Rain

9th March 2013

For this exercise I was asked to produce a single, strong, attractive photograph for a magazine cover.  The weather had been reasonably dry – rain occurring during the night or whilst I was at work. This narrowed my choice of subjects because it needed to be something I could add rain to. I had hoped to develop my photo with a red brolly completed recently in the exercise cloud and rain which needed rain. I considered children splashing in puddles, wet and muddy action shot of a mountain bike rider around trails full of puddles, lit building at night with the reflections on the pavement, and a lone person through an archway with a brolly.

Instead, I approached the exercise from a different viewpoint. Rain could be added to props such as wellies and brollies. My teenage daughter has a pair of gothic style wellies, and her friends like the prints which are in black, white and red. I decided to go with a magazine cover for wet weather footwear and accessories to appeal to teenagers, inspired by last year’s wet weather.

I placed a small brolly in a boot and looking at shapes. I took several pictures from different angles and decided the boots looked better if they were slightly apart because there was some apparent movement. I encountered a couple of problems such as exposure (solved with partial metering) and the background being different colours of brick. The red brolly reflected onto the reddish bricks so there was not much contrast. Focusing was difficult because either the brolly or the boot was in focus.


1/20 F5.6 ISO 400 88mm evaluative metering

I came back to it a couple of days later, with a different, larger brolly. By putting the stem through the two boots, I created stronger diagonal lines and more space for writing. I originally looked at creating a grunge style by mixing the colours and black and white together. I considered moving the brolly to a different background but did not want flowers or grass, so decided to keep the urban background.

         
I converted the picture in photoshop to black and white (antique portrait) and erased the black and white to reveal the red underneath.

Final version


1/45 F4 ISO400 focal length 32mm partial metering
 
As a magazine cover
 
I chose spring colours to lift the magazine and make it eye-catching if it was sitting on a shelf in a shop and titles of magazine articles to add interest. I repositioned them and changed the colours several times. 



I was pleased with the final effect and thought it was worth turning it into a magazine cover to see the finished effect and whether it would work. In hindsight more “rain” would be better. I tried to avoid pooling of water droplets to keep the photo as real as possible.  I later discovered the brolly was a quick drying brolly!