These are my gallery mock ups of my best images and they showcase the most important places that my grandad loved when he came to visit the island.

1. 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 Past, memories, family
• A sentence My photo book is going to be about where my grandads favourite places where to visit when he came to the island.
• A paragraph My photo book is about my grandads favourite places that he loved to go when he came over to visit. The images include pictures of the surrounding landscape and then restaged images of my dad that had my grandad in them to replicate the special memories that he had here.

Design: Consider the following

• How you want your book to look and feel
• I want the book to have a hard cover and by debossed with the title of the book and then I want to have the debossed writing covered with gold leaf to make it stand out on the dark background of one of the images. I want to have a big picture of St Ouen’s Bay going across the front and back cover as this was my grandads favourite place to go when he came.’I want the book to have a hard cover and by debossed with the title of the book and then I want to have the debossed writing covered with gold leaf to make it stand out on the dark background of one of the images. I want to have a big picture of St Ouen’s Bay going across the front and back cover as this was my grandads favourite place to go when he came.
• Paper and ink
• I want the paper to be shiny and not matte so that the images look more professional and are better quality.
• Format, size and orientation
• Some of the images I have taken are portrait but most of them are landscape images so I want to do a Landscape book so I can have the bigger images of the surrounding over a double page spread to separate out the images.
• Binding and cover
• I want the binding to be a saddle stitch and the cover to be a hard cover with my image printed on.
• Title 
• A Map of Moments or souvenirs of the soul.
• Structure and architecture
• Design and layout
• The layout of my photobook has been designed so that the images link together and tell the story.
• Editing and sequencing
• I have tried to sequence the images so they look like they were meant to be put together. For example where my dad is sat on a bench that overlooks corbiere and the image next to that is a landscape photo of the lighthouse making it look like he’s overlooking the rest of the world.
• Images and text
• I have added my essay into the back of my photobook which explains the question that I was exploring.

This is my photobook layout where I have carefully chosen the order of the images so that they help tell the story of the photos. I then added my essay into the back three pages of the book and added images to show the work of the artists.

This is my front and back cover which suggests that the sun is my grandad looking out for us and has symbolic meaning which sets the narrative for the rest of the book. I wanted these images to be the front and back cover because they look the most aesthetic and make the book more eye catching for people to want to look through the book.

For this image I’m increasing the contrast and the exposure to make the brick wall and the rocks stand out and look a lot clearer against the sea.

With this image I increased the shadows to make the rock shadows darker and look more ominous and I also increased the whites so the sun in the corner of the image is a lot brighter.

I decreased the exposure in this image to get the photo darker and then I clicked the masking tool to edit the subject of the photo and the background of the photo separately. Then I increased the white stairs to contrast against the brick wall that I made darker.

I used the masking tool for this image and made the subject darker to create contrast against the white bars of the background. I then also increased the shadows so the lobster pots contrast against the darkened sky and the darkened wooden bridge.

Best Images

These are my best edited images that I’m going to put into my photobook. I have gone through all my images and rated all of my best photos 5 stars and made them green to show that they are my best images.

Narrative

The narrative behind my book is about where my grandad loved to visit when he came on holiday here and where he had the most memories. I have taken photos at these specific locations to build up the narrative of his life when he was visiting Jersey.

Story

The story behind the images is about my grandads life and then I have taken restaged images with my dad in them to recreate the special photos that were the most important to him. I wanted the photobook to represent the particular landscapes he liked but also to have some recreated images that he was in, also in the book to show that the places he loved the most are still loved today. I want the images I have chosen to show that he was a special person to me, and that the photos show the importance he had in my life. For my photobook I want to put the photos in a specific order to show those favourite places and then towards the end of the photobook I’m going to put landscape images in that have a lot of sunbeams and sunlight in them to show he is looking down on everyone from heaven.

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

The story is communicating the life of an old man and his love for flowers and his wife who he lost it also shows what life was like for him being in a home by himself without his wife. The first page of images shows a photo album where the only pictures are of his wife and flowers showing his two most precious things in life. The first image was of his wife and the images were in a photo album, suggesting that they were very precious images to him.

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.)

