GoodEye Photography + Design » Magazine

Craig Martin (Portrait for GSC Review Magazine Cover)

Chris Schmauch — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:55:31 +0000

Sergio Retamal, owner of Global Supply Chain Review magazine needed a portrait of Craig Martin to use on the next cover of the publication. Craig’s time is probably worth more than my own, so I made it quick and painless. We literally spent 5 minutes outside his office in Sunnyvale getting a variety of shots, one of which needed to work on the cover. Having a fair amount of experience designing and shooting magazine covers, I was fully confident 5 minutes would suffice for Sergio’s needs. Here’s my favorite three from the photo session.

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Magazine Cover (Before / After: v10 i07)

Chris Schmauch — Mon, 03 May 2010 02:00:03 +0000

People keep asking me “Did you really take that photo,” or, “Did you photoshop that picture together?” – so to put the questions to rest I’m writing this here blog post. As you can plainly see in the top left photo, the clouds, grass, cows and lone tree are all part of the original landscape. Of course the magazine cover has some subtle Photoshoppin’ going on – I’m particularly proud of the cloud extraction over the logo, it worked out exactly as I’d envisioned it. And the cover even has a couple of talking cows – how cool is that? Here’s a detail shot of the black talking cow on the right…

So as the cow plainly says, I took the above photo while walking along the Stanford Dish trail (I dramatized the lost part, but it could’ve happened!). I was thinking of green cover ideas, and since we’d just had all that rain, I was envisioning those hills off 280 where that big satellite dish is, but I wasn’t sure where I could get a good vantage point for them. A lot of the best places are private property, and I was afraid I’d have to go trespassing.

I pulled off at Alpine Rd. and parked at Webb Ranch, mostly because I’d done some photography with the owner Gary Webb a while back, and didn’t think he’d mind. I walked across the street and found myself on a bike trail that eventually led to a road that led to the entrance to the Stanford Dish Trail. There were big signs saying it isn’t a public park and to stay on the trail, etc. etc. – I saw some other people walking on it so figured as long as I didn’t feed the squirrels and chase the cows I wouldn’t have any guards tackling me.

I was walking in wool pants and long-sleeved shirt, donning my Nikon D3 with 70-200/2.8 lens on my Spider Holster (see my review here), and my Nikon D700 with 17-35/2.8 lens on my BlackRapid RS-5 strap over my shoulder, and did I mention that it’s all uphill to the dish? And that it was hot? And that I brought no water? I took it easy, and shot whatever looked interesting along the way. The weather was gorgeous, the clouds were all poofy and dramatically set in the cerulean blue sky, the fields were expansive and greeeen, and the cows, well… the cows were all laying around chewing cud, as cows will do. The money shot (above) was captured about halfway to the top with my D3/70-200 combo, and I was pretty sure it was gonna be a winner when I saw the composition. But I hiked all the way up to the dish because I’m not as lazy as I’d like to think, and I have to say it’s quite a nice little trail. I’ll have to go back again (with shorts) and do the whole loop.

There’s not much else to say, the photo was strong and I wanted to keep the cover clean and un-cluttered. My solution to avoiding a big Reader’s Choice Ballot snipe was to simply have another talking cow bubble. It was really the only design solution to be had, if you think about it.

Check out this issue of The Wave Magazine – it’s on the streets now, or you can view the interactive Flash version here.

Thanks for reading, see you next time.

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Magazine Cover (Before / After: v10 i06)

Chris Schmauch — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:38:45 +0000

What to do when the Sea Otter Classic people don’t have any good press images to use on the cover of your magazine? You look for other sources, of course! My fellow photographer/buddy Sam Fontejon is an avid sports enthusiast, and actually participates in the Sea Otter Classic every year, so I figured using some of his original artwork to depict the upcoming event was more than relevant. Not only does Sam excel at hurtling down mountains at breakneck speeds with astonished, goofy-faced expressions (amazed you made this jump, Sam?), but he’s a fantastic photographer in his own right, and often accompanies me on important shoots.

