An Exercise in Photo Illustration: Erika Plum and The Garden in Spring

So for my photojournalism class, my first assignment was to create a photo Illustration that would in some way illustrate the spring season.  For those of you who don't know (I for one didn't before this class), a photo illustration is "a staged shoot used to illustrate a story idea or the visual concept of a story."  I added the quotes because that was taken verbatim from the assignment sheet :-).  The big idea is that "photo illustrations" are staged with props, lighting, and the like (basically a photo shoot), whereas "photos" are taken with essentially whats found on the scene. 

The assignment was pretty wide-open,  and we were told to base the photo on the style of a news magazine of our choosing. Furthermore, photoshopping was ok'd :-D. I came up with, 

Erika Plum and The Garden Spring

Singer/Songwriter, Erkia Plum, discusses the inspiration for her new album, The Garden in Spring, for an exclusive Folk Roots Magazine interview.  Miss Plum, a native of Southern California, spends much of her time playing and writing songs at the UCR Botanical Gardens.

Before you ask, Erika Plum isn't a real singer.  I made her up for the class.  (But If an Erika Plum folk singer really is out there, I'd just like to say… I'm sorry for using your name, it was entirely a coincidence, and please don't sue me! (I'm really poor, it's not worth the effort  :-D ) 

You can see more shots I took of the beautiful Miss Plum :-D HERE   

And this might be my favorite photo from that day.  

Miss Plum Sees a Bee

Small confession.  Some of the choices I made may have been a little more for convenience than artistic desire :-D, but I think the shots came out pretty decent.  

Great Big Thanks! for my uber-photogenic and fellow design student friend Erika for modeling for me.  It was really fun, n' we should shoot again sometime ;-).

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