Research a photo-book, describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

ARE YOU EVEN COOL?– Is the title of the photo-book it references Friendship, Identity and Youth Culture the photographer uses a mix of styles from portraits and close ups of certain body parts to landscapes and environmental photography.

Who is the photographer? 

The photographer is called GIO RIOS, I think he aimed his audience at the youth and society in general. I believe he made the book to show people some stereotypes of a “COOL KID”.

Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design

The book feels smooth with a dark glossy hard cover paper, inside the photo-book the pages are a mix between glossy and a little rough feeling. The whole book is in black and white with some pages being left white- blank. The photo-book is made to be portraiture and A4 sized with 56 pages. The binding of the photobook is saddle stitch and it has an image wrap with a durable matte finish.

Title

The title is quite poetic and sarcastic and relevant to the youth it was intriguing as you didn’t know exactly what to expect. I felt like the title was purposely open to interpretation.

Narrative

the story’s first few pages start by showing a hangout spot a tree that’s been cut to look like a chair, followed by a tattooed arm and a boy smoking. Cigarettes seem to be a reoccuring theme as some images feature passing a cigarette, smoking, or blowing out smoke. The cigarette concept of the photo-book might be hinting at the TITLE that the stereotypical teenager smokes and smoking is for “COOL KIDS” making it a motif.

Design

Most images are a full bleed covering the whole page with occasional plank white pages in between, however there are no double page spread or fold- outs/ inserts. Gio Rios made sure to evenly space out the images where there is a cigarette, the portraits of his friends were also kept together or either on the next available page. The only text throughout the photo-book is the title and the first page where he wrote: ‘aesthetic of attitude, behaviour, comportent, appearance and style which is generally admired.