DPP - Assignment 4 – Real or Fake - with Tutor Feedback

Assignment 4 – Real or Fake

My approach to DPP assignment 4

The objective of this Assignment is to produce a photographic image to illustrate an imaginary book or magazine cover.

Since the covers of books and magazines are sales vehicles for their contents, the covers of such items are subject to wide interpretation by art directors, illustrators and photographers. Should the book give an indication of the story, should it help the reader visualise an element within the story or is it simple, or should I say the complex marketing skills used to draw a potential buyer to this particular book for no reason other than the cover and its genre. 

Whether the book is fiction or fact can quickly determine if the book cover image itself is fiction or fact or at least which camp the majority of its cover design will fall into

I thought I’d take a look at a few book covers to get a feel for what sort images are used for books about fiction:

Styles, colours, layout all seem different across this small selection. If there is a winning design its not yet been identified! I suspect there never will be.

No doubt an established writer will be selling books based upon their popularity; whilst book covers no doubt help, in the case of JK Rowling and her Harry Potter series then it’s unlikely that the book cover contributed much to each book's popularity, the writing did the talking. That said for some of the books I saw there did seem to be two covers aimed and children and adults. However for less popular or new authors then how can they encourage the reader to take the first step, how does the book cover attract a browser? Well the cover of this book attracted me even though I knew nothing about the author:

I expect that there is much science behind book covers and the question of ethics regarding whether an amount of digital manipulation has been used to create the cover of book of fiction is not something worried about.

For my book cover I decided that I would create something that initially started simple but would strike a chord with the browser and have some hidden complexity and something not quite visible at first glance. In addition I want this book to stand out on the book stand and its colour to help achieve this and at the least encourage the browser to pick up the book and have a look inside. After this then the writing inside must take over, the cover has done its job.

Some time in the past I had wanted to create a fun image where I could duplicate a subject with a view to misleading the viewer. I initially got the idea from a website called Photoextremist where the author, Evan Sharboneau gives tips and demonstrations about photo manipulation. His image below whilst excessive looked fun:

In this image he got his mother to take multiple images of himself with the camera on tripod where he later processed the multiple images into a composite.

At the time this image by Evan inspired me to create a composite of my own which at the time I posted on a social website claiming it to be an image of my triplet daughters where as it was my oldest daughter making several poses which I captured with a camera on a tripod. For those that ask its water in an empty beer bottle for extra effect and questioning from the viewers even though she is beyond the legal age:

So this started me thinking of an image where I could capture multiple instances of the same person.

Michael Sacasas has an interesting blog and put together an interesting post regarding combining a remembrance to the D-Day landings and places having memories and follows a similar theme to that I posted a few weeks earlier.

This post can be found here but it’s this image in part that gives further reference:

http://thefrailestthing.com/2012/11/10/conjuring-ghosts-digital-technology-and-the-past/

The combination of images across time is very powerful and serves as reminder of how things change and how it will continue to do so long after I have gone. Perhaps someone will use one of my images 70 years later.

These images have given me suggestion and ideas of how to approach assignment 4.

Assignment 4 Workflow and Images

I decided on the scene which would be at Lydbrook Church where a number of graves existed. My pre-visualisation was to create on image of a child praying at the side of a grave with a spirit version looking down at the praying child. For this image I wanted both subjects to be the same person but appearing as if twins. To avoid causing an possible offence to anyone I selected an old grave where the deceased had long since passed and in creating the image was very careful not tread anywhere that could be mistakenly seen to offend and was also set-up so as to ensure no names were captured in the image. Had this been for a real book cover I would considered seeking permission from a relative if they existed to ensure it wouldn’t cause offence if recognised.

I planned the shoot for Saturday afternoon when the church was closed to minimise any disruption. I took a multitude of shots both landscape and portrait composing the images in pairs where my model was both the praying child and the child spirit. Initially I had wanted to capture the whole of the image but on location I saw this would not work so instead attempted to ensure that the arched window was not cropped out of the image. I also need to ensure I had some space for the book titles that I would put on the image to turn this into a book cover which would be a single cover shot only and not an image spanning front and back of the book.

Some of the images I was able to discount on site when reviewing a block of images. Whilst I had a strong visualisation of want I wanted to create I remained flexible and experimental in deciding how I would and could refine composition and make small adjustments and consider spacing for titles. In the rejected images below these show red highlight boxes demonstrating:

• ·         where I tried to capture the top of the church
• ·         where I felt there was insufficient space for inserting the book title and author at the bottom
• ·         where I had not composed sufficiently to include the full stained glass window

So I have taken and chosen 2 images that were taken with the same composition with the camera on a tripod, one image contains the subject praying and the second image shows the subject looking down toward where the subject in the earlier image was praying.

