1. Research a photo-book and describe the story it is communicating with reference to subject-matter, genre and approach to image-making.
‘The Americans’ – Robert Frank, Published 1958.
‘The Americans’ by Robert Frank captures his Journey across 48 states of America, photographing the natural sights around the country. Through the candid approach it communicates the “everything-ness and American-ness of these pictures” ( To quote the book). Reminiscent to Henri Cartier-Breton’s ‘Europeans’, it captures street photography of the everyday lives and experiences of those of at the time. Making use of a variety of shot types, the core 3 that are present consist of close-up, mid-shots and long-shots. Like its subjects, Franks’ images consist of many types of light. Natural and unnatural, are used heavily to bring out detail and character to his images, such as with dark shadows of the day forming a stark contrast, or the warm glow of lights bringing attention to his surroundings and subjects of the photograph.
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.)
Robert Frank, 1924 – 2019.
“I was very free with the camera. I didn’t think of what would be the correct thing to do; I did what I felt good doing.” – Robert Frank
Robert Franks ‘The Americans’ explores the faces of many personalities across the United States. Travelling from state to state, the written intro from Jack Kerouac narrates his journey, bringing to life the images we later see. With many takes on the reasoning behind his journey of faces, the most popular intention behind Franks work was that he wished to photograph the America, far away from the idealised view of the American dream and instead capture the quiet America, those not given a voice or those that didn’t live in line with the vision of the ‘American way of Life’. In the theory of Frederik Trovatten, Frank within his work wanted to: Embrace imperfection, prioritise emotion over aesthetics, see a story in every frame, develop his own vision and be an observer to the world, not a performer.
In the words of the Museum of Modern Art “In a country that was not his own, Frank assumed the unique position of an outsider and voyeur who unobtrusively captured the tensions of the geographic, economic, racial, and religious diversity of the US.” “Frank captured the nation as a messy corpus, never privileging city or country, black or white, Jew or Christian, rich or poor.”.
Franks achievement through his work earned him a notable reputation in the world of photography, such as within John Szarkowski’s theory of ‘Mirrors’ and ‘Windows’. To quote Szarkowski, Robert Frank’s work “characterises opposite modes of the new photography, with its divergence between those who believe that art is a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, and those who see it as a window, through which one may better know the world.”.
Frank also notably gained awards such as the Guggenheim fellowship in 1955, the 1996 Hassebald foundation international award in photography, the 2002 Edward MacDowell medal and a doctorate in fine arts in 2015 from Nova Scotia college of Art and design University.
Sources:
https://trovatten.com/robert-frank
https://www.moma.org/artists/1973
3. Deconstruct the narrative, concept and design of the book and apply theory above when considering:
- Book in hand: how does it feel? Smell, sniff the paper. – Smells like a new book, with waxy coated paper for the images.
- Paper and ink: use of different paper/ textures/ colour or B&W or both. – Black and white text are used, on the same type of paper across the entire book.
- Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3 / number of pages. – The Book is small, with images in around an A5 format, the images are mainly landscape and positioned on the right hand side of the book, with the left, kept as an open space for the photograph title.
- Binding, soft/hard cover. image wrap/dust jacket. saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ leperello – The book is a hard cover, featuring a swiss binding and dust jacket.
- Cover: linen/ card. graphic/ printed image. embossed/ debossed. letterpress/ silkscreen/hot-stamping. – The cover is a card like paper that features a printed image of one of his photographs on.
- Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing. The title, which is literal in its meaning combines with the printed image to intrigue the spectator to the contents of the book, and how the people are presented.
- Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told? – The story/subject matter is that of the American people, not any specific demographic but the mass diversity of races, ethnicity’s, religions, etc.
- Structure and architecture: how design/ repeating motifs/ or specific features develops a concept or construct a narrative. – The repeating motif of a star spangled banner is featured commonly through the book, images are also not fixed within one location but jump from different locations ands environment’s displaying a vibrant change in scenery.
- Design and layout: image size on pages/ single page, double-spread/ images/ grid, fold- outs/ inserts. – Images are featured on one page each, with white space to the left for the titles.
- Editing and sequencing: selection of images/ juxtaposition of photographs/ editing process. Images juxtapose themselves throughout the book, clashing from rural to urban, night to day, not focusing on image style for too long.
- Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/ essay/ statement by artists or others. Use of captions (if any.) – Images are linked through their study of the American people, this varies in the people you see and where you see them throughout the book, This is emphasised from the introduction by Jack Kerouac which narrates Franks adventure across the country to capture such.
UNDERSTANDING PHOTOBOOKS:
NARRATIVE, EDITING, SEQUENCING, DESIGN, FORM, FUNCTION.