As the production of a Zine, including images of my best work, is an ongoing process throughout the year, I have researched into the Zine making process, and have taken the time to physically look over various examples of Zines, produced by both professional and amateur photographers, in order to take inspiration that can be used in the development of my own Zine.
After coming into contact with a range of different Zine styles and layouts, I was able to gain an understanding of the type of layout and style that would suit my work, and this has given me the opportunity to begin to develop and plan my own layout for a Zine. The following are examples that I felt were useful and/or were interesting examples of layout/design:
The above images are examples of zines that I researched. I have taken inspiration from the above images, and they have influenced the development of the experimentation for the layout of my zine itself.
I found that the above image used an interesting layout for its images throughout the book. The images are laid out in a contact-sheet style, with certain images being cut off and the centre image acting as the main focus for the page. I found this to be a unique and original way to layout the images in the zine, and it shows a connection between the photographs themselves, and their origins (as photography used to involve the printing of contact sheets).
Many of the zines that I came across contained at least one full-bleed image. This involves a single image taking up the space of two pages in the book (typically over the middle page), allowing for the focus of the observer to placed fully on the single image. This layout also allows for a larger image to be presented in an effective and eye-catching way.
The image above was taken from a zine in which the front cover was designed to replicate the layout of a passport, which reflects the theme of the whole zine itself (being issues occurring abroad). I feel like the contrast between the minimalism of the logo and the quote on the left, and the image on the left allows for the narrative of the book to be easily told, as the quote on the left related to the story represented in the image on the right.
I have decided to experiment with the photo montage technique for potential use in my long term project. I have incorporated my own images and combined them with archival imagery to create strong and powerful motifs representative of life in Jersey during the occupation. I have used the traditional approach of physically cutting and pasting images with craft knives and glue. I am looking to tell a story through each image by using photos and images that are relevant to one another
Images
Here are my edited images. All have been cut and paste together by hand and during this process, I have been looking at ways of making the montage both interesting and informative, for example for the below image, I used an archival image of a group of young Jersey men, whom assisted in the building of multiple German fortifications. In the second image I have utilized the front page of the JEP newspaper as a backdrop to a German radio tower. The newspaper cover contains a notice on it regarding the allied invasion of Normandy, and it is a message from the German commandant to the islanders warning them that if Jersey were to be invaded then resistance/ co operation with the allies would be punishable
In this image I have chosen to cut and paste a group of male workers over the top of the Les landes radio tower. I chose the photo as it is providing us an insight into the faces of the real men who were forced into creating these structures.
This image is my favorite image I have produced. I have cut out the outline of the Les Landes radio tower and pasted it over the top of a copy of an original JEP front cover from D-Day. The newspaper article itself is essentially German propaganda as it is stating that many parachute units have been destroyed and the article also states that the Germans are successfully pushing the allies back into the sea, which wasn’t the case. This propaganda was used to lower morale in islanders in order to keep them under control and create less chance of an islander led rebellion.
This image incorporates German bunker art in the batterie moltke bunker system, with an image of the first allied military service on the island after Liberation. The bunker art depicts an eagle atop a bomb with the caption translating to “It will fly over England”,meaning that the eagle which is a metaphor for the German Luftwaffe will have aerial superiority over the skies of the mainland. It was painted in the bunker most likely to boost morale and used as a form of propaganda. I have decided to superimpose the image of the allied military parade over the top of the bunker art, as the image of the allied parade is representative of triumph and victory, and also due to it being layered over the top of the image, represents allied superiority.
In this image, I have chosen to utilise a photograph of a German signpost, which translates to “entry forbidden” and I have incorporated images of young children from the occupation into the image. I find it quite a powerful image as for some of these children growing up, they would have seen the occupation as rather quite normal as they may not have had much experience of freedom and liberty before the occupation. For children that may have experienced life before occupation, the process of going from total freedom to living under Nazi rule must have been a very confusing process. from freely roaming through country lanes to having restrictions on where they could go and play must have been confusing beyond comprehension for children and young people
During the occupation and world war 2 many montages where made as posters, and where put up around villages and towns which had been invaded. The montages gave off messages to people and also governmental issues. There were many photographers and artists who have made montages based on the war. Two artists who I came across where Aleksander Zhitomirsky and John Heartfiled who have both made montages on the German occupation along with different wars. I like their work as it is simple yet effective as it is putting accorss a strong message to society.
