Rational

Overall I am very pleased with how my book has turned out. I did a lot of research to help me gain ideas with my work. I looked in to book covers, layer outs, fonts, textures, ect. I also looked into different artists to help give me ideas on photographing my work, such as lighting and composition.

My idea for this work was to photograph the difference on Manchester in the day time compared to the night time. From this my idea got narrowed down to the clubbing and drinking in Manchester as I feel that’s what it is famous for. I picked this as I’ve had an interest in this idea for a while now and felt like I was ready to tackle in.

I approached my idea by focusing on parts on the city that was most interesting, such as buildings, roads, ect. My main focus was lighting as I feel the lighting is the key to my idea as day and night are completely different. I wanted to capture the night life being very busy and hectic like it is and for the day images to be empty and calmer.
I had a problem with my first shoot as my photographs were too pixelated when photographing in the dark. I researched the reasons behind this problem and over come it by changing my lens. This helped my work a lot as it made my photographs a lot clearer and lighter.

I have used a blog to help show my progress through out this module and looking back now I can see how much I have improved.
Even though it is the end of my module, I would like to carry on this body of work in my own time, and get even more photographs to fill up my book.

To conclude I am very pleased with my progress for this book, I feel I have ticked everything that should have been and I feel I have learnt a lot from this module, such as the technical side to photography. I am definitely going to carry on with this work as I have a real big interest in this idea.

My Book

Book Layout

For my book I have gone on to the blurb website to find the size of book I am after.

I have decided to go for the Standard Landscape size which is 10x8 inches (25x20 cm)
I picked a landscape one as I have made sure I have photographed all of my images landscape too, so that it keeps my theme going.


LAYOUT
For the layout of my book I have decided to use three columns on every page, this will help me get my photographs accurate on each page of how I want them spaced out.
I have put page numbers at the bottom right and left of the book as this will help me to preference my images at the back of my book, I did this by using a text box on my master pages.
I have put an image box on each page where I feel is best appropriate, and I have made sure that it dominates my pages. I then used a small text box on each page under my photographs as I want to put the time that I photographed them.

Once I had masted the main layout on my book I was then able to style it. I knew already that I wanted to put each day and night image opposite each other on a double page spread, so I played around with the settings until I was happy with the way they were layout out. I have used a black background on the side of the page which has my night time photographs on. I feel this is a good idea because it helps exaggerate the day and night theme and make it clearer to my viewers.
My first and last pages are going to be plain as I want the view to take there time when viewing my book and to give them a play to write any notes.
After the first page I will have a small introduction to help explain what my book is about and where I have photographed it.
On my final page I will have a list of page numbers and next to the it will say where a bouts in Manchester I photographed my images, i.e road names.


COVER
For the front cover I have decided to keep with the theme of black and white so I split each of the pages in half and filled the second half with a black colour. For the front cover I wanted to put my name, title and a photograph, so I played about with the layout until I was happy with the design.

Conclusion so far

Overall I feel that after my eleventh shoot I had enough images to work with now for my book.
So I began selecting my images down to my best/appropriate ones for this work. I then edited them slightly on photoshop, such as cropping and changing the contrast.
I am now ready to start putting my photographs into a book format.

Shoot Ten and Eleven

These too shoots were focusing on my day time images, I left these ones to last as I felt the hardest part on my work was photographing Manchester at night. Also I made this easier for my self by selecting my best images from my night time shoots and then going back to them places in the day and photographing them through the day.
This was a really good idea as it saved me time and I was able to get a close compares to the night time photographs. I found shoot ten hard at first as I had to use my regular lens as my lighting was good enough for it. However this means that my frame on my images were different, so I had to look harder at my composition.

Shoot Four to Nine

From Shoot four onwards I have been focusing a lot on my lighting of my night time images as I feel that is the key to my work. I have stuck with the lens I was using as it has been working really well for me as the lighting and quality on my images are spot on.
I have also been keeping with my composition and business style as I also feel it has been working really well.
I have targeted Bars, Clubs and Pubs as I feel thats what Manchester is famous for.

Shoot Three

Here are a couple of images from my third shoot, this shoot was focusing on lighting.

This first image is of a line of trees that runs by the side of the canal on canal street. I have thought a lot about my composition on this photograph, mainly because I didn't want the lighting to be too over powering on the right. I enjoy looking at the reflection on the floor as well as on the sign. I feel the two people walking towards the camera help balance out my image.

Here is my second image, I have displayed this photograph as I feel it captures Manchester's night life really well. It is very busy and hectic from drunken people walking to each club to get out of the cold.

This has been one of my best shoots as I have been aiming to capture the lighting to make it the main focus on my photographs. I will carry on doing more shoots focusing on this idea.