DMF Book Synopsis

Posted above is my Final Project for Digital Media Foundations. I had a ton of fun with this project. When we discussed this project in class, I remembered Miles suggesting that we start by thinking of a book or illustration that we liked to look at and try to mimic it. Well, one of my guilty pleasures is looking at Vogue Magazine. I like it more for the artistic value of the ads than the actual fashions. So, I decided to take on the daunting task of mimicking ads from Vogue for my project. I asked some of my close friends if they would be willing to help me by modeling for the photos. I spent time flipping through magazines in order to get some basic ideas. I knew that my photos would not look nearly as professional as the ones in Vogue, but I was able to study the poses, backgrounds and text. I figured out which ads I wanted to use as a base for each of the friends that I was taking pictures of. After the photos were taken, I uploaded them and used PhotoShop to edit. Some photos needed very little editing, such as adding only a warming filter. Others were more complicated, like the cityscape layered ad or the extreme close-up ad. For the finishing touch I put text on the photos. I tried to mimic the look of the brand names in the ads, and instead of a brand I used the names or initials of my friends. For the cover, I used one of my photos and added a lot of text to make it look like a magazine cover. I encountered numerous problems with this project, but it taught me a lot about digital photography. I had to work around the schedules of my friends while trying to meet a deadline. For outdoor photos, I had to wait for weather that was decent enough to shoot pictures in. I sometimes had to apply make-up or adjust the hair of my friends, and they were nice enough to cooperate. For the indoor photos, I had to work with whatever lighting was available because I do not own professional lighting equipment. However, I felt good about overcoming each challenge, and I loved playing with the images in PhotoShop and InDesign. Thank you, DMF Professors, for a wonderful class!!