Ex 4.3.3 Strap Line

Illustrate photographically three different advertising strap lines of your choice. The images are for use as a double-page spread magazine advertisement and also in a bus shelter campaign. You can use existing slogans but if you do, you should avoid replicating the imagery that currently accompanies them – do something quite different. Alternatively, you could make up your own slogans – or ask someone to make some up for you. Or use a combination of the two. The important thing is to get the imagery and the text to work with each other. 


I've worked through my file archives for images that I've taken over the past 12 months to see what would be suitable to use for these ad-hoc adverts.

This first one made me think immediately of the five a day fruit and vegetables that people are encouraged to eat these days to help with good health.  Whilst a Chinese gooseberry (Phyllis) might not be the first fruit you think of as one of the five a day items, the picture came out bright and colourful and I thought it would appeal to everyone.

I took this image in a small black / white background photo cube to have complete control of the light and its direction.  Whilst the two front fruits are in focus, the orange one behind is only just in focus.  The shadows of the fruits ensure there is a feel of 3D rather than a flat image.

 Advert to illustrate "One of your Five a day fruit choices"

This image of an Ethiopian girl ( from my recent portfolio) gave me the idea to advertise a clothing catalogue for young women.  There is a catalogue company called Simply Be and I hope this name is changed enough not to have to worry about copyright issues.

I took the actual image in a studio with a white background with a single softbox on the right hand side.  This gave even lighting over the girl.  I used a graduated centre burst filter of white and yellow to put the white spot behind her head as I felt that would emphasis her colouring.  I'm not sure about the wording at the bottom and feel it stand out enough even with a grey dropped shadow but wasn't sure what to do to make it more noticeable.  Even so, I like the whole image and feel it would attractive the right audience.

 Advert to show catalogue young women's clothing and where to apply for a catalogue

This image was one I did last year when I was experimenting with using the Quick Mask in Photoshop to differentiate areas of colour and black and white.  I   was also practising to emphasise colour aspects using brightness and contrast.

As you can't see tea leaves or tea bags I thought it would be better to use a generic advert for tea rather than using a particular brand.

The whole image was taken in colour but then I highlighted the cup, saucer and plate using the Wand (W) then switched to Quick Mask to allow me to control the edges of the cup, etc.  After I had coloured it I saved it in Channels then clicked back on the Quick Mask button to leave a selection outline.  I went to select / inverse to switch away from the cup and saucer to the background and used Unsaturate to turn it to black and white.  Photoshop now has a  facility to bend text in to arch shapes so I used that to arch the words.  Then I used the Layer Style to give it a dropped shadow.

Advert to encourage people to drink more tea - generic variety 

4.3.1 The strap line

Your brief to is to illustrate photographically three different advertising strap lines of your choice. The images are for use as a double-page spread magazine advertisement and also in a bus shelter campaign. You can use existing slogans but if you do, you should avoid replicating the imagery that currently accompanies them – do something quite different. Alternatively, you could make up your own slogans – or ask someone to make some up for you. Or use a combination of the two. The important thing is to get the imagery and the text to work with each other.

Select an appropriate magazine, research its format and size and mock up all three of the advertisement images complete with strap lines. The bus shelter advertisement will go on the end of the shelter using the Adshel format. (You can Google images of these if you’re not sure what’s required.) For this part of the exercise, you’re obviously not expected to work to full size, but your image must be large enough for your tutor to see how it might work in context.

Make notes in your learning log or blog. For each image you produce, try to identify the signifier, the signified, the punctum and the studium. 

Definitions:

Signifier - any material thing that signifies, e.g., words on a page, a facial expression, an image.

Signified - the meaning or idea expressed by a sign

courtesy www.slideshare.net

 Punctum - this is the element which stands out within a photograph. It is often a smaller detail that attracts the eye and becomes more important, influential and meaningful to the viewer

Studium - the element that initially gets your attention. It can be colours, a cool background, a pose, really anything

Ex 4.2.2 Get your work seen part 2

Next, prepare your images for submission. Ensure that there are no flaws in your image and that the preparation has removed hairs, specs, space ships or any unwanted items that emerge into the image.

Before you shoot:

Check out Alamy’s terms and conditions and the standard image file sizes. 


