Project 11: Making a Page Layout.

The idea with this exercise is to use a selection of my own images on a single theme or subject and then turn them into a picture story using the suggested (or another) layout for a four page article.  It is suggested that it should be done in Photoshop on four horizontal A3 documents, one of each page.  Having looked at the links for Brian Brake's Monsoon picture story and the Day in the Life of a Country Doctor by W. Eugene Smith and others in hard copy and online ( National Geographic, The Guardian, The Washington Post and New York Times) and studied the suggested layouts, I feel ready to start.  I have also looked at the fonts used in different publications and have opted to stick with the Sans-Serif fonts of Verdana for the headings and Ariel for the captions but use the Serif Georgia for the text as I have successfully used this before.  For the subject I used images from a mountain walking trip that I had made last February to the Snowdonia National Park.  These were all on one subject and I felt that they would make a suitable selection for a themed photo essay.  I preferred to use my own writing for the body text, rather than Lorem Ipsum.

In order that the captions can be read clearly, please click on an image to view them large.

 Here I have used one very large, strong image with a smaller contrasting one  to set the tone for the story.  Captions are under the images and I have left enough space to use for body text setting the scene and describing Day 1.

 For my second page to go with the body text describing the next day's adventures I have used a selection of smaller images working together.

 A grouping of four images working together here with body text describing the final day of the trip.

One final full bleed image as used a great deal by National Geographic to finish the story, with a fairly lengthy caption overlayed, which explains Where, What and Whey.  In all of my captions I have used the Ws and in one or two cases found an opportunity to utilise the more difficult Why.

A very enjoyable exercise.  I found it both useful and interesting to look for images that hang together as well as being strong images on their own.  Using suitable fonts was quite challenging and I have learned yet something new in Photoshop to help smooth the way.