Developing idea's, shoots, and final work

I have decided to create a set in the style of The Smiths as I think it is very effective and I personally like it. For the album cover I am going to use a found image, as the band did, and have the band name along the side in a colour picked up from the image. For the poster I am going to use a picture from the shoot in black and white, maybe with a green hue to it to match with the one coloured style. For the band photo's I am going to pick the best from my two photo shoots and edit them in the house style.

This is the album cover I have created, using an image found via the internet. I added it to a square background and left enough space for the text. I used the dropper tool to pick a dark colour from the image to use for the text and stretched it to fill the space. I really think it works for the style I went for, and although it has no relevance whatsoever to the band or it's music, it all flows very well. If I had more time I would take my own picture in a similar style.

 This is from my second shoot and it works really well for making the artist look strong and confident. He is in a natural environment which creates a pretty setting, but there are strong lines which cut up and down the image emphasising the seriousness the band feel about their music. It combines media image with attitude in a subtle way. The facial expression is severe yet fairly blank, preventing the viewer from feeling pressured. I particularly like the variety of tones and how the light shines from behind the trees. I had the artist framed in this position so the lines were in the right place, and he was still clearly the main focus. If I were to retake it now I would consider taking it from lower down as I really like how the leaves look on the ground and they could have been used more.

 I tried to be a little more creative with this image and it has worked very well. I used a long shutter speed to capture his motion, and it has made a very eery yet artistic effect. The surroundings are very strong and linear, which contrasts with the ghost-like character. It is definitely enhanced by the lack of colour, which would make the figure quite tricky to see. It also adds to the general atmosphere. I think this works well for the band as it captures the viewers attention immediately as it is out of the ordinary yet not ridiculously unrealistic that it causes a lot of questioning. Also it is common in this genre for the artists to use very creative artwork in their album booklets or promotional images.

 I have added a slight green hue to all of this images to stop them looking too contrasty and to go with the house style. I think it softens them a lot and as this is the bands first set of photos, I don't think it would be appealing to the audience if they came across as too strong, as this might be misinterpreted for cockiness. It is essential to let the viewer see the people in the band, and to make them feel like they could associate themselves with them, not to initially bombard them with pressuring messages.
I have included aspects of all of my ideas, by having some final images that are fun, some that just show the band member stood there, and then one that is quite artistic. I feel it matches the bands attitude very well as they wanted to be seen as playful but serious about the business. It also works with the genre as it is very common for rock music to have a quite artistic approach. 

This is my poster image and I found it very difficult to achieve what I wanted, even though it looks really simple. I am not very good at placing text onto image and I spent a lot of time messing with the size and placement to stop it looking tacky. Eventually I settled with this as it took up a lot of the blank space without being too big it overpowered everything else. I changed the colours to fit the rest of the style and decided on this image because it was the most suited to being in a poster. It had blank space to accommodate text and was strong by itself. It does not effectively show the band member, but that is not necessary as a poster is specifically bought, meaning the buyer is already familiar with the band.