My photo book will be about the contrast of good days and bad days in relationships and showing the difference of a healthy relationship and unhealthy relationship.
A paragraph:
For my photo book, I want to show the pejorative and ameliorative sides of a romantic relationship. I am going to investigate what a ‘healthy relationship’ and a ‘unhealthy relationship’ is as I want to show the contrast of the two. I also want to investigate the intimacy of young relationships and show the difference of different relationships within my friendship group. Another idea that I want to investigate is the relationship between myself and my boyfriend, as I have never looked at myself in a project before.
Design:
How you want your book to look and feel: I want my photo book to look plain and simple as I think this will look best and is good for presenting my photos. I want it to feel smooth so that it is nice to hold.
Paper and ink: Premium Lustre 148 gsm
Format, size and orientation: Standard Portrait (20×25cm)
Binding and cover: Hardcover Image Wrap with a matte finish and
Title: ‘Espera’ to wait in Portuguese. Links back to the idea of waiting for somebody or telling someone to wait.
Yoshikatsu Fujii’s book ‘Red string’. I enjoy the tactile feel of the book.
Fujii’s project “Red String,” was highly inspired by his parents’ divorce, produced a hand-made limited edition photobook. red string is a reference to Japanese legend that people who are destined to be together have been tied together by invisible red string. he documents thier lives and includes old family images.
Red string feels fragile, made of felt like material with red string stitching, sewing on the title and small image. Its a soft cover, no image wrap or dust jacket. It has both black and white and colour images with the black and white images his original images and the coloured ones are the original childhood ones. The book’s orientation is portrait, roughly A5 size with roughly 80 pages (40 or so each half). Each half is bound together with Swiss binding (no binding in typical bending place). The title itself is relevant and poetic as red string is a reference to Japanese legend that people who are destined to be together have been tied together by invisible red string, which Fujii comments on at the end of each half. The narrative of the book is Fujii documenting his parents lives after their divorce. The book is a mix of his own images along with old family photos. The book has a very interesting design as it is split in two with, it seems, his mothers story on left and his fathers on right, relaying the message of his divided parents. The photos sometimes go over each half to read as one full image. Most of the double page spreads dont usually take up the whole page with archive images layered over originals images. One singular image rarely takes up whole page and image placement varies with some pages having multiple images. Pieces of paper with messages inserted into the book. The original images take by Fujii are not highly edited other than putting the images into black and white and slight photo montage between the original and old family images. It doesn’t seem to be sequenced specifically other than the book being in two halves. There is some text at the end and 3 inserted bits of paper with some text but not much.
The main photographer i will be studying is Lauren Greenfield.
Lauren Greenfield Is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published four photographic monographs, directed four documentary features, produced four traveling exhibitions, and published in magazines throughout the world.
She is extremely well renowned predominantly for exploring class, status, wealth and extravagance within her own work, primarily through documentary photography.
Some of her main work pieces are as follows:
Generation Wealth:
Her main body of work surrounding this field is named “generation wealth”. This project is multi-platform and had been worked on from 2007 to 2017 through first-person interviews, with Greenfield starting in Los Angeles and spreading across America and beyond. It was based around the visual history of our growing obsession with wealth and it demonstrates a revelatory cultural documentation of wealth for viewers to explore, looking into depth at and documenting how we export the values of materialism, celebrity culture, and social status to every corner of the globe. Greenfield also uses this project to put across this modernised attitude people have acquired of wanting to get rich at all costs which has boomed in recent years. Such as the stories within this project like those of some of the students, single parents and families interviewed, who are overwhelmed with debt, yet determined to purchase luxury houses, cars, clothing and holidays. Some of Lauren’s most popular and influential work that relate very well to the area that I am studying within documentary photography are as seen below in her projects named, “Fast Forward” and the more popular of the two, “Generation Wealth.”This visual history of the growing obsession with wealth uses first-person interviews in Los Angeles, Moscow, Dubai, China and around the world to bear witness to the global boom-and-bust economy, and to document its complicated consequences including materialism and the desire to be wealthy at any cost.
The Los Angeles children encountered early in the book have become defined by the search for status through material acquisition. They buy multi-thousand-dollar handbags to take to class. Other kids in their grade are given BMWs when they turn sixteen. They compete over whose family can afford the best designer clothes, the most elaborate bar mitzvahs, the biggest houses. A 12-year-old whose working-class mother is bankrupting herself to finance the girl’s love of Ed Hardy designer tank tops is interviewed at one point. She explains how she knows she is putting great financial strain on her mom, and says she sort of feels bad about it, but explains: “I want the world; I want designer clothes, I want eternal happiness, the fountain of youth. I want to be able to afford ritzy private schools. I want the best of everything. Money is most definitely important for everything on my list of what I want.”
