Walthamstow Wetlands - Maps
When creating my photo book I decided to look at maps of the location to put at the end as a on of the main elements of my images is the location and how all the areas are connected by the River Lea. It was quite hard to find maps that were good enough quality as most of them were jpeg files from websites, so they were pixelated. I wanted to use one that was high quality so it would be on the same level of quality as the rest of the book. I needed to choose one that was created with proper graphics so it is easy to read.
These are the maps I found:
I chose this map as it is the clearest out of all of them and I feel that the design is simple and easy to read. It is also labelled very well with should help the viewer understand the different areas and how they are connected. I spent a long time looking for maps but none of them were good quality until I found this one. I found this one by looking at the construction plans of the area. I really liked the design and it was really clear. It has way too much construction label on it so I took it into photoshop and spent a few hours getting rid of some of the labels and retouching the areas. I also took the graphic drawings of the ducks and insects out as I felt that it looked to commercial and I wanted it to be more natural. I really like the simple shapes of this map and this is how I imagined the locations to be linked to each other when shooting in the location.
After retouching in Photoshop, I looked at the colours used in the map. They were quite bright and bold and I wanted them to be toned down a bit as the images in my photobook contain quite grey tones. I tested it out with full saturation, midway saturation and monochrome. I felt that monochrome was too flat as the colours made it easier to read, you couldn't tell the difference between the land and the reservoirs. I think the one that looks best is the midway saturation one as it is has subtle colours and you can still see the difference between the land and the reservoirs.