I’ve wanted to digitally amend the standing subject to make them look ghost like. Using the Magnetic Lasso tool I’ve drawn around the standing subject:

and then, now she isolated from the rest of the image, desaturated her:

I’ve then made further adjustments to the standing subject to brighten her know I would be later reducing her opacity. This next image shows the subject having had contrast increased to 20% and brightness to 25%

This now leaves me ready to combine the images but wanting both subjects appear in one single image:

With these two images I’ve then imported them into Photoshop as a stack:

File > Scripts > Load Files into Stack

Selecting the top image I’ve created a new layer using the icon below the layers.

Then using a black brush in the top image, and setting the opacity to 50% I’ve then revealed the standing subject. With the opacity at 50%, this reveals the subject as slightly see-through and more like a ghostly apparition.

I’ve saved the file then then flattened the images (Layer > Flatten) and saved the file.

In the image I can see an outside light which I’d like removed from the image:

I’ve created an adjustment layer and using Clone Stamp I’ve copied surrounding textures to stamp these over the light:

I’ve saved this as a new file then flattened the image, straightened it slightly and saved the file.

My next activity is to stylise this image to transform it from looking like a photograph and to transform into an image that looks more artistic. I’ve imagined this with boosted colours and looking slightly hazy, looking similar as if a still from the TV detective series Midsomer Murders that they sometimes have at the start of an episode. Through experimentation in the past I’ve used the Polaroid Transfer filter from the plug-in Color Efex Pro 4 and have increased the Highlights slider slightly to 25% increase the hazy effect and increased the shadows slider to 20% to maintain some definition in the texture and shows of the brickwork of the church

The following images show the before and after change using Color Efex Pro 4:

I’ve then cropped the image and adjusted  into a 2 x 3 format which I’m using as  the format layout that has been given to me by the “book publishers”, well I’ll pretend they have. In this crop I’ve wanted to eliminate the window on the left but to retain the arched window uncropped. The following image shows this:

At this point in the crop I’ve noticed a distracting element of light top left corner which I’ve clone stamped out using the roof pixels to cover this.

Now for the final element which is to apply the book titles. I have referred back to the books at the start of my assignment and can see how much the titles differ. I did some research here and come across this good article:

http://www.thebookdesigner.com/2011/08/5-great-fonts-for-book-covers/

In this article the author mentions “One of the most consistent and easily corrected mistakes I see with book covers that are designed by authors is weak or inappropriate typography. Given that a book cover usually has very few words on it, and those words (title, subtitle, author’s name) have a huge influence on buying decisions, this can be a major problem.”

I’ve used one of the suggest fonts called Trajen. You might recognise Trajan, and that’s because it’s been used for more movie posters than any other font. It works quite well on books, too. This classic font is appropriate for histories, novels, and historical fiction, among others.  

Unlike some book titles I’ve not wanted the words across the middle of the image. For me the image is the key to the book, its ghostly appearance and to let the viewer discover the scene and the ghostly apparition within it. I’ve placed the book title in black central to the book but at the bottom in the space I’ve planned for it. and applied the author central again underneath. I’ve experimented with changing the colour of the text for the author so that this is distinguishable in its own right I’ve use a dark red to distinguish this and add a different colour, red we normally associate with injury and blood.

I’ve used font Trajen Pro and font sizes 72 and 60 (the smaller for the author’s name.

The final book cover is below:

My Assignment text is in black, my tutors comments in red and my updates in green

Overall Comments 

You have presented a good assignment with an interesting image for a book cover that is supported very well through your primary research. There are a few avenues of exploration that would be good to follow up on at a later date. Your strength with this assignment has been the supportive research and the critical reflection.  

It is again good to see the follow-up on the previous assignments tutor report, a good developmental tool that has some great comments. Your subsequent screen grabs of the Silver Effex program and the technical commentaries supporting your workflow were good to read. With post-production having a strong direction of intent is spot-on and experimenting is the only way to learn to 

visually see what each facet of a program can do. 

