Photoshoot - Miss Miller

Photo shoot

The pictures that were taken during the photo shoot will be used for creating our individual magazine adverts and digipaks which have the purpose of helping us to promote our artist within the music industry and the music video that we have created by making the audience aware that she is releasing a new album. The use of images helps to create exposure for the artist due to the fact that an audience can see what she looks like and will therefore be more likely to stop and look if they see another image of her anywhere else in the media and become more interested in her and her music which could potentially boost her success within the music industry. An image will allow an audience to see what the artist looks like and helps to give the audience an idea of how she was feeling while the image was being taken which could also suggest how she feels about her music and what she does. This is particularly important for our group due to the fact that our artist was new to the music industry, therefore it is likely that not many people will know who she is so it was important for us to make our audience aware in order for our artists music to sell. It was important to take a variety of pictures because this would mean that we had more pictures to choose from when creating our adverts, especially if we decided to change our advert at the last minute, therefore lots of pictures were needed due to the fact that we needed roughly five different pictures each and we also needed back up pictures in case we did not like the first lot of images. Also, by taking a variety of pictures we prevented our magazine adverts and digipaks from looking the same, which therefore provided the audience with a variety of different visuals of the same artist.

The reason this image was taken was due to the fact that I wanted the audience to be able to clearly see what the artist looked like due to the fact that I was promoting her into the music industry as a new indie artist. This particular image will be used for the front cover of my individual magazine advert and also for the album cover of my digipak, which will be the same image just zoomed out. Another difference between the images will be that on the advert will be in black and white while the image on the digipak will be in colour, due to the fact that I felt this would make the digipak more interesting and would prevent the digipak from looking identical to my advert. The use of a close up image of the artist is conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that indie artists are often perceived as writing their own music which is based on real life experiences that the audience will be able to relate to which therefore makes the advert feel more personal to the artist. The use of the colours black and white are also conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that they connote the idea of the past, suggesting that the image was a memory to the artist which is conventional because the indie genre is often perceived as being old fashioned and as not fitting into the mainstream. I like that in the image Amy looks caught off guard which helps the image to appear more natural, due to the fact that it does not look staged, therefore she appears more realistic which will help the audience to view her as being more relatable because they themselves will not have equipment such as green screens or have studios available to them in which they can take part in photo shoots or change images in order to make themselves look better than what they actually are. The use of colours and images may help the audience to feel as though they will get to know more about her by listening to her music due to the fact that indie artists are often known for writing their own music that is based on real life experiences that an audience will be able to relate to.

I decided to use this side image of the artist laughing because I feel as though she comes across as being happy and more natural looking which could suggest to the audience that she likes producing music and making her fans happy, and that she is not just in the industry for the money which is conventional in the sense that indie is not the most popular genre of music, therefore indie artists do not always make a lot of money from selling their music. I was inspired to take this picture after analysing Ed Sheeran's magazine advert for his album '+', on which the audience can see a candid shot of him laughing which helped to imply that he was enjoying himself, and as being genuine and someone who the audience would feel comfortable to approach. This could also make the audience feel as though they want the artist to do well and will therefore feel happier buying and listing to his music. This particular image will be used on one of the slides on my digipak and will appear in black and white, which I felt would be more conventional to the indie genre which is often perceived as being more old fashioned, and the colours black and white connote the idea of the past. I feel as though this image is also conventional in the sense that the audience can clearly see how the artist is feeling and indie artists are known for writing songs that are based on real life experiences, therefore the audience may feel as though this image captures how she was feeling while she was writing her music, or how the album that she is promoting makes her feel and how the audience can expect to feel while listing to her music. Indie artists are sometimes perceived as writing music that can be quite depressing, due to the emotional deeper meaning that the songs often have, which may sometimes put people off of listing to this genre of music, however, this image may suggest that her music is different when compared to the typical feel of indie music. I like that in the image Amy appears happy which I feel will make the audience feel as though she enjoys what she does and that by listening to her music they will also feel happier and closer to the artist due to the fact that, through the use of close up images it is implied that the album is personal to her and that the digipak is about promoting her as an artist which is beneficial to her due to the fact that she is still new to the music industry, therefore not many people will know that much about her. This image will help the audience to view the artist as being someone whom they can relate to due to the fact that she does not come across as trying to be better than her audience, for example, through the use of branded clothing and expensive jewellery and she genuinely comes across as a happy person and someone who will make the audience feel better about themselves.

