Vale

Patterns of Colmer's Hill

  I love the way that the autumn colours blend with each other but are still separate.  Hilary has done a series of images of this local view, distinctive for the pine trees at the apex, depicting the different seasons.

What a day weatherwise! And it continues

Tuesday, 29th November
Finally got some sunshine on the fields of the old barn where I go for pottery.  The sun shone on the autumn leaves left on the trees and looked glorious but there were no sheep!  One last place to try and then I give up.

 

Monday, 26th November
What a shame it was that I had other commitments today as the sun shone after 11.00 am and all afternoon.  I have put aside Wednesday afternoon for taking my pictures as this day was forecast as sunny but it looks like I'll have to revise this and try to get out tomorrow.


Sunday, 25th November
The sun was shining when I looked out the window at 7.30 am this morning and I should have known to go out then.  By the time I headed out at 9.45 am there were small clouds in the sky but it was still dry.  We have to keep our car in a local car park as there is nowhere in our street to park as it's so narrow and by the time I had reached it the weather was rapidly changing.  

Still, not one to be put off by a black clouds and a few rain drops, I headed off towards Bridport via Chideock on the A35.  The farmer had, since I last checked, harrowed his field so the strong plough lines I wanted to photograph had disappeared. Luckily I had another viewpoint in mind and headed onwards and upwards to a place just west of Bridport, called Higher Eype, where I could look over the valley to some distinctive trees on top of a nearby hill.  It was spitting with rain by now but I thought that at least I could find some suitable sites to come back to on a fine day.

Colmer's Hill

This picture has possibilities as it is quite distinctive with the trees on the summit of the hill and sheep in the field below. It's well-known in the area and is taken by everyone to represent west Dorset.  There are some problems with this picture, what with the cables running across the middle and bits of tree branches on the right hand side, but nothing that couldn't be corrected in Photoshop.  I took it in RAW as well as the JPG image above so can make changes easily enough.

On the way home I also took some pictures at the back of a local farm shop looking towards the sea but by then it was raining quite heavily so managed to get some drops of rain on the lens, as you can see below.

Rain drops on lens

By the time I headed home it was raining heavily but I saw another site much nearer home and beside the local golf club.  The weather is predicted to be fine but cold on Wednesday afternoon so I plan to go back to the farm shop and golf course.  Fingers crossed the weather forecasters have got it right as I want to get on with this assignment and finish it by the end of the month or the first week in December.  I can progress with planning the book jacket itself whilst I wait for the weather to improve, thank goodness.

Saturday, 24th November
What a day, almost nothing got done as strong winds and rain lashed the south west.  I had thought to go out to reconnoiter the local area for more fields, trees, sheep and hills.  All I could do was plan where to go as no one in their right minds would be out that day unless there was an emergency.


Thursday,22nd November
I went out this morning with the hope of taking some pictures of wind swept ploughed fields.  Wow, when I stopped at the edge of sopping fields I was nearly blown off my feet as the wind tunneled out of the gateways.  It was extremely difficult to hold my camera steady to take any picture.

I find the way the water lays in the tyre tracks and how they lead your eye to the centre of the image is interesting.

It was good to use the trip between Lyme Regis and Honiton along the coast road so when the weather calms down I'll be able to go along the road again to those special spots I saw today in the pouring rain.

Assignment 2 - Planning photography

I've decided to use the book 'Far From the Madding Crowd' as it's one that I've known for many years and feel I can do it justice.

Searching for ideas through Amazon you wouldn't believe the number of reprints there have been and the different styles of front covers.  Here's a few examples:

Then I found one that really struck a cord with me and I think I can pursue it successfully.  This one was reprinted on:

7 Aug 1993 | ISBN-10: 1853260673 | ISBN-13: 978-1853260674 | Edition: New Ed

It has a strong David Hockney feel to it which, to my mind, brings it right up to date.  I have been thinking as to how I could bring my design into the 21st century and this design does just that for me.  I had thought about tractors, combines and other modern equipment but, on reflection, I can use a graphic image of the fields.

I think I can find enough material locally to emulate it. Whilst everyone immediately thinks of the Jurassic coast here, the whole area inland from Lyme Regis is farming country with West Dorset and East Devon covered with farms/fields in general and several sheep farms in particular.

Just as I've made a decision to pursue ploughed fields (too late in the year for corn to be standing) the Met Office has given out several flood warnings in the local area, 22nd November 2012.  I understand that a farmer in Chideock, which is near here, planted up his field beside the A35 at the beginning of the week and found the whole field washed down the main road on Wednesday.  We live in strange times at the moment, you certainly have to expect the unexpected.

Assignment 2: A photographic book cover

I've been reading a head, as recommended when you get your new module, and have been thinking though how to approach this assignment as I'll be asked to design a book cover from a proscribed list of books.


I've decided to type in the assignment as it let's me get it into my head rather than read it through rather than just read it and forget parts of it.

The assignment asks you to design a book jacket (which wraps around and included front cover, spine and back cover) for a work of fiction, using your own photography.  The main photograph should be one that you've shot specifically for this project.  Approach this assignment as one facing a professional photographer, to be completed to the same professional standards that you see in book publishing.  The assignment focuses on fiction rather than non-fiction, so that you have the opportunity to conceptualise rather than choose a literal image.


Choosing a book title

Choose from the following suggestions, producing a fresh alternative to the published cover:

• Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind
• Choice by Renata Saleci
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
• The Outsider by Albert Camus
• The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
• Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
• The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart

The suggestions above have been chosen because the possibilities for illustrating them are interesting and challenging.  The purpose of this assignment is to make a cover that will interest a prospective reader, and which involves, creating a concept.

Conceptualising the cover

Consider the following options, which will affect how you set abou the photography and the post-production:

• a single photograph with sufficient clear space for typography
• a single photograph with the background extended or retouched to allow space for the typography
• a photograph of a subject that is then cut out (by means of a selection in Photoshop) and placed on a background
• two or more photographs to be combined in Photoshop.

Planning and executing the photography

First make a sketch of your cove design with positions for the title, author's name and other text so that you can shoot the image to fit.

Logistics, props or models and finding and travelling to a particular location.


Preparing the image

You'll need to size and probably crop it to fit the format of the book cover.  Make note of typical paperback dimensions, bearing in mind that the width of the spine will vary according to the number of pages.

Do this to actual size, at 300 dpi.  According to have you've decided to execute the photography (single image, extended, combined, etc.) perform whatever post-production is necessary for the image to be ready to receive the typography.

Incorporating type

Produce a complete wrap-around jacket, which include the front cover (the main part of the project) the spine and the back cover.  The spine and back cove needn't contain a photograph, but they could.  

The type elements for the front cover ar:

• title
• author's name
• strap line (optional)

The type elements for the spine are:

• title
• author's name

On the back cover is 'blurb'. Allow for 100-200 words, but you can use Lorem Ipsum placeholder text.

Choose the fonts and weights that satisfy your design sense.  An additional sophistication is to consider their placement in relation to graphic elements within the photograph.

Finally, please remember this is a photographic assignment rather than a design one.  The design is certainly important and it will help if you make yourself familiar with various typefaces (fonts) although success in this assignment will rely more on the photographic considerations.

These are, in summary:

• conceptualising the theme of the book visually
• taking or selecting a photograph that suits the purpose
• allowing for type elements in the composition

Send your cover design as a full-size TIFF or high-quality JPG RGB file at 300 dpi. Send as either one single file, including spine and back cover, or three separate files: front cover, spine, back cover.

And that's it in a nutshell. Now to get on and do it!