1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.
“In the stately ways of our shining capital the dwellings of high and low raise their roofs in rivalry as in the beginning… how often does the mansion of one age turn into the cottages of the next.” (Kamo no Chomei)
Tokyo is a visual journey through a city at once futuristic and obsolete, its visionary design worn out – like that of a past era. Johanasson uses photography to index the city, finding form and pragmatic order through accumulation and sequence, revealing the city’s hidden, modular logic: lego-like segments, a basic square unit repeated indefinitely and in various sizes. These images are unpeopled, showing only the architecture of the city, a container of 13 million people, organised around mass movement and the funnelling of human traffic. Between the concrete, glass and steel, the occasional green life sprouts – miniature gardens in the narrow alleyways, or a cluster of flower pots lining the sidewalk. The architecture creates its own topography, and the city is glimpsed as the last outpost of a fading, mechanised world.
https://josefchladek.com/book/gerry_johansson_-_tokyo
2. Who is the photographer? Why did he/she make it? (intentions/ reasons) Who is it for? (audience) How was it received? (any press, reviews, awards, legacy etc.)
Gerry Johansson. a Swedish photographer who lives in Höganäs in southern Sweden. He makes “straight and pragmatic” photographs with “an objective view of a geographic location.”
His books include America, Sweden, Germany, Antartic, Toyko, and American Winter. His work is held in the collection of Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, where he has had solo exhibitions. He has been awarded the region Skanes kulturpris and the Lars Tunbjork Prize.
Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper.
The book is a hardback, with smooth paper that is easy to flick through, and it smells like paper.
Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both.
Good quality paper, with black and white photos. The cover is a linen, cloth texture.
Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages.
There is about 50-80 pages of black and white photos. There is one photo per double spread, that is quite big. There are some landscape photos that take up both pages. The orientation is portrait approximately A4 size.
Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. perfect binding/saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello.
It is perfect binding, that is sturdy and firm.
Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping.
The front cover has a image printed on the front with linen as the border, on the back there is a shiny imprinted text on blue linen.
Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing.
Literal: Tokyo (about Tokyo, title on the back of the book)
Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?
Images of the city and its architecture, not a clear connection to a story. The black and photos showcase Tokyo using minimalism, shapes, and texture.
Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative.
Every image is based off buildings, or close ups of walls that include interesting shapes. Images may juxtapose each other using different compositions.
Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts.
Its either 1 image per page with a thick white border, or 1 image on a double spread that takes up about 3/4 of he space. There or there is a combination of both, a full page image with a white page with a small caption on.
Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process.
There is only juxtaposition in how the image in presented, e.g. zoomed in that draws attention to its details.
Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others. Use of captions (if any.)
There is no essay or text, there are only captions. For example, 044 Odabia. Most commonly there is one small caption on a small page, or several (3-6) captions in the corner of the blank page.