Album 1

This is my first album in my collection for my capstone. It is an ironic poster that mimics the back of a music CD while also listing out a couple of tongue in cheek songs that describe my life. I really wanted to experiment once again with using the color splash technique.

The Base Picture

This picture was taken in front of a wall near the parking behind a couple of shop buildings. I found that this location worked really well in terms of composition because it offered so much room to play around with. The pillars helped frame the image naturally, and made it look very balanced in terms of visual weight. Although it is difficult to see in the pictures, there was a lot of light reflecting off of the foreground, which is not visible, that really helped with giving proper lighting. I tried to stay away from harsh direct sunlight at all costs, and in general I found that the lighting very nicely gives the architecture a lot of shape without being too distracting.

Outline Sketch

Subjects in the picture

I chose to be model in the composition and had a tripod set up with someone else clicking the shutter button to take the picture. I knew that I wanted to be sort of "replicated" along the image, and that I needed to space myself out from each spot I previously stood in. For the effect I took a blank picture of the background, and then moved to a different spot for 3 completely different pictures.

Using Layer Masks

Next I layered each image on top of each other and then put a layer mask on the upper two. This allowed me to essentially edit out the areas of the picture to make it where the lower layers would show through. I drew a shape roughly the size of my body in the mask, which then created the effect where all three pictures of me posing are on screen at once.

Adding a Black and White Layer Mask

After I had all of the layers in place, I then put a black and white filter layer on top of the composited image with a layer mask on that as well. I then erased the area along my shirt so as to only allow the red color to show against the black and white background.

Finishing Touches

For the final edits, I typed a couple of humorous album titles in the "DIN Alternate" font, and then the album title in "Apple Chancery". I used a dark red color for the text to show up better on the background. I burned the corners of the image to make it look more worn and rugged, and then shopped out a small sticker to appear on the back to add to the CD aesthetic. The last thing to complete the composition was some small ironic copyright text in "Arial" font with a slight drop shadow for clarity.

Inspirations

I loved the look of the isolated reds in the White Stripes album. The way that the colors on their clothes and the text on the wall pop out made me definitely plan on wearing a bright colored shirt when I went shooting my first images. Originally I was going to just have the entire image black and white, but later I leaned more towards including color splash. Having the songs listed on the cover be close to the same color as my clothing was also something I was aiming for as well , but I eventually had to settle on a different color red. It isn't all that noticeable in the final comp.

The dramatic pose along with the lost of songs on Adele's album played a part in my structure of the final composition. I wanted to go for a more playful tone with the song titles, and chose to make them all sarcastic names that should have felt sincere but clearly weren't. When it came to spacing and alignment of text, Adele's album was a key starting point on how to go about it. I really liked the uneven length of all of the songs. In the White Stripes album they were all listed very straight and neat with each song being one on top of another, where as with Adele's, there is a more natural and organic feel with the kerning and line spacing. Her album also made me want to include a sticker in order to feel more authentic.