For this shot, Sam (the subject) set up two off-camera Nikon-SB-900 speedlights, one with a red gel. He used a Nikon D700 with a 50mm/1.4 lens. Sam set up the shot, then sped down the hill for his friend Raymond T. Mah to actually pull the trigger.

Thanks for the shot Sam, it made for a great cover!

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Magazine Cover (Before / After)

Chris Schmauch — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:19:04 +0000

If you’ll recall from my last cover, it’s good to envision the the final product of the mag – the proportions, negative space for coverlines, etc – when shooting your subject. But more often than not, the photos gracing many, many magazine covers were never shot with that intent. Usally Art Directors are sourcing images from the past, whether through stock agencies or internal archives – looking for an image that’s appropriate for the current project.

That being said, I shot this beautifully-prepared scallop dish by Shokolaat almost six months ago for an advertising campaign. At the time I didn’t know I’d be using the image for The Wave’s Spring Dining issue cover, but here we are, using it this very day!

So what’s the take-home lesson for today? Shoot everything like it’s going to end up on a magazine cover! Well, not really – but it doesn’t hurt to think this way, you never know how your images will be used in the future.

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Tips for Magazine Cover Photography (Design + Photography)

Chris Schmauch — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:00:13 +0000

I’m lucky enough to be in a position where I can both photograph and design magazine covers, but in the real world it typically doesn’t happen this way. Often the magazine art director (AD) isn’t even involved in the shoot – they simply receive the end result and need to “make it work.”

When I wear my photographer hat, my natural inclination is to get nice, tight shots of a subject – to save myself from having to crop later. However, when the art director receives these files, he or she is left with little room to work with, potentially having to either force a re-shoot or simply end with a less-than-ideal cover. Here’s the limiting factors or barriers that can arise between the photographer and the AD:

Camera vs. Magazine Proportions
In-Camera Cropping vs. Magazine Bleed Requirements
Including Negative Space
Variety / Options

In this article, I’ll discuss these potential barriers and how they can be avoided in the photographer –> art director workflow.

Camera vs. Magazine Proportions

Most photos produced by digital SLRs have a length to width ratio of approximately 2:3 – or 4×6, like the common print size. Although magazines vary widely in dimension, they tend to be closer to square than this wide rectangle proportion. If you’re into TV, allow me this analogy – cameras create a “widescreen HD” image but magazines tend to be more “standard def.” But instead of the infamous black bars, photos going on magazine covers are going to be seriously cropped!

What’s this mean to the photographer? You have to zoom out, my friends. Imagine the top and bottom of the image in your frame getting completely lopped off, so all your relevant content needs to be within that inner 4:5 ratio area. It feels really unnatural and uncreative from the photography standpoint, but trust me you’ll stay on the AD’s Christmas Card list if you follow these simple tips!

Not only do you need to consider the top and bottom areas being cropped off, but you need to allow even MORE space for the magazine trim (bleed area) and coverlines, which I’ll get to next.

In-Camera Cropping vs. Magazine Bleed Requirements

As you can see on the image to the right, pasting the original photo into the layout reveals how much is getting cut off on the top/bottom once the image is scaled to match the width of the cover.

The black bar shows the magazine’s “bleed” area – the part that will get trimmed off by the printer. Any photo/graphics that extend to the trim edge need to actually extend past this edge to avoid blank white paper showing along the edges in the final product. The bleed area on this particular magazine is pretty big (3/8″), but it’s typically about 1/8″ for most print media.

Even though I shot this photo, I didn’t allow myself enough headroom (literally!) for all the shots – it’s very challenging to envision the final product, especially when you’re crunched on time (I only had 20 minutes with the players for this shoot!). So as a photographer, you have this crazy pressure to be creative, get the lighting perfect, interact with your subject(s) to get them to relax, AND think about how the stupid AD is going to lay out the final magazine cover… it can be challenging to say the least!

