Stance planning

For my cover image, I need to consider some stance or pose for my model to stand in. My facial expression is pretty much decided on, as smiling is a massive risk to take when I'm not aiming for cheesy pop, and well the only thing left is the blank/sultry/sexy look. I think I'll just go for a deep staring kind, so I don't freak my readers out. Also my target readers said they did prefer the celebrity looking into the camera so I'll do this in some form. My questionnaire also told me that medium and medium close up were the most popular shots.

Stances I will consider are;

A plain medium close up shot- Favoured by my audience and the very conventional position. I would have them standing the way they would in an average conversation, giving that friendly feel to the reader, or the simplistic effect with just arms by sides, to try and evoke the thought and preferred reading that pop doesn't have to resort to gimmicks to be noticed.

An innocent medium close up - When I was carrying out my research into covers, I found the Rolling Stone cover very endearing and strangely intriguing for such a simple image. However, this same sort of weak vulnerable style might contradict my intended meanings of everything else like my masthead and coverline, which would confuse my readers, or they may take a negative aberrant reading if this causes them to not understand why I've used the stance.

Close up smile - Although I'm not to keen on this, as I really don't think it was a coincedence the only smiles I've saw were for Zac Efron and Miley Cyrus, I may try it out. I chose to do it in close up, as this would give a more intimate feel, therefore hopefully making the smile more mysterious and flirty, like a cheeky secret smile, but I don't have much faith in this idea.

Sitting on floor - As I did mention in my proposal pitch I might try and make a subtle different edge on my image by having the star sitting and lying down I feel I should try this out. I think sitting back on the arms connotes an easy-going lifestyle, and therefore a laid-back personality which would hopefully encourage my readers to look at the interview. My readers also might decode it as a cool person stance. Then the knees up is quite childish, but very comfortable and cool, so I think altogether it would work. However, I think on a cover it may look a bit too unconventional, and possibly lead it to lacking in professionality, but could work well on my DPS if this fails.

Sitting on an amp - I was very chuffed with this idea, as I thought it would easily cover that conventional celebrity element I was planning on. Also I think it's quite a loosely motivated prop, an arbitrary sign, therefore will have many different interpretations and levels of connotations (I'd explore this further if I actually chose to use it). I think that would just add a bit of spark to my cover, but hopefully not seem too gimmicky. But I personally think it would look effective and interesting, so hopefully my readers would interpret it in the same way. I'd have the stance similar to that of sitting on the floor, but this would probably be quite spontaneous as well depending on what works position-wise on the amp.

Standing on the amp - Again for the same reason for using the amp, but standing is a completely different signifier. If I was to use a hands on hips stance (not drawn) that could act as a recognised code of power, and standing on top of a musical prop would add to this, like a podium of the music world. However, this seems too predictable for me, so I'd prefer a funner more laidback style, like knees bent and hands resting on knees. I think this would ease the reader in better rather than possibly scaring them away, although strong figures are often admirable.

At the minute I really like the amp stances, but in case these don't really work I'll still take shots of my other ideas, at least as back-ups, but I may also change my mind or receive negative feedback.