Although on the lines of the digital or analogue discussion, in terms of digital processing and postproduction you rarely get those happy accidents that with film sometimes yielded interesting results. An accidental analogue artefact that sometimes could never be repeated was ‘film reticulation’ with black & white processing. See: 

http://www.lomography.com/magazine/tipster/2012/02/15/experiments-with-film-

reticulation

I'm very pleased with these comments and I'm certainly feeling the benefit of investigation and study outside the course, something I've lacked in the past

Reticulation I've not really used film before but there is a surprising an interesting technique where the film is exposed to hot and hold during its processing. The result of this is to make the film grain bunch up during its processing. This will make the silver clump to create bubbles of grain. However heating will reduce the processing time so getting this wrong could result in an incorrectly exposed film. This might take someone with good skills and confidence but is an interesting technique. However I will look into attempting to creating something digitally within SilverEfexPro. However its interesting the we would choose to create or replicate something possible with film digitally. I wonder if there is a digital technique people are trying to create with film. 

Feedback: 

Demonstration of Technical and Visual Skills 

The final image for the book cover works, you have produce an image that is not just representative of pure photography. Yet I wonder how would this compare to an image of similar composition done as a colour infrared image; would it be too stylised, without the figures would it still convey the possible connotations you are after? 

I'd not considered IR since I've used this for Assignment 1. However IR images can create a surreal look and certainly a person's skin and eyes are given and interesting look with skin looking like porcelain. This would be a good look if creating ghostly apparations

Technically you have done well through your post production experimentation and visual awareness. The glowing green grass does pull your gaze into the scene, then to be greeted by the ghostly figure. Maybe try switching the figures around so the praying figure is actually the ghost. This may challenge the viewers’ perception of the proposed story.  

This is where I need to start thinking outside of the box and reversing sometimes normal thoughts to experiment in different ways, this is a great suggestion, I wonder which people think works best, I think this one below, since the subject standing is now seen to have eye connection with the ghostly figure, where as the former image it was reversed

The font consideration for this has been a great factor as it is typography and layout that can truly make or break a piece of cover work. The Trajan font is a good choice as this provides possible subtle hints towards the theme.

Quality of Outcome 

The end result is evidenced well with your initial investigation into book covers and their creation. When you question a books cover and its possible manipulation regarding ethics you ideally need to first ascertain its medium. This unit deals with the ethics of manipulating images that are intended to be read as factual photographs. With some of the book covers, they may look like photos but they 

might be graphically generated images that have photo realistic qualities; given their creative licence, the need to question ethics is not always needed.  

Regarding the cover of ‘The Depths’ by Thacker book used as a reference, upon further investigation I found out that the artist is Amalia Chitulescu, who appears to start with photographs then heavily manipulates them.  

  

http://www.digitalartistdaily.com/user/amaliajuliana 

Well thanks very much for this, it just goes to prove how much further I should have pushed myself. Looking at this lady's website whilst her images look professional her website does not, nor perhaps her English grammar, using text speak. I suspect that perhaps then she is a budding artist in her youth so very well done her in getting her work on the cover of a book. Very talented all the same and perhaps just needs more exposure of her work. I've detailed some images below:

Demonstration of Creativity 

I found your investigation into image manipulation and the composite creation of your daughter posed as ‘Triplets’ to be very great. This may have proved a more fruitful investigation into the ethics of image manipulation, coupled with the act of yourself posting it online, thus fuelling the ethical considerations. The style in which 

you have done it reminds me more of the work of Paul M Smith in particular a series titled ‘Make My Night’. 

http://www.paulmsmith.co.uk/index.html 

With this area of inquiry into composite imagery, you have taken some good risks and evidence quite well a developing personal voice. A rather imaginative piece that warrants further exploration. 

I think the "Make My Night" collection of Paul Smith's touches a chord in terms of humour and perhaps the closest to what I've aligned to by chance. However some of his other sets are very interesting, particularly some of the morphing and the husband / wife with a different reflections. I think his work is a good example of taken an idea and progressing, having a further think and then doing something else, almost an evolution of ideas .

Learning Log  & Contextualisation 

There are some very good contextual points made in your assignment that articulate your lines of thought very well, thus demonstrating a developing intellectual standing within your field. Your idea of getting the tutors to browse a selection of student made covers sounds fascinating, but what, if any would be the benchmarks? Perhaps they would be mixed up with actual book covers or designs from artists that did not quite make the cut.  

