Over the past couple of weeks, I have begun to create my photo book for my coursework. The work I have been producing up to this point has all been leading up this stage in which I can begin to insert them carefully into my photo book, which I am creating on the Adobe Lightroom interface using the Blurb book-making software.

To begin the process, I selected all appropriate images from all shoots completed and whittled these down to my favourite edits I had done as I gradually progressed through the coursework. I then created a new folder in Lightroom named ‘Book’ where in which all images I wanted to use in my photo book would be placed and began by putting in my already finalised images into here and then transferred these from the ‘library’ stage in Lightroom to the ‘book’ stage where I could begin arranging the images how I wanted and selected the particular book orientation I wanted and the type of paper.

I chose to use  standard portrait orientation for my book as, from looking at other artists photo books, been attracted to this the most because of how it looked and how it felt in the hand when reading. I have also chosen to use a paper named ‘ProLine Uncoated’ paper which I saw on the Blurb website and thought this looked very effective. It does not have a gloss to it so looks very natural which I like. I believe it will benefit my images look in the end. After ding this task, I began arranging my photos as I wished. I have used a wide range of different image layouts but I tried to stick with a narrow range of looks so the whole outcome does not look to muddled and difficult to read. The most common page type is a double page spread where in which one image takes up two pages on a 3/4 proportion so is not full bleed and this has had the best effect on the look of my photos to complement the smaller, more delicate still images and that of full bleed, detailed portraits.

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My plan for my photo book is to produce a detailed and insightful exploration into my family life, with me centered within the middle. This is the running theme throughout and I hope to show it through poetic, still images of landscapes or objects which may have no direct meaning at its face value but has a deeper meaning once inferred. As well, the portraits in my project are intended to be collaborative and intimate to show the relationships I hold with the people in my life but the portraits are intended to show the emotion of each being as well. I have contrasted yet shown the similarities of my mum and dad’s relationship when they were together to that of my relationship with Lucy now and the overall look I hope to achieve is that of a fun, vibrant, light-hearted but quite solemn and sombre image-based diary about how I am still developing through the events if life and the attachments I have built from the event which shaped my life – my mum and dad’s divorce. I want their to be an obvious existence of the theme of attachment but also an underlying theme of detachment. Although these themes are the main focus for my book, they are underlying themes which are subtly hinted at every now and then by a sequence which develops upon the understanding of love. Memory is fragile and I use this notion as a driving force for my project made up of diaristic photographs, which, when come together, create an album of moments in time which in-turn lend themselves to never be forgotten. I have attempted not to avoid the subject of my mum and dad’s divorce but felt it easier to express this and my feelings towards it through other subject matter, being my relationship with my girlfriend and the other people in my life, such as my individual relationships with my mum and dad and how I view them in solitary opposition to one another.

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My plan for the front and back cover of my photo book was to keep it very simple and plain and include just the title ‘All My Love’ situated, in small print on the cover of the book and include a digitised version of an archival image on the back cover, with no writing. I was originally going to include another archival image in the front cover, however, instead of digitised and printed by Blurb, I was going to manually tip in the photo on the cover when it came back to me after production. Because I have chosen a softcover, this would have been possible – to, with a blade, make an incision into the card and place my image within these, like in old family photo albums. However, I decided not to go ahead with this and instead will just leave the title and the title only on the cover to keep in simple and leave the rest up to the audiences intrigue from reading the title. In the industry of photo books in the current day, it is the new trend not to include a photo on the cover at all and instead just a title or an abstract close up of an object, or even a painting or drawing etc.

I have chosen to place the title, in size 16 font, near to the bottom of the page and in the middle. I prefer the look of the title near to the bottom of the cover as opposed to the centre because it doesn’t follow typical conventions or norms to place text in the middle of a page.

I wanted to have a base colour for my book – a main colour that I use on the cover and back pages as well on the first few pages that hold the book together and as a background colour for a couple images in the book – which I have done. I have chosen to use a dusty, almost faded, dark-ish pink colour that connotes visuals of love and romance bit it’s faded colour represents a sense that this love may have also faded.

