Experimenting with the camera at the beginning of the summer

 When I received the camera at the beginning of the summer I tested it out and tried to get a better understanding of how to use it so when I took the actual photo shoots of my cover stars for my magazine covers, I would appear professional and confident. These were some of the photos I took:

A bee collecting pollen

Playing around with taking pictures of plants and close up shot - I 
especially like how bright and saturated the colour is 

Bribing my dog with some pancakes - not the clearest picture 
but it helped me figure out how to take pictures of moving objects

These are some 'filler' pictures (pictures that will be on my website but won't be main front covers) I've taken for my website and they're dressed professionally to fit the current affairs magazine theme:

The smart shirts and glasses make them appear successful, professional and intelligent which is exactly what a current affairs model should look like.

An example of what I mean by 'filler' pictures

Update : How the photo shoots went

The first photo shoot was with the cover star "Alex Freeman", no.1 best selling young author for his new book "A path to a better tomorrow" which is about his mental health journey and he's been included in "Fresh Voices" for how inspirational he is for the target demographic as he challenges taboo subjects and isn't afraid to be his raw self. The majority of the photo shoot is located around nature backgrounds and a few sides of buildings because that was where when he was at his worst, took long walks to help ground him (also science has shown being around nature overall helps with your mental health). For mis en scene and representation he's dressed professionally with a shirt in a large amount of the photos and other smart looking clothing. He's wearing his glasses and has slightly ruffled hair, altogether work to accurately represent him as an author. 

This is an overview, overall it was a good day for lighting only cloudy at some moments. Some of my favourites are:

These are just a few of my favourites but I included them in my 30 second background footage, I think overall the photo shoot was successful but what I wish I would've done was take more landscape pictures for the website. However, I can always crop them in a landscape format and for my 2nd photo shoot I made sure to take landscape pictures as well.

The second photo shoot starred Niomi Smith, a robotic engineer who is being commended for the work she contributed towards the robots being used to combat covid 19 in hospitals today. She is an intelligent and career driven individual who makes a perfect role model for the target demographic. The photo shoot background locations mainly consisted of tech/smart looking buildings but also a selection of natural backgrounds perhaps for the website. For representation and mis en scene, she is wearing smart professional clothing that isn't overly sexualised (supporting current affairs' feminism ideologies), lab coat to fit in with her job, and a lanyard (previous blog post shows me making it) which a robotic engineer would all realistically be wearing. 

Overall, I took more landscape pictures and more pictures in general. That particular day there was much better lighting and therefore I was able to move around to more locations, moreover I also attempted for her to try out the poses used for the Vogue key worker cover shoots. I think overall her photo shoot went really well, here are some of my favourites:

I really like the tech/professional looking backgrounds and I think they all fit the "Fresh Voices" current affairs magazine style.