Aleksander Zhiyomirsky was a Russian photographer who was boring in January 1907. After studying in Moscow he went on working as an illustrator and began making posters for magazines. Shortly after people began to realise what photo montage actually was and started to value and respect his work. Most of his montages would come from different types of culture he would experience but mainly the Soviet mass culture. After WW2 he began to find many photos based on the war and started putting them together, to show history in a different way which may have a everlasting effect on people. After this his work was published throughout Europe, Russia and the USA and it is still being viewed up to this day.
John Heartfiled was a German visual artist who was born June 1891. He was one a small amount who used art as a political weapon, such as his well known montages includes of anti-Nazi statements. His work appeared on many magazines during the time of the war. During his time making his montages, he had to flee from the Nazi’s on many occasions and had to leave his family.
After being inspired after looking at these artists, I then began to picture and have ideas on what I wanted to produce. To create my montage, I found photos of images that had been taken back during the German occupation in the channel islands and used them to create my montage, so that it what have a bigger meaning and relate better to me. After picking the images I wanted to use, I began to cut out the sections of images that I wanted to stick onto my background, which was a copy of an old newspaper. I then places the images on top and arranged them how I saw fit. This is my final product of my montage I created.
After creating a paper base montage, I then moved on on to creating montages in Photoshop, which I preferred, this is because I could use more images, and select parts of the images with more precision. For the first montage I created, I wanted it to be simple yet effective. This is what I created and these are the steps I took;
I firstly started off with my original image that I had edited in lightroom, in the previous lesson.
I then went on and opened up a new canvas in Photoshop, where I added this image of a soldier. I then used the ‘quick selection’ took and the ‘eraser’ tool to then remove the original background of the image.
After editing the background of the previous image, I went on too add the image I was going to make the silhouette of the soldier out off, by adding a new canvas again.
After dragging on the solider to the poppy background, I then selected everything by using the ‘magic wand’ took, I then made sure that the settings were set to ‘invert’ this is so that the background would change and come onto the outline of the soldier after this I then flatten all the layers together to make it one image.
I then selected around the solider after flattening the layers and dragged it over to where I was making my montage. I then used the ‘quick selection’ tool again to removed the white background around the solider, so that I would just have them on their own. After doing that, I saved the soldier as it was, so then I could use it for any other montages I would make, so I would’ve have to remove the background again.
I then placed the soldier where I wanted it, by ‘Ctrl+T’ and then holding down shift whilst making the image bigger, this is so that everything stays within proportion of itself.
After moving around the soldier, I then went in and added some text to the image. After typing it in, I changed the text to black, made the font size bigger so viewers where able to read it at a glance, but then I changed the opacity of it, as I felt with the text being at 100% opacity, it was drawing attention away from the main aspect of the image. This is what my final first montage came out to look like;
My seconded montage I created, was completely different to my first one, I wanted there to be a relation and link to the Jersey Occupation in this one. This is what I produced and the steps I took;
As before I have started off with my original image, this image is my background for my montage.
I then created a new page, and added on a black silhouette of a soldier lying down with their gun, I then deleted the background with the ‘quick selection’ took and then saved the image as a PNG so I could then use again if I needed too.
I then dragged the image onto my background twice and enlarged them by selecting the layer they were each on, going ‘Ctrl+T’, then holding down shift whilst dragging the image outwards to make it bigger whilst keeping the proportions the same.
I then went in on downloading an image of the Jersey flag, as this allows people to connect to the image more as you have something relating to you which also defines you. I also then added this to my background image.
I then decided to ass another silhouette to my montage. But after downloading the image I realised it was the wrong way round for where I wanted to put it. So by selecting the image then going Image>Image Rotation>Flip Canvas Horizontal,I got the image to flip to the side I needed it to be. I then again removed the back ground, saved it as a PNG and then dragged it onto my background image.
After adding all my images to my background, I then went ahead and changed the opacity of each image, to give it a shadow effect. I changed the opacity of the soldiers as they aren’t alive anymore, so they are representing ghosts.