On the spine I have included the title as well as my name, because I am the author of the book. I chose not to put it on the font as I didn’t feel the need because I feel as though the project is not as much a project about me and more about the other people within. I did not want the audience to focus on me a photographer and instead focus on the title and what it could mean.

On the back cover is an image of my mum and I at the age of 3. I am sat on mt chair at the kitchen table in the house I grew up in for 10 years. This photo was taken on my birthday and my mum kneels by mu side as my dad takes the photo as we both smile at the lens. This image brings back very happy memories as I see both my mum and I in a joyous trance at this happy time.

The first two pages of the book consist of a white page non the left and the page on the right is printed in the same pink colour as the cover. On the white page on theft, I have included the ‘Luce’ family crest which I drew and then digitised. I have put this black and white emblem in the center of the page in a very small size because once printed, it will appear bigger so have compensated for this by making it even smaller than I originally would, however want it to look small and delicate anyways so the reader has to focus on the details of it. I have not included a caption which says what the crest is either because I did not want to give too much away.

On the right page I have included the title again with my name underneath and in a dark pink colour to contrast the lighter, dusty oink of the background. This is a common convention of photo books – to include the title and author’s name again in the first pages of the book before any images have been seen.

The first image, as I stated in my previous blog post is the image of the wedding cards and I have made this a full bleed image to get the full effect of the details within the cards.

On Lightroom, the controls are very easy to manage and I quickly got the hang of how to use the different tools and how to change different settings.

The next image, on pages 6 and 7 again takes up two pages and is a portrait of my girlfriend Lucy and I. This was an image I took using an expired black and white film in a Pentax MZ-M camera. The results of using an expired film has resulted in a change in affect of the image quality as it has added grain a swell as different light and brightness. It has made it darker as though it was under exposed but this was an effect I was aware of when using the roll of film and one I am happy with the results of. I have used a couple of other images from this roll of film in the book. The image which is a 3/4 page spread uses the white background as a means of a border to make the darkened image stand out. It is an image of myself and Lucy on my bed looking straight into the camera lens. We are centered in the frame and interlock are arms as Lucy leans on to me. The film has added a slight vignette effect to the edges of the photograph which I like and my intention for this image was to oppose the view of my mum and dad’s mature relationship from the image previous to this to that of mine an Lucy’s relationship which is much more fun, however, still somber in this particular image, emphasised in it’s darkness – as I intended to achieve in post-production.

I have then used another black and white image as a 3/4 page spread on the next two pages. It is an image taken with my iPhone of a tangled ribbon tied to a tree trunk as it blows in the wind. This photograph is intended to represent the idea of an attachment and a romance – in that a tied ribbon symbolises a knot – as though you tie the knot when marrying, as well as the connotations of love and romance of a ribbon tied in a girl’s hair or ribbon displayed on the back of a wedding car of newly-wed couples.

Next, I have included the text from both of the wedding cards written by my mum and dad. On the left page is the text written by my mum and on the right, my dad’s words. I wanted to disrupt the sequencing of the book by purposely not putting this text directly after the image of the cards because this how intrigue is created in a photo book.

The pages after this display juts one image, on the left. It is an image of my mum and dad when they were younger and had just fallen in love. They take a photo of themselves in bed as they lean against the wallpaper covered walls of my dad’s bedroom. You can see in the toip right corner part of a surfing poster of my dad’s as he was a surfing fanatic in his youth. It is an image that represent their romance as well as that of other couples as they document their intimacy in the fist couple years of falling in love. They look so happy and this I love. However, although this image is in place in the digital book, I am going to remove this before it gets sent off for production and when I received it again, I will use photo corner to tip in the real version of this image. This will add a sense of realness and make it more personal as well as something for the reader to physically interact with and experience the smell and feel of real photo paper which has been maturing over the last 25 years. This image works in conjunction with the text before.

