I have collected a variety of archival images which link to my Grandpa some from before I was born and others from in my lifetime. some of them have direct links to the poems others have more personal connections. I want to incorporate these photos along with the scans of poem notes to create context in the book. I also find these images of my grandpa very interesting because they are from before I was born, and for me give me a insight into his life before I knew him. 

I have layers up the scans I made previously with the archival images on photoshop to create my own work from them, I have used drop shadows under each layer to make them stand off the page. I also tried to correlate the colours of the paper and colours of the vintage photos where possible. I want to use these edits within my book to split up my own photographs and give the view something different to look at.

Photoshoot Plan: For my first photoshoot I want to respond to a poem called ‘little changes’ set in my Grandpas garden. I want to capture this space and visualise where he got the inspiration for the poem from. He spent a large amount of time in his garden growing vegetables and caring for wildlife, his environmental interests were strong making his garden a very important place. I want to take photos with bright natural lighting to fit the pale aesthetic i am going for in my book. I want to take photos of signs of life in the garden, from human interaction to animals and plants which inhabit the natural landscape. 

I am happy with how this shoot turned out however I would like to do a second one in the same location in better weather and possibly incorporate a red coat and bird mentioned in the poem.

So far in my personal study I have learned that political landscapes can mean many things, when we initially started thinking about  this title my ideas were drifting towards environmental issues such as pollution of the sea and coastline. I wanted to collect and photograph plastic and debris which washes up on the shores of the island and photograph it in a still life assembled style. I also had the idea to follow one person through their daily activities and capture any moment where they did something which effected the environment negatively. I looked at the work of Mark Power from the Guernsey Photography Festival and liked the style of his images taken using a ring flash, I found the photos no matter how mundane the subjects all corresponded and created their own meaning.However I felt that these viewpoints of the theme were very obvious and straightforward, leading me to explore a new path and ways of taking the title of political landscapes. I had a look through a range of photo books to help me think of new ideas which could link to the title I have been given. One that stood out to me was ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ by Rita Puig-Serra Costa in this book she explores her family history through a mixture of  archival photos, texts, still life, landscapes and portraits which all work together simultaneously to give us a visual understanding of her story.  I thought of developing my own project on one of my family members, my late grandpa came to mind, he was a teacher and poet who often had strong political views on various subjects.

1. Write a book specification and describe in detail what your book will be about in terms of narrative, concept and design.  Produce a mood-board of design ideas and consider the following:

Narrative: What is your story?
Describe in:

• 3 words: family, memories, loss
• A sentence: My book is about my grandpa and the memories I have with him surrounding the natural landscapes we spent time in.
• A paragraphs: My book will focus the relationship between me and my grandfather and the memories I have of my time with him. I will structure the book with three key sections divided with poems he wrote which all link to natural environments we spent time in. I hope the book will display the connection we had as a family and even people who did not know my grandpa can relate it to special memories with their own families.

Design: 

• How you want your book to look and feel: I want my book to have a personal feel, not just to me but to anyone looking at it, I will achieve this by using settle materials, nothing extravagant or over the top. It should feel like an old book which has been used and read with textured thick pages.
• Paper and ink: I want to use a matte finish paper so that my photos don’t reflect too much light and look like a magazine image. This should help to give it a personal and simple look.  
  
• Format, size and orientation: I want the book to be small and discrete, something that can easily be carried around and stored on a book shelf with family albums of on a coffee table to be looked through. possibly in a portrait format however i may change this once I start the layout
• Binding and cover: my cover will display a landscape image that links to the ideas running through the book, potentially a place where I made fond memories with my grandpa such as the beach. I want it to wrap around the cover similarly to how the landscape painting wraps around my grandpas Anthology. 
  
