Feedback on assignment
(my comments are in Italics)
In general I think that this is an interesting and successful assignment. I know that you had some difficulties and false starts for a variety of reasons before settling on this particular project but you have not been thrown of course by these.
When covering events like this it is of course, vital to keep the readership of the publication commissioning the article or to whom you are submitting the coverage in mind.
I was thinking of the readership and editor at Somerset Life, a somewhat conservative county magazine that is however interesting at times in it’s coverage of the county
A magazine aimed at a Folk music and dance audience would be best served by a different set of images from a local but non-specialist audience or a tourist audience.
For the first I would have included some of the sword dance images and for the local audience you might have considered including rather more of the audience (editors still work on the basis that local faces sell copies; one for themselves, on for Mum and one for Auntie Flo!) and a tourist magazine might want a more obvious location fixing set of images.
I left out the sword dance images because I thought they might emphasise the sinister aspects associated with “pagan” rites although they are of course not really pagan since many were constructed in the modern age (from 18’th century onwards). The Mummers Play although borrowed from older texts is coming up to it’s 25’th birthday.
Obviously the trick is to shoot with all these things in mind and edit according to the publication and building a relationship with the editor to find out their preferences is worthwhile for future commissions and good recommendations to other commissioners. (I may well be preaching to the converted here but feel I would be remiss if I didn’t mention it).
The quality of the images is fine both technically and aesthetically, the extra ones are not any worse either. Just one or two points for you to consider. The first is a very minor one but…the caption to image 4 speaks of a ‘Geyser’ whereas you speak of a ‘Guiser’. My understanding is that in Mummers plays, Morris dancing an the like in England at least, a masked or blacked up or whatever figure is referred to as a Guiser (from disguise I believe) so unless this particular play actually calls the character Geyser you should amend this.
A fair point … one I should have been aware of since I have the book that distinctly says “Guiser“.
It is good practice to adjust your images so that the white value is somewhere around 250 so that any pure whites don’t bleed into a white background either on the page or the border when printing. The overall impression of the image will not be diminished but it will separate it from the surroundings.
Good technical point – I need to use the Output controls in the Levels dialogue box!
The most important issue for me is the way you have bled certain images across the fold (I am assuming an A format publication and that most of your pdf pages are two pages in the magazine). Your pages 2 and 5 are the problem as shown below:
I was not intending to make a layout for printing here only something for the editor to see the photographs on offer. However, there point is relevant because often readers do not know how tom activate the reader to show a double-page view.
As you can see the fold in both cases and particularly in page 5 passes right through a face and as this is the main subject in image 3 page 2 I think that it would look pretty bad in the final publication. I would redo the layouts for these pages even if that means adding extra images. I think that you may have settled on the layout in double page format and this really is fraught with danger unless you have the gutters (the fold and associated lost space) clearly marked as you could in a layout program like Quark or InDesign.
Agree … but was not offering this as a serious layout merely for viewing onscreen. In a proper layout there would need to be more balance of the photographs on the page!
It can be good practice to maintain a constant layout for pages (a master page layout) to keep a consistent ‘look’ to the publication. Of course this isn’t a graphic design module or assignment so it is the images that are the main issue at hand and these I feel are fine but you don’t want to let them down by making a poor attempt at the layout do you?
Again, I agree … but I was not offering a layout just a place to view images … a standard layout might be helpful (often images are all printed at the same size in lines and rows) yet images vary in importance with some needing to be printed smaller than others.
For me some of the images could do with just a little more punch (a difficult concept to describe I am afraid but I used camera raw’s clarity slider and to achieve more or less what I was thinking about here: original with punch given the loss of tonal range that comes with magazine printing I think it is worthwhile getting as much as you can, without overdoing it if course, when preparing the shots for four colour printing.
Punch! yes I know what that is … clarity is one of my least favourite tools and yet it does not applying when images look rather soft even dull
Learning Logs/Critical essays
The learning log is continuing to be a good read! Before submitting it make sure that the navigation is as easy and logical as possible (Clive had posted various things about this on the forums if you can find them) and that all links work. There is nothing more infuriating than a broken link during an assessment.
Suggested reading/viewing
If you can find Harold Evans’ Pictures on a Page in a library I think it would be a worthwhile read.
I have acquired a second hand copy of this book and read a certain amount of it; my blog about it is here! it formed part of the research for my photo essay.
If you can find a copy in a library or via inter-library loan have a look at Solomon-Godeau, A., 1991. Photography at the Dock: Essays on Photographic History, Institutions and Practices. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
If you haven’t seen this I can recommend it:
Short, M., 2011. Context and Narrative. Lausanne: AVA Publishing S
Have a copy of this book and shall look at it again!
Pointers for the next assignment
Remember to look at the assessment criteria and make sure that you have covered all the bases and that you have a sixth pre-assessment tutor report at level two. Often this is best as a Skype or similar thing to sort out your final work prior to assessment. Let me know whether you would prefer a Skype, phone or regular report on this and we can make the appropriate arrangements. We can tidy up any outstanding matters then.
| Tutor name: | Peter Haveland |
| Date | 28/04/2014 |
| Next assignment due | Before sending in for assessment |
Progressing With Digital Photography 