For my personal study I’ve mainly been looking at books filled with essays and the meaning behind photographers works rather than actual photo books. I would look at the work of Claude Cahun but she never made one it is only people that have created them for her afterwards. I have also studied Cindy Sherman and her work but I don’t really think much of the layout of her books and they aren’t really what I am looking for in my own book. I am going to be making a magazine for my main project but will be making an extra photo book for the images that I made during the school production. With these images I am unsure what kind of book I want to make as I really like the idea of having parts of the book that are like little notes or that aren’t the same size as the rest of the pages, add ins. However, I am unsure what I could use to create this or what would be best to add. I was thinking of adding in the tickets that I made for the school production as well as the programme as little add ins which would be quite interesting, I could also use some of the emails that we have made and add them in as extra little pop outs. I think that this will work well in my photo book and give a bit more context rather than just looking at the same style of images.
The Epilogue – Laia Abril
Cindy Sherman photo book
Th Longest Way Round – Chris Dorley-Brown
Claude Cahun photo book
When I Was Six – Phillip Toledano
There are three books that I really like and will take inspiration from for my own photo book. I really like the pop out’s that they each have as it gives more context to the books and adds another layer making it more interesting to look at and for the spectator to get more of an insight as to what is going on. I really like the idea of having these pop outs and I really like the look of The Epilogue book. It really stands out to me and makes the whole book feel more personal, almost like a memoir or a diary style book. I have decided to focus in on The Epilogue by Laia Abril as this book is full of pop outs and I really like that style. I think that Abril’s book is really interests and shows a personal side to a young girl’s life and her family. The pop outs are really important in Abril’s book as they do bring in more context and allows the spectator into their lives as well as letting them know what was actually going on in their lives and how the young woman was feeling up until she died from bulimia.
This style really interests me and makes me want to make my book in a similar way. I want to add in a print out of the emails between me and Mrs Butler to show the preparation that went into finally making the images for the school productions as well as possibly a section of my own little diary showing it on my list of things to do. I will also be putting in pop outs of the tickets for both nights that I created for the show as well as the programme that I made and possibly the poster too. I think that this will be the best way to add in some more detail to my photo book and really make it a diary style photo book which is what I want as the images that I made on the day are not staged at all and are documentary photographs. This style stands out to me the most and is more exciting for the spectator than just flicking through a plain book of images.
The story behind Laia Abril’s book is that of the Robinson family and their lives in the aftermath suffering from the lose of their 26 year old daughter to bulimia. Abril worked very closely with the family and reconstructed the young woman’s, Cammy, life telling her story through flashbacks, memories, objects, letters, places as well as old images. Abril shows her spectators the dilemmas and struggles that many young girls are confronted with as well as the problems that the rest of the family face with guilt and the whole grieving process. Her whole book is based around the life of this girl and living with her illness, bringing the memory of her back to life. I really like this book as it interests me a lot and it really feels personal. Here spectators are able to get more of an insight into what it is like to live with bulimia as well as living with a family member with the illness. The pop outs are really interests as they really do add more layers to the story and brings the spectator in just that much closer to what is going on and what went on in the Robinson’s lives.
The Epilogue [mini analysis]The Epilogue [mini analysis]When analyzing a couple of pages from The Epilogue photo book I noticed that everything linked in together and it all worked towards making a solid story. This is something that I think all photo books follow to maintain fluidity within the book as so that it is easy reading/viewing for the spectator. I do really like the idea of having pop outs and am trying to think of the best ways to add this into my own ideas and my own photo book. I love that the add ins really bring more detail and a whole other layer to the story. This allows the spectator in and to find out more about what is going on within the story and in the lives of the Robinson family. I like how each of the images link together under the theme of Cammy’s life as well as how the family are dealing with the grief of losing their daughter and sister at such a young age of only 26. I think that I want to make my own photo book similar to this one and have those add ins to make it more interesting and to make it stand out more for my spectator to be able to get those added layers and just that much more detail about my story.
