Organisation of models

I arranged the photo shoot for the images to include in my music magazine a few weeks before we started creating our magazine posters to ensure that I had the images ready for use by the time we started our work. I made sure to arrange the photo shoot on the weekend so that all of my models would be available (and not have to go to college, which would have happened if the shoot was scheduled on a weekday). I used some of my friends (3 boys and a girl) as models for my music magazine because I thought this would be appropriate for my genre of music (pop) and the fact that most pop magazines have images and stories of pop stars who are around our age (16 – 19). Although pop magazines mainly include images of male pop stars (because they get more sales as their target audience of young females aged 12 – 15 are interested in the lives of the male pop stars), I also decided to take some photos of a female friend for my magazine as the interests of the target audience also include make-up and fashion.

Organisation of location

I didn’t really have a specific location which I really wanted to use for my images, so we all got together and travelled to Central London and just roamed around looking for good settings to use for my magazine. When deciding where to take a photo, I had to think about issues such as lighting, background and also health & safety. We were out in the open so lighting wasn’t much of a problem as it was fairly bright and sunny which was ideal because that created the bright, happy mood in the images, which are usually the mood of images in all pop magazines. The background also wasn’t that much of a problem as I was going to cut out the background once I had started my work on PhotoShop because of the structure of most pop magazines include a single shot of the main pop star on the cover without a background so the attention is not diverted away from the main pop star. There wasn’t much health & safety issues that we had to think about when we were shooting for the photos, apart from one slight issue, which was the disturbance we might have caused to the public who were trying to get past a location but we were shooting there. We tackled this issue very sensibly as we just waited until there were no pedestrians walking past and then we resumed our shooting.

Organisation of props and costume

Choosing and arranging props and costume which was appropriate for my pop magazine was very easy as we are all teens and own similar clothing to those of pop stars such as hoodies, bright t-shirts and jeans, and also getting hold of props such as guitars was no problem as one of the male models had 2 guitars which he was happy to take out for the photo shoot.

This image is perfect for my double page spread as the artist is making direct eye contact with the reader and this interacts with the reader as it makes them feel as if they really know the artist while they are reading the interview. The happy and friendly expression shown by the artist sets a cool and calm mood which should keep the readers in a happy mood when they read the article. This mid-shot image is a perfect image to use in a double page spread as most magazines use a page dominating image of the artist on one side and then the article on the other side of the double page spread. His shirt and bag colour give the article a “pop” feel as they are vibrant, happy blue, while his grey/white hoodie gives it a calm feel.

I cut around the artist and used this image in my contents page because it looks as if he’s playing live. I did this because I saw a similar section in a famous pop magazine. The artist is looking straight forward and it looks as if he is in the middle of performing one of his songs, which is what I intended to do.

I used this image as my main attention grabber on my front cover as it very similar to the images used by the real pop magazines on their front cover, a mid-shot/close up of the main artist featured in the magazine. The artist is looking directly into the eyes on the readers which creates a connection between the two. With the use of a mid-shot the audience can see what the artist is wearing and this tells the audience a lot about the artist as well as showing his facial expressions. A lot of music magazines use a main artist, and the biggest image on the front cover is of the main artist (usually someone who is in the centre of fame and popularity at that time). The editors purposely use artists who are popular at that time to increase the readership of their magazine.