Planning

Picture	Who?	Location
Close-up mid-shot Student looking happy and holding books	Tilda	Library
Close two-shot of a boy and a girl looking comfortable and happy	Jack and Abby	Library
Low-angle mid-shot of a student holding a certificate showing looking proud (school uniform)	Lucy	Corridor (plain background)

Taking pictures

Below there is a selection of photos I took on my first attempt. I tried to experiment with angles and lighting, and these are my results.

1

Picture number one was one of my favourites, however, the flash of the camera reflected off the books in the background and they stood out more than I liked.

2
The lighting in this photo is too bright, and so the girl's features are almost undefined, and the flash has caused a big  shadow in the background which makes the background look darker, so I decided not to use this photo for my front page.

3

At first I thought this photo would look really effective, but when I uploaded it I noticed that I didn't use the rule of thirds, so the subject is less central, which means that the reader's attention is distracted from the centre of the page. Also, the natural light is behind the subject, when it should be behind the camera. I do, however, like the body language because it is confidence, so the other pictures were always a possibility.

4

I originally decided to use this photo for my front cover, but I later changed my mind because I felt as though the shadow behind the subject was too distracting.

Editing
My first step was editing the picture I'd taken for my front page; a close-up mid-shot of my friend holding some books. I edited out some of the blemished and adjusted the hue of the picture slightly so that the lighting wasn't so harsh, before I uploaded it. This was my finished image:

On InDesign, I created my layout so I knew how things would look once I uploaded everything. I decided to have a banner along the bottom of the page to allow space for announcements and extra information, as well as two extra pictures on either side of the page showing the successes and happiness of other students. In terms of the background, I decided against cutting out the head of the girl on the main image and have it overlapping the magazine name because I struggled to achieve a smooth cut which looked realistic, but I think leaving it looks just as effective, although it doesn't follow this particular popular convention.