This is my third montage I created on Photoshop
In this montage I have used a war graveyard as the main background, this graveyard were for soldiers who fought in world war 2, as the German occupation happened during world war 2, so their is a link between the two. I then added a black silhouette of two soldiers walking, and lowered the opacity, so they are acting as ghosts walking around their fellow soldiers who lost their lives. And to then finally finish it off, I added an overlay of people who lost their lives in world war 2 and the occupation, I placed this over the full image, and lowered the opacity again, so you could see the image through it, this gives the image a touching emotion.
Paul Virilo is a well known for his images of bunkers. He is a French photographer who was also a cultural theorist, urbanist and aesthetic philosopher. Virilo was in to taking image of the geographical surface, his book contains essays within the first half, on the history of some of his images, which set the concept behind some of the images and then the other half of his book containing mostly black and white images of bunkers within different locations around France. Some of his images I like include;
This image is one of my favorites he has produced. I love how simple the image is. It has a longer depth of field of some of his other images where he tends to just focus on the bunker. Whereas in this image he has included a pier behind the bunker, which adds more to the image. The over exposed sky works really well with this image, due to the bunker and pier being in a dark grey/black colour which allows them to stand out and be more bold, along with the over exposed sky causing a foggy/muggy look for the image which changes the emotions presented when looking at this image, to cold and mysterious as something may be able to creep over the horizon. The image is so clear that is allows you to see all the detail of the bunker even from a distance, the features of the bunker have been enhanced and made darker which again works well in his favor as it adds a more of a dramatic feel to the image.
His other images are also simple, but they incorporate different shapes and lines in different direction which makes you want to look at the image and figure out what is happening in it. In on of the images above, his image inst set straight at all, but it allows him to show the purity and untouched through his images without him manipulating them too much and just enhancing the detail of the historical artifacts. Again in his black and white images, he really focuses on making the little details of the bunkers stand out which allows people to see the marks that history has left.
With the photos taken at Noirmount I then used light room to edit them and adjust the settings. I then finally decided to change them into black and white as I feel the images look better. These are the steps I took to edit my photos
After editing my first image, I then when back to the ‘library’ view so I could see all my images, I then selected them all and clicked on the ‘sync settings’ button in the bottom right hand corner. This allows me to change all my photos into black and white, along with the same exposure, contrast, highlights, etc as the first photo I edited.
After confirming to synchronize my settings to all the same, my images are now all in black and white. But when going through them some of them look over exposed, but I can still go in and change the settings of that one image, without it then changing the rest of them.
Here using the gradient tool, and dragging down from the top of my image and stopping about half way, this allows me to select that part of my image and then only edit that specific part. I changed the exposure of the sky and made it a bit darker to give it more of a unlit look and the darker sky fits the bunker and environment I have photographed
After editing my images in lightroom, I then had to export them as a JPEG in order for me to upload them to the blog. Overall I think editing my images made a massive change in the way I now look at them. They come across as more deep and strong as they were before I edited them. These are my final images;
A photo book is a physical compilation of images presented in a book/leaflet form. The vast majority of photo books provide a narrative and tell a story. I have been studying a selection of photo books by various photographers and here are my observations and analysis of these photobooks.
Mood board
Here are a few of the books I have studied and images from all of them and analysis of the images themselves
FOUND SURFACES
“Found Surfaces” is a photo book by Eleni Bakagianni and it provides us double page spread images of various surfaces and textures found in an urban environment. I find the images very aesthetically pleasing and I also like the book as a whole as it helps to portray the authours creativity in terms of her being able to take a photograph of something that is essentially always overlooked and walked past on a daily basis, and turn it into a piece of art that pleases the eye
This is my favorite image from Found Surfaces. I am unsure as to what the image is of, I am assuming it is either a wall with damage marks or a birch tree trunk. Either way the image is very powerful in terms of its minimalism yet aesthetic properties. The black marks provide a nice contrast to the whites of the surface and there is a good sense of texture throughout the image
SIGNS OF LIFE
Signs of life is a photo book by Phillip Reid, which depicts aerial images of built up areas and includes images of sports stadiums, housing estates and high rise districts. The whole book has consistently strong geometric properties as a result of photographing from an angle which captures multiple of the same of similar types of building.
Here is my favorite image from Signs of Life. I am particularly drawn to the geometric nature of the image, with the straight walls and roofs of the buildings really standing out. The photo is well contrasted due to the white of the buildings standing out from the blacks of all of the surrounding trees/bushes.