The photographers I’m using are Mark Power and Ansel Adams. Mark Power made these images to document the special places that people had strong memories with, these memories could be happy joyful memories or sad and quite solemn memories. For example he took photos of hospital waiting rooms that could be a memory that was sad but important to that particular person. he also took images of landscapes and buildings many of his landscape images are of houses that are abandoned or derelict or places that have been knocked down and are no longer there, suggesting that they could be images of places that used to be special or where that particular person may of grown up in. Power won Terence Donovan Award and an Honorary Fellowship. Ansel Adams took images of nature and landscapes showing the beauty in the nature world. His work shows romanticism and how he made his images showcase that. Ansel Adams did this because as a child he loved nature and took lots of photos at Yosemite National Park where he first discovered his love for nature. His work is for anyone that appreciates the wonders and the beauty of the natural world. Adams won the Hasselblad Award in 1981 and then won the Sierra Club John Muir Award in 1963.

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

How does the book feel/smell ?

The book smells like its very old and worn and it feels precious and special like your holding someone’s life.

Paper and Ink – use of different patterns/texture/colours or black and white for all images.

I want to do coloured images but then have some in black and white to emphasise the solemn feelings about the story. There will be no textures in he book or on any of the photographs.

Format, size and orientation: portraiture/ landscape/ square/ A5, A4, A3/ number of pages.

The photographs will be both portrait and landscape as there are a lot of photos with the surrounding environment there will be filtered through the portrait images of my dad.

Binding, soft/hard cover, image wrap/dust jacket, saddle stitch/swiss binding/ Japanese stab-binding/ Laperello

The cover will be a hard cover and the stitching will be a saddle stitch. I might put a dust jacket over the hard cover to protect it.

Cover: linen/card, graphic/printed image, embossed/debossed, letterpress/silkscreen or hot-stamping.

The cover will be a card cover and then will have a printed image on the front with debossed writing that I’m then going to make gold so it stands out against the dark colours of the image that’s going to be printed on the front cover.

Title: literal or poetic / relevant or intriguing

The title will be literal and will be relevant but I want to make it as intriguing as I can to make it sound interesting and worth looking at.

Narrative: what is the story/ subject-matter. How is it told?

The story will unfold from the first images, there will be photographs of my grandad in the front pages and then there will be the landscape images and the restaged images throughout the rest of the book.

Structure and architecture: how is it designed/ repeating motifs/ or do specific features develop a concept or construct a narrative.

There will be specific features that construct the narrative and add to the story to help develop what the book will be about.

Design and layout: image size on pages/single page, double-spread/ images/grid, fold-outs/inserts.

The portrait images I want to put on one page but some of the landscape images I want to put on a double page so they are bigger. For the first page I might do a grid of images of my grandad and then the rest of the photos in the book will be one landscape or portrait image on individual pages.

Editing and sequencing: selection of images/juxtaposition of photographs/editing process.

The images will not show juxtaposition but they will contrast against the landscape and portrait images.

Images and text: are they linked? Introduction/essay/statement by artists or others. Use of captions if there are any.

The images and text will be linked together and I will put statements from the artists in the book to help understand the meaning behind the images.

Introduction

John Szarkowski opened an exhibition in The Museum of Modern Art in New York about photographs being either a Mirror or a Window. John Szarkowski’s theory of images has 5 different categories into making a photograph. The categories are, The thing itself, what you are actually photographing, The detail in the photograph, The frame of the photograph, The time and the time exposure to the image and the vantage point does the photograph give us a new view on the world.

The calotype process that Henry Fox Talbot invented in 1839 could be viewed as window, as it it an image that represent the view of the camera. It is a process where the image is captured on paper as negative, from which a positive image can be mass produced and made cheaply. The daguerreotype, on the other hand is a unique positive image that can not be reproduced. An image is captured on a silver nitrate solution on a metal plate that is then placed in a wooden box in a red velvet casing. because of its reflective surface a daguerreotype could be viewed as a mirror, not only will the reflection of the viewer be seen in the image, but often a daguerreotype were used for portraits as it had superior quality of detail. Unlike the calotype, the daguerreotype is very fragile and delicate. it is also an expensive process compared with a calotype. The distance between them is to be measured not in terms of the relative force or originally of their work, but in terms of their conceptions of what a photograph is. Is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world.

Mirrors

The mirror allows us as the audience to peer into the world and thoughts and feelings of the artist.

