Q7 . Looking back at the preliminary task what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to a full product?

When we first started with our preliminary task I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing, but as we progressed with I became more confident that by the time we came to do out real task I had a clear idea of what to do. With the preliminary task we used the students in our class for the photos, and the school grounds, which didn’t make it too difficult and the only thing you had to think about was where to position them. For this task we had to use a medium close up which I didn’t like very much because I wanted to show more of the person. So having the freedom in our main task to take whatever pictures we wanted suited me better. In the main task I realized I had to think in more depth how I wanted my photos to look like, I knew getting the people together wasn’t a problem it was just working out where to take them. So I decided to take them just under Tower Bridge on some steps in front of what seemed to be an abandoned work area. I didn’t want it to look glamorous because this wasn’t the image I was trying to get across I just wanted them to look like normal people. I decided not to use props because I just wanted a natural image and didn’t want it to look tacky. I think deciding to take my shots in black and white proved quite effective in my final outcome.

For the preliminary task it was harder to come up with ideas because our teacher had given us a brief to stick to which I found quite difficult because I couldn’t really add my own ideas as such. With the main task I had a lot more freedom therefore I could use my imagination more into creating this magazine. As well as this I didn’t like the fact we had to make it for a college in the prelim task so I had fewer ideas, but I found a music magazine more interesting so it gave me more ideas.
Even though we had to do drafts of what our magazine might look like, by the time it came to actually making them my idea changed completely. Probably because I knew my idea was going to change anyway so I just did a rough sketch. So I didn’t really refer back to these because otherwise it would restrict my ideas, I just worked with as it came along, adding and changing things each week every time I had a fresh look at it. I didn’t edit any of the photos because I could get carried away and end up ruining my image, which in all is a waste of time, so I kept them how they were when I took them and decided to make everything else around it stand out.

Finally the preliminary task helped me to get better at Photoshop and to have a chance to experiment with certain things before hand, so I could get straight into creating the real thing. I think the prelim task helped me a lot and made me realize that Photoshop isn’t as hard as it looks.