On the following page is another archival image taken from my mum and dad’s wedding album. It frames both of them in the car they both arrived in and left in. My mum holds a bouquet a flowers as my dad leans in for the picture as they both smile form ear-to-ear. This image will be printed by Blurb directly into the book, not tipped in.

On pages 16 and 17 I have included my next image in the sequence which has is so far made up of 5 images. This image as taken in my garden and was not planned but instead a more spontaneous shot. The image is a close up of a dandelion and is representation of how love can be so delicate and fragile. I was instantly drawn to this flower because it sat in the grass very lonesomely, solitary from any other dandelions – this was the only one in the garden and it struck me instantly and had the urge to take a photo of it. After taking the image, I realised that the plant also connotes a deeper meaning of love – derived from the love poem children sued to sing whilst picking the petals of a flower or blowing the petals of a dandelion. Yu would sing “he/she’ loves me… he/she loves me not” where you would seek if the person of your affection returns that affection and the phrase said on the pick of the last petals determines whether he or she does love you or doesn’t. I have chosen to make this image a full bleed because the darkness of the grassy area surrounding the dandelions white petals contrasts that of the white page opposite.

The next image is an image if Lucy cutting my mum’s hair in the kitchen. My mum sits on a stool in the kitchen as Lucy makes an orbit around her cutting her hair making sure it is as she wishes. My girlfriend is a qualified hairdresser and so my mum asked if she would be kind enough to cut it for her. On the evening of this happening, Lucy and my mum had set up and I decided to photograph the occurrences through the reflection of out kitchen door. I am framed within this image too because of this but the lights from the kitchen have illuminated my mum and Lucy so they are the focus and it is one of my favourites in the book because of its obscurity from the others – it includes the photographer which is seen as going against the rules and it is taken through a reflection. The image signifies a loss of identity as my mum loses some hair and this notion is reiterated in the identity lost as a result of my mum and dad’s split.

The following page is of another 3/4 page spread of an image which was from the same shoot as the one before. It is an image of the hair from my mum’s head on the floor, in wet clumps. After the haircut was finished, I quickly got my camera gain and released the shutter whilst pointing it at the floor to capture the aftermath of the cut. It is intended to co-exit with the image previous to it as a diptych across two pages.

I have then used another full bleed image of a portrait of my dad on the next page. This image is a black and white portrait of my the back of my dad’s head and shoulders. I have harshly cropped it just below the shoulders and didn’t know what I thought of it when I first imported into Lightroom. It is an unconventional portrait that is made of very dark, neutral greys with little contrast of blacks and whites. This darkness adds to its graveness however and I think it works well. The fact that you cannot see my dad’s face and instead, the back of it adds to this essence that he was a hidden figure in my childhood and I did in a way lose him as a dad for period of my life because this was a consequence of my mum and dad separating.

After these two pages comes another image which juxtaposes the content of the previous. It is a black and white photograph of a window in which there is a smiley face drawn on because of the condensation. I drew this smiley face on the window and thought i would make for an interesting image that shows happiness in a different sense. It is as though it is a smile, that it doesn’t really exist – or a smile that exists for a small period of time but then fades away – like what you attempt to o when you’ve experiences a detachment – put on a fake smile which is eventually erased. This smile contrasts that of the dull looking portrait of my dad on the page before. I decided to frame the mage on a black background because this way the photograph stood out better and it forms a division from the repetitive white pages that have been used thus far.

The next two images also work in conjunction with each the as a diptych. The first is of a goal I set up in Millbrook Park and the second is also in Millbrook Park but of the swimming pool that is in the park. I went to the park a few moths ago to do this shoot. The two image represent myself and my dad’s relationship – I remember he sued to take to Millbrook Park when I was younger and used to stay at his on Saturdays. We would go on Sunday mornings and play football with a goal we would set up with the bin lids and out jackets. I also used to go swimming in the pool in the summer and this brings back memories of my time with him and we use to do this most weekends when the weather was nice. I decided to include his because of the concept of memories and it symbolises my attachment with my dad when I would stay the night at his on the weekends, however, this relationship has since gone from cherishing moments with each other to seeing very little of each and I understandably never stay at his anymore because I am of the age where I want to do my own thing.

