The Americans, Robert Frank
This photo has been considered one of the most influential photo books that have given inspiration to many new photographers starting out. This was produced with the help of a scholarship that allowed Frank to go on road trips across America, this was during a two year period. Frank was trying to portray American society in the post-war period. This photo book has contributed to a new style and subjective approach to documentary photography.
The Middle of Somewhere, Sam Harris
Sam Harris is an Australian photographer and educator. He self taught himself photography while he was a teenager, he turned his bedroom in London into a DIY makeshift darkroom. Harris has worked as an editorial photographer for places such as The Sunday Time and Esquire but also throught the 90’s he photographers portraits and sleeve art for numerous recording artists. While Harris’ career started in London in 1990 photographing editorial portraits and sleeve art his career changed into one of London’s leading young editorial portrait. Sam decided to abandon his career and changed it so that he could have more quality family time, in this time he turned his camera onto himself to photograph his own life. Harris’ lives his life with his two young daughters and his wife where he goes between India and Australia, which he setteled down in the forest of Southwestern Australia, Harris still continues to photography his on-going family dairy and he also runs workshops.
This photobook by Sam Harris gave me inspiration for my photobook in the different aspects of it and how i would like to lay out my images. This photo book communicates this narrative through different images of Sam Harris’ family while they are in the South West corner of Western Australia. This photobook is considered the next chapter in Harris’ on-going family dairy. It follows on from Harris’ other work called ‘Postcards from Home, made in 2008-2011, and is made around Harris’ two daughters Uma and Yali growing up, in a remote part of the world. In this photobook is has different aspects including some of the images are full blead on the pages and others have space which creates a boarder around the images to frame them. I think that this photobook displays the subject-matter of the two children growing up in Australia through the different note-pad like add ins in the photobook to make it seem like a journal. This creates almost a journal for the family in which they can look back on of their children growing up in Australia. The different text which is in the images in incorperated into the images by having other stick ins which are placed on top of the image, these are not fully stuck onto the page which makes the photobook a more realistic journal. This photobook portrays Sam Harris’ children growing up and i think that this is really interesting to see the two children growing up in Australia. This photobook also uses the journal like pages throughout the book of their family holidays and also writing which Sam Harris has wrote in different things that have happened throughout the years of making this photobook.
This photobook is a portrait photo book which is of A5 size, it is layed out like a journal which focuses on Sam Harris’ two daughters growing up, the images are mostly placed full blead onto the pages, this means that they are fully to the edges of the photobook and by doing this the photographer looses to corner of the images, however some photographers do this because it brings you closer into the image and makes you look at the different aspects of the image, rather than framing the images. However, some of these photographs in the photobook have space to frame the image usually on the top and bottom or placed in the middle, however the other parts of the image are also full blead to the edges. This is broken up occasionally by one large image on the page which fills three quarters of the page and leaves some white space on the page to frame the image, this brakes up the photobook and makes it more interesting to look at, and creates a more exciting photobook to flick through. Sam Harris’ images go across the gutter which can be said to loose part of the image as you cannot always see what is going on in a picture. Harris also does this when he has two images on a double page spread where he makes both of the images go across the gutter which creates an almost panoramic look to the images and makes you look from the image which is placed onto the left and then onto the right, almost creating like it is one single image. The relationship between the images on the different pages are linked together through a relationship of something that is similar in the images, for example one is taken of the Sam Harris and his wife looking at the stars in the sky and then the next image is of a room which has disco ball lighting on the ceiling, and this is how Harris changes between his images, through a mutual relationship between the two images. I think that all of the images that have been used are images that Sam Harris has taken over the years documenting his two daughters growing up, and there are no archival images that have been used, however there has been found material, as there are little sticky notes that his daughters have placed around and Harris has picked these up and placed them into his photo book, i think that this adds to the idea of this being a family journal. These pieces of sticky notes and journal like pages in Harris’ photo book add value to the story being told, as it adds a personal touch from his daughters which makes this a genuine family archisle.
When looking at the book title, ‘The Middle of Somewhere’ i think that this implies how these images have been taken in between two different places in the journey and the image have been taken from places in between and in India and Australia. On the first page of the photo book their is a small poem, by W.H. Davies, Leisure, 1911, this poem is about life and how time passes by fast and i think this represents how Harris’ daughters are growing up fast before his eyes and these image show their childhood years. In the journey like pages, ‘no yesterdays, Notes from Somewhere’ this is showing all of the places that they traveled around showing their journey through the years, remembering the places they visited. This is also present in the other journal like pages in Harris photo book ‘Travelogue’ which shows them in India – Australia between 2002-2006, i think this is so that it is separate from the rest of the story as this was a break from their usual life, in this there are images of their holiday but also includes the mother giving birth to one of the daughters. There are no captions on any of the images, i think this is so that the images are looked at as a whole and the writing which would be placed with the image would distract from the images. In the back on the book there is a page which says ‘Many Thanks’ this is where Harris says thank you to everyone involved in the process and there is a picture of the family in the bed, this image is not stuck to the page
