I looked at a variety of different sources and zines in order to get an idea for what I wanted to use in my own zine and what I thought would be interesting. Some of the things I looked at were linked to typography as I wanted to explore the use of words to make an image in itself [like Hamish Fulton’s work] and whether I could create contrast through the use of typography rather than solely relying on images. Along with that, I knew I wanted to create interesting compositions so I kept an eye out for any interesting layout I saw.

Moodboard:

‘Narrative’ meaning in photography –

The theory:

The general meaning of ‘narrative’ is to describe the way that a story is told from different perspectives from a variety of sources such as a book, magazine, newspaper, cinema, etc. When telling a story there is no right or wrong due to the subjectivity of it, implying that the creative aspect is completely up to you.

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The ‘narrative’ meaning in photography is a completely different story. This is because you have to carefully select the images that you want to use to create a relationship between one another. This is impacted by the way that they are edited, text that accompanies them, and how they are laid out on the page. This is why it is vital to identify the story behind your zine for example before beginning to create it. This approach is seen a lot throughout Photojournalism which is a documentary style of photography as well as contemporary photography which uses poetic language, which plays with the idea of objectivity/subjectivity and facts/fiction.

The theory behind a narrative in photography has been explained by a photographer called Jorg M. Colberg in his first post which then leads into his second post which both extensively discuss this subject. He explains how their is not always a clear distinction of a story in someone’s work that they have produced but their is a recognisable narrative as he argues that ‘narrative’ and ‘story’ have two completely different interpretations within photography. He then goes onto further discussion about sequencing a photograph, and how this can alter the narrative of a set of photos in his second blog post. I think that these two blog posts were helpful as they provided me with a deeper insight and knowledge into what a narrative means within photography, helping me with the creation of my zine as it makes me think about the bigger picture to the people who will view it.

Lewis Bush, who is a writer and lecturer wrote a piece of work for photography, he states that ‘narrative are things which exist within stories.’ and his article Storytelling: A Poverty of Theory, he explains how photography is not an established way to theorise a story unlike literature and cinema. He also questions why many photographer refer to themselves as ‘storytellers’ when it is difficult to see the difference between a story and narrative in photography.

In photography:

In earlier years, many different photobooks have been made such as one called ‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank, a French publisher, in 1958. This consisted of a sequence of 83 photos which are non-narrative and non-linear as it uses thematic, formal, conceptual and linguistic features to link the photographs to one another which Frank called a ‘distinct and intense order’. The book is seen to be constructed in four sections, although this is not immediately noticeable. The book explores American people as a society from a mix of communities depending on class, race, occupation, etc and are seen to be photographed in a variety of different locations amongst one another. Therefore, Frank uses this to emphasise the politics, alienation, power, injustice, etc that is at play when you look beneath the surface in his country, forcing you to review the deeper meaning.
Here are some examples from the photobook:

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‘Sequencing’ in photography –

Sequencing in photography is more than just placing your photos in an order, it’s diving into the deeper meaning of the story. Going further into the reason behind why you have chosen too and the theme you want to have between the photos. You have to consider your beginning, middle and end photos for a successful outcome as these will be the photos which essentially guide your audience. This can be seen in numerous ways through the images such as in a change to show something is happening throughout or using other images, for example from archival sources to show a comparison of then and before. The possibilities in a sequence are endless.

Making sure you are also using your best images which have a visual relationship and flow easily with one another is a huge factor in sequencing in photography. This is due to their juxtaposition’s e.g. are they landscape or portrait?, colour or black and white, is there any repetition in the images or of images?, etc. After deciding this you need to think about the layout of them through single/double page spreads, or multiple images on one page as well as if you want to include text to act as a guide throughout.

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Write a book specification and describe in detail what your book will be about in terms of narrative, concept and design with reference to the same elements of bookmaking as above.

Narrative: What is your story?
Describe in:

3 words

Generational female identity.

https://www.shashasha.co/en/book/how-we-see-photobooks-by-women – an article I used to look at notable photobooks by women, in order to gain inspiration for my own.

A sentence

My project focuses on the personal and generational identity of women in my family, using archival and new material.

A paragraph

This project looks at different facets of identity, both in the past and present. More specifically, the project explores the personal identity of each of three subjects: my mother, grandmother and myself. Then, through the use of collage, it shows how each person’s identity links with each other. – The past also plays a role in my project, with the use of archival images a key part, used for comparison to the present day for my collages. The use of collages is inspired by my previous identity project, which formed the basis of this project. My personal study draws a lot from identity within a place as well, such as within the home: whether it be a past or present one.