To make this particular shot work as a cover mockup I (with my AD hat on) had to scale the image UP and crop the foreground player (Jason Hernandez) off at the knees. Sorry Jason, my bad. The photographer might get ticked that their “art” was cropped by the “designer,” but that’s the risk you run when not taking all the magazine factors to heart. Here’s the “fixed” layout below.

Including Negative Space

In a perfect world, your photos are SO good they grace the covers of national magazines without a single coverline covering them up. But let’s be realistic people – even National Geographic has to cover up their photos a little bit. A creative workaround is to include negative space in your compositions – areas for your eyes to rest (for photos), OR areas for type-crazy AD’s to fill up with copy (text). When I was shooting the shot in the mockup above, I was thinking about negative space, but not the overall cropping – so that nice open space I left on the green grass for coverlines was lost when I had to scale the image to fit the players correctly. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right? Wrong.

Luckily I had another shot of a single player, Andre Luiz, kicking the ball towards me (I had protection). I left lots of open room around the edges of the frame (for cropping), and was able to include some decent amount of negative space (for coverlines). Plus, it had action, which is always a nice dynamic addition to grab potential readers’ attention.

The background has some distracting elements in it, but this was the best option I had at Stanton Field, and I didn’t want the sun (camera right) to be in Andre’s eyes. You can see on the final cover that the photo cropped really well; I was able to keep Andre’s whole body on the page, and doing some selective cutouts added some nice depth/3-dimensionality to the overall design. The aforementioned distracting background elements were easily masked out. Because Andre takes up a relatively small area on the cover, I was able to put the main coverline behind him, but make it very large. The ball, the V of the logo, and Andre’s body/leg position form a nice triangle to lead the eye and keep your attention on the page. And lastly, I was able to keep some of that nice negative space, even after adding the coverlines, which eases the eye and immediately draws your attention to that floating soccer ball.

Variety / Options

Whenever you are shooting for a magazine cover, you need to consider the ratio and bleed of the magazine when choosing your photographic compositions. You need to include negative space around your subject for coverlines. Lastly you need to offer a variety of concepts for the AD to choose from. If you have 20 minutes to shoot (see the 38 photos from my shoot with the San Jose Earthquakes here), make sure you’ve already set up your lighting for the first concept before anyone arrives – use an assistant or innocent bystander as a temporary subject to dial in all your settings. This will maximize the time you have with your subject as well as communicate to everyone involved that you’re on top of things and are a true professional.

Force yourself to change the shoot before you run out of time – to try another idea. If you work smart and are prepared, use any extra time to do something off-the-wall or unexpected. Getting the main concepts out of the way will not only boost your confidence, but it gives you the opportunity to really flex your creative muscle, without the stress that forces you into cookie-cutter, tried-and-true (see: boring) solutions. You never know, something crazy from the very end of your shoot may actually work and end up on the cover – you never know.

Regardless, giving your AD options, and a variety of compositions, angles, etc. will make their job easier, and make it more likely you’ll be called back for future work, which is kinda the point of all this, right? Right. Thanks for reading.

Special thanks to Earthquakes PR people Niki Shinn and Jordan Stepp for setting up the shoot. Thanks to players Andre Ruiz, Chris Leitch and Jason Hernandez for taking the time to show up and do whatever I said. Muchos gracias to Dean Davidson for being my lighting assistant. Thanks to The Wave Magazine for employing me, check out the final online-version of the magazine here.

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Co-Branded Movie Slide (Design)

Chris Schmauch — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 04:51:16 +0000

It’s nice that movie slides are (for the most part) digital these days. It makes it easier to update without having to fuss with all that film. The real challenge is making the ad’s message simple/clear enough for the average popcorn-munching, soda-slurping, waiting-for-the-movie-to-start moviegoer to, well, digest. Advertising is a necessary evil, and a captive audience is every advertiser’s dream; so it’s only natural that the masses attending our nation’s theaters will watch a few of these ads.