This is a mirror image because it reflects the persons life and gives an insight into what their life is like. This image is staged and planned to look like these three men are at war but it has been set up in a studio. John Szarkowski said. “a romantic expression of the photographer’s sensibility as it projects itself on the things and sights of this world; or as a window – through which the exterior world is explored in all its presence and reality.” (Philippa James from Mirrors and Windows Momo press release) –

This image reflects the quote by John Szarkowski because it projects the sights of the world in the image and shows what the men’s life life looks like as soldiers in combat at war. Jed Perl said. ‘this radically photographic style hinted at visual and cultural truths that were far removed from the stereotypes which gave form to the Victorian portrait. (Reference Jed Pearl) – In this quote Perl agrees with what Szarkowski said because his images of mirrors showed the hidden truths of peoples life’s and reflected them as a person.

This is a review of one of John Szarkowski’s images that Jed Pearl did and it reflects the person’s life but it is staged in a way that each person is composed and looking at the camera.

Windows

‘A window is through which one might better know the world.’ (Szarkowski 1978). A window shows more depth into a person’s life, so that people get a better insight into what the persons life is about. Window photography creates a barrier between the photographer and the subject. It almost blocks out the photographer from the subjects personal life. The photographer can literally be reflected in the window, which may bring the photographer into the images produced. The window allows an objective view which could show how the photographer is looking into a new or different world.

This image by Henri Cartier-Bresson is a group of “children playing amongst rubble” in Seville Spain 1936. This image literally shows a window that’s been created from a destruction sight when a building was knocked down. It gives an insight into the children’s lives playing among the rubble. ‘the casual, snapshot photography of which Szarkowski is an advocate arrives in general at a similar effect of predictability —a reflection of current taste rather than an original vision —through a different route’. (Pearl 1978) This suggests that Pearl thinks that the image selected by Szarkowski for the exhibition are not original and they are just reflecting on current taste and aesthetics. Pearl has another opposing view on Szarkowski’s he said, ‘Szarkowski pays elaborate homage to the “stripped, essential camera vision” of Garry Winogrand which is suggesting he only does the bare minimum with his photography and that his work is very bland and uninteresting.’ (Pearl 1978) Szarkowski says though, ‘that a window is through which one might better know the world’ (Szarkowski 1978). Which is saying that the images that he creates do not have to be amazing and the most exciting images that anyone has seen but they have to give insight into the world and make you discover things in the images that you might not of realized before. This is what window photography does it gives a different view on the world to help you discover the world and get a better understanding of what peoples lives are like and what other places are like that you might not of known much about previously.

Conclusion

In conclusion photographs can be both windows and mirrors because in John Szarkowski’s theory he said, ‘whatever a photographers intuition or intention, they must be cut and shaped to fit the possibilities of his art’ (Szarkowski 1978), which suggests that images can fit any possibilities. Jed Pearl criticised Szarkowski’s exhibition and said, ‘yet few of the photographs are closely, richly detailed enough, or surprising enough, to be separated from the medium’s past and characterized as new’.(Pearl 1978) This suggests that Jed Pearl thought John Szarkowski’s curation of images selected for the exhibition were not exciting enough and lacked originality.

John Szarkowski

John Szarkowski’s own photography is very true to life and his work has elements of realism but some of his photography is staged. For example in the image above there is a man standing by a big wooden board pointing to it, which suggests that he has told the man how he wants him to pose for the image. However some of Szarkowski’s images are of the environment and landscapes, which is romanticised. Pearl also reviewd the opening of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in an article called Romanticisms Unruly Hero, that was published 2019. The quote “The sepulchral installation muffles and sometimes even strangles his work. Is this the museum’s idea of what it takes to set a mood worthy of Delacroix’s reputation as the leader of the Romantic movement in France?” (Romanticisms unruly hero 2018) This suggests that Jed Pearl questioned the way the museum was installing the painting and that the way the painting was put up in the museum was giving the wrong intention and not portraying the intention it was suppose to give.

DEADLINE: Essay Introduction Draft MUST be handed in Thursday 18 Dec 2024

DEADLINE: Final Essay MUST be handed in Fri 31 Jan 2025

Copy this essay plan into your own blog post, titled: Essay Draft:

Literary sources: Go to this blog post here: Theory: Literary Sources and copy relevant key texts relating to the subject of your essay and list in alphabetical order in your bibliography. In addition, find your own key texts in relation to artists selected for in-depth analysis in your essay and list these too. These texts could be interviews with the artist, or reviews/ critique’s written by others. See useful online sites/ sources here .

