Skills Development 13th November

Front lighting is when a beam of natural or unnatural light shines on the side of the face or an object which is facing the camera. It is when the subject will provide even lighting. With front lighting the part of the subject to be photographed is facing the sun. Side lighting is more to do with texture rather than the saturation of colour and detail. It provides plenty of illumination and also casts long, interesting shadows across the object. Side light is when a light comes from one side and targets on a certain object or person.


Side lighting hints some sort or incidental knowledge on a subject and could connotate importance. For example a window opening or a door.  Also the light could be shining on one person, and leaving out other people so show that that man is more powerful or important. Side lighting can be a lot more  interesting and dramatic, especially on monochrome images. It brings out the textures of the skin or an object.


Side lighting can accentuate male features effectively because the light is shone directly to the side of the face and if it is the only light source, it makes the picture look skinnier and slimmer. Side lighting can enhance the jaw line and other male facial features. It can also capture that persons personality in a way, it depends what their facial expression at the time is. Plenty of light will give their features more depth.


Side lighting can enhance and soften female features in different ways. The shadow which is cast from the light and features of the face, bring out all the small and important features of the face, but only if the light and camera are in the right place. If they were to be placed at the wrong angles, the effect would be lost and the picture will look uninteresting and plain, with no shadows. Close ups of women can make their facial features look softened, when side lighting is present. Freckles, dimples, cheekbones or the whiteness of teeth and eyes, will enhance the photograph.

This photograph was one of the first ones we took. The light is being reflected on the side of the face, and casting the shadow on the other side. So that worked out brilliantly for the facial features. However our problem was that the lighting is slightly under exposed and quite dark in the background. Also the framing is quite poor. The modelling and placing of the picture is not effective. The other hand has being missed off and it is an awkward bodily length and in a awkward place in the picture. We did'nt really take our time with this image.

We retook our side lighting image to try and create a more effective picture. This image was took at a lower shutter speed and seemed to work a lot better. Their is a lot more of the body in the picture and is placed in a different position, this being on the left side. The lighting conditions were better because the sun was at it's brightest and we got more shadows on the face, therefore making the features more enhanced, or example the cheekbones and chin. After the image was taken, we reviewed it and thought we could take a much better shot, making the subject a bit closer and maybe even have a meaning.

Our new target was to create a more natural shot. So the hair is being blown by the wind, and there's people in the background, which aren't as lit up by the light as the main subject, therefore making them less important. We also achieved the target of getting more closer to the person and making them more important by placing them in the middle. We kept the focus on automatic, because the manual focus wasn't needed. The side lighting had hit the face nicely and brought out the facial features, for example the cheek bones and dimples. Our problem was that there was too much light on the body and not enough on the face.

Skills Development 5th November

The skills that i have learnt in the lessons on taking photo's have being very helpful. I have learned lots of skills including about shutter speed, and how it controls the length of time that light can pass through the lens. We practised doing slow and fast shutter speed on the 5th of November which was very usefull and will help me with my final production. Another skill I learned is how to measure shutter speed. We did a practical on this and I found out that the bigger the number, the faster the shutter speed. Slow shutter speed can be used to capture movement into the image. For example, in our practical, we used flashing lights in the picture to capture all of the movement and span them around to create a better effect. At first we had the shutter speed at 1/80, which gave an effect like this,

But then, to make the picture better, this was took at a shutter speed of 1/60. We knew that a lower speed would make the picture and movement a lot better and effective. So I learned what is the best low shutter speed and an exposure time of about 8 seconds. Another skill which I learned in this lesson was how to use fast shutter speed. Using this speed captures a moving object or person, and freezes them in motion. To do this, I set the camera speed at 1/500 for a trial, this turned out to be the perfect one and therefore we didnt have to change it. It turned out like this,

The image is not perfect, which is the effect that we wanted. The whole body is still, apart from the arms, which adds a bit more effect towards the image and makes it more intersting. The disadvantage of this however, is that people might that that this was done accidently and that it was not wanted. All of the skills that I have learned, including the shutter speed, will benefit me when it comes to my unit 3 production, because i now know exactly which speeds I need to create the appropriate effects inside the image. I will have an idea of what movement in the image connotates and what stillness in the image creates. Global warming will include many images that are moving, which creates the effect it is having on the planet. For example, this maybe smoke coming from a factory. Skills that I need to develop further to progress even more, include how to work the camera buttons and effects better, as I was mostly just guessing what to do. Also I need to know other effects for the Unit 3 production.