Mimosa trees bloom clusters of bright yellow flowers each spring in Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s native city of Barcelona. They grow asymmetrically tall though not often, as the one in her family’s garden. This photo book is about Rita’s mother who passed away with an illness. In her essay she said to cope with her mothers death she ” thought of you as a plant that had got sick and dried out”. This suggests to me that Rita used the mimosa tree as a form of symbiosis of what happened to her mother.
I choose this book as an inspiration for my photo book design because we are both female photographers with a similar background photographing our mothers although the context is different. I also like the way that she has laid out the book. At the beginning of the book there are window cut outs which as you turn each page reveals a thumbnail sized portrait, after meeting all the family members it creates a family tree. I think this is a really creative way and much more interesting way of ‘introducing’ each family member to the viewer. Through out the book she has included archival material such as letters and old photographs which adds another layer to the story. I also like how for every portrait of her family members, on the other side there is an object although their is no explanation I assumed there is a connection between the item and the person in the portrait. Often the person in the portrait is wearing the same colour even if its only a bit as the colour of their object this also make it appealing to the eye.
Another thing I picked up on was the picture of a small bird in someones hand.The photograph was full bleed over two pages which suggests that this photograph is important. At first I didn’t understand why it was there because it didn’t fit in with the sequencing of the photographs. However after doing more research I found that when Rita got asked about this photography and why she choose to incorporate it into her book she said “When she died, I felt like a bird whose mother had abandoned the nest. I had to learn how to fly on my own” again Rita has used symbolism to get her feelings across.
I think that I want to create another short film with a voice over sharing my thoughts on feminism and what it means to me. I want to create an effective video to go along with it and put a visual aspect to what I say. I think that this is a good idea, although it will be a challenge to get it all done in such a short space of time. I wanted to do some added research into my work to make sure that it is accurate. I think that this is pivotal in making an effective piece of work and something that my spectators and audiences are able to really connect with and understand. I went deeper into researching about certain stereotyped groups of people. This was important for the creation of a video that I am creating as it really included all kinds of people and allows my spectator/audience to really get the concept and the meaning behind my work and the movement that I am a part of. One group of people that I wanted to focus on was the black female community, specifically how they need to style their hair to maintain its condition. I find black culture so interesting and want to embrace it myself as well as obviously standing up for the rights of black people too. I find it important for those who are faced with suppression to come together and realise that we are all in it together just at different levels. I also wanted to focus on gay people and the stereotypes that are thrown at them and how being gay seems to label you and put you into a bracket which to me is totally wrong and shouldn’t be the case. I also wanted to work on how transgender people feel within our community and the way that for so many years transgender people, more than others, are being suppressed and made to hide their true selfs and their most authentic selfs. I find all of these people so important in understanding the inequalities of our society and wanted to add this into my work as part of a short film that I am planning on making. I really do believe that the road to equality comes when we realise that we are not alone and that our culture and our being doesn’t need to clash but it can come together to fight suppression. This research is for a small segment of a short film that I will be making which I have decided is going to be my main project and will be getting stills of to create my final book.
How To | Head Wrap
For this particular shoot I wanted to highlight how many white people are happy enough to stand up for black culture yet when it comes to standing up for black lives they take a backseat and don’t want to cause any trouble. I chose the head wrap as I find that it is a clear symbol of black culture and I want my spectators/audience to be able to clearly identify that. This will be a part of a short film that I am currently creating which gives mention to the suppression of black people. I find head wraps so beautiful and think that it makes women of colour look so unique and to me really embraces their culture. After reading more into the reasoning behind the head wrap I really got to grips with just how much of black African culture it represents. The use of the head wrap is to give the hair a break and so that hair can go through deep conditioning, something that black women have to do to maintain their hair. I wanted to embrace this in my work and to really get it right and so I went looking for videos on how to do a proper head wrap. This was really interesting to research and to watch how easy it is to actually do a head wrap yet to me it looks so well put together. Here is a video that really helped me when it came to doing a head wrap on my own head.
