Shooting a Magazine Cover

A cover shoot for a magazine can be extremely challenging for the photographer, because the image for the cover must be perfect. It is still very true when they say that it is the cover that sells a magazine.

Beside the choice of the personality on the cover, the magazine needs a striking image that will cry out on a news stand.

Like I have discussed before, a striking image can be achieved by carefully sticking to the rules or by breaking all of them at the same time. But here some guide lines to achieve a good cover picture.

First of all a cover should be shot in portrait format. When shooting in landscape format, you will have to crop out a portrait format, which will cause a loss of good file size.

Secondly, a magazine needs room for a masthead at the top that is not to busy. And it needs space in the main area to drop in enticement content titles.

Some magazines, though certainly not all, prefer that the composition lead the eye towards the right and the open pages rather than the left and the binding.

But these are just tips for the general format. Further the cover also has to speak! It visibly has to connect to the magazine’s target.

Here, you can see the picture I shot for the cover of a men’s magazine called “Made”. The magazine target market are successful, ambitious and stylish men in the Nigerian society. For this magazine I photographed Raz Adoti, a famous, international actor. To underscore his fame and achievements we put him on a golden throne with a lion head.

Of course the props, outfits and make up were carefully selected for the day of the shoot. For a cover you should not shoot blindly and hope for the best. Good planning is of great importance for a shoot like this.

I like this cover picture, because it is plain but straight to the point.

If you want to photograph your first cover and what I told you here seems confusing, sit down and make a sketch. It will help you a lot to find the perfect arrangement.

Na dann, gut Licht!

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