Narrative: What is your story? Describe in:

3 words: strength, growth, love

A sentence: The story I am portraying in my photo book is all about how masculinity is portrayed, what it means to be masculine and the changes/challenges boys face during adolescence.

A paragraph: As Robert Mapplethorpe said himself; “I am obsessed with beauty. I want everything to be perfect, and of course it isn’t. And that’s a tough place to be because you’re never satisfied”. I share the same desire for perfection in my own appearance, both mentally and physically. This need for perfection comes as a sort of validation, a purpose. I want to highlight these struggles but also highlight other struggles and negative mind thoughts men face during adolescence, the need to fit a certain mould, look a certain way, act a given way, and the aspiration to achieve certain things in order to prove to themselves that they are male. Is this necessary? Should men face these mental struggles? Or is it a natural part of life? What does it mean to be male? I will also explore the mental health aspect men face, as well as promoting self love and rebelling against the expectations of appearance on social media also being key themes in my photo-book. I will also compare Mapplethorpe’s work with Karlheinz Weinberger, another artist who explored the same topic.

Design: Consider the following

How you want your book to look and feel: I want my book to be minimalist and simple. I want it to have a smooth feel to it and for it to be pleasing to the eye with a black and white colour scheme representative of Mapplethorpe’s (my artist’s) work and Karlheinz Weinberger’s work.

Paper and ink: I want to use black ink in a basic font to keep the attention on what the writing is about instead of what it looks like and also for the attention to be on the photographs that I produce. I want photo finish glossy paper as I find this has some of the highest definition and is the clearest unlike matte paper.

Format, size and orientation: I want my book to be A5 and landscape as smaller books result in higher detail as the photo retains its resolution however on a smaller page. I also think smaller books are simply more appealing aesthetically.

Binding and cover: In terms of my cover, I want the book to be hardback for a professional look and feel. I want the image on the front and rear cover to be environmental photos of objects, no humans, for a abstract feel that doesn’t give away what the story is about, it makes the reader question it and become intrigued, thus more likely to pick it up and open it. For example, I might have a set of dumbbells or a tool box on the front and rear pages that symbolize masculinity but don’t scream it to your face, it’s more subtle which is the theme I am going for, as it nicely contrasts against the hard, strong, powerful conotations of the term “masculine”.

Title: Virtruvian Man: the ideal body composition, the perfect male, essentially is what every man aspires to be.

Design and layout: For my design and layout, I want to have one image per page similar to my Zine project. In addition, similarly to my Zine, I will also have my story in chronological order. I have a beginning, middle and end to my story.