Narrative: What is your story?

• 3 words – Organic vs. Synthetic
• A sentence – A book detailing the conflict between the organic (natural) and synthetic (unnatural/man-made) elements of the modern world.
• A paragraph – The relationship between (conflict, co-existence, integration into…) the organic and synthetic, capturing the ways they combine and simultaneously oppose one another, creating an otherworldly and unnatural relationship. Using colour, shape as well as meanings behind each image to create links between the two in order to visualise them easier.

Design: Consider the following

• How you want your book to look and feel – I think a slightly rough-feeling book could work nicely with my project, as my book is meant to show the rough contrast between organic and synthetic. In terms of looks, my book will be, like most of my other work, on the colourful and vibrant side.
• Paper and ink – I think the ‘Premium Lustre’ paper that Blurb offers will be good for my photobook as it offers a good quality. I might experiment with black-coloured pages as it might fit nicely with the aesthetic of my images, especially the night photographs.
• Format, size and orientation – I will be using a portrait orientation, as it could be a good format to use as it will fit with the dimensions of my images better. My book will be 20 by 25 cm, which is the standard Blurb portrait sizing.

• Binding and cover – An Idea could be to place an image on the first page of the book and cut a hole out of the cover to reveal some of that image underneath (which I would like to contrast with the rest of the image), like a window.
• Structure and architecture – I think organising my images into a structure representing a day – night cycle could be effective, to do this I would make use of my photographs taken in the day at the start (or middle) and put my night photographs in at the end (or the start/end as I have two night photoshoots). I will organise my images based on shapes and colour as opposed to a linear narrative, as this will allow me to formulate the structure and layout of the page spreads much easier.
• Design and layout – I would like to use a range of double/single page spreads, along with some pages having 2 or 3 images on them at once. I will have ‘repeating’ page spreads – which have a similar pattern or meaning others.
• Editing and sequencing – I have edited my images to have as much colour as is reasonable, as well as some black and white images to create a juxtaposition. I will sequence the images in a way that juxtaposes the key themes of organic and synthetic (and perhaps night and day, which is an afterthought idea).
• Images and text – I will likely only include my images and the essay within the photobook, with no additional text or captions. This will allow the photobook to flow slightly better
• Title (This is subject to change) – Something along the lines of The Plastic Biotic – a juxtaposition between words representing my key ideas.

Moodboard of Ideas