Design: Consider the following:

How you want your book to look and feel

I want the book to have a soft, gentle feel. I think using vintage style, faded colours and fonts will suit the style of my work and editing style. I want to use classic colours and fonts to give my photobook a vintage/ timeless feel to it. – this is influenced heavily by my use of archival material, as well as my editing style, using high grain and faded tones. In this photo book, I have chosen to take inspiration from classic photo albums and books – I was heavily influenced by this after looking through my own family’s photo albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s which will help me to design my own.

Paper and ink

I plan on using white paper with black ink, creating a timeless feel. – I plan to use matte paper, to keep my style consistent. Furthermore, I think that using matte paper will help to keep the detail and unique features of my archival images throughout – using glossy paper may draw attention from small details of the images, such as creases, folds, and rips in the images. I am interested in keeping these imperfections intact to keep the authenticity of the images and to create a more tactile and immersive feel to my photobook. When adding my essay to the photo book, I have seen the idea of using different colour pages that fit with the theme. I like this idea as it would create a distinction between my pages with images and those with my essay and the images that accompany it.

Format, size and orientation

I’m going to choose the orientation based on my front and back cover choices – Probably either portrait or square. However, with still more images to make, I may change my mind – I tend to have more landscape-orientated images, which would also influence a choice of a landscape-orientated book. For these reasons, I’m still undecided. Having thought about this more, I have decided on a portrait format book. However, when creating my photobook

Binding and cover

I plan to use archival or collage images for my front and back cover, either slicing an image in half or two separate images. I want the front cover to be tactile, and heavy.

Title 

I’m still thinking of a title to do with my family or to do with the content. I think that I might need to focus on the content of the photobook first, and when I know what that looks like I will come back to the title. As for ideas, I was thinking of something linking back to my own family and its’ history, or to do with the content. For example “The Albums” or “80-18” – (The difference in ages between the 3 subjects in my book at the time of completion.)

Structure and architecture

https://gatekeeperpress.com/types-of-binding-for-a-self-published-book/ – an article I used to find more information about book architecture.

I am considering different types of architecture for my photobook: a softcover, with a smooth image, wrapped front cover, or a hardcover, with a more vintage style cover, with either two images wrapped onto the outside or just a single image wrapped on to the front and back cover. I have decided against the use of a dust jacket for my book, as I want the image to be wrapped in the book.

Design and layout

Photo book design tips from design experts

After completing my previous zines for the ‘My Rock’ project, I have gotten a better idea of what kind of design I would like in my project. I am going to use a mix of double-page spreads, specifically my strongest image on the middle page of my book. I want to utilise blank space in my photograph, creating unique compositions with different shapes and sizes of images. I have thought of lots of different layouts. For example: double page spreads, two image spreads, images on opposite ends of double page, single images on double and single pages, and arrangements of different sizes and orientations.

Editing and sequencing

My editing for my self-portraits is in B and W, along with some of my other portraits – most of my portraits are in colour, along with almost all of my archival material. I plan to create collages, as well as juxtapositions of multiple images. I will sequence these evenly with normal portraits and single archival images.

Images and text

I might use text on top of my images, narrating the photos or adding context. I first thought of this idea after looking at Jim Goldberg’s project: “Raised by Wolves”, in which he asked subjects to write on their own photos after being given them back. I think this idea links really well to my project as I wanted to find a way of including my subjects’ own ideas of the images and my project in my work. As well as asking my subjects (my mother and grandmother, and me) to write on their own images, I plan to write little captions or paragraphs in my own handwriting about the content of some pages and their meaning. This is also influenced by my interest in photocollage, and other artists using text in their images.

I also have an idea of including drawings or annotated images, in the same style as Jim Goldberg above – possibly a family tree, or a map of Jersey, UK and France to map out my family’s origins and homes. I think that this idea links well with my interest in photocollage, as it is another part of mixed media art.

STORY: What is the story?

3 Words: Growth, decay, difference

A Sentence: The difference between the size of rocks and how it affects how they age.

A Paragraph: Stability increases as the rocks grow stronger despite the decaying/erosion that has occurred. Little rocks flock towards the big rock, preparing for battle against the terrors of nature once more. The cracks, scars and imperfections from previous struggles always remain but despite this, the boulders stand tall. Some rocks and pebbles, however, know their odds and so bury themselves, making them unknown to the horrors above.

NARRATIVE: How will the story be told?

Images: I will be using images from green island throughout this project along with some still life images in order to get a mix of close-ups in both the rocks’ natural environment and in the studio.

