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/3dimensionality 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
To make this particular shot work as a cover mockup the coverlines, which eases the eye and immediately
I (with my AD hat on) had to scale the image UP and draws your attention to that floating soccer ball.
crop the foreground player (Jason Hernandez) off at the
knees. Sorry Jason, my bad. The photographer might get VARIETY / OPTIONS
ticked that their “art” was cropped by the “designer,” but
that’s the risk you run when not taking all the magazine Whenever you are shooting for a magazine cover, you need
factors to heart. Here’s the “fixed” layout below.
to consider the ratio and bleed of the magazine when
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.
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-andtrue (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.
Luckily I had another shot of a single player, A ndre
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.
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.
~ Chris Schmauch
NM CliQ Magazine | February 2016
21