Gay stereotypes
There are so many stereotypes within our society today and a lot of those stereotypes come from film or generalisations. I find that movies will often mimic a gay person for comic effect and will over exaggerate a gay person to make it easier for the audience to identify them as ‘the gay one’. I feel that these generic stereotypes have seeped into our society and now people actually think that all gay people are a certain way and have specific attributes. I find this so ridiculous as a sexual preference should not define you as a human being and it shouldn’t be a dominant factor in what you are like as a person. People seem to use these stereotypes to belittle gay people and to put them into a specific box that traps them and often I find that gay people are suppressed. It takes some people so long to ‘come out’ as gay and to actually tell people that they are attracted to the same sex. I really feel that with a lot of people there is a block of what they understand of gay people and think that the movies that they watch portray what gay people are like when in fact you shouldn’t be putting gay people into one category as they are just people who are attracted to the same sex.
Transgender | What it’s like
I really wanted to get what it is like to be transgender more so that I am able to successful portray my character in such a way that will represent this. I am intrigued with transgender people as it seems like such a hard place to be in and can be so isolated at times as I get the feeling that there is a lot of fighting going on in your own head of what is right and wrong and how gender should be. We tend to focus ourselves on how we should look, a woman should look one way and a man should look another way, limiting how people are expected to be. For me transgender people are trapped inside the wrong body, they aren’t authentically themselves if they remain trapped and if they conform to what is expected of them within society. I really want to be able to express the suppression that many transgender people go through as they are not given equal opportunities and people seem to turn a blind eye and think that it’s ‘just a phase’. Funny how our society has really only started to accept gay people over the past few years and they were labelled with the same thing, ‘just a phase’. I want to show how being transgender isn’t a phase and that people actually struggle through and are suppressed by our society.
My response | Experimentation
Originally this work was going to be a part of a short film that I wanted to create but I have now reshaped my idea and will no longer need this content for it but I wanted to post it anyway as this experimentation has helped inform my final project and has helped me to develop my skills with staged images, props and creating different and unique personas. I find this work to be exciting and will get my spectator thinking. This idea came from a short speech that I made with the intent of creating a short film adding in clips over the audio to visualize what I was saying. However, this idea isn’t too relevant to my other work and I feel that, although would have been good, isn’t necessary in my final project.
Inspired by black cultureGay stereotypeTransgender oppression
This is a video demonstrating the page by page layout of Rita Puig-Serra Costa’s book “Where Mimosa Bloom”. As you can see from the video, Rita’s style of layout sparks essence of formal and non-formal themes. As you can see below, the hard cover first page displays a large image, cutting off the boarder and in effect drawing the reader in as the image erupts the ‘gutter’ and indents on the book.
In contrast, Rita’s work sometimes changes throughout the book, for example, when the pages are sometimes broken up by a blank page or text. This technique can usually done to make the story more interesting, and simply creates anticipation for the reader as they are wondering what is going to appear next. Rita’s simplistic style co-ordinates her archaic photographs, the simple image similarly makes a larger impact by the focus the pages have on them.
Modern day feminism, we now live in a world where women have more rights than ever before yet we are constantly suppressed and still face inequalities within our society, politically and economically. Feminism will always remain within our societies as it is something that needs to be fought and people need to be enlightened to. Until both men and women are treated equally within every society on the planet feminism will remain. It is a huge part of many peoples lives, some are against it and don’t really know anything about it and so resort to belittling it and undermining it as they seem to fear it. People often don’t know about feminism and the movement behind it so they bash it thinking that feminists are a bunch of middle aged women with hair arm pits, who don’t wear bras and hate men. This is the complete opposite of what feminists stand for and what feminism is all about. We aren’t here to say that men aren’t as good as women or that women should be running the world and make men see how it feels to be suppressed and belittled by the opposite sex. Feminism is looking for equality, for men and women to live equally among each other and for women to be seen as human beings and equals rather than as objects or less human because of their sex. We need to understand that slut shaming isn’t acceptable and the double standards placed on men and women is so wrong and unjustifiable. As a modern and supposedly more educated society we need to realise that wanting equality isn’t a bad thing and feeling that women are suppressed is actually happening. Across the world we are at different stages of feminism, some are fighting for the right to vote like in Saudi Arabia (up until 2015) and Vatican City, some are fighting for the right to their education in places like Nigeria and Pakistan and many women are fighting for equal pay and equal standards within society. Feminism is such a huge topic and there is still so much to fight for and to stand for, it just takes someone to stand out and want to make that change and want to make the world and much better and equal place.