• Research and identify 3-5 literary sources from a variety of media such as books, journal/magazines, internet, Youtube/video that relates to your personal study and artists references .
• Begin to read essay, texts and interviews with your chosen artists as well as commentary from critics, historians and others.
• It’s important that you show evidence of reading and draw upon different pints of view – not only your own.
• Take notes when you’re reading…key words, concepts, passages, page number to be used for in-text referencing etc.

Essay Question

• Think of a hypothesis and list possible essay questions
• Below is a list of possible essay questions that may help you to formulate your own.

possible-essay-questions-to-investigate

Some examples of Personal Study essays from previous students:

Essay Plan
Make a plan that lists what you are going to write about in each paragraph – essay structure

• Essay question:

To what extend have Ansel Adams and Mark Power explored a sense of place in their work.

How have concepts of childhood, loss and memory been explored in the photo books of Mark Power and Ansel Adams?

• “It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge” (Sontag 1977:4)
• Introduction (250-500 words): What is your area study? Which artists will you be analysing and why? How will you be responding to their work and essay question?
• The areas I’m going to focus on for my personal study will be landscape and documentary photography. I will use the artists Ansel Adams and Mark Power to influence my images I am going to use for my photobook. Ansel Adams photography looks at still life images of plants and flowers and nature but most of his images are landscape images of trees or picturesque mountains. Whereas Mark Powers photography is about documenting certain moments or particular places that are important to people or a place that triggers a memory for them. I’m using these two photographers for my study because I’m going to restage images of my grandads favourite places when he came to visit jersey by using my dad in place of him in the images which is what Mark Powers photography focuses on. I’m also going to take images of the landscape from the location that I go to take the restaged images which is where Ansel Adams photography comes in, so I can lay one restaged image and one landscape photo next to each other in the photobook, to give contrast against both images.
• Pg 1 (500 words): Historical/ theoretical context within art, photography and visual culture relevant to your area of study. Make links to art movements/ isms and some of the methods employed by critics and historian.
  The Historical context of the area I’m going to base my images off of is Romanticism in photography. What is Romanticism, it was a literary and artistic movement that included intense colours, shimmering light and animated brushstrokes in the images and showcased the beauty of landscapes and nature. Ansel Adams photography best portrays romanticism because he photographs the beauty and the innocence of the landscape and how it shows serenity and peacefulness in the image, which links to the photos that I’ve taken because it suggests reflection on his life. The movement of pictorialism links to Ansel Adams because he focused on the beauty of nature and capturing the special elements of the landscape he was photographing. However Mark Power was inspired by the nationalism movement which focused on political and sometimes military elements. What is the nationalism movement, the nationalism movement is a political, sometimes also military, struggle by a national group for statehood or for some measure of independence from or autonomy within a larger political association, such as another state or an empire. This relates to Mark Power because his work focuses on specific themes such as memories and showcasing important places for people.
• Pg 2 (500 words): Analyse first artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
  – The first artist Ansel Adams aesthetics of natural beauty Yosemite NP and photographing the nature and the trees there.
• Pg 3 (500 words): Analyse second artist/photographer in relation to your essay question. Present and evaluate your own images and responses.
  – My second artist Mark Power looks at memory, what is memory, it can either be “the sum of everything retained by the mind” or “a particular recollection of an event or person” his work portrays this by images such as hospital waiting rooms which suggests that its a place that holds a lot of memories for someone or could trigger those memories about that specific place. Mark Power critiques the beauty in photography by creating very blunt images that don’t have beauty and tranquillity in them which juxtaposes against my first artist being Ansel Adams because his work is heavily based on the beauty of nature. Mark Power has created a sense of place in his work by photographing places that hold significant memories for people and photographing images of old abandoned houses where people might of lived in there childhood. My images showcase this sense of place because they hold the memories of my grandads favourite places and where he used to love when he came to the island. These images give a sense of place because they are special and important to me which makes them peaceful and calming places to be to remember him.
• Conclusion (250-500 words): Draw parallels, explore differences/ similarities between artists/photographers and that of your own work that you have produced
• Bibliography: List all relevant sources used

Photography and Family
Family albums > childhood > memories

Bull, S. (2009), ‘Phototherapy: The Family Album and Beyond‘ in Photography. London: Routledge.

