Submitting entries

Decided to enter all ten book cover ideas and so spent a pleasant half an hour uploading the images to the Fujifilm Student Awards website.

The Screen Grab below is proof that the images have been entered into the competition. I now await the confirmation emails.

Received email confirmation - my ten entries are all there safe and sound.

Book Covers

As usual I prepared many, many book covers. I have narrowed them down to the 10 I like the most. I am glad I took images with the digital camera as well as the film camera because during the day I waited for the film to be processed I worked up my ideas using the digital images. Once I had the negatives scanned in I could work those up really quickly as all the tweaks and niggles had been ironed out.

Here are my ten final ideas - C&C welcome:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Contact Sheet for FILM

Have scanned in the negatives from the Film which was developed today. The images, of course, have an orange hue - unlike the digital and this is because the Canon A1 does not have auto white balance like the 5D. I will compensate for this whilst processing and preparing them in photoshop to be placed onto the book cover template.

Contact Sheet - FILM

The Shoot - Contact Sheet DIGITAL

Well that went well - contact sheet below. There were a few problems:

• I was no able to make use of the smoke machine that had been boerrowed on my behalf as it did not pass the PAT safety test.
• The idea of having my models smoking was approved - but after all the hassle I just went ahead taking the shots and forgot to tell them to light up!
• Understanding how the lights work and getting instruction on how to use them.

Contact Sheet - DIGITAL

The Contact Sheet shows the progression of the shoot - first thing was to get the light coming through the 'stained glass' correct. Once that was acceptable I then had to organise the amount of light that would be falling onto the subjects and the forground. Next I needed to tidy up the area around the 'window' which resulted in moving the black boards right up to the edge of the window and covering the lower portion of cardboard with a burgundy velvet curtain. I then experimented with focussing on each area of activity - the glasses in the foreground the people in the middle ground and the window in the background. I also tried moving the models around and getting them to wear different clothes. Finally I tried the shoot without the models at all.

The digital shots were backed up with taking shots using the Canon A1 with Fuji Professional 160 film - this film is being processed today and I will scan it in this evening and produce a contact sheet with the scanned negs tomorrow.

The Eve of the Shoot

Hopefully I will have thought of everything and remembered everything. Only limitation might the clothes available to us. However all batteries are charged, all memory cards are blank, all cameras are in the bag - so there is not much more I can do till tomorrow.

I have created a sheet for each of the three shoots I want to do in the 4 hours I have - hopefully this will help the models and the people helping me.

Fingers crossed everyone.

Shoot idea

Doing some research before going to bed paid dividends as I woke up the other morning with a great idea for the book cover. The idea initially was to take 3 shots and take these 3 images and layer them in photoshop. As this is something that could be achieved in the darkroom I thought about what the 3 shots would need to look like.

The first image needs to be an old man seated smoking with a whisky nearby.
The second image needs to be a young man seated smoking with a Guinness nearby.
The third image needs to be colourful stained glass window.

It needs to look something like this:

Other notes:

• The images of the men need to be dark - 'film noir' feeling.
  
• They do not need to be recognisable.
  
• Lots of darkness around them - lots of shadow.
  
• Perhaps only side of the face and smoke visible.
  
• Stained glass to be colourful but have an ethereal quality and be the only source of light.
  
• The stained glass window needs to be over exposed or blurred or perhaps a crash zoom.
  

After discussing my ideas with Chris I have decided that I need to set this up in the studio. I need to do some research so I can show Vinny/Steve what effects and shadowing I want to achieve so that they can advise me on the best set up for the studio and lights.

I will need to create a 'fake' stained glass window and have ideas on how to make that.

Research - Arthur Tress

Have taken inspiration from Arthur Tress' work (both colour and black and white) for the feel I want to achieve with my image. His work has also given me inspiration and ideas on how I want the studio set up. These images, which mostly come from his 'Shadow Series' have a film noir feel to them and the colour images which were created for the requiem for a paperweight series have the ethereal quality that I am looking for.

Office Workers Returning Home







Clock Watchers











Boys Flying Dream

Previous Book Covers

The following are designs that have been used as book covers for various reprints of At Swim-Two-Birds:

Initial Ideas

After reading extracts from At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien and finding reviews and opinions about the book - the following words, phrases and ideas have given me inspiration:

Addressing the devices of fiction 

Exposing illusion 

Finn MacCool

Fair

White 

Bright 

Sureness

Certainty

Irish 

Guinness

Student

Smoking 

Horse Racing tipster

Narrative Chessmen 

Catholicism

Postmodernism 

Teeth stained by tobacco 

Zany 

Deadpan

Manuscripts 

Laziness

Hangovers

rebellion 

Cattle Ranchers 

Cowboys 

Breaking-in Colts 

Pigs Grunting 

Insanity of Irish History 

The Riff is the point 

Mad King Sweeney turned into a bird at Swim-Two-Birds