Fast Forward (Growing up in the shadow of Hollywood):
“Fast Forward” is a powerful look at Los Angeles youth culture and its influence on the rest of our society. From the affluent children of the Westside to the graffiti gangs and party crews of East LA, young Angelenos reckon with an overwhelming barrage of advertising and entertainment images emphasizing money, possessions, and eternal youth. This collection of 79 colour photographs, accompanied by interviews with the children and their parents, reveals the realities of growing up fast in a culture that is at once irresistible and unforgiving. A compelling precursor to Greenfield’s widely praised “Girl Culture,” “Fast Forward” is a telling document of the direction in which today’s ultra-image-conscious culture is pointed. It also documents the experience of growing up in Los Angeles, and the ways children are influenced by the values of Hollywood. The quest for “fame,” the preoccupation with trends, the culture of materialism, and the obsession with image that characterizes Hollywood is reflected in the everyday lives and rituals of L.A. youth. A recurring theme in the project is the fleeting quality of youth. As one teenager says, “You grow up really fast when you grow up here. L.A. is so fast-moving, and kids really mature at a young age. Everyone is in a rush to be old, to be going to the clubs, going out… It’s not cool to be a kid.”
Image: Mijanou and friends from Beverly Hills High School spending their Senior Beach Day at Will Rogers State Beach in Los Angles. Mijanou won the title of “best physique” at Beverly Hills High.
The photo that really launched Lauren’s career was called Mijanou and friends from Beverly Hills High School on Senior Beach Day. A picture taken in 1993 in Santa Monica, California, as part of this project. Greenfield came to make this picture circuitously through an internship at National Geographic, which was the professional experience to which Lauren’s career is also indebted. In the process of making this photograph and the project for which it became the iconic image, Greenfield explains how she found her voice as a photographer. The photograph of Mijanou ended up being the cover of the book and was published and exhibited internationally. Mijanou wasn’t rich, but she lived in a world where her friends were. She explained to Greenfield about the pressures of her world and how it was hard when you could not keep up, but she also recognized that her beauty allowed her entrée into the popular clique.
A representation of what it felt like to experience depression and anxiety.
A paragraphs:
A primarily surrealistic representation of my feelings during, what I’ve since dubbed as, the worst year of my life. Drawing inspiration from the works of Francesca Woodman and Mark Ellen Mark’s Ward 81, this book looks at both the emotional and physical aspects of depression and anxiety.
Design: Consider the following:
How you want your book to look and feel:
The book will focus on a darker theme to fit with its images. Grey will be
Paper and ink:
Premium matte paper.
Format, size and orientation:
A4, Portrait.
Binding and cover:
Hard Back binding. Image wrap on cover.
Title:
My book will remain untitled. This is a choice I made to symbolise the subjectivity of mental illness as it can vary for different people and I didn’t want people who couldn’t relate to the title to disregard the rest of the book.
Design and layout:
It is important to me that my book is somewhat visually pleasing. There’s an element of peace and acceptance to my images that my book needs to be consistent with. To do this I will use black and white to follow the themes of my images. These colours when used together can symbolise the sadness present while also removing colour that can often be associated with joy.
Editing and sequencing:
As previously mentioned, My book needs to be somewhat visually pleasing. Another way to achieve this is with the sequencing of my images. The book will follow a pattern; An environmental portrait -> A collection of images with the same theme -> A head shot style image. This will be repeated throughout the book.
Images and text:
There will be no text to accompany the images. I had thought about adding text to further create a personal feel to the images. However, I hadn’t written down my feelings at the time and I didn’t want to add in words that may be tainted by hindsight.
In the next four week focus on beginning to edit and collect all your images, archival material and texts, including finishing writing your essay needed to complete your photobook.
INTERIM DEADLINE: FRI 7 FEB DRAFT PHOTOBOOK LAYOUT
You want to aim for a draft layout and hand in draft version of your essay before your Mock Exam day, then use that day to fine tune design and complete essay.
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
A sentence
A paragraphs
Design: Consider the following
How you want your book to look and feel
Paper and ink
Format, size and orientation
Binding and cover
Title
Structure and architecture
Design and layout
Editing and sequencing
Images and text
2. Create a BLURB account using your school email address. With Blurb you have different options on how you design your book:
a) Using Lightroom to design your book which is integrated with BLURB. Only for use on school computers, unless you have LR at home on your own laptop.
b) Download Bookwright via Blurb onto your own laptop and work offline at home and you can work indecently of school. Here you have full control of layout/ design features. Once completed, you upload photo book design to Blurb
c) Choose online option if you want to work directly online. Very limited layout/design options (not recommended!)