Here’s a nice little co-branded design I came up with to promote both The Wave Magazine and its partnership with Live Nation’s concert giveaways. Is it simple enough? Probably not – but as designers we have to simply do our best.

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New Year’s Issue (The Wave Magazine Cover)

Chris Schmauch — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:54:59 +0000

Alas, I can’t always shoot every cover for the magazine, especially when I’m designing the cover the same day we’re sending it to the printer Credit for the photo goes to Lise Gagne for her awesome shot of this beautiful DJ/model. I can only take credit for wrapping the photo up for visual consumption by Bay Area readers of The Wave Magazine. Enjoy!

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Busy Photo on a Magazine Cover (Design Solution)

Chris Schmauch — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 02:53:24 +0000

So I didn’t happen to take this issue’s photo, but it was the strongest image I had to pick from of everything we’d acquired for the Home for the Holidays issue. It’s a cool shot from a unique vantage point (I can only assume it’s from the Silicon Valley Capital Club at the top of the Knight Ridder building), but the problem is it’s busy busy BUSY for a magazine cover. Coverlines won’t work on it, and even without any, it was still too busy. On top of that, it’s lacking that, ohhhh, festive touch. I know that snow isn’t exactly a common sight in San Jose, but we can fake it, right?

First, I did a little tilt-shift photoshop work to bring the focus on the Ring of Palms and ice rink, and blur out the other stuff. This was nice, but it wasn’t enough. Then I thought, let’s make this scene appear to be seen through a frosted over window – you know, like when you have to scrape a view through your windshield. Work with me here… I bought a cool frost photo from istockphoto.com, removed the black background, and used parts of it around the edges. I added a little fog, and WA-LA, there you have a creative solution to an unfestive, busy photo for use on a magazine cover! Thanks for reading. Oh, for a few hundred more magazine covers, click here.

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Watercourse Way Fashion Shoot

Chris Schmauch — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:00:00 +0000

Many thanks to everyone involved in this last-minute Wave Magazine cover photo shoot! Dorian at Watercourse Way Bath House (http://www.watercourseway.com) in Palo Alto opened the doors to their business for three hours today, and with only 24 hours notice! We had the choice of two rooms, we took the bigger one with more natural light, even though we were mostly using strobes that we brought. Many thanks to Paul Ferradas (fellow photographer, http://www.ferradasphotography.com/) and Danielle Asher (professional model, http://www.daniellamarie.com) for being available – also on short notice. And of course props to Jo Abbie, Wave Senior Editor – she had the ingenious idea of “opening” the fresh tulips she brought so they’d float properly on the water! It’s funny how things tend to come together at the last minute.

I narrowed the many photos down to these 100. Some are cover potentials, others are just fun. Click here for Paul’s pics of me in action!

Enjoy, and leave a comment if you like what you see!

The Final Cover! Thanks to Paul for putting the finishing glamour touches on the photo! This issue hits the streets of Silicon Valley on March 2, 2009.

Paul posing in front of our setup.

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San Jose from High

Chris Schmauch — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 01:00:00 +0000

When location scouting for a place to shoot the cover of The Wave Magazine for the ”Downtown San Jose Issue,” it really came down to two options: helicopter, or the Capital Club at the top of the Knight Ridder building. The choice was obvious: helicopter. But alas, it was not to be. So I called the fine folks at the CC and scheduled a time to come by and take some shots of the little people from high above. In retrospect I should have waited a tad later for sunset, but there are schedules to consider. I got a few good shots from both ends of the building, but I could only use one for the cover. There are a few fun ones where I shot straight down while standing on a ledge pressed against the clear glass railing – feint of heart, take heed. I think it turned out pretty well, and you can’t ask for a better location to encompass downtown in one photo (unless you’re a helicopter pilot or an astronaut).

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