Kuhn, A. ‘Remembrance: The Child I Never Was’ in Wells, L. (ed) (2003) The Photography Reader. London: Routledge

Hirsch, Marianne, Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Read Introduction: Family Frames.

There is a set of excellent texts on the photography and family, but there are all too large files to be uploaded on the blog – find text here:

M:\Radio\Departments\Photography\Students\YR 13 OBSERVE, SEEK, CHALLENGE 2024-2025\Essay tools\READING

Howarth, S. (2016) ‘Is My Family Normal?’ in Family Photography Now. London: Thames & Hudson.

McLaren, S. (2016), ‘Thanks for Sharing!’, in Family Photography Now. London: Thames & Hudson

Williams, V. (2013). ‘Who’s Looking at the Family, Now’ in Family Politics, Issue 20. Brighton: Photoworks.

Photography and Memory

Kuhn, A. (2003). ‘Remembrance: The Child I Never Was’ in Wells L. (ed) The Photography Reader. London: Routledge

Here are a few online articles and photobooks on Photography and its relationship with memory. You should read them and references them in your essay.

Colberg, J (May 28, 2012) Photography and Memory
blogger on Conscientious

Anwandter, P. M. (26 April 2006), ‘Frames of Mind: Photography, Memory and Identity’. CUREJ – College Undergraduate Research Electronic Journal (https://bpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/portfolio.newschool.edu/dist/2/14941/files/2017/06/FRAMESofMIDNSfulltext-1rxpsdp.pdf) [Accessed Date Accessed]
– In Frames of Mind, I have sought to explore the themes concerning the dynamic construction of memory. What do we choose to remember and how do we reinforce it? Who are we in relationship to who we were? Working with a collection of over five hundred images accumulated throughout my life, I have reinvestigated the images and their interrelationship with one another.

A Matter of Memory: Photographs as Objects in the Digital Age 
An exhibition at George Eastman House
– Read a review on British Journal of Photography for a different perspective on the exhibition

Barthes, R (1982) Camera Lucida, London: Jonathan Cape

Overview of Barthes book Camera Lucida in Photo Pedagogy
The first half of this article talks about Barthes theory of a studium and punctum. The latter part about a photograph of his dead mother which allows him to think about memory.
Commentary on Barthes book

Rereading: Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes
Article by Brian Dillon in the Guardian, 26 March 2011
Grieving for his mother, Roland Barthes looked for her in old photos – and wrote a curious, moving book that became one of the most influential studies of photography

DEATH IN THE PHOTOGRAPH – critical article in response to Roland Barthes seminal book ‘Camera Lucida’ reflecting on photography.

I’m going to take photos in my grandads favourite locations when he used to come and visit the island, I’m taking images of the scenery and then taking restaged images using my dad as the subject so re creating images that were taken years ago in the specific locations

Mind Map

This clearly shows where I’m going for my photoshoots and what I’m taking photos of. This is my photoshoot plan for my final piece, I’m going to use images that I’ve taken from my grandads favourite places when he used to visit the island and also re stage images using my dad in the photos. Originally I was going to take photos of still life and change them into black and white but I couldn’t think of a way to link the images together so the idea changed.

The locations I’m going to go

I’m going to go to 5 different locations for this photoshoot St Brelade’s bay, La Mare Vineyard, Gorey Pier, St Ouens bay and Corbierre lighthouse. I’m going to these specific locations because these are the places where my grandad loved the most when he visited and where his favourite places on the island where.

When and Why

I’m going to these locations when the lighting is at dusk when its not dark outside but the sunlight is starting to fade and when the sun is setting to get the light perfect for the shoots I’m trying to achieve. I’m going to these locations because they were the most important to my grandad and they hold memories that are the most powerful to recreate, I’m going to use my dad as the subject for the images to replace the space in the images where my grandad was.

Concept

My concept for the photoshoot is to go to these specific locations but then to also take the restaged images and edit them in photoshop and change the opacity of the images and my dad to show that he was fading away and that he isn’t really there in the images like it was his ghost coming back in the image.