Independant Learning

The tutorial that I decided to watch was about lighting photo's in photoshop, without using the dodge and burn tool. I learned how to duplicate easier, using CTRL and G. This will help in my practical work as it will be quicker and more efficient. After this, I learned how to make this layer, 50% grey, and then change the blending to overlay. Then just clicking on the dark areas with the brush, it brings everything out and makes it lighter. Another skill I learned within this clip was a quicker way to change the foreground and background colour around, by simply pressing X. All of this would benefit me during practical work as, the tutorial explained you can easily undo and redo with this technique and add and takeway different effects that you included.

Initial Skills Audit

Introduction Project

 Final Print Advert

 Storyboard 1-6













Storyboard 7-12












Project Evaluation
In this project, I have developed many different skills that I have never been able to do. An example would be that I learned how to use basic, but useful skills on photo shop. Even though it was hard to get the hang of, it is always good to learn new skills and develop them further. Other skills I have learned is how to use a camera in a green screen room. I have had hardly and experience with cameras, and then to learn some skills just like that was a great achievement. One more skill I have learned is how to analyse adverts and posters well and what could their targets be.  I still have some weaknesses in using photo shop, as I have only ever been on it a few times, first time being at college, but I believe I could develop the skills in time. Another weakness would be that I don’t have many skills still in using a camera. I think I am progressing well and seem to be understanding all the work. I would like to develop my skills in photo shop and using a camera further.

Going back to my skills development initial assessment, I have identified and used many skills. These skills include using a camera. It wasn’t for long however, but I started to understand what a lot of different things mean, for example, effects such as negative and white balance. Other skills I have used is the basics on photo shop, including, magnetic lasso tool and understanding the shortcuts and codes in order to do the appropriate task. I have effectively used the skills efficiently and have used them clearly in my final product. For example, cutting out with the lasso tool on photo shop, and placing and image on top of another image, creating different layers and making up my final advert. The work I am blogging demonstrates my skills because, it shows how I took the pictures on the camera in the green screen room, through my storyboard. There were some weaknesses me and my group encountered during the process of our advert. We could have done a lot more planning on the project because we just seemed to jump into one idea, and then as we were creating our final advertisement, we were coming up with lots more better ideas. Another weakness we faced was the pictures for our storyboard. A lot of the images are similar and we could have taken a lot more and varied the shots. The variation we could have used could be shot distance, effects or even shoot mode, including burst and panorama. If I were to do this project again, I would not do the pictures in the green screen room. We were limited with ideas and we would have preferred to have an action background, instead of plain white. It seemed a good idea at the time and it would be different from everyone else’s. Also I would have taken a lot more pictures.

The target audience for our product before we re-branded it was an older group of the population, maybe around a range of 40-50 years old. The sweet packet has olden day righting on it and the sweets were developed firstly in 1907, and are not very appealing to a youth’s eye. For our new target audience, it is aimed at college students or an age range would be around 15-25 years old. The elements we used to grab their attention was the fact we had their age range models on our advert and made the yellow packaging a lot more bright. The story of our advert would also appeal because it is daft and funny. The fonts I used in the advert are original at first, but them for the slogan, ‘small sweet, big taste’; I used bright and bold typing. It also has a text shape of bulge to stand out even more. Some elements that don’t work in our project were the amount of content that was on the advert. I feel I could have added more text or images to the advert to make it tell more about the product and grasp the attention of more people.  People would take a look at the advert and only see the name, slogan and picture of the sweet. They will not know anything about them or what the sweets are for. This work demonstrates my understanding of segmentation systems because I could view what that certain type of audience is appealed to. An example would be the advert, because it shows the bright colours and the young models in the picture, to target that certain audience.