Photobook: Deconstructed

1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating  with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.

“Tokyo is a visual journey through a city at once futuristic and obsolete, its visionary design worn out – like that of a past era. Gerry JOHANSSON 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.”

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.)

Jerry Johansson is a Swedish photographer and author. He is known for his publications of geographical locations in a straight and pragmatic form. He first picked up a camera at age 11 and began printing at age 15. Almost all of his 31 publications are defined by the geography featured in the images.

3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:

Photobook Specification

Narrative: What is your story?
Describe in:

  • 3 words

City, Buildings, Development.

  • A sentence

  • A paragraph

For my photobook, I would like the hardback feel and page layout of ‘Tokyo’. This is because of the quality-product aesthetic. I want my photobook to feel like a quality product, and am happy to spend the money to receive a good quality product.

One thought on “Photobook: Deconstructed”

Leave a Reply