“I’ve always considered myself a feminist, although I was always afraid of that word because people put so much on it, when honestly, it’s very simple. It’s just a person that believes in equality for men and women.” – Beyonce Knowles Carter
Modern day feminism is continuously growing and different issues and inequalities are coming up daily. Women across the world are being singled out purely because of their sex especially now in Europe, women are beginning to stand up against the way women are treated. For example, the Pussy Riot band in Russia go against Putin and make songs exclusively aimed at Putin himself. Another modern feminist group are the Femen group, an organisation of young women from the Ukraine who protest around with no tops on. Feminism is forever growing and more and more people are becoming aware of this. A news paper article that I have read recently, written by Rachel Spence, on feminism within art nowadays. ‘Women in art | Exhibitions held together purely by gender may be inadequate, even distasteful – but are they still a necessary evil?’ – Rachel Spence. The article basically talks about how women only exhibitions are almost offensive and kind of single women out rather than putting them onto the same level as men. We need to realise that both men and women are equally capable of making great art and we shouldn’t be looked at for our sex. I don’t want someone to look at my work and say ‘that’s good for a woman’. I want people to look at me as a photographer/filmmaker without having the label ‘female’ in front of it. I understand that these exhibitions are highlighting the success of women and somewhat empowering women that we are good enough to have our own work exhibited and it does bring light to female artists yet I really do think that it defeats the purpose and the aim that women want to achieve. I really want to get the message across that we should not be defined by our sex in any form of work. I hate hearing people say ‘male nurse’, ‘female doctor’, ‘male nanny’, ‘female boss’. I don’t know why we are labelled with our sex in front of our job description just because it seems unusual for a man or a woman to be doing that job.
Another interesting part of the article that I read was that only 7% of works on the walls of MoMA are women. I find this really shocking as women are so poorly represented here. This isn’t actually too shocking as I don’t actually know of many female artists/photographers that do have a strong backing and great work, like Cindy Sherman. I feel that women are underrepresented within the art world and yet become the subject of so many paintings and images. Historically, women have been objectified in paintings and almost made unidentifiable in works such as Picasso’s as he used geometric shapes to create his images which made the women faceless and more as objects rather than human beings. ‘In the US, women make up 60 per cent of art students but just 30 per cent of representation in galleries’ – Rachel Spence. This statement is quite shocking to me as it is so strange to have the statistics that only half the women that are within the creative industry and learning the trade are being successful and actually being exhibited. I feel that there is a prejudice within many careers and societies that women are less capable than men. I find this notion ridiculous as we are only focusing on the small-minded opinions from hundreds of years ago. Women fought for their right to vote, for their right to an education and women have fought and finally we live in a more equal world than it was a hundred years ago. Women have done more than prove themselves capable of being equal to men and keeping up with men. I just cannot comprehend why someone would focus on my sex rather than actually looking at the content that I create and the brains behind it. Women are suppressed all over the world in first, second and third world countries. We are just at different levels. I feel that suppression of women can also be related to a more extreme form of segregation in the rights of black people. In America so many black people are still fighting, loosing their lives and being singled out purely because of the colour of their skin. I don’t understand. Why does any of this matter to people? We shouldn’t be focused on the colour of someone’s skin, their background or their gender, it is so irrelevant. Just because I am female does not mean that I am less capable than a man and just because I am a female does not mean that I cannot think in the same way that a man does and just because I am female does not mean that I am less intelligent than a man. Equality comes when people recognise that there is something wrong and act on it. When people actually stand up for what is right, this is where change happens. Feminism isn’t just about women and feminism doesn’t only have female members, the more men get involved the more we are can recognise as equals and co-exist.
