Best Magazine Covers of 2015 and The Last 40 Years

#10 National Geographic (June 1985)

Photographer Steve McCurry immortalized the haunted eyes of a 12-year-old refugee in a camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Soviet helicopters destroyed her village and family, forcing her to make a two-week trek out of the perilous mountains of Afghanistan. The photo became a National Geographic icon after it was published on the cover in June 1985. Since then, this raw, untouched image has been used on rugs and tattoos, making it one of the most widely reproduced photos in the world.

My critique: The description of the photo used the best word for this picture, "raw". For America, in times of war, we are always focused on ourselves; focused on our children. So to see such an image must have been iconic. When you look into the eye of the model you feel something, something different than when you see the models on the front cover of vogue. This picture is REAL, dead center, hard to miss, and that's why it has been so popular throughout the years.

Magazine Essential Parts

10 labeled parts of a magazine

1. Masthead- this is the title of the magazine, used so that people can easily recognize it. 

2. Dateline- This is so people know the price of the magazine and to also make sure that whatever news or gossip that they were reading is up to date

3. Main Image - This is supposed to be what stands out, to make people want to read the magazine, the main focus of the cover

4. Model Credit- This is just to give credit to the model on the cover page, so that people may know who she is

5. Cover Lines- These are going to be the teasers, whats inside the magazine that makes people want to pick it, and open it up.

6. Main Cover Line- Larger than the cover lines, the most important teaser.

7. Left Third- The third of the cover that customers will see in the stands, these have to stand out.

8. Bar Code- publication date and price, for payment use

9. Settling Line-Short, sharp description of the title's main marketing point.

Portrait Preview

2-3 Tips for portraits
1. Break the Rules of Composition
  I liked this tip because for me it can be pretty hard to even follow the rules of composition in the first place, so being able to break them seems like a pretty sweet deal to me.
2. Get Closer
   I liked this tip because I feel like getting closer to the subject would have a better impact then being far away, getting closer or focusing on just a certain thing could make the image or the message more powerful.

Environmental Portraits:

I liked this picture because while the setting wasn't necessarily objectively "beautiful" the dancer and then the lighting of the sun showing through gives it a sense of beauty, and tranquility 
It also proves that a dancer is a dancer everywhere, no matter their "environment"









This portrait intrigued me because its not a posed picture, or at least it doesn't look posed. It looks just as if this man was walking and the photographer just ended up getting a nice picture, clear and precise.







Casual Portrait:

This portrait looked the most "casual" to me, which is why I picked it. The subject is in casual clothing and in a casual place.

This picture seemed very natural to me. The subject doesn't look uncomfortable or too posed, just like she's smiling, it reminds me of an Instagram picture








Formal Portrait:

I liked this picture because there is nothing distracting me from the subject

okay I just thought this was a beautiful picture, she's beautiful, the dress is beautiful, the flowers, all of it.















Self Portrait:

I can tell that this is the photographer, because the camera is there, but she's not behind it, like she would usually be.

I like this picture because it shows two different sides of an artist.










For this Portrait Assignment I think that I would like to do a close up picture of a face, like TIME magazine usually does 
I also liked I-D's covers, where the model is always covering one of her/his eyes. I think its pretty cool especially the different ways they cover it, they use props or their hair on a hair wrap and i think its interesting.
Im going to be shooting andrew's face for this assignment, probably outside.. or maybe inside i mean it doesn't really matter since you won't really be able to see the background anyway, you'll just be seeing his face.

Sports Exploration

Academics Photography

rule of thirds


The subject is the teacher, this doesn't really tell a story to me, this was hard okay.

Balance:














The subject are the three girls, i thought that it was pretty balanced because they are all three at different parts of the frame but they all tie together because they are all doing school work. They look pretty focused and the food in the back i think looks funny




Im not too sure what rule this picture would fall under but i liked it because from the hand on the head you can tell that she is stressed out, which to me sums up school all together, just very stressful.




Some challenges that I had faced during this shoot was trying to find something interesting join on in the classes. It was a monday morning and nobody, not even the teachers really felt like doing anything. I even got a few pictures of kids sleeping! (I decided not to put those in though)