• Title: The title of my book will be ‘little changes’ , this is the name of one of the poems my grandpa wrote which will feature in the book as a stimulus for my photos.
• Structure and architecture: there are going to be 3 main sections in the book split with the use of each poem, firstly tunnelling which focuses on his childhood and memories of the beaches which I also visited with him. the next poem will be Steffi’s castle relating back to when I was younger playing with my grandpa in their house. the final poem will be
• Design and layout: I will have a large variety of image types to include such as portraits of family member, landscapes of memorable places, archival images and scans of documents. I will arrange these image types in a complimentary oder depending on shapes and colours that run through them. i also want the images to relate for example a picture taken recently placed next to a similar archival image to show the jumping time.
• Editing and sequencing: I want to edit the photos naturally but also with a slight vintage feel to look as though they are looking back, linking the the idea of memories.
• Images and text: I will type the poems out as in a type written font because this is how my grandpa would have originally worked. This style will run through the book with all the text. I am going to try an use as many original images as possible however the archival element will play a big part of the story acting as the anchor for the memories, my own photos will illustrate the memories which were not recorded by photographs at the time.

Photo book generally have a narrative or story line, this is more than just the sequencing of images and the aesthetics is how each image links and follows on. A stand alone image speaks for itself, we often will notice more details in these our eyes are not distracted my anything else. However multiple images is not always a distraction they can work together and create a more advanced understanding for the audience.

I have chosen to look into ‘Where Mimosa Bloom’ by Rita Puig-Serra Costa in more detail and analyse all aspects of it. The subject matter of the book is Rita and her mum and family memories all link with use of the yellow mimosa tree. The style of the book is very personal and aesthetically soft, with a faded pastel colour pallet. She has approached her photobook with a very unique structure, a mix of archival images, portraits, still life, landscapes and documents have all worked together to create a broad overview of her family and memories.

Firstly the design of the cover is distorted and not completely clear, this is an archival image from the photographers family achieve showing the subject of the book as a child. The faded effect and pixelation shows the vintage feel, we could link this to how photographs capture and preserve distant memories but also shows hoe nothing is permanent. The back cover is again distorted in the same way as the front and shows a landscape image with trees which could link to the title of the book. The spine of the book is in a bright yellow colour which stands out from the brown toned images, the text is debossed and printed in black. The same yellow colour has been used for the inside lining of the cover, and after researching the title this colour links to the flowers (bloom) or the mimosa tree.

The first few pages of the book progressively show and reveal a family tree, presumably which shows the link between the photographer and the subject of the book. As you turn each page a new image is revealed through frames cute into the paper.

My book will be split into 3 sections divided by Poems written by my grandpa acting as the inspiration for each part.Throughout the book to tie it all together I want to present archival family photos and scans of poem notes to give the whole thing context and to link it back to my grandpa.

The First titled ” little changes” was set in his garden where he spent a lot of time during his retirement. Nature and the environment were always very important to him and he used his garden as a space to grow his own veg, flowers and create a habitat for wildlife. I want to take photos of the garden which show signs of life and reflect the title of the poem. I am also interested in taking photos of other family members such as my younger cousins who never got to meet their grandpa but still have a great connection to the garden.

The second poem called “steffi’s Castle” It is based on me when I was a child playing with toys at their house. They had a toy castle which was my dads from when he was younger, along with it were boxes of figures that had been collected by the family over the years including medieval knights, Red Indians and football players. On this occasion I had incorporated all the toys in the toy box into a scene. This is one of many fond memories I have of my time spent with my Grandpa. I want to take photos of the figures mentioned in the poem, I am thinking of doing this on a white infinity background so the details really stand out. I have also considered linking the idea of the castle with another memory I have with him, we used to go for family walks to Gronez Castle which was near there house. I was thinking to take photos of the toys near the real castle and play with perspective and lighting.

The final poem and section of the book is called “tunnelling” it is based on my Grandpas childhood and memories he had with his parents on the island. It talks about family walks on the beach near Corbière lighthouse, for my first photoshoot I want to walk along the same beach and take photos of things that remind me of my grandpa and the poem.

 Photoshoot Plan:

Concept: The concept for this shoot is to develop and understanding of my Grandpas poems and what went into writing one, I am going to look through the poems and notes he wrote to give me a starting point for my own photographs. I will record any interesting documents that inspire me by scanning them, this will show the details and textures in the clearest way.

Location: I will go to my grandparents house and look in his study which remains almost exactly the same to how it was when he was alive. This room contains files of his work and reflects what his working environment might have looked like.

Lighting: For the scanning I will use the lighting from the scanner which is very bright and even, giving the images a clean and scientific look. I will also take photos of the process and study setting, for these I will use the natural lighting either from the sun or lamps in the room to set the scene.

