Photo Shoot

Photo Shoot – Miss Miller

Pictures were taken in the making of our music videos for a number of reasons. It is essential for planning our digipak, a 6 sided piece which features a CD, Artwork, track list and a personal note from the artist. Many images will be used throughout and it is essential to use the highest quality and best fitting images we can get, which meant we had to take a lot of photos in different places to find the right fit. Photos were also needed because of our magazine advert, which is what attracts a potential customer to an album and signifys the album, it is usually also the front cover of the album. An album without photos will be pretty dull and lifeless and the audience would not be very attracted to it, hence why it is essential to go out and take these photos.

The Pictures that we took mainly consisted of me (the artist) with my guitar and it included me playing it leaning up against brick walls or looking over playing into a lake or sitting down by it. We felt this is necessary as this truly shows the rural environment, artists in the indie genre are proud of where they come from and don't need to show off by showing their viewers that they are in an extravagant location, instead this is plain and simple and also relatable, as the artist is in a place, a forest and a brick wall that you probably see or are at every day. The artist is always seen with his guitar, or if not, there is a shot of the guitar on its own. The guitar is the main instrument of the indie genre and having it in many photos shows that we have included conventions and also artists of the indie genre are always seen either carrying or playing their guitar in music videos or album covers, for example Ed Sheeran, Noel Gallagher and Liam Fray. Doing this also shows the audience what type of sounds you can expect to hear before buying the album. 

On some occasions, weather was a factor and we couldn't take any pictures in the rain, as this would worsen photo quality and also may cause damage to our camera or even ourselves, as mentioned in our risk assessments. Aside from that, we had relative ease taking these photos as the locations weren't hard to get to at all and the photos themselves did not take much effort, they were simple, but effective and conventional.

It shows the artist as a person who is troubled, he wears all black clothing and would always rather be alone and that him sitting by a lake looking over shows he could be reflecting about his past. He also is shown as someone who has a passion for music, he is seen in various locations with his guitar and always travels with it and it shows that this is his most valuable item and also his life.

As a group, we will use our taken photos to create our own individual magazine adverts and digipaks for our artist, to make it the most appealing and realistic as we can. We can compare ideas with each other and help with ideas as to what works best and also make sure that our images not only support indie conventions, but more important sell our artist to the audience as who he really is. The purpose of taking these photos in urban locations was because it is conventional to the indie genre, artists of this genre like to show the fans where they come from as it gives the fans a piece of them. It is also used to show emotions, for example a person looking across a lake is considered to be reflecting on the past, which is exactly what my artist is doing. The more conventions we can include from the indie genre, the more popular it will be as we are sticking with things that sell well and what a high majority of indie fans are familiar with, which betters our chances of having increased popularity.