On the next page I have included another archival image bit this time of a two sets of two photo booth images – one of my dad on his onw and the other of my mum and I as a baby. These images were taken at different images and one sees my dad on his onw posing for the camera and the other of my mum and I posing for the camera. I came across both of them at different times during my time delving into my family’s family albums. I placed the photo on the same white card used for other shoot with old photographs and purposely placed my dad’s set above the one of my mum and I and to left, I noticed that my dad was looking down got the corner of the image frame coincidentally on the bottom image and thought it would look interesting if I placed this image so that it looked as though he was looking at my mum and I. I feel as though I achieved this well.

The next image in my book is a double page spread, with a slight white border. I have used a photograph I took of a car with its protective cover over it. This image came from a shoot I produced at my old home. This is my Papa’s vintage Ford car which has its protective cover over the top of it most of the time to reserve its quality and value. I saw it sitting there and the white/grey colour of the cover contrasted greatly with the dark green colour tat came from his shed behind the car. I though tit would make for a great image and in post-production I deliberately reduced the exposure and crated more shadows and increased the intensity of the black colour to make the lightness in the cover over the car stand out more. It is one of my favourite images because it’s likeness to that of the style of Matt Eich or other contemporary photographers such as New Topographic photographer Lewis Baltz. It represents the fragility of the importance of protection and security – the outer shell provided by the cover is what is hiding the car and it is as though it is showing only part of its personality but wishes to hide in order to preserve it’s beauty for the right time – like what my dad and mum, in some ways, did when they split from each other – they became more reserved until they found another partner.

The image on the following page frames the window sill in my house. I made this photograph of the window sill in my lounge because I wanted to focus on the images that took their place on it – as a centrepiece of the room – two framed photographs of me as a young child – one when I was around 5 years of age and the other on holiday when I was 10. This photographs purpose was to bring myself – the centre subject of the project – back into focus to reiterate that, as my mum’s only child, she likes to take pride in me and tells me constantly how much she loves me – I enjoy the meaning and simplicity of this image because it shows me as a young child and contrasts that of what I am like now – in a relationship with my girlfriend and living much more independently, as well as forming an ever-growing relationship with my sister. I chose to make this black and white because this looked most effective and I took inspiration form LaToya Ruby Frazier’s image much like this to create this photograph.

For the next image, I used some personal objects to create a representation of love and attachment in another perspective. In my lounge at home, we have displayed the characture figures of Lady and the Tramp – two china mini figures of the two dogs form the animated film. The film is about how two dogs fall in love and my mu, being a collector of vintage and antique goods, came across these two figures and decided to buy them and they now take their place in our lounge. I had never really thought anything of them until this project when I was finding ways to photograph things that I never easily would have before and think of things in ways I never would have before. I saw these figures and realised the story behind them and realised it would be perfect if I photographed them in my mini studio set-up. I photographed them together against a white background and made this black white. I love this image and its relationship with love and romance, but just shown in an unusual way. I have again used a black background to frame it – creating the colour theme of white, black and pink.

A full bleed, coloured photograph of my dad takes its place on the following two pages and feel like this sis one of my strongest images due to it’s crispness and sharpness of detail that makes this such a busy image. However, the busyness works because there are two clear focal points in the photograph – my dad sat on the sofa with his glass of wine and the TV which is playing EastEnders. The TV illuminates the rest f the room and in particular, my dad watching the screen. I have taken the image from a far to capture the whole scene and have used a flash as I experimented without but the quality was not as I wanted. This is the second image of my dad in which you do not his whole face and instead, just a side profile. However, there are direct, face-n portraits if my mum in the book and this restates the underlying reality that he is still hidden away and keeps himself to himself sometimes.