“as long as women aren’t free, men won’t be either.” – Noah Berlatsky
I wanted to devote a few double page spreads of my magazine to different issues that I also feel strongly about and think need to be highlighted. I wanted to show a bit more diversity within my magazine and not just solidly focus on the rights and inequalities of women. I am going to add an article about black rights and also the rights of animals as I feel that these issues are also really huge and have, in recent years, been coming into light. This will also make an interesting change in my work and will show another side to my style of work. I really do feel strongly about all three issues that I am going to have in my magazine and believe that each of them are so important and we should really look at them much more than we do. I feel that when people don’t want to get in ‘too deep’ or don’t want to disturb the peace they tend to glaze over these subjects, ignore them and pretend they aren’t there but really all of these issues are right in front of us and we need to start making changes now and we can’t keep on ignoring issues that affect all of our everyday lives.
Embracing black culture
I wanted to make an image about embracing black culture but also being there to fight for the rights for those people who face inequalities. I am constantly seeing black American citizens being ridiculed and attacked just for being black. They face police brutality and always seem to be at the receiving end of their fists. I have never really understood why people discriminate at someone simply because of the colour of their skin. It just seems so stupid and small-minded to me. I would never look as a black person, or anyone for that matter, and think that they are ‘below’ me. I see everyone as my equal and I feel that the rest of the world should see that too. I came across a song by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis entitled White Privilege II and it really made sense. Through this song they express how white people will happily adopt the culture of black people, dress like them, take their music style and yet when it comes to standing up for black rights many white people take a step back and stay silent. This is something that I don’t understand is why wouldn’t they stick up for what is right? I feel that people are in fear that they might get hate or that what they are doing is fine and that there aren’t really any problems. This is wrong, just like feminism people are afraid of it and are unwilling to help because it will make them stand out and some people may try to put them down and tell them that what they are doing is wrong but there is nothing wrong with wanting and fighting for equality. We need to understand that everyone is equal and that we cannot stay silent and just allow these inequalities to persist. The fight for equality doesn’t only lie with women and that is what I want to express through my magazine by adding pages with other unequal parts of our society and highlighting the change that we need to create a better and more equal world.
For this double page spread I am adding into my magazine, I want to have the right page filled with an article that I will make expressing my opinion as well as some facts and statistics about black culture and the way black citizens are treated in the Western world and on the left page I want to create an image of myself wearing a head wrap to show me embracing black culture and to make it really stand out I want to add a caption or slogan down the side, more of a statement that will stand out and make my spectator stop and want to read the next page to find out more about the image and to really understand the message that I am putting across. I have wanted to create an image like this for a while as I feel that it is so important to understand, especially with the constant news reports making worldwide news from America showing white police brutality on black citizens. I chose to wear a head wrap because it holds so much meaning. Before researching I didn’t know much about the head wrap and why African (American) women wore them. I’ve even seen celebrities like Beyonce wear them. After doing some additional research into the meaning behind it I found something very interesting. The head wrap was given to black slaves in America by white American’s who used it as a way of saying that they are owned by them and as a badge of enslavement. This was a way of belittling black people and making them feel less than equal and to show that they were slaves for someone else. It has now evolved into something much more than that, black American’s have taken it back and are embracing their descendants and to show that the head wrap is not a symbol of enslavement but rather a helmet of courage that has evoked an image of true homeland. It has become a uniform of identity and more a uniform of rebellion signifying their resistance to inequalities. I find that the head wrap holds such significance in black history and it really empowers women to embrace their culture and to be proud of who they are. I wanted to add this into my project because it is so strong and I want my entire magazine to be filled with strong and clear images.