For those who wish to make their own hand-made photobook using Indesign follow the same steps as below in terms of documenting and annotating your design process. or if you want to customize your Blurb book see me for more details on how to do it.
3. Using Lightroom make a rough selection of your 40-50 best pictures from all shoots. Make sure you have adjusted and standardised all the pictures in terms of exposure, colour balance/ B&W, contrast/brightness etc.
4. Print a set of small work prints (4 to one A4 page) on the Laserjet, cut them up in guillotine and lay them out on the big white table for editing.
5. Decide on format (landscape, portrait) size and style of your photo-book. Begin to design your photo book, considering carefully, narrative, editing, sequencing, page spreads, juxtaposition, image size, text pages, empty pages, use of archival material etc.
6. Add your illustrated essay at the end of your photo book, including title, any captions (if needed), bibliography, illustrations of artists work (incl data) and images of your own responses. Think carefully about font type, size and weighting.
7. Produce screen prints of layout ideas as you progress and add to Blog for further annotation, commenting on page layout/ narrative/ sequencing/ juxtaposition of pictures.
Film/ Podcast; produce screen prints as work progress that show your editing skills/ decisions.
8. Final prints: Select a set of 5-6 photographs as final outcomes and evaluate – explaining in some detail how well you realised your intentions and reflect on what you learned in your Political Landscape project.
9. Save final prints in our shared PRINT folder (no later than 15:00 end of your Mock exam day) in a high-resolution (4000 pixels on the long edge.) Save each images in your name i.e. first name_surname_title_1, and 2, 3 and so on.
10. Make sure all blog posts are finished including, research, analysis, experimentation, annotation and an evaluation of final outcomes.
A sentence- Photographing sentimental/ personal items to my dance journey.
A paragraph- The narrative for this photo book is me capturing important images/ objects/ articles/ costumes etc which have a sentimental value to my dance journey.
Considering Design
Want the book to feel/ look- I would like the book to be A5 sized with glossy paper to add a luxury feel to the book. The front and back of the book I would like for it to be soft back and glossy as I feel as if a hard back would not compliment the simplistic cover wanted. Carrying on, I would like the front and back of the book to look aesthetically pleasing ie, white backgrounds with simplistic writing. I may include an image of the dancers ballet shoes on point for the front of the book but I am going to play around with images and standard colors. Overall, I would like the book to feel luxurious but also look very simple and not overly complicated.
Paper and Ink- As for the paper I will like to use glossy paper with white backgrounds for the cropped images as this will add to my simplistic theme. For ink I will be typing all my text as again I personally like for them to look proper and i don’t feel as if written text with ink would look right in the book compared to the type of images that will be used. The ink for the front of the page will also be typed ink.
Format, Size and Orientation-
Binding and Cover- Ideally, I feel like a simple cover will be good for my book, ie either a hardback or paperback.
Title- For the title I aim to use a image from a photoshoot and add a title which adds to the narrative in a successful way.
Structure and Architecture- The structure for the photo book will be set out a certain way to add to the wanted aesthetic. This will mean that there will be the title written again on the first page with my name, the left hand side of the page will be left out before introducing each shoot. Next to the left hand side page I will use an image from the shoot following which will be small and places in the middle of the page, there will be written text on top to introduce the section ie. the name i’ve called that shoot. Following this, I will write an explanation of the shoot before showing the images
Editing and Sequencing- My initial idea at the moment is that I will show my images in chronological order in order to add emotion.
Images and Text- I would like to include minimum text in my book except for my essay which will be positioned at the back of the book. I will be using sequencing of images to tell a story.
For this photoshoot I wanted to capture images showing my father, my brother, and my brother’s family. I’m planning on taking these images at a bonfire event we will be attending. I think this will be interesting as it will allow me to get some more “natural” looking images since, for the most part, I will not be telling the subjects how to pose allowing me to capture more candid looking outputs. Since it will be dark, I will have to use flash when talking all these images, along with a quick shutter speed as I will be moving around a lot. My aim is to show close bonds between the family members.
Selecting images on Lightroom:
my flagged images.I then colour coded the images in order to find the best images.
Editing my best images:
When editing the below images, I followed very similar steps in order to make sure these images had a more uniform look. I wanted to make sure my subjects stood out amongst the background since we were in public and there was a lot of distraction, and it was important they were the main focal point of my image as my aim was to show a close bond between everyone. I increased the contrast and decreased the exposure the appropriate amount for each image. In combination with this, I also increased the vibrancy to reintroduced some colour into the image, after the exposure was decreased.
Before
After
pictured above (left to right) is my father and brother.