I started exploring my Grandpas poems in his anthology and the notes he made whilst writing them, I will look for connections between significant points in his life, political events and memories he shared with other people. I am using this as a starting point to inspire me and help me develop an direction for my project.

When looking through the poems I re read a poem he wrote about me when I was younger, I originally wanted to study it because of the connections I have to it and the personal memories that I could relate it to. However I struggled to find a political connection and a way of linking it to the title of the project, but after reading it a few times I thought of a political metaphor of war which could be interpreted from the poem. It was based on a shared memory we had from my youth, on one occasion whist staying at their house, around the age of 6, I was playing with with a variety of toys which they had collected ever since their own kids were young. These included football figures, knights, Tetley tea characters and Disney princesses. I had created a scene involving all of them which centred with a medieval castle. The Poem describes this in a light humoured way.

How do Rita Puig Serra Costa and Linda McCartney both share their relationships and memories with their family through the medium of photography?

Family Photos have been taken for hundreds of years as a way of capturing precious moments of people with their loved ones. in this essay i am going to look at to different photographers who have studied members of their family in their work. I will compare and contrast their work in a hope to gain a greater understanding of their photographic style and meaning  of their work.  I want to look into the relationship between the photographer and their subject to see how and if it effects the the end result. I also want to explore how this relationship is communicated to an audience, and how these private and personal photos can also be seen and read by outsiders. The two photographers I am planning on looking at have developed their work in very different ways but both manage to show great connection with their subjects and tell beautiful stories with their work. Rita Puig Serra Costa created a book surrounding her family history, the book contains a variety of images, from portraits, still life, landscapes and archival copies it creates a broad description of her family dynamic and the memories she has with them (be more specific about the book dealing with the memory of her mother). Linda McCartney on the other hand was originally a professional photographer of celebrities until she met her husband and musician Paul McCartney. As they got to know each other and build a family she captured and shared a large selection of photographs. Being in the public eye the family were regularly photographed however there is something very special about the connection they had which came across in the images. By researching this area I hope to gain a greater understanding of family, relationships and memories in photography to help me with my own project about my Grandpa. You need to provide more details here about an overview of your own project, what and how you intend to make photographic responses.

Over all there is very little evidence of any research and reading around the subject of memory and family photography. You must read the texts I gave you on Roland Barthes and his memory and philosophy around looking at an image of his mother. Include at least one direct quote from Barthes and comment on it.

After exploring a variety of paths which I could follow with this project I have decided to chose ones focused on my grandpa. He was a teacher at the Hautlieu from 1963- 2001  as well as an avid poets, and was involved with various activist movements throughput his life. I want to talk to people who had close relationships with him such as close friends and family members so I can learn more about Guardian reader which links back to the breaking the rules task.

I have found inspiration from the photographer Rita Puig-Serra Costa and her book where mimossa bloom. In the book Rita explores her family history by developing and displaying memories and personal stories which have constructed her as a person.

at the beginning of the book her family tree reveals itself as you turn each page, eventually an image of Rita is displayed and we can see an overview of her relationship with her family. this acts as a sort of introduction to the book and gives us some context for the photos. Rita uses a large variety of images in her book, archival images make a big appearance and connect her new photos with the past. There is staged portraits, still life, double page landscapes and even text and photo copies of documents. Bellow I show some of my favourite pages in the book which have given me a starting point and direction for my own work. I love the way the book is constructed and how all the images compliment each other and also have an interesting narrative.

I have met up and spoken with my gran who is going to help me pick some relevant topics to focus the project on.  We spoke about his involvement with groups such as the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) and concern which was an environmental group in jersey during the 70’s. He also took part in various protests, such as the one at queens valley against the flooding on the area for a reservoir and helped at local elections. A lot of the poems he wrote also had a political story behind them, he often found inspiration from from famous photographs from wars and conflict which he came across in the newspaper. He also had a strong connection to the land, his environmental interest continued into his own home and garden where he spent a lot of time conserving the land, growing organic vegetable and plants for the wildlife. He was a big fan of Bob Dylan, a famous singer-songwriter in the late 60’s who often made political statements in his music.

I am interested in combining all these elements to construct the photo  book, I like the idea of using archival images of him that link to my chosen points interests me because it will be a flash back to his life and give a wider understanding and context to the project.