For a few years now I have really been made aware of animal testing on products. I find it all so barbaric and just cruel. In the past testing on animals has been a part of doctors finding out more about our own anatomy but then they moved on to testing on corpses and opening them up to see what is inside. In the beginning testing makeup products on animals may have been acceptable because mixing chemicals together is risky and really we don’t know how they could effect our bodies, yet part of me wonders why make these products if you can’t be sure that they will be safe on our skin? I really do question current animal testing. We now know what works on our bodies and skin types so why are they continuing to test on animals? The answer lies with marketing, many makeup brands want to be able to sell their products in China and in China in order to be able to sell any products they need to have proof of testing on animals. This is disgusting and unnecessary. There is absolutely no justification in torturing a animal just so you can make more money on your products. I choose not to buy these kinds of products but it can be difficult to tell whether or not products do use animal testing which is why often those that don’t will have that as part of their packaging and marketing, for example all lush products are cruelty free. Starting in the 90s a lot of makeup brands stopped animal testing and decided against it until a few years ago when a large parent company, Estee Lauder, decided that they wanted to branch out to China for more profits so this meant re-introducing animal testing. Under the umbrella parent company of Estee Lauder is companies such as Mac cosmetics, Smashbox, Bobbi Brown, Benefit and many more. There is only one makeup brand that I know of that does not use any animal testing at all and that is Urban Decay. I admit that I do have products from Mac and Benefit but I got these products before I found out about the animal testings that are going on and I won’t be buying any more of their products again, unless animal testing is stopped. Some companies don’t surprise me with the use of animal testing like Chanel and Dior as their clothing obviously uses leather and real fur, they make their money off of stripping animals of their skin and selling it for thousands of pounds. I will say that I have leather items and I do eat meat so some part of me does use animals. However, I will not use or wear products that have been tested on animals. They get tortured, burnt, blinded and starved all for a lipstick that you might wear once or twice a week. I can’t stand the amount of testing on animals and the fact that many people aren’t really being exposed to this annoys me because everyone should know and see what is going on behind the scenes and how these animals are being treated. Animals that are tested on include: rats, mice, hamsters, rabbits and sometimes dogs. A lot of people will say ‘their rodents it doesn’t matter’ but again is there really any justification AT ALL for torture? How can we allow any form of life to be abused in the way that these animals are. I really hate it and think that it should be stopped.
For my shoot idea I want to create a double page spread I want to make images in an ad campaign style with myself as the model posing for the camera but with my hair slicked back with blood and blood covering my hands to show the real effects of the makeup and clothes that a lot of women (and men) wear. I want it to be hard hitting and for my spectator to really think about themselves and what kind of makeup they carry around with them. I wanted to show what it makes me feel like to wear products that have been tested on animals. The reason the blood will be in my hair is because there are also so many hair products that use animal testing and the blood in my hands will add more effect and create a strong image. I also wanted to create an image of a woman walking down the street wearing a fur coat holding bags from companies that do use animal testing. I just think that this will bring in more context and be an interesting image for my spectator to look at.
Rita Puig-Serra Costa is a spanish photographer who works in the publishing Terranova in Barcelona. After studying Humanities and an MA in Comparative Literature , she studied Graphic Design and Photography at IDEP in the CFD and Observatory .
Most memorably, her book ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ deals with the grief she suffered following the death of her mother, Where Mimosa Bloom takes the form of an extended farewell letter; with photography skillfully used to present a visual eulogy or panegyric. This grief memoir about the loss of her mother is part meditative photo essay, part family biography and part personal message to her mother. These elements combine to form a fascinating and intriguing discourse on love, loss and sorrow. Rita’s connections with her family reflect a deeply personal insight into the life of herself, her relatives and her beloved mother who it mirrored throughout her photo book.
The opening verse to ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’. This idea of a translated script of where Rita originates from indices a personal approach to her project. Her song words set the receiver up to her project. A verse of words at the beginning of my photo book may be a great start to creating a visual narrative, as the reader can follow on from where I left off. The set of images to the side mark the first sequence of media is that of Rita’s family tree, the three generations of her family to mark he change and transitions of death.