The reader then turns the page and sees another 3/4 page spread of a black and white image from the same roll of black and white film used in the Pentax camera. It is an image taken near to Christmas when out on a walk. It captures the top of a castle near to Grouville Bay. I pointe my camera upwards as I saw these pigeons were flying in and out of this one gap in the castle. I waited for the right time to capture the point at which two pigeons sat side by side in this opening in the castle’s wall. This image shows again, in a different way to break the monotonous sequencing of human interaction, what an attachment can look like – or a relationship between two people.

The following image keeps with the theme of animals and was also taken on the shoot to my old house. This is in fact my old cat which we had for 9 years, but, when we moved away from the house we grew up in with our cat, Betty, she ran away back to our old house and has stayed there ever since and now my Papa looks after her. Whenever I go back there, I always see Betty and she comes over to see me so I can stroke her. I made this image of her staring in to the distance as she sits on the ground and this also shows a sense of detachment.

Another black and white image takes its place on pages 44 and 45 in the form of a 3/4 page spread – this is a common convention and theme of my book and it is what I used to provide a structure to the layout sand sequencing because mots of my images, as I found out when arranging them in the book, look better in this format. It is a portrait of my mum which I took as she stood in the lounge and what I like about the image is her facial expressions and the way the she stands out very clearly from the background. There is ghostly presence and eerie mood to the image as I have used the flash on my camera. This was an image that was very much needed as I had a lack of images of my mum in the current day.

When I was round at my sister’s house where she lives with her mum a couple months ago, I was playing all sorts of games with her and it was at one pint that she got at her gingerbread men decoration set. She received this as a gift at Christmas and wanted to use it with me when I came round. We spent half an hour decorating ur gingerbread men and afterwards, I decided to photograph them both together on the chopping board we were using. I photographed this using my phone using an app called ‘Huji’ which makes images look very retro and visually eye-catching due o the colour and light affects it ads to the image once taken. The colours are very vibrant and I love the effects which come with it and I often use to capture everyday moments as opposed to my iPhone’s default camera app. The image brings the added and necessary vibrance in my book which I wanted to achieve through photographs that have a relation to my time with Minnie because this is what represents the fun we have together – the colour that comes from her personality and our experiences although she does not appear in the book too often.

When Lucy and I visited the island of Sark for couple of days in the summer last year, I took my point and shoot camera – my Canon SureShot A-1 and used it to take some photographs of the time we spent cycling and walking around the island for the two days we were there. On the following pages, I have created a photo album affect where in which I have arranged 4 images that I took of our time in Sark – two portraits of Lucy and I and two landscapes of the coastline and both sets work together as diptychs. On the first page I have used the face-on portrait of Lucy and underneath I have placed the landscape shot of what was behind her, however, in it’s own image and this creates a continuity effect which works well as a diptych. Lucy also took my picture on the day after and captured the landscape in which we were surrounded by afterwards as it its own image. This also makes for an effective diptych which I have represented on the opposite page and with the portrait of us both diagonal to one another.

The next page consist of a photo over a double spread of myself and Minnie waiting at the top of a slide at Tamba Park. Lucy has taken this image with my Canon point and shoot camera and is a great image because it sees Minnie looking with a grin on her face at the camera and myself gazing at Minnie’s joy as we get ready t launch ourselves down the slide. The next couple pages are about colour and vibrancy and the notion of playing and going back to childhood. Even though the next image is a black and white portrait of Minnie, she is looking into the camera with a ice lolly in her hand ready to lick it and it reveals a sense of fun and play behind it. This image was previously an image of Minnie going down a fireman’s pole in the same park as the image before with Lucy watching on as the both laugh but the image was not very strong and didn’t feel it fitted into the sequence so instead replaced it with a portrait of Minnie. I talk about her often in my essay but never really show her in my book and this image was needed in order for her presence to be realised.

