Mark Power Mood Board

Photoshoot Plan

I’m going to take images of flowers up close and then trees from far away. In photoshop I’m going to change the images to black and white and increase the whites in the images to make them appear very clean, pure and positive compared to the dark blacks in the images which makes them come across as very dull and negative.

Overview on Mark Powers Photography

Mark Power is a documentary photographer and he captures unexpected things on camera and unusual places that might 

What kind of photography does Mark Power do?

He made Urban Landscapes and was a documentary photographer. His technical methods changed and he began to use colour film and a large format camera.

What inspired Mark Power?

As a child Mark Power discovered his fathers home made enlarger in the family attic, consisting of an upturned flowerpot, a domestic lightbulb and a simple camera lens. It was at this moment where Mark Forbes discovered his love for photography. However after he went to art college to study life drawing and painting. He was also influenced by documentary photographers such as Walker Evans.

Images like this influenced Mark Power because Walker Evans takes images in unexpected moments but they are almost set up to look a certain way this shows the similarities between Mark Power and Walker Evans style of photography.

Mark Power Image Analysis

The lighting in this image is very bright and vibrant and there is a lot of white in this image which suggests that this is a happy place or memory for someone. The tone of this photo is very light but there is a contrast between the light where there is the shadow at the bottom of the image. The meaning of this image is to show a Landscape image that had significance to Mark Power.

What kind of photos did Mark Power take for his projects?

Mark Power took documentary style images and also took landscape photography. In some of his images he does have a person in the image, which may show significance like that it was an important place for the person in the image.

What was Mark Power’s photography for?

Mark Power took documentary style images and also took landscape photography. In some of his images he does have a person in the image, which may show significance like that it was an important place for the person in the image.

What were the other options on Mark Powers photography?

The Magnum speaks on The Shipping Forecast by Mark Power and says that “nothing now holds the place that the Shipping Forecast did throughout the 20th century”, suggesting that it was a timeless piece of work in the 20th century and that no other artist has lived up to Mark Powers project on the the different radio stations across Europe. “It’s a beautiful, poetic language,” Power says. Now 63, the Magnum photographer first remembers listening to the forecast growing up on a housing estate in Leicester. The soundscapes had a lasting impact on Power which influenced him to create this project and take images that he was fascinated by. The British Journal of Photography says “The book doesn’t take us any closer to an understanding of the forecast, or any sea area. But it is nostalgic and unashamedly romantic” this suggests that the meaning behind the images is deeper than what the image portrays.

Evaluation

Overall I’m happy with my photobook and the layout of it and I have specifically designed the book so that it tells a narrative of memories that were important to my Grandad. The front cover of the book is also important because it shows how the book is about happy memories and nice places but it is also quite sombre as he’s no longer here which contrasts with the narrative really well.

Hyperlink to Blurb Photobook

https://www.blurb.co.uk/bookstore/invited/10535818/3cda4659068a24e77696fc603135b2535454bcbe

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.

Final Mock ups

This is one of my final mock ups done in photoshop where I have left white borders between the images to show exactly how I have created the Mock up.

This is the second mock up on photoshop I have made where I mounted the images on to foamboard and then used double sided tape to stick the foamboard to the mountboard.

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.