What is your story?

1. 3 words: Stinky Bay (Le Pulec), rocks, coast
2. A sentence; My zine will be a picture story about the geological sites of special interest at Le Pulec
3. A paragraph: Through my zine I will tell a story of the history of the Rocks and the coast of Le Pulec which has been nicknamed Stinky Bay.

Editing and Choosing process

Chosen Photoshoot Images

Archive images from L’Etacq

I want to incorporate Jerseys archive images into my work as a way of assisting my storytelling style.

Typography

What is typophoto?
Typography is communication composed in type.
Photography is the visual presentation of what can be optically apprehended.
​Typophoto is the visually most exact rendering of communication.
— Laszlo Moholy-Nagy

https://www.photopedagogy.com/typophoto.html#:~:text=What%20is%20typophoto%3F,most%20exact%20rendering%20of%20communication.

Hamish Fulton’s Work

Zine Research and the history of the Zine

The word “zine” is a shortened form of the term fanzine, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Fanzines emerged as early as the 1930s among fans of science fiction. Zines also have roots in the informal, underground publications that focused on social and political activism in the ’60s.

Zines are Staple bound which means that two staples hold all the pages together. Also known as saddle stitched binding or Perfect bound where Pages are glued against a square spine, making a softback book. A 20-page zine will usually be staple bound.

MONOCHROME BY DMITRI TCHERBADJI

I think that Dmitri Tcherbadji’s work is inspiring because…

Experimentation with Typography

Final Zine

Final Evaluation

My intentions upon starting the topic was to tell a story of the history of the Rocks and the coast of Le Pulec which has been nicknamed Stinky Bay and it’s native Jeriais routes, Therefore, I added an extract of a poem written about Jersey in Jeriais which talks about Jersey’s rocks.

Tes rochers, ton rivage, Où le cormorant vit; Le soleil sur ta plage, Reflétant le granit: Tout anime la flamme. Qui chauffe tous mes sens, Et qui ravit mon âme, À toute heure, en tout temps.

I included photos from the Heritage Archives to my Zine to help with my aim to tell the story of how the coast of Le Pulec came to be. For my Zine I wanted to use quite a bit of Typography as it can give an image a juxtaposing meaning or it can describe what’s happening in a photograph Dmitri Tcherbadji’s work was an inspiration to my work. https://www.myfavouritelens.com/monochrome-dmitri-tcherbadji-photo-zine-review-interview/. Tcherbadji’s work was really eye-catching to me and I found that their work tells a story fluently throughout their work.

Through this topic I have learnt how to correctly and confidently use InDesign software and I am happy with the outcome of my Zine.

Virtual Gallery

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To create my mounted final outcomes, I began by deciding what pictures I wanted to use. I decided to use the set of 3 photos which I used for the middle page of my zine because I liked how well they worked together as a set of images, showing what is found on the seabed as you follow it. Then I began deciding whether I wanted my photos be mounted on a black or white background, I liked the white background to begin with and this was because it contrasted well against the darker black/grey tones in my photos, as well as creating a flow between the 2 images which have some white in them as well. I wasn’t sure on having a black background while experimenting, this was because I thought that the photos got lost within one another as they got lost due to the similarity of the darker tones within the photos and the black background. Upon further experimentation, I felt as if just having a plain white background was too dull and gave the feeling that it was unfinished. I decided that I wanted to add some dimension and borders around the photos, but wasn’t sure how I wanted this to be incorporated to begin with.

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In these two images above, I was experimenting with different layouts which I could use to mount my photos with. I thought that I could experiment with putting my photos on different levels such as bringing the middle photo up or down. I didn’t like this experimentation as I wanted the photos to be level and not create a feeling that one is less than the other as they all work alongside one another to create a story. Therefore this was helpful with deciding the layout of my mounted final outcome as I knew that I didn’t want to have the photos be at different levels, so I experimented again with different ways to present my work which can be seen below.

Final Outcome –

This was my final outcome which involved using a black background, as the more I experimented with the white background I felt as if it was too overpowering. I decided to mount my photos on to white foamboard, which I cut out in to 3 squares which were slightly bigger than the A4 pictures to create a white border around the photos, making them stand out well against the black board which I used for the background. I then stuck them down using double sided tape on the photos to the foamboard then the frames to the black mount board behind it and this made sure that they remained in their places securely but I had to be quite precise while using the tape. This was because after the photos were placed it was difficult to move them without potentially ripping them, which I didn’t want to happen, so then I made sure to place the 2 side photos first, making sure that the space above, below and to each side of them was even then placing the middle one, which made sure that the photo in the middle was centred. I really liked this way to present my photos because it lifted the photos up off of the page, which I really liked as it added dimension to the photo which I preferred more than experimenting with the different levels of the photographs. I was really happy with this idea and decided to use it as my final way to present the photos I have used, creating a triptych.