Rita’s Style
Rita’s fundamental idea of taking a detailed, vivid portraits and placing it on one side of the page, to then mirror an object reflecting that persons character is idyllic, it reflects a clear idea of personality and connection, making the reader instantly catch on to her family traits and commodities. Using objects of memorabilia and substance tells an abstract narrative for the receiver, they are invited in to celebrate the fortunes of those related to Rita’s mother.
“There aren’t any words on the book’s cover, just a detail of a faded snapshot of Puig-Serra Costa as a girl in her family’s light-dappled garden. This could indicate that it’s a book of photographs, but its intimate size is more akin to a literary work.”
Daniel Smith, the reviewer, continues to mention how Costa’s work revolves concisely around the themes of ‘memory’ and ‘transition’, fitting in nicely with the themes of my project. Rita’s work is highly symbolic, the mention of the dried tree at the beginning of the book, a still life of a dried mimosa branch from the same tree does appear later in the book, an indication, like title itself, of the tree’s symbolism. Puig-Serra Costa combined these and other images with memorabilia to create a lyrical visual elegy to her mother, Yolanda Costa Rico (1959-2008).
Capturing most favoured items or objects is something Rita does to reminisce to times when her Mother was still there. Including items from the past and the present, signifies change but life without someone Rita cared for dearly. Bringing life back up and regurgitating memories allows the reader to connect heavily with her life beforehand, leaving only her mother absent. This, in effect, dictates a sense of transition and movement, certainly change thats happened for Rita and everyone thats featured in her photo-book. With my recreation, I wish to dictate the same sort of messages but with my project of moving house, I want to subvert mainstream expectations, but to capture things seen as ‘outside the box’ – things which wouldn’t usually be associated with moving house.
UNDERSTANDING PHOTO BOOK DESIGN: LAYOUT, SEQUENCING, NARRATIVE, CONCEPT
DEADLINE: Fri 5 February
Blog: Produce a number of posts that show evidence of the following:
1. Research a photo-book that you have used as inspiration in your personal study and describe how it communicates a narrative, concept, subject-matter using a combination of images, text, archival material. Some of you may already have done this in your research.
Consider: Who is the photographer? Investigate background, conception and context of why he/she made the photo book and the photographs within it.
E.g Robert Frank’s “The Americans” was conceived with the help of a scholarship that allowed Frank to go on road trips across America during a two year period. He wanted to portray American society in the post-war period and his book has influenced (and still influence) many photographers since and also contributed to a new style and subjective approach to documentary photography. Why?
2. Deconstruct the layout of the book e.g. think about format (portraiture/ landscape/ square), size (A5, A4, A3), sequencing (single page, double-spread, multiple images on a page), juxtaposition of photographs on opposing pages etc. How is the narration of the images used, i.e. formal or conceptual relationship between images. Any use of archival or found material? How does it add value to the story being told? Describe also, how the book title, text (foreword, essay, statement by artists) and captions (if any) are use.
3. Research photo books for design ideas, look also at BLURB online book making website. Produce a moodboard of design ideas based on your research above and look at other photo book examples from photographers, incl what is shown on Blurb or see previous books produced by Hautlieu students. Describe in detail how you want to design your photo book in terms of look and feel considering the above layout options.
DEADLINE: Fri 5 February
Julian Germain For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness
Question:How has Boltanski, Abril and Toroptsov represented the concept of capturing the invisible and reflecting the meaning of memory through the medium of photography?
Introduction:
‘Someone once said that you die twice: when you die the first time and when somebody finds a photo of you and no longer remembers who it shows.’
