First of all, let's understand what code and conventions are in Media. Media codes mostly have an agreed or underlying meaning behind them and there are three types of media codes which include symbolic, technical and written codes.
Now moving on to conventions, conventions are closely related to the expectations the audience has from media products. There are three types of conventions which include form, story and genre conventions.
Domestic abuse is sadly a quite common social issue in Pakistan, and despite being common it's not talked about enough or something that people are well-aware of as it is a very sensitive topic. When reading about such issues, a person needs to be aware of the trigger warnings and know about the severity of this issue. And because this a sensitive issue and can be triggering or too personal for some victims I decided to use a model to portray as a victim of domestic abuse instead of photographing an actual victim.
For this topic I decided to keep the color theme of my magazine in the black to white gradient to show the lack of bright colors like yellow, green etc which often represent more positive emotions and feelings like happiness etc. The only color I used other than black, white and grey was dark red / maroon which symbolises two things in my magazine - The maroon text basically refers to the women that get killed every year becuase of domestic abuse and red nail polish on the model which symbolises early age marriages which also is a big social issue in Pakistan that often leads to increase in domestic abuse cases.
Most of the pictures in the magazine are close-up or mid-closeup shots so the focus is on the model's face that has a bruise on it and has under eyebags indicating fatigue, her eyes and expressions which show fear, hurt and hopelessness in them. Only one picture is a full-shot to basically put emphasis on the way she's sitting - the way she's sitting shows how she's scared and trying to hide and the spotlight on her face futs further emphasis on her face and expressions.
I took all the photographs in relatively low light and only used a flashlight in one of the photographs to create a 'spotlight' effect and while editing I made all the pictures black and white as that was my decided theme for the magazine. Turning the photos black and white also added more emphasis on the red nail polish of the subject just like I wanted.
For the costume of the subject, I chose plain black highneck and plain black pants so the attention is only and mostly on the subject's face and expressions and the red nail polish. And because my intention was to spread my message through the subject's facial expressions, bruises (made with the help of eyeshadow) and eyes I didn't really use any props as for me they weren't really required.
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