what have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?

Photography

For this project we had to use photography for a large part, this was because a magazine article would be boring and hard to read or process without the inclusion of photographs. This has meant that I had to learn how to do proper photography instead of just basic photography. Whilst I do not think I have learnt much (mainly due to the fact that I was using a pretty rubbish camera for my photography as I could not afford, nor get hold of, any decent cameras) I have learnt a lot about positioning of your model and light.

I have learn that to get a decent photo in harsh daylight you want your model to stand with their face to the sun, so that it is behind the camera, as this means it does not cast as much of a shadow over your subject.

It is also best not to stand them somewhere where shadows will be cast over them by the surrounding objects as this can distort or cause weird effects on your models skin.

The stance of your model is also very important and I have learn that just having them standing straight on to the camera is not always the best thing to do. In my case I did not give my model a specific pose to adopt but just let her mess around and I took pictures when I felt it looked best. This allowed her to look more relaxed and normal in photos instead of staged.

Photoshop

I have also learnt how to use a basic version of Photoshop and how to edit my pictures. I learnt how to use the following tools in Photoshop:

·         Brightness/contrast – this allows me to edit the light in the pictures and then change how it affect my model, I quiet often used this tool to make the light levels darker but my model more prominent.

·         Levels – this allows you to edit specific part of the picture, mainly the lightness still but you can target certain parts, like the model or just the sky.

·         Select colours – this allowed me to edit certain colours in my picture, make greens less prominent, the browns in my models hair more noticeable.

In Design

I then used in design to put my articles together, this is a basic editing site and allowed me to draw and place text where I liked with minimal effort. I’m still not 100% sure how to use it properly.