We are made up of fragmented memories and forgotten dreams. Our entirety rests in the fate of old letters, burnt photographs and meaningless possessions. We never question the invisible, it is as though we are on a relentless pursuit to try and capture the invisible. We abide by the rules and limitations that are enforced by the concept of death. But what happens to those who become untouchable, those who are no longer part of the flux. Their existence becomes empty and lost, they are no longer perceptible to the eye. Yet we still feel impossible and unexplained connections to the spiritless. We yearn to cherish the ‘good’ memories and except the restrictions we are faced with regarding mortality. In doing so, the feeling of life is created, the tangibility of pleasure and pain enters our worlds and consumes us. But, photographs hold heritage and meaning, they have a depth of knowledge and feeling to them. Photographs capture single moments of existence. They can tell a narrative of a second in a stranger’s life in an instance. Whether it is personal, isolated, private or rare, it is has an essence of being and timelessness. The allure of time, is its youthfulness. Time is the cure for it never fails to reveal the truth. ‘Human life is embedded in time: we remember the past, we plan for the future and we live in the present. We swim in an ever-rolling stream.’
I am exploring how the invisible can be captured and portrayed through the medium of photography. And why memories hold such a powerful influence over our past, present and future. I want to find out what makes a photograph meaningful, what gives the photograph reality and how through photography the memory of a person can live on. My project focuses on exploring the invisible through three female generation’s memories; this includes my grandmother, my mother and myself. These distinctive view points will enable my project to become more personal and really seek the depths of my grandfather’s life. I think memory is more than simply remembering a once present thought, but it is about connecting with the past in order for the past to live on.
Rosalind Krauss is an American art critic and a Professor at the Columbia University in the City of New York for the study of Art History. Her work is to understand modernist art in all its dimensions; formal, historical and theoretical. Krauss is interested in the development in photography as well as works in art. She tends to focus on the avant-garde and feminist work. Krauss was also a critic and contributing editor for Artforum and one of the founders of the quarterly art theory journal October. She is a highly influential critic and theorist of the post Abstract Expressionist era.
In this book Krauss explores the art of painters, sculptors and photographers. She examines their work on what they represent and how they show that representation. She looks more into the movement of feminism and nine women artists. Krauss claims that the women she has written about in this book challenge the ideals of unity and identifying with masculine aesthetics. Krauss talks about Cindy Sherman, Claude Cahun, Louise Bourgeois, Dora Maar and many others in expressing her views of women within the art industry.
“Within surrealist practice, too, woman was in construction, for she is the obsessional object there as well. And since the vehicle through which she is figured is itself manifestly constructed, woman and photograph become figures for each other’s condition: ambivalent, blurred, indistinct, and lacking in, to use Edward Weston’s word, ‘authority’.” – Rosalind Krauss
Krauss states that women lack authority in the photographic world and are still being objectified and seen as things rather than as human beings. This is really interesting to me as I do find most art has really blurred the woman and made it seem as if the woman is an object and is to be controlled by the male painting her etc. However, although there is a lot of objectification of women within photography, female photographers tend to make themselves the subject and almost parody the idea of being seen as an object, especially through the work of Cindy Sherman. I believe that now women are using their bodies because it is the only thing that is our own, we are taking it back in a sense.
Krauss talks about the work of Cindy Sherman and identifies her work as ‘slavishness’ as if she becomes a slave in her own images and another art critic writes about the link between Sherman and Douglas Sirk. This critic compares the work of Sherman to a still from one of Sirk’s films and how both are focusing their work on a ‘remembered fantasy’. This is interesting to me as it brings in another dimension to Sherman’s work and how she came up with her ideas from watching old B films and Film Noir style films, this does suggest that Sherman has dreamt of envisioned her situation before hand and then worked based off of memory in her images. However, Sherman has stated before that she doesn’t envision any particular scene but she does it all there and then. She stated ‘some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all’. I like this quote as it shows that Sherman really does make it all up when she gets to her studio and works with what looks good in front of the camera and doesn’t solely depend on a memory or having to perfectly re-stage an image from a still that she took from an old film.
![The Epilogue [mini analysis]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/the-epilogue-page-analysis-1.png)
![The Epilogue [mini analysis]](https://hautlieucreative.co.uk/photo16a2/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2016/02/the-epilogue-analysis-2.png)