The picture of the artist looking towards the ground will be used on the back cover of my digipak, however, I had planned on using an image of the artist leaning against a wall, but the wall that she was leaning against had graffiti on it which I felt could have taken away from the artist herself. Having said that, after finishing my digipak I feel as though this image compliments the other images more and due to the positioning of the image there was enough room for me to include the song names and barcode on the side without covering the image.
It could be argued that the picture is subversive to the indie genre due to the fact that it creates a sense of mystery about her because the audience cannot clearly see her face, however, it could be argued that my artist is a mystery in the sense that she is new to the music industry, therefore not many people will know who she is or the songs that she has produced. This may interest them into buying her album due to the fact that indie artists often open up about their lives through the lyrics of her songs which are based on real life experiences that they have been through which allows the audience to get to know more about them. I like the fact that the image is more to one side due to the fact that this left me enough room to include several song names on the back cover which benefits the audience in the sense that some of these songs will have been released as singles before the album itself, therefore if they have listened to some of these songs before and like them they will be more likely to want to buy the whole album which means more sales for the artist. The audience will also be able to see the image as well as the song names clearly which will help them to build a relationship with the artist because they will know how she is feeling through the visuals of her facial expressions; the fact that she is looking towards the ground could imply that she is sad which compliments the typical emotional style of music that is associated with the indie genre.

This image of the artist walking through the 'cornfield' will be seen on the actual CD within my digipak due to the fact that I liked that idea of the audience being able to see the artist whenever they decided to listen to the CD. I feel as though this image is conventional to the indie genre due to the fact that the audience can see that she is standing in a field and isolated, easily accessed locations which the audience may be able to relate to because it is possible that they have been to these places before, which also helps to represent the artist as being more relatable because people within the music industry are often perceived as having a load of money and therefore as having a glamorous lifestyle that not everyday people will be able to relate to. Due to the fact that indie is not the most popular genres of music, indie artists do not tend to make as much money through selling their music as people within the pop genre, for example, which is much more mainstream and appeals to a wider target audience. In this image, I like the way the audience can clearly see her hair blowing in the wind which I feel helps the image to look more realistic and the artist to look more natural because she does not look staged or like she has been cropped into a green screen. I also like the way the sunlight behind the artist creates a highlight which helps her to stand out on the CD. This image will help the audience to build a relationship with the artist due to the fact that every time they listen to the CD they will see the image of the artist and will be constantly reminded of what she looks like. Also, an image of the artist on the CD may be seen as more valuable compared to a picture of her on a piece of paper which most people could own if they wanted to. Having said that, in the end I decided against using this picture for the CD due to the fact that I had used quite a lot of pictures of the artist in my digipak already and in the pictures she looked similar. I wanted my digipak to be primarily based on promoting the artist, however, I did not want all of the slides to look the same as I felt this could bore the audience and would not look as interesting as using a variety of images, not just of the artist, therefore I have also included an image of the sky and a rainbow.

In conclusion, overall I feel happy with the way my finished magazine advert and digipak both look. Although some of the images I decided to use were different to the ones that I had planned on using, I feel that they were changed for the better, for example, I had planned for the CD slide of the digipak to just be an image of clouds, however, when I was creating the digipak I realised that the sky had no real relevance to the rest of the digipak and therefore did not fit in with the theme that I had established. Due to the fact that I had planned what I wanted my advert and digipak to look like, when the pictures were actually taken, some of them were not as good as what I had thought they would be, therefore I had to use different pictures to the ones I had planned to, for example, for the cover of my advert I wanted to use a close up image of the artist, however, after beginning to create my advert I realised that there would be no room for me to include the written information such as the album name without covering up the artists face, which defeated the point of using a close up image. Furthermore, we did not always get a variety of shots due to the fact we knew exactly how we wanted the artist to look in the images, therefore we only took the pictures that we had in mind, rather than changing up the camera shot and positioning of the artist which meant that when we were creating our magazine advert and digipak we did not have a variety of shots to choose from. Also, because we were not all always around while we were filming the music video, we did not have full control over the pictures that were being taken and we therefore had to rely on the other members of our group to take the pictures that we needed which was difficult because they did not always know what images we wanted.
I feel that my choice of images will represent the artist as being a natural and happy person, due to the fact that the audience will often see her smiling or in a mid shot which gives the impression that she was unaware of the picture being taken, this is especially true for the image used for my magazine advert in which her eyes look wide, suggesting that she was not expecting someone to be taking a picture of her.
It was important to take a variety of pictures because this would mean that we had more pictures to choose from when creating our adverts, especially if we decided to change our advert at the last minute, therefore lots of pictures were needed due to the fact that we needed roughly five different pictures each and we also needed back up pictures in case we did not like the first lot of images. Also, by taking a variety of pictures we prevented our magazine adverts and digipaks from looking the same which was beneficial because we each had our own ideas of how we wanted our advert and digipak to look.