Keeping on the same them as play and childhood fun, the following image is one I took in the garden in which I used to play in all the time at my Papa’s house. It was called the children’s garden because all most of my cousins on my mum’ side of the family used to live in the estate in which my Papa owns and rents the houses in it out to tenants – being my family and my other cousins families. This was the garden which we all used to play in together after school and I used to play football with my younger males cousins all the time. The image frames a goal in the garden with the netting behind it and the field which surrounded the garden. The image looked best on a full page spread to emphasise the wide angle landscape view. This concept of play reiterates the importance of living in the moment and, for me, reminds me of childhood and the community that out whole family was.

On the next two pages is two other images – the first is of a charm/jewel that my mum owns and has owned for several years. It reminds both her and myself of the time that my dad and her spent together when OI was much younger. The delicate, very small charm was part of a bracelet but now only this pendant exists. The charm is of a girl and boy holding hands. Very simple but a jewel that presents relationships very clearly. My mum decided to get this tattooed on her ankle when she was with my dad and she also added a heart in the middle where their hands joined to show the love between her and my dad. I wanted to show the relationship between this jewel and her tattoo and so arranged them side by side and used the image I took of my mum’s ankle as a full page spread with the tattoo being the centre point of focus.

The next image is from the same shoot I did with my mum and Lucy when she cut my mum’s hair bit this closer image of the two subjects presents a more intimate photograph of my mum staring, rather glumly as she loses the hair Lucy is cutting. I have put after the image of the charm/tattoo because it juxtaposes this notion attachment and detachment through a loss of identity.

This theme is followed on, onto the next two pages where the audience see a image of my old house which I grew up in for 10 years and an image on the opposite page of a pick-up truck with a load of furniture. This shows the event at which my mum, her boyfriend of 13 years and I moved out of this house and into our current one.

Next, is a portrait I took of Lucy sitting on my window ill. This was during an evening which we saw each other after I had finished school and she had finished work. She was lounging around in my fleece without any bottoms on and I had an idea to have her sit on the window ill which is big enough for somebody to sit on comfortably because of it depth. I wanted to take her picture as she stared blankly  into the camera with her head rested on her les which were bent. This portrait shows the same style of image Eich used in his book where his own wife is pictured staring into the camera but from a closer perspective. This is more of a loner shot which frames both Lucy and the window sill. I added grain to the photograph in post-prediction because this looked affective and I purposely added aa slight hint of grain whilst taking the picture through slight incorrect adjustments of my camera settings so their was a blur and subtle noisy texture but emphasised this in Lightroom.

 

To conclude my book about attachments and detachments within my life and consequences of what love can do but what, on the other hand, it can achieve for the positive – it can unite people, I will be using another archival image which I have decided to also tip in with phot corners. I decided to do this with an image if my mum and dad in bed when they were much younger and had inly been dating for around a year. Again,  will be using this same technique to tip in an image of my mum, dad and I when I was born. I found this image within the endless photo albums we keep in my loft. My mum holds me after I had just been born as she lies in bed with me in her arms, my dad kneels beside her with his arm around us both as they both look in the camera with joy and relief. It may have made sense to use it a at the start but with my book I have essentially started with an equilibrium. I presented the images surrounding my mum and ad’s wedding and marriage at the start – the balance and then this was disrupted in the middle and the focus came onto me. Finally, towards the end, I have subtly hinted again at this divide and this separation of people. I wanted to include this image of family at the end to show that although my project has been about a loss of parental figures and confusion among myself as to where I lie in my family as I am introduced to person upon person including my sister, her mother, my mum’s boyfriend, my own girlfriend and friends, I still manage to find a sense of belonging within my own being and can accept everything and embrace it because my family – the focus of this coursework – is who I love and who I choose to attach to because I feel my place among the fragility of my family circle is important and significant. Documenting this with my camera is something I have greatly enjoyed and wanted to end the book with a photo that is not mine because my project has been a collaboration wit my subjects and although I am the photographer, the subjects are what provides intrigue and meaning to what I am photographing.