For my final outcome of this Exam Project I am going to attempt to make a photo-book using ‘blurb.com.’
I have some experience making an online book, making one last year in my AS Exam Project. I want to expand on what I learnt in this first attempt, and hopefully make a slightly more extensive and developed body of work. In total I have about 600 possible images which I can work with to narrow a body of work down, to about 50-60 images.
My plan is to create a narrative structured into three different sections. The whole point of my project is to effectively explore the ‘truth’ behind the often ‘fantasized’ myth of how food is produced, an idea which is in many way manipulated by how food looks and is advertised on the shelf. To make my story more interesting however, I want to subvert this idea by jumping straight into the theme of food production.
I want the images within this photo-book to reflect not just what I learned this year concerning context and information about food production, but at the same time link this knowledge to the theme of the project ‘Truth, Fantasy or Fiction’. I want to show-off an extensive degree of images which cover the theme of local food production to a very high extent.
First Part
For the first part of the photo-book I am going to include images of my visit to the ‘Fresh Fish Company’ as a way of slowly introducing the general themes and overall feel of the story. The style of images of this shoot are very much on the border-line of the different aims of my project, which is effectively comparing finished food items with how they are produced. The images included will be mostly lively and upbeat, serving in favour of the argument that Jersey produce is deserving of the respect it is so often presented as being like.
The first few images will imply strongly that this project is specifically about local Jersey produce. In doing so I will be able to immediately contextualise the narrative and direct a specific focus for the viewer to follow along to.
Second Part
For the second part of my narrative I am going to tackle the theme of food production and hopefully break-down and develop an understanding behind the ‘truth’ of how food is produced.
As I have previously mentioned, I have attempted to copy the style and theme of Henk Wildschut to construct responses to this theme. I found in many ways however, that completely basing my work in this exact style in many ways contradicted a degree of energy and colour I wanted to evoke for the purpose of making my work visually, more interesting. Therefore to compensate for this, I took a more vague interpretation of Wildschut’s work, taking influences from his documentary style rather than copying it. Wildschut is very experienced in his calm and measured style and his vast quantity of images makes such an exploration possible to the extent of interesting images he can produce. On the other hand I have much less images to work with and so directly evoking this I believe in many ways, would not do my work any favours.
I have visited 3 different farms in total to get a broad series of images. In addition I have met with a supplier of local produce as well as visiting the central market in town, talking to and photographing a few of the shopkeepers who benefit from this daily supply of local produce. Over the course of this part of the photographing which I began just before Easter, I have gained an extensive body of work which I will be able to narrow down. In addition to this, I have 200 or so images from my own archive of images I took last year which link very well to the theme of my project.
My favourite shoot over the course of this side of photographing is the shoot where I visited water-cress grower, Colin Roache. I believe this particular body of images is very strong and there are a few which will fit very well into my narrative.
Third Part
The third part of my photo-book will look at how local produce appears really close-up, away from the protection of careful lighting or colourful, lively packaging. This part of the project will be very much based on following and evoking the style of Martin Parr, who is renowned for his trademark style of photographing extremely close-up in combination with the use of flash photography. The resulting images that Parr produces are extremely colourful to the extent that they are in many cases, over-saturated. Furthermore this close-up style does also mean that at times, Parr’s images can appear vulgar and grotesque.
It is this sense of rawness and willingness to create images which surprise and shock the viewer is what in my view, makes Parr’s work so unique, and in recognition of this I will experiment with a combination of images; firstly a controlled advertising style, followed by Parr’s vernacular twist to create edgy, and at times vulgar images – adding a slight twist at the final bit of the narrative.
This final part of the narrative,will challenge the first, and to a degree the second part, subverting the generally reflective nature of the narrative. It will be an unexpected ending, leaving the viewer to question which images were in fact truth within the story? if any?
