A2 MEDIA STUDIES - GRACE SUITER
Basic Photography Skills and Technical Skills for Print Media
20th December 2015
In order for us to create a professional digipak and magazine advert we needed to do basic research into photography skills and technical skills, so that we knew how to take clear pictures and make them look professional and to a efficient standard. Therefore as a group we researched spacing, lighting, positioning, image quality and shallow and deep focus, to cover all of the basics of photography.
BASIC PHOTOGRAPHY AND TECHNICAL SKILLS
 extreme long shot practice |  long shot practice |  mid shot practice |
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 mid shot practice |  extreme long shot practice |  extreme long shot practice |
1. SPACING; refers to the text and the image integration and is there to ensure that there are no blank areas because otherwise the final product can look unfinished, leading to it looking unprofessional. To demonstrate our research into photography skills, whilst completing our treatment we took some basic shots to demonstrate our understanding and capability of taking the shots. We identified the position we would position the text to ensure that there was no blank space. However, the shots we have taken will not be used on the front of our digipak or magazine advert, but may be used inside the digipak depending on our audience feedback from the drafts.
2. LIGHTING; when researching lighting, we discovered that there are four main types of lighting, which is used to enhance images on magazines or digipaks. These are;
- main lights; this is a light positioned to the left or right of the model and creates a shadow on the opposite side of the models face. We will attempt to use this shot because we plan on using a close up or extreme close up and therefore it is the most accurate light to use and I have put an example of this lighting style just below.
- fill light/bounce card - this light is positioned at the front of the model and is used to create a shadow at the back of the model and this is commonly used for big artists including Beyonce and Rihanna to highlight their favourable facial features.
- hair light - this light is positioned behind the artists head and highlights the artists head and accentuates the artists features but in less detail than a fill light or main light because it is positioned behind the artist.
- background light - this is an optional light and adds additional lightng to the shot to ensure it is as clear as possible.
HOW TO FRAME A SHOT
When we do our photoshoot we need to consider this grid for the framing of our shot because we need to ensure that there is sufficient spacing surrounding the shot if required. However, if there is no spacing required then we need to ensure that all of the face is correctly positioned in the shot, similar to Rihanna's LOUD album cover. The eyes of the object should be along the top line of the grid and the lips the bottom.
SHALLOW FOCUS AND DEEP FOCUS
 Shallow FocusShallow Focus is where the subject is clear but the background is blurred, creating a focus on the subject, which highlights their priority. |  Deep FocusDeep Focus is where everything is focused and this will be a shot we will use in both our digipak and music video, but not necessarily our magazine advert. Our digipak front cover and magazine advert will look similar, however the remainder of the shots in the digipak will be varied. |
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