In this essay I will talk about my four pictures that are
album covers which we had to create then upload onto our blog which we needed
to make using our Gmail accounts, speaking about creating the album covers the
pictures used had to be authentic meaning it had to be taken by oneself and not
somewhere from the internet or wherever else because that was the task given to
us.
We also had the choice to make a music video however, I
opted to go with the album cover because for one thing to me it felt and looked
easier to do than making music video second, I had a basic understanding of
using Photoshop so it would have been easier to do the album cover furthermore,
for music video you also needed to make it in ’Vimeo’ in order to upload it to
our blog and lastly, I had no clue about editing or implementing stuff in
videos.
To make the four album covers two for the front/back then
two on the inside you could use programmes such as Photoshop to create the four
album covers but other programmes were also acceptable. Since I had the basic
understanding for Photoshop I choose that programme as the tool to help me get
the pictures I envisioned when editing, by the way the four pictures needed to
be square shaped because guess what album covers were all square shaped so
having any other would be unacceptable.
Also because I wanted the album cover things like ethnicity so
I had an idea where I could incorporate ethnicity into my album covers from searching
through famous album covers for inspiration, what picked my interest was an
album cover that had an image of a cracked mirror and in between the cracked
shards of the mirror had a picture of a women but when the picture hit the crack
the adjacent image in the shard looks kinda distort and this fashion carries
along throughout the rest of the album cover. It is very good album cover
because with the distortion of images I could add people’s eyes / hands / skin with
different ethnicity. Now that I had the idea for the album cover the next big
hurdle/problem was getting the pictures of people’s eyes / hands / skin and
whether they were willing to let my take them for my album cover. Luckily, my
friends were more than willing to let take photos of them that included their eyes,
hands and skin furthermore, I was also lucky to have friends from different
ethnicity so I had a range of photos like blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes and
so on.
For my very first album cover photo with the titles and
stuff I used the idea of having the image like a broken mirror which sectioned
off pictures of eyes that I took. The reason I chose eyes because the colour of
the iris in eyes are mostly different depending on your ethnicity so by
choosing this I have been able to use Stuart Hall a representation theorist for
ethnicity. My album cover supports Stuart Hall because the message that it is
trying to say is that even if we have gaps (gaps meaning the cracks derived
from the effect of a broken mirror) we should find a way to get past the
concept of ethnicity and try to unite and be one as a community. Another
theorists that I also incorporated onto my album cover photo is Judith butler a
representation theorist about gender; how I used it you ask is because in the
pictures of eyes, I took pictures of boys eyes as well as girls eyes and I mixed
them in to make the album cover. Like the way I said about how using different
coloured eyes and the effect of the broken mirror dividing them Well, it’s kind
of the same concept in a way because by including girls and boys eyes it
supports Butler’s representation of gender. Also the way that I chose to use cursive
writing for the title it further incorporates Hall because cursive writing like
the message in the pictures that I made of trying to become one or a community
well, the symbol for choosing cursive is because it is joined/united which just
furthers the message of stuff like ethnicity intertwined, associated and so
forth. Also with the white glow of the bold black text gives a good contrast and
can signify that the black and white can work well side by side just like how there
should be a bridge for ethnicity.
For my second front cover I also opted to do the same style
as my first album cover meaning that I also made the effect of the broken
mirror sectioning off shard pictures also I used the same font and glow meaning
it was cursive to show unity/association/community for the theorist Hall. But
instead of using eyes as the shard pieces I used hand s to change it up, I used
hands because it is another body part that can show ethnicity also like the
first album cover I took pictures of boys and girls hands which my friends
graciously let me take.
Lastly, my inside album cover I chose 2 pictures that showed
the sky which included sun/light as the focus. The way I did so is blurring out
everything except for the shining light in the photos because this could be
represented like a pathway or like following the light - a goal to achieve
something like the unity of ethnicity or balance gender roles.
In the
end I think that I did a good job in showing how I want to represent how
ethnicity should be especially the front album covers however, the inside album
cover may not clearly show this and can be associated by a lot of different representation
or none at all.
