The book ‘Retracing Our Steps’ by Carlos Ayesta and Guillaume Bression looks at the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in 2011.  The photographers have made regular visits to the ‘no-man’s-land’ and have created a book that consists of mix posed situations with a documentary approach.  The photographers asked former residents to come back to their original environment to see how much these formerly ordinary places have changes.  The subjects were asked to act as if nothing had happened, and to behave naturally.  The resulting narrative in this book is a harrowing story of how things can change over time and become so massively impacted from unexpected events which are out of control.  The photographers have made this to “show what the inhabitants have to face when they come back to the place where they used to live”, which shows the the audience of this book is partly the previous inhabitants, and partly the rest of the world to shed some light on how disastrous the impact was on the area.  The book won Bression and Ayesta the New Discovery Award presented by Le 247 Gallery and has been exhibited at festivals such as the Athens Photo Festival.

The book is finished with a half-cloth hardcover and measures 23 x 23 cm.  In total it has 152 pages with 102 colour illustrations.   The photo-book consists of full-bleed double page spreads as well as photographs presented centrally in the page along with text with some off-centre photographs.  There are also smaller photographs included in some pages to create a sense of typology within the narrative.  The photographs in a full-bleed are intended to seem imposing to the viewer and are closer to the front of the book in order to seem bold and to draw in the viewer.  The photographs presented with text are to give the viewer some context about the subjects and their situations as well as to create smaller narratives within the photo-book, it also helps the viewer to see that the destroyed Fukushima area was once the home to thousands.  The title ‘Retracing Our Steps’ reflects the idea behind the book very well as Bression and Ayesta travel back to the no-go-zone to show where the impact started and where the inhabitants are now.

In order to develop my studies on political landscape further I will be planning a few more shoots to do over the next couple of months.  These shoots will intend to add to my existing work as well as looking further into the subjects that I have been exploring, such as personal memories through my family.

• The first shoot that I plan to do is of my family on Christmas day – this shoot will consist of environmental portraits in both documentary style and tableux style (mostly documentary) and is intended to develop on the past shoot I have done on my family but will differ from the previous shoot as it will represent memories made within the household as Christmas is considered a time for family and memories.
• The second shoot that I plan to do will be to create a photograph to insert into my photobook that will be slightly different from the rest.  The intention of this is to almost confuse the viewer and break up the book into sections slightly to keep the viewer intrigued.  I plan on taking this ‘odd’ photograph by making a shoot of a bonfire and editing it in an almost abstract fashion to make the photograph more interesting.  The idea of the shoot of fire comes from the destruction and waste that has come from the development of my house.

In order to provide a further insight to the development of my house I have looked through files to find important documentation of the development.  I have found documents such as the original house deeds, the planning permissions and the plans of the house.  I plan on incorporating some of these photographs into my photobook in order to show the stages of development that the house has to go through over time.  I think these documents are an important element as they give an insight into the legal side of the development as there are lots of laws on what developers can and cannot do to a house due to historical and political reasons.  I will also be looking into the history of the house in order to find out a bit about its origins – if I cannot find sufficient information on this I will be looking at cod houses and their origins as my house is a cod house.