Before
After
Before
After
Pictured above: My brother, his girlfriend and her daughter
Evaluating the shoot:
On the whole, I feel that I was able to capture some technically successful images using my camera, and flash. I think I was able to show key members of my family and also the concept of family. On the other hand, I think that I may struggle to make these images fit in with my photo book narrative because These images are taken at an event, not portraits.
Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper.
The book itself feels light, the front covers smooth and glossy, coloured a pale pink with white letters saying ‘ All My Love’.
Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both.
All of the images are placed or printed onto smooth white glossy pages. Most of the images have been printed into the pages directly using printer ink, apart from a few images which have been printed separately and stuck in on top of the pages. The images use a mix of colours and black and white tones,
Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages.
The book is presented in a portrait orientation, and seems to be bigger than an A5 but just smaller than an A4. It contains 45 sheets of paper, giving us 90 pages in total.
The cover is a soft cover with pale pink glossy paper. It doesn’t contain an image wrap, leaving the book bare. The binding within the book has been hidden from the viewer.
For the cover of the book it uses glossy card to encase the book. It doesn’t contain any images on the front, it is just a blank pale pink with three small white letters printed near the bottom.
Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing.
The book contains poetic images which tell the tale of his parent’s divorce. He uses images of every day objects or people within his family which reminds him of his parents and their divorce. For example, he includes an image of a dandelion being blown away. This could symbolise his parents divorce and how marriage can be shattered with something as gentle as a soft blow, and that it leaves shards of their previous life behind.
Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?
The book is about his parent’s divorce. He starts with an image of what looks like a page out of a children’s story book, showing a couple sitting by a window for dinner and a paragraph down the side
‘ In a world of rush , and crush and crowds, it all comes down to this, a tender word, a gentle touch, a smile, a look, a kiss…’
By including this as the first page of his photobook he starts of with a symbolic image, one which was meant to reference to the relationship his parents once had when they were married.
Throughout the rest of the book he tells the story of his parents divorce and how he dealt with being split between his two loved ones. He often included images of other people, himself and objects which he saw as important and nostalgic.
Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts.
He placed his images in many places among the pages. He included full-bleed on double and single pages, had some smaller images spread in many places, in the corners or the middle of the pages. Despite how random the placing might seem it does also seem to be well thought out.
For my second shoot I will be taking portrait style images inspired by one of my case studies, Daniel Meadows. I will be taking these images in order to show my dad’s family now. Since Meadows took his images in the subject’s homes, I have decided to also use my father’s family home as the location for this shoot. I will most likely be using the lounge/livingroom as a location, as it symbolizes family as its where we spend most of our time together. I plan on organizing my family members in a distinct way as you can see in the mood board on the left, in order to make the portraits look more clean and put together. I will most likely be using a tripod in order to make sure my images are in focus, the shutter speed will not be too high as it will most likely be late towards the night when I do this shoot and this will help make sure my images aren’t too dark. The ISO will have to be quite high, and I will need to make sure my white balance Matches well with the lighting around the house.
Picking my best images using Lightroom:
Below you can see the process of how I chose my best images through screenshots. I began by flagging my best images, in order to get rid of the bad photos then I color coded them using red, yellow and green.
Editing:
original
edited
Although I didn’t intend to take images like the one above, This is my favorite outcome as one of my archival images with my parents looks very similar, and I think this could be interesting in showing how my family has changed.To edit i reduced the brightness and increased the contrast. I wanted the faded tattoos on my dad’s hand to be more visible so it is obvious to the audience it is him, although the majority has been laser removed.
Reflecting on the photo shoot:
My intention for this shoot was to capture what my father’s side of the family, now that he has a new partner, no longer together. I wanted to make the portraits similar to the ones above in the mood board, however I feel that during the photo shoot process the images turned out more candid that I originally wanted, as I also ended up capturing some detail shots also which I had not planned on doing. On one hand I believe this lets some personality shine through the images, but on the other hand I would have preferred to also capture something more professional looking because I feel that will make the photo book have a more polished look. I think I may redo this shoot, in order to achieve my original intention, then compare and see which images look best. If I do decide to retake, I would prefer to use a different setting as I think the background of these images are far too distracting to facilitate successful portraits leading to a minimal amount of successful images from this shoot. I also felt as if these images made my narrative less personal since the foundation of my project is based on my biological parents and my brother.
1 Sentence: An exploration of the slave labour and resources used in the construction of Jersey’s German defensive architecture.
1 Paragraph: An exploration of abstraction as a medium in response to the question “how does the work of Darren Harvey-Regan explore abstraction as an intention and process?”. An interpretation of the works of both Darren Harvey-Regan and Donald Weber and how they explore abstraction with an underlying theme of the slave labor used in construction of Jersey’s defenses with familial links relating to German forced labor throughout WW2.