In what way can the work of Lewis Bush and Clare Rae both be considered political?

In this essay I am going to explore the work of two completely different photographers and discuss how both of their works can be considered political. Clare Rae is an artist who explores performance and gesture with the use of gender, feminist theories and the female body. Lewis bush on the other hand is a photographer who works with facts, research and historic archives. By looking into how they incorporate their political perspectives into their art I want to compare and contrast how this can be done in so many different ways, through documentary or conceptual, I will also explore how their images can be perceived and viewed through different political opinions and perspectives to create completely new meaning.

Lewis Bush created a body of work named “Trading Zones” in 2018 whist staying in Jersey as the Archisle photographer in residence. As well as being a small, beautiful, scenic island, Jersey is also a huge finance centre where thousands of offshore jurisdictions locate. This method is used by many big companies to avoid tax and stamp duty which would otherwise be extreme and could effect the success of their businesses. In 2014 jersey held an estimated £92 billion for Uk property making it one of the biggest tax havens. But it not only recently that jersey has been used as a safe place to store money, a hoard dating back to the iron age was found in 2012 containing 70,000 coins and ancient jewellery. ‘Trading zones’ comments on various areas of Jersey’s relationship to finance, Lewis Bush has used information from campaign groups, mainstream sources and his own primary research to create his detailed library of work.

As we can see in the above photo, Lewis has used archival accounts such as bank notes to show the development of finance in the island. I think an interesting part of Lewis’ work is his landscapes, at first they just look like simple images showing a contrast between the built up finance buildings and the natural beauty of the island. But after reading the accompanying description I learnt that they were in fact the views out to see in the direction of significant onshore companies that relate and use the islands finance facilities. Jersey has been in the limelight in the last year due to a leak of paradise papers, documents relating to offshore investments. This has stirred up an active debate on whether it is ethical for the companies to legally avoid tax on such a large scale and avoid paying money to the government which is used for things such as health care and education. Lewis has also centred some of his work around the people including islanders that have contact with the finance industry. From protesters fighting against the development of the new finance centre to to people who work in the buildings

Clare Rea’s work from Entre Nous heavily influenced and inspired by the work of Claude Cahun, a French photographer in the early 20th century who’s work become popular due to the controversial subject of gender and sexuality explored in her work. Claude settled in jersey In 1937 and stayed in the island during the occupation where she continued to create activist artwork. She used her work to undermine authority which was not approved by the German forces occupying the island, who finally arrested Claude and sentenced her to death however the island was liberated before this happened. Clare has taken inspiration from Claude’s work in her own series of images ‘Like Cahun’s, my photographs depict my body in relation to place’ ‘They explore an idea of self within the immediate environment and were produced in collaboration with her lover, Marcel Moore.’ (Clare Rae, 2018, 1) In the gallery space she displayed her work n a very thought out format which reflects the political meaning behind the images. She got the rights to used copies of Claude’s work as an asset to her own work to show the similarities and and connections between them. The work was separated into two rooms with connecting doors allowing us to move freely from one to the other but also see the work standing alone. It was interesting to see how the work linked, for example Clare’s images taken near dolmens on the island, these are ancient burial grounds which have been preserved and are now on protected land. In the photos Clare is performing for the camera in this natural setting, the one bellow shows her wrapping her arms around the stone, this makes us question the way female bodies are represented through the use of the physical environment. This could link and contrast with modern culture and the media where woman’s bodies are often over sexualised and vied as a objects rather than people. politically women are making progress and receiving more equality everyday from gaining the vote in 1918 to justice for sexual assault victims in the me too movement which started in 2017.

To conclude I think that the work of both lewis bush and Clare Rae can be considered political due to the modern and relevant issues they relate to. The economy and finance are in a way a taboo subjects which is often glossed over by artist because it can be perceived as boring however lewis bushes work shows us an alternative angle where politics and photography collide. Clare’s work can be seen as political due to the focus on gender and the feminism both of which are hot topics in politics and modern culture.

Bibliography:

http://www.lewisbush.com/trading-zones/

interview with Lewis Bush in online photography magazine ASX

http://www.clarerae.com/work/never-standing-on-two-feet