Story/ Purpose behind my zine

Throughout my zine I have attempted to create a visual story which illustrates the importance of Jersey’s Sites of Special Interest (JSSI), to create this I visited the sites of Plemont, La Hocq and Stinky Bay. This was in an attempt to show multiple different parts of the island, as Plemont in the north is filled with a variety of different rock formations compared to La Hocq in the east. This helped me to create my story as I could show the natural beauty of the island throughout my photographic/ zine work. The purpose of my zine is not just to show off ‘Islandness’ but to try and get people to understand that Jersey may not be like this forever, as uncontrollable movements such as erosion means that these rocks are going through constant change. However, I am also attempting to help people realise that controllable aspects affect our island life as well, despite Jersey being considered more environmentally friendly, with places such as reservoirs to prevent water waste, human life will forever continue to affect out island. My zine illustrates the untouched parts of the island that everyone would like to preserve, this is vital as it demonstrates that we must keep our island this way and try to maintain the island we live on in a sustainable way.

Explanation behind my title: ‘Nos Rivages’ is a direct translation of ‘my shores’ in French. I have translated it as I thought it made the lettering look more aesthetic. Additionally, the typography I picked made the lettering look the best on the front cover of my zine, along with linking well with the story behind my zine. This is really important as it shows I have considered the context of my work when titling my zine.

Layout

Analysis

Overall, I think that the story behind my zine is illustrated well throughout my zine, a lot of my images have been heavily edited and some unchanged, this links with my story, as the purpose of my story was to show unchanged parts of the island and show how humans may change it for the negative in the future. This is reflected in the editing of my zine as the unchanged images reflect my zine itself, and the edited images could be a reflection of the future to come if humans continue to use the island unsustainable resources. Altogether, I like the final outcome of my zine, as the layout means that overall, it is aesthetic and catches your eye. The front cover is very important as it draws you in and makes you want to look through the zine, but I think that I have bolder and more adventurous images inside of my zine, which makes the view want to keep looking through it.

In my opinion, I think my final zine was a success, I am happy with my result, I still think that my main strength is the composition of my work. This is because I took me a lot of time to think about the arrangement of my images, meaning that each page too me a lot of time. However, this was a positive as it meant that I had time to probably think about the arrangement of my pages. Another aspect that I like about my zine is the balance between monochromatic and colour images, I tried to do this so that my zine had more depth to it, along with the fact that photographs of rock formations being edited in black and white means that a lot of texture becomes more present.

Lastly, I like that my zine matches well with my storyline/ purpose of my zine which can be seen above. I think this is important as it shows that my piece of work is a reflection of all the time, I have put into trying to illustrate the important of maintaining our Island’s natural features. Furthermore, my zine links well with the overall purpose of the project and is a positive reflection of my work from the multiple photoshoots. Despite the variety of images, the front and back cover were taken during the same photoshoot, and I think that they link very well together as they both have this idea of death. As the flowers represent someone who has just passed away, and how fresh their memorial is, and in contrast with this, the cross is usually a representation of someone or a group of individuals who have passed many years or even decades ago. This is important and it creates a cyclical narrative to my zine story (as they start and finish with the same concept).

Critique

However, there are some weaknesses throughout my final zine, I could be thought that the quality of some of my images is not as good as other, and this is distracting, and it makes for a negative contrast throughout my whole zine. As there is a constant change from very high-quality images to slightly blurry ones, however, I was more focused on my story rather than my images, this could be seen as a hinderance to my work. I even had to edit some of my images in Photoshop in order for them to be good enough to put into my zine, this was because I didn’t have enough photographs to begin with when starting this project and I should have gone to the same sights and taken more images to solve this problem.

Looking through my zine there is no clear colour scheme of arrangement throughout my images, this could be seen as another weakness as there is a balance between the arrangement of the images, but no link between aspects such as warm and cooler toned photographs. This means that my piece is filled with mixed pieces that in some people’s opinions this could mean it lacks smoothness.

For my final mounts, I decided to put my images in a digital gallery and get an idea of how I want to frame them when I print them out. I will frame my images individually just like I did with my gallery because I want them to be displayed separately as I think they look nicer. I will have two sets, one for my monochrome images and one for my in-colour images. Overall, I think the photographs and editing turned out really well and that the images work well together.