CHERNOBYL
Another photo book I have studied is “Chernobyl” by John Darwell. The book provides an insight into the once populated Ukrainian town of Chernobyl, which was home to one of the worlds most disastrous nuclear catastrophes the world has ever seen. I have a particular interest in Chernobyl itself due to its story and how the whole town has essentially been frozen in time. The only thing that has changed through the absence of human life in the city is that nature has started to take over and decay is widespread.
Here is my favorite image from Chernobyl. The image depicts what appears to be a local grocery store. In the photo, it is evident that the place has been left to nature and nature has well and truly taken over, with the plants overgrowing and growing out of the concrete pavement at the front of the shop.The photo itself truly represents the power of the natural world and its ability to reclaim land when humans are not present. the image itself consists of many greens and yellows in the form of the shop and pavement, as well as the greens of the undergrowth and both of these colors compliment each other very well. Another feature of this photo I like is the blue sky, it represents serenity and peace and is a nice complimentary background to the subjects in the image.
Photomontage is a type of collage art. It is mainly composed of photographs or sections of photographs in order to direct the viewer’s mind towards specific connections. Photomontages are often constructed to convey a message, whether that be a commentary of political, social or other issues.
There are many ways that a photomontage can be constructed. It is often photographs, newspaper and magazine clippings glued onto a surface, giving the work a collage feel. It is also very common for images to be created digitally.
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2
3
We were given the task of creating our own photo montages that link to Jersey during the Occupation. I have experimented with the photo montage technique by combining my own images (primary source) with archival photographs and newspapers (secondary source). I have used the approach of creating a composite photograph by cutting, gluing and overlapping two or more photographs into a new image. Photo montage 1 and 2 have been enhanced with paint since I wanted to add my artistic skills into the collages. By doing this I have added colour and vibrance into my photo montages to contrast with the dull colour scheme associated with the black and white photography used during the Occupation. Image 3 has been slightly burnt with fire to create an interesting scorched effect, almost as if the paper is decaying: a metaphor of the past slowly disintegrating and people forgetting the importance of the Occupation. The bold red quote has been taken from my trip to Battery Moltke and has been translated from German to English. The resulting composite images have been scanned by the printer so that the final photo montages appear as a seamless photographic print.
Located on the north-west coast of the island, Les Landes is a coastal headland which was heavily fortified during the occupation of the island. It is home to probably the most impressive of all naval towers in the Channels Islands, Marine Peilstand 3. High above the 60 meter granite cliffs, it looks out over the sea to the north-west. The whole new battery was built except for its fire control post, but the guns were never placed. It is one of three of such naval towers in the channel islands, the others being Bt Steinbruch on Guernsey and Bt Annes on Alderney which have about the same layouts and structures. A gun is restored in one of the old emplacements and several bunkers and tunnels are a museum now.
Cropping is an important aspect when it comes to editing photos since it gets rid of unwanted areas within the image, improves the framing and accentuates/isolates the subject. Cropping allows the viewer to focus on the main features within the photo. By using the cropping tool in Lightroom I began to make some radical changes by selecting areas of my images for a different visual impact. Cropping can create drama in an image as well as making the composition more interesting than previously. Cropping can also decontextualise a subject within the frame which creates a great effect or can change the nature of an image radically.
I experimented with lightroom by changing a few images into black and white to link them to the type of photos they would have captured during World War 2. Viewers may have a different perspective on how they see a black and white image and may feel more somber as a result of the dark colour scheme. I used the preset B&W Sepia Tone since it brings a slight vintage feel to the image.
why use black and white?
Colour can be distracting in some images and can take the focus away from the subject.
Textures and contrast within a black and white image are prominent.
Black and white images often have a nostalgic look. Because black and white was invented before colour, we associate monochromatic images with the past, even when they portray a current event. As a result, subjects from the past tend to look best when edited in black and white.
The contrast between the highlights and shadows of a black and white photograph can add a dramatic effect. Turning up the contrast is a powerful way to capture the viewers attention.
colour
For the colour images I added the Matte filter. This filter makes the contrast subtle and the saturation lower than normal. These adjustments make the vibrance of the images less intense. I wanted my outcomes to have a vintage effect so that’s why I chose this specific filter for the colour images. Finally, I added grain to make the images appear like film.
why use colour?
Colour photographs show important aspects of a subject.
Colour can suggest the era in which the photograph was taken. Films manufactured in the past often have a very distinct look.