Archives: I will look over some images from the archive and compare them to my own images before deciding whether I want to incorporate any archival images into my zine.

Tests: I want to experiment with typography and possibly write/include a poem in my zine as I think it would help to bring my images together and possibly create more meaning.

Final Image Selection

I used images from the La Hocq trip to create my photo-zine as I wanted to keep a similar/the same theme throughout. I edited my images in Lightroom and then decided which images I wanted to use.

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Zine Creation

I wanted to make the back and front cover the same image, I did this as I believe it looks very effective

I also wanted a double page black and white spread, I used this image as I believe it is a very powerful image and works very well

I really liked the idea of portraying the flight of seagulls aking off from the rocks, and I think it worked very effectively

Evaluation

Overall, I believe that my zine came out very well, I kept to the same theme throughout and I think my zine tells a good story. To improve I would take multiple photoshoots instead of just one, this would give me more photos to edit and work with to come out with a better outcome. I named the title La hocq, I did this as this is the location for all the images included in the photo zine and I believe it is a very fitting name.

EVALUATION:

Overall I am happy with my final outcome. The narrative through my zine

1. How you want your design to look and feel
2. Format, size and orientation
3. Narrative and visual concept
4. Design and layout
5. Rhythm and sequencing
6. Images and text
7. Title and captions

What is a photo-zine?

A photo zine is a self-published, often handmade collection of photographs laid out in a magazine style. It can include written text and illustrations as well as photos. They are designed to display and share photo stories. A photo zine can be a single, one-off publication.

A zine is usually a non – commercial, non professional publication, kind of like a magazine but with a twist. The main difference between a magazine and a zine is that zines are not out there to make a profit but, rather, to add other, often unheard voices into the mix.

Examples of created photo-zines:

Café Royal Books is a small independent publisher of photography photobooks or zines, and sometimes drawing, solely run by Craig Atkinson and based in Southport, England. Café Royal Books produces small-run publications predominantly documenting social, historical and architectural change, often in Britain, using both new work and photographs from archives. It has been operating since 2005 and by mid 2014 had published about 200 books and zines and they are held in major public collections

Birmingham 1960s photo-zine:

Photo-zine moodboard:

The pages in the photo-zine display the images side by side and create some sort of story. I am going to aim to create a photo-zine with a similar style as the Cafe Royal Books collection of zines that are described through black and white images displaying the history of Britain. I am most likely going to have alot of my images included in the photo-zine to be shown in black and white to try and follow the style of these older zines.

To begin creating this photo-zine I needed to take a range of images from one location. I used images from my La Hocq photo shoot to try and keep a similar theme throughout the whole zine. After editing all my images I then needed to decide which images to use in my photo-zine. i wanted all my images to try and capture the beauty of le hocq

image selection

The images below are all the images contained throughout my 16 page photo-zine.

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photo zine creation

for my front page i wanted to represent le hocqs tower with a strong contrast to the sky

for pages 2-3 i wanted to use a strong image as a double page spread

for pages 4-5 i then wanted to create an overlap of similar images the to the first double page spread

for pages 6-7 i wanted to keep to the black and white and used this image focusing on the rock with a strong contrast to the sky

for pages 8-9 i wanted to represent the homes of the locals to le hocq in a 9 picture grid and switching the colour scheme

pages 10-11 i used 2 different coloured images contrasting each other showing the boats

for pages 12-13 i used a double page spread focusing on the rock peak

pages 14-15 i used 3 more images of boats in a juxtaposition layout showing the white spaces

for the back cover i used another image of le hocq tower linking back to the front page

FINAL PHOTO ZINE

EVALUATION

Overall, I am very happy with how my final zine turned out. I kept a similar theme throughout the pages of the zine with every picture inside being representing le hocq. The name of my zine, Rotcheux, which is Jèrriais for rocky which i tried implementing in the way that all the images included were taken. I really like the layout of the images with some pages having a white space to create more contrast. I used juxtaposition on some pages to change up the style and layout.

Overall, I think the process of making my zine was quite successful. I really enjoyed using InDesign and putting everything together as it was easy to use and had plenty of layout options. I had a good range of photographs, which made my selection process much easier and less stressful. I really like the layout of the photobook because I think I managed to create a simple and consistent theme through the zine that is not too confusing. I have learned a lot when making this zine and I hope to be able to use my skills further in my next projects.

However, I wish I would’ve been able to use more images from the photo archive and compared them to my ones, but I didn’t have many options. I do think that I incorporated the archive images that I used nicely.