That does sound a good idea but I would think the benchmark to be actual real book covers and perhaps the students could inset their covers, perhaps using book titles and authors from the real world to see how their covers stand up, could the tutors tell which was the students...this was my thinking

There are scores of fan made art done for literature and moving image, where sometimes the works look better than the actual chosen artwork. A popular marketing device is for a publisher to redesign a bulk lot of their titles to 

regenerate interest. A great campaign, which utilised strong graphics and lovely typography was from Penguin Books; see: 

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2010/march/penguin-and-red-covers 

There are some very interesting book covers here and the artwork is very inventive and contemporary. However I can't help feeling that because of the book title or the author, the book is already sold the minute the person finds what they are looking for e.g. they went out with the purpose of buying that book regardless of the cover. The skill which I find interesting is how the cover sells the book and the ethics here would be how aligned the cover illustration is to the story

Your technical reflection is good in relation to your expectations, it will take a lot of time to improve your skills and develop your postproduction and manipulation workflow. Have a look at this link for some tips on cloning: 

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/30/the-ultimate-guide-to-cloning-in-photoshop/

This is a very comprehensive article so thank you for this. Whilst often if you know what to do you can find it but here there cloning techniques are exampled so understanding what does what and with what results a choice can be made in line with the what the photographer wants to do but does not what technique is best - thanks for this

My Key Learning’s - Achievement versus Intention

I was initially caught in two minds regarding final finishing going for either a dark and serious image or something brighter, perhaps final choice would come down to the style of the story whether it was sinister and dark or more uplifting. Both covers would likely interest book browsers in different ways. However given the choice I’ve chosen the brighter colours with the almost glowing green grass as I feel this would entice the viewers’ eye more readily and then hopefully studying the image the eyes will discover the ghost.

I have experimented on a few individuals as I’m sure a real book cover would be to get initial views based around the possible interest in the book and the discovery of elements in the image such as the ghost and the praying angel.

I feel I have created a reasonably stylish image and it’s been interesting moving from pure photography style of processing to something more productive in terms of meeting a higher objective than just the image e.g. producing a book cover. There are of course many facets to photography and many reasons for creating images.

I would have liked a fuller church in the image but given the subject are the people then the final image retains this and the image is seen to clearly focus on the subjects. I could have taken the image further away from the church to get a smaller but fuller image but I think the intimacy of its closeness adds to the image. I have learnt from my early photography that images of buildings can be more powerful and creative when the full object is not captured as a whole.

In terms of achievement versus attention I believe I met my objective but perhaps my expectations are lower as I have not attempted anything like this before and my experience of digital processing techniques has improved as a result of this assignment and the speed to achieve elements has been slow but progressive.

I could perhaps have attempted multiple themes or multiple images around a single theme but as individual image this did become a bit intense in terms of effort and concentration but I feel this learning is now part of my skill set and next time I could increase the boundaries or produce multiple images around a single theme.

At this moment I feel quite prod of the image I have created but as I have discovered so far I will in the near future become more critical of it.

It would be interesting to the tutors browse a selection of books with covers created by the students and to see which covers they are attracted to, their reasons for the attraction and whether these reasons matched the intent of the student.

Suggested reading/viewing & Pointers for the next assignment 

You mention the Harry Potter series and that the writing does indeed speak volumes above the covers; more so now as the work is quite ingrained into our popular culture through the movies. Yet check out these book covers, I find them quite alluring with their strong illustrative design: 

http://carla-wiechers.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/find-redesigned-hp-book-covers.html 

The final assignment is an open brief that asks you to apply the skills you have acquired through the unit to put together a series of 10-12 images. This may be a good opportunity to push yourself to create a body of work that is heavily manipulated. Perhaps a rework of a book series as a follow-on from this project, or investigate an architectural pathway similar to that of Emily Allchurch, which in your learning log you have made a very good observational report on, well done. 

With your Photoshop development, have a good look around these tutorials, some are quite extensive needing about six hours to follow and complete: 

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/illustration/50-best-photoshop-tutorials/ 

However, with all of this amazing work that can be created with software packages like Photoshop, when you are presented with the works like that of Matthew Albanese you almost question its validity until you see the behind the scene shots. Some spectacular images: 

http://www.matthewalbanese.com 

All the best and have fun with your final investigation on this unit.  

Thank you for this and I will blog on some of this links. 

I'm very pleased with the level of feedback, the continuation of research you have done that perhaps I could have but also for the guidance and my enlightenment to how helpful research can be, this aids creative juices, dazzles at times with the sheer wow factor looking at some photographer's work. Certainly some DPP work has had a sense of humor or at least the photographer has indulged them self in something fun and interesting and they themselves have discovered perhaps a niche for themselves. Thanks also for taking the time to immerse yourself in some of my blogs and for your very well observation based comments. These have been very energizing for me.