Dust Jacket Process
Before this assignment could commence, I conducted research into what exactly I was attempting to recreate. The vast majority of images appeared to be black and white and capturing within a studio environment. Alongside this, a simplistic and minimalistic composition was continually adopted, just featuring the head and torso of the author. The employed expressions also appeared to be calm with a lack of emotion yet remaining friendly and warm. Wanting my dust jacket to be as convincing as possible, I aimed to produce an image, which would employ the same photographic properties. Some of these sample images can be viewed below.
1
Upon hiring out the Leeds Beckett studio for this photo shoot, I set up two Bowens 500w flash heads complete with soft boxes. Alongside this, the PhaseOne camera was hired to accompany the photo shoot. Once the camera had been connected to the Mac laptop, which had Capture One running, a new session could be created. Using the laptop software, the colour balance was corrected and a new folder to contain the images was opened. A diagram depicting the layout of this photo shoot can also be viewed below. Knowing I wanted to produce a black and white image, I believed a grey backdrop would complement this well. So once unrolling the paper backdrop, the shoot could commence. Employing my model Lucy, I guider her to face slightly away from the camera with her eyes still looking forward. A Series of images were captured which can be viewed on the next page.
2
3
Processed from a RAW file, my final chosen image was processed via Photoshop. To create more depth, the contrast was heightened alongside the shadows. Happy with my final, edited image, the dust jacket design could commence. Employing Photoshop as my basis, the dimensions of 25x40cm were entered to create a new, blank image. After the dpi was also changed to 300, I began to construct the guidelines of the dust jacket. Featuring five main sections, dummy text was entered to help develop an increasingly realistic, professional aesthetic. Colour, pattens and borders were inserted to further encourage this, alongside a bar code, reviews and binding. I found the overall appearance to be relatively convincing and therefore, effective. Screen shots showing this process can be viewed below and on the following page.
4
5