Exercise 16 Page layout

Take between 5 and 10 images from your archive on a single subject or theme then turn them into a picture story by doing the following:

·       Using the layouts above or any other published layouts that you’ve admired as a starting point, design your own pages to meet the needs of your selected photographs.  Design and make at least four different layouts.

·       Write a heading and some short introductory text to explain what the story is about.

·       Write a caption for each image.

Choose the fonts carefully and explain, in your learning log, the reasons for each choice of font.

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I started to create some pages based on a local annual steam fayre which I took last year.  Then on Sunday (June 23^rd) the Westland Motorcycle Club held its annual charity run which went from Lyme Regis to Weston-Super-Mare on antique motor bikes and side cars.  There must have been between 80-100 pre-1970s bikes and sidecars lined up along the sea front and people flock from the surrounding areas to wallow in nostalgia for a few moments in time.

This seemed an ideal opportunity to create some new, original pictures for this exercise.

Basic page layout

Once I had taken a sufficient number of images I sorted them into usable ones and also rans.  I saved the best ones into a folder and created an A3 page layout, in Photoshop, using column guides to assist in the layout.

I looked at various publications for the type and size fonts that they used and they seemed to use a sans-serif font for heading and sub-headings but had either serif or sans-serif fonts for body text.

I decided to stick with tried and tested Arial (sans-serif) for headings, sub-headings and captions and used Times New Roman (serif font) for the text.

Pages one and 2 layout :

Pages 3 and 4 layout:

Pages 5 and 6 layout:

I accept that if I had produced these images for a commissioned article, it would be very unlikely that I had control over the chosen images and layout of the pages.  Hopefully, the picture editor and page layout artist would ask my opinion but I would have to accept that control had passed into the hands of other people.

Exercise 15: Practise writing captions

First, do some research.  Look at some publication that are reliably professional with their picture captioning, such as The Washington Pose, New York Times, Guardian, Smithsonian Magazine.

In the light of your research choose about six of your own photographs and write a caption for each.  In Photoshop, make a copy of each photograph, extend the canvas below the image by an appropriate amount (colour white) and place the caption underneath, neatly formatted.

Ask someone who hasn't seen these particular photographs before to look at them and give their opinion on the quantity and quality of caption information that you've provided.

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Any captions I write should follow the list of five 'W's below as a good starting point:

Guide to Caption Writing

Explain what needs explaining; think about what you can see in the images from the point of view of someone else.  What should they know about it that they can’t already see?  The journalistic five Ws are a good starting point.

Who

If there is a person and he or she is prominent

What

Usually the alternative to who, but also can be what the person is doing - a simple, accurate description

Where

What’s the location and what details about the location are important for the viewer to know?

When

Is time important for the image?  The actual date? Season?  It may not be, but if it’s part of the story, write it in.

Why

Is there a reason behind the event unfolding or the subject being there?  This W is the one that is usually least obvious from just looking at the image.

Keep the sentence tight

Be succinct.  Avoid unnecessary words.  Captions are meant to be short.

Don’t overload with detail

There’s a finite limit to what most viewers want to absorb about an image.  It is a photograph first and foremost, and doesn’t need to be over-burdened with words.

I've put together the cations for the following pictures and feel that they follow the guide lines above but will seek another opinion later.

 

The Collector

Using the five 'W's listed above, this picture uses:

Who/what, why, when.

Early Dusk

This caption covers the following:

What, where, when

Winter Storms

This caption covers the following:

Who/what, where, when, why

Summer Solstice Singer

Covered caption points are:

Who/what, where, when, why

Self Drive Boats

Quilter's Hands

This caption covers  - what, where, why.

Once I had completed all the captions to the above pictures, I needed to get a second opinion as to whether they did fulfill the criteria.  I asked a friend who has works on the local paper and  has extensive knowledge of writing newspaper captions.  In her opinion five of the six captions fulfilled the 5 Ws criteria but picture number 5 - that of the small boats in the harbour - needed to be rewritten as it was constructed in poor English.

Whilst the original caption contained all the necessary information it was badly written.

Now, it is in colloquial English and is easier to understand.  Please excuse the black tick marks which were on the front and came through the paper.

Suggested revised caption reads:

I have found this a stimulating exercise in that it made me think twice about what I was writing.  Words usually come easily to me but having to cover the five 'W's in as short a sentence as possible makes it all the more challenging.

