For the investigation into a photobook, I will be researching the book ‘Where the Mimosa Bloom’ by Rita Puig – Serra Costa, which focuses on the life of her mother who recently passed away, she tries to capture her life in a documentary approach through objects, places, family and friends. I have paid close attention to this particular book throughout the whole of the project, as the subject matter is similar to my personal study, but I am focusing on my own life. 

Cover of the Book 

There are no words on the front of the book, which is the first indication, that is photobook rather than than an informative book about her mother’s life. The image on the front cover is  faded photo of  Yolanda Costa Rico ( her mother ) in a garden as a child. The spine is a warm yellow the same colour of the mimosa trees, which where her mother mother favourite plant. Later in the book we see a photo of blooming mimosa tree, which are native to her home city of Barcelona, growing in a densely populated area which give an indication of the symbolism of the tree, the title of the book itself.

Design and Layout

The first two and the last two pages of the book are the same colour as the spine which is the colour of the mimosa tree which this a running feature throughout the whole of the book.

• The book is an A5 linen hardcover and consist of 96 pages.
• 18 archival images.
• 5 full bleeds.
• 22 objects.
• 13 blank pages
• 5 pages with sections cut out
• 10 formal portraits
• 0 inserts or fold out
• 4 pages of letters

Sequencing

The first five pages of the book have a small squares cut out to reveal a portrait of what we can assume is Rita’s family tree, as you continue turn the page another portrait is revealed and so on and so forth until we can see all six family members. Throughout the book we seen ten portraits of different people taken using natural light, but there is no indication that they are the people from the family tree. We can assume that these people are friends of Rita’s mother.  The portraits in the book are commonly juxtaposed by photograph of a small possession of Yolanda’s eg a shopping list, small toy or a black page, to draw the attention to the portrait, or may shows that in Yolands life she cared more about the experiences and the people around her than physical objects .

Structure 

The narraitve the book is telling to story Yoloands life through her possesions, her friends, family, places she visited. The book unlike most photobooks nearly entirely consists of photos that don’t seem to have any correlation to each other until you get towards the end of the book and find the index pages in which all of the images are given context, I think that by Rita doing this it gives the audience a better chance to connect the the book in a personal matter. I think that by not having any words next to the image creates a rather pleasant anthetic and makes the audience look at the book in two different way; as an outside having no connection to her at all, then the perspective of Rita, grieving daughter trying to honour her mother and still trying to keep the bond that she had with her mother alive.

Editing 

The book as a whole has a light and bright feel to it, the background for the majority of the book is white as objects that have been scanned onto a computer, or she has taken images of physical objects that wouldn’t have been able to scan in, she has photographed them with a white screen behind them. So this gives some depth to the images rather than them all being very flat from having been scanned in. All of the objects have been edited onto a pure white background, apart from one page.  On this page is a branch of the mimosa tree, which looks as if it is slowing dying, this could be a references to how Rita see the memory of her mother, that all of her possessions bring back happy memories of the times that they shared together hence the bright backgrounds, but when she thinks about her actual mother all she is reminded of is that she is no longer there. 

Text 

The only large amount of text in the book comes at the very back of the book, in which there is an index page of sorts which describes   all of the images that have come before so that the audience can have some of context as to what these objects are, it also gives context to where the images where taken so we are given an idea of where Yoland spent different parts of her life. At the end of the book there is a letter from Rita in which she speaks of the ways that she still feels that her mother is present in her life even though she is no longer there the letter is first written in her mother native language of Catalan and then in English.