Search the Alamy site to investigate the current stock in respect of your defined theme or area of interest and think about how your proposed imagery can have an 'edge' over it. Alamy is a high image quality agency so you’ll need to take this into account when 
you shoot imagery for submission to them. 


Check out Alamy’s terms and conditions and the standard image file sizes:

Alamy needs photos to meet all 4 points:

1. Good enough quality for all our customers’ needs
   There are a number of technical reasons why images might not pass our QC checks. If you’re uploading for the first time, take a look at our QC Failure Reasons PDF to avoid any issues.

2. Photos from a camera that has a minimum of 6 megapixels
   Cameras with less than this won’t be able to produce a good enough quality for us to sell

3. JPEGs
   Shoot or illustrate in whatever format you like, but you’ll need to submit your images to us as JPEGs.

4. JPEG file size of over 17MB (when uncompressed)
   This is likely to have a compressed JPEG size of 3-5MB. Opening a JPEG in an image program such as Adobe Photoshop will show you the uncompressed (open) file size.

Tutor comment on my chosen images

Hi Jennifer

I think Marine Parade at night has more impact than yellow buckets. You have chosen some good images to submit. 

Katrina 

Tutor approved images to submit to Alamy for selection in Travel section:

Document all your research in your learning log or blog along with reflections on your choice of imagery and its placement within Alamy’s stock. 
Finally, imagine that an advertising agency is looking for suitable images for an ad campaign. What might your images be used to advertise? What would you add to the images to make them an effective tool for advertising the products you’ve suggested? 


As I live in Lyme Regis in Dorset I enjoy taking pictures of the town every week.  Lyme is one of the most photographed places in England and it’s quite difficult to come up with something distinctively different.  I’ve used a couple of my stock images here as I like the picture of the blue anchor which was taken in winter when we had a few inches of snow.  As it snows fairly infrequently in Lyme I had to use something taken previously. 

These pictures would fit into the categories of Travel, England, traditional, English seaside town fishing, beach.

Exercise 4.2.1 Get your work seen part 1

OCA has established a link with a major picture agency Alamy. In this exercise, you’re required to submit 10 images to Alamy and have them passed by the company's quality control so that they appear on its website. It’s up to you to select a category for your series of images but you’ll need to shoot approximately 50 images for your chosen category. Next, email a contact sheet with your best 20 images on it to your tutor, indicating which 10 you think are the best. You’ll come to a final decision on which to submit after consultation with your tutor.

I’ve chosen the images  (those with red ticks) to give a fair representation of life at the seaside.  I’ve tried to include some pictures that you might expect and some that show the seaside in a different light including evening.  Whilst I take pictures of my town most weeks, I tried for a mixture rather than the clichéd view that most people would have.

My tutor's reply to my contact sheet. I must agree that Marine Parade is stronger than Yellow Buckets. 

Katrina Whitehead

to me
8 hours ago

Details

Hi Jennifer

I think Marine Parade at night has more impact than yellow buckets. You have chosen some good images to submit. 

Katrina 

Exercise 4.2 Get your work seen instructions

OCA has established a link with a major picture agency Alamy. In this exercise, you’re required to submit 10 images to Alamy and have them passed by the company's quality control so that they appear on its website. It’s up to you to select a category for your series of images but you’ll need to shoot approximately 50 images for your chosen category. Next, email a contact sheet with your best 20 images on it to your tutor, indicating which 10 you think are the best. You’ll come to a final decision on which to submit after consultation with your tutor.

Next, prepare your images for submission. Ensure that there are no flaws in your image and that the preparation has removed hairs, specs, space ships or any unwanted items that emerge into the image. 

Before you shoot:

·       Check out Alamy’s terms and conditions and the standard image file sizes.

 


·       Search the Alamy site to investigate the current stock in respect of your defined theme or area of interest and think about how your proposed imagery can have an 'edge' over it. Alamy is a high image quality agency so you’ll need to take this into account when 
you shoot imagery for submission to them.




·       Document all your research in your learning log or blog along with reflections on your choice of imagery and its placement within Alamy’s stock. 


·       Finally, imagine that an advertising agency is looking for suitable images for an ad campaign. What might your images be used to advertise? What would you add to the images to make them an effective tool for advertising the products you’ve suggested?