Exercise 14b: Two images on the same page - beach

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To The Cobb

I’ve had this picture for a couple of years now and have wanted to do something with it but wondered what.  I like the way the two women mirror the handles of the wheel chair in the way that they are looking.  I remembered that I had a picture of a noticeboard pointing visitors to the Cobb and wondered if I could marry them up to in a reasonable picture.  Here are the original images:

I tried several ways to combine both pictures in their original sizes but found it wouldn’t work.  First I put the welcome sign to one side:

  Then the other:

  I realised that the welcome sign needed to be part of the women’s picture rather than extra to it so incorporated it into the picture.  I tried it in several positions, first on the left:

Then on the right:

  This one works!  I know it breaks all the rules that judges in competitions spout at you in that you should not have people looking to the right and out of the picture, but this one, in my opinion, works well.  The women looking to the right, the wheel-chair handles and the arrow on the sign all link together to form a cohesive image.

Exercise 14: Two images on the same page - Lyme Regis harbour

These two images are the start point for combining them on to one page.

The layout below seems pretty standard to me with an equal amount of border around both images.  Both pictures are the same size which makes the whole page all equal but rather boring.

 Here we have the same two pictures in the same position but the top one is slightly larger and overlaps the lower one.  This gives the page a link between the two images and allows the reader to move around the page and on to the next page.  It has a sort of balance with room for text beside each image.

The next image has both images the same size and on the same side of the page.  This leaves room for text on the left hand side of the page and is used frequently for magazine layouts.  The text can be inserted in one or two columns as is deemed appropriate.

Another way of displaying two images on the same page is to make one the dominant picture and the second one smaller which allows for a caption each picture.  I think this looks slightly unbalanced but I have seen it used fairly frequently in teen magazines.

Finally I placed them in opposite corners and different sizes to see what effect they had on each other and on the page itself.  This way text can flow around each picture and allow the reader's eye to flow on to the next page without any barrier.  This is also another popular way to layout a page of text and two images, albeit of different sizes.

Overall, I like the last one best of all as it allows text to flow round the images and gives a good balance to the page.

Exercise 14c: Two images on the same page - lifeboat

Lifeboats

Living on the coast at Lyme Regis I often see the lifeboat go out both in practice and on an emergency.  It’s interesting to see the crews manoeuvering the boat into its cage in preparation for it to be returned to the lifeboat station.

Here are the original two images:

I tried several different pictures of the cage and when the boat was being reversed into it but felt the two images above worked best for this exercise.

The problem was that the previous images I thought to use were strong enough to stand-alone.  Here another idea:

I thought I would be able to use a different base image so changed it to the first one at the top.

Here the main image holds the lifeboat whilst it can also be seen in the smaller image.  The inset image is a straight copy with no additional imagery.

Taking it one step further I added a dropped shadow to lift the inset image, linked the two parts together in Photoshop and tilted them clockwise to give it a bit more impact.

 This image has more impact than the two separate images.  It shows different types of activities that the lifeboat have to accomplish in an interesting way.  The two images compliment each other and balance the whole picture.  Both images are balanced on a different part of the thirds division and seem complete.

Exercise 14a: Two images on the same page - Canalside

Exercise 14 Two images on the same page

Take a standard horizontal page, such as A4 or A5 in Photoshop.  Select two images from your archives that share the same subject but differ in treatment (eg, in scale, viewpoint, focal length, lighting, etc).  Size and position these two images on the page in such a way that they appear to fit comfortably.  They don’t necessarily have to be the same size.  You might have chosen an overall view and an extreme close-up of a detail.  If that were the case, consider making one larger than the other and judge the effect.

Now do the same for a few more pairs of photographs, in each case experimenting with size and position on the page.  Make notes for each, giving your reasoning for, first, the choice of images and second, the way you laid them out.  Finally, rank them in order of how well they seem to work as a visual unit.

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Canalside

I’ve found these two images taken a while ago alongside the Basingstoke Canal.  You can see the crane scoop on the bank in front of some narrow boats.  The second picture is a close up of the top of the scoop focused closely to show the cobwebs on the top.

I tried several ways to place the close up with the wider view even to the point of reversing the main picture to see if it looks better with the boats facing right instead of pointing to the left.  That meant I had to change the wording on the bow of the boat facing directly at you in the pictures as it read backwards.  This way round doesn’t work for me when I include the close up so I left it with the boats facing left.

I looked at the scoop and realised that the second image was from a different angle to the larger picture so reversed it so that both scoops faced the same way; I felt that it would look better if they were facing in the same direction.

I tried several variations of the two images, see below:

 

The one above really did nothing for me; it was just two images, of a similar size joined together, but it gave me some ideas to develop the idea further.

 

Next I reduced the overall size of the first image and added the second image to the right hand side with a dropped shadow.  

Here I’ve angled the close up to give it a bit more impact and feel it works better.  I’ve also reduced the size of the dropped shadow on the close up and made the edges softer and this makes it sit better.

Then I thought about reversing the whole image to see how that works but still with the close up in the same position.  

  This is the finished picture with the close up positioned on the left hand side.  The inset image, with the dropped shadow, creates a balance to the whole image with the large scoop on the left and the enlarged top on the right.