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 – Plants, wilting, light
• A sentence – My photobook contains pictures of plants, such as trees, flowers and moss, some of which are wilted or dead, and light.
• A paragraph – My photobook contains images of flowers, trees, moss and light, these images have a poetic quality to them. The original idea was to explore the idea of floriography, a communication system the goes back to the Victorian era, in which every flower has a meaning. This idea has expanded into a exploration of nature in jersey . It takes you from a vase on a window sill on a rainy day to light shining through the trees and, catching itself on dew and stings of cobwebs strung between branches.

Design: Consider the following

• How you want your book to look and feel
• Paper and ink
• Format, size and orientation
• Binding and cover

• Title 

• Structure and architecture
• Design and layout

after some time I decided I didn’t like this and changed it around.

• Editing and sequencing
• Images and text

Images

Texts

“I hear leaves drinking rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
’Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.
And when the Sun comes out,
After this Rain shall stop,
A wondrous Light will fill
Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;
’Twill be a lovely sight.”
By W. H. Davies

“A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.
A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.
Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.
(No light, no gold, no name, no colour
And no thought:
O, wide awake!)
A golden heaven
Sings by itself
A song to nobody.”
By Thomas Merton

“A bursting into greenness;
A waking as from sleep;
A twitter and a warble
That make the pulses leap:
A watching, as in childhood,
For the flowers that, one by one,
Open their golden petals
To woo the fitful sun.
A gust, a flash, a gurgle,
A wish to shout and sing,
As, filled with hope and gladness,
We hail the vernal Spring.”
By Henry Gardiner Adams

“I came to the mountains for beauty
And I find here the toiling folk,
On sparse little farms in the valleys,
Wearing their days like a yoke.
White clouds fill the valleys at morning,
They are round as great billows at sea,
And roll themselves up to the hill-tops
Still round as great billows can be.
The mists fill the valleys at evening,
They are blue as the smoke in the fall,
And spread all the hills with a tenuous scarf
That touches the hills not at all.
These lone folk have looked on them daily,
Yet I see in their faces no light.
Oh, how can I show them the mountains
That are round them by day and by night?”
By Jessie B. Rittenhouse

2. Produce a mood-board of design ideas for inspiration. Look at BLURB online book making website, photo books from photographers or see previous books produced by Hautlieu students on the table in class.

CONTACT SHEETS

I started out with 250 photos. after selecting the best of the shoot. I was left with 51, which was further altered to 31 with edited copies of a few images.

EDITING

I brightened this image up a little to make the texture stand out more.

There is a superstation that snowdrops blooming in a house can bring around death. to match this I’ve made the image black and white to add the solemn aspect to it.

For this image I have isolated the robin so the he is the only section that is in colour. This little pop of colour against the black and white background can immediately catches the eye.

For this image I isolated to dew drops on the blade of grass. this makes it pop a little more, creating a sharper image.

FINAL PHOTOS

This image immediately caught my eye when I was looking though them. The orange light flare contrasts nicely with the green warehouse in the background. the background being out of focus adds a nice depth of field to the image, and the rays of light in the bottom corner add a sort of ethereal quality to the image.

This shoot was completed over a lesson in the studio. I used the product table to get a clear image, I also liked the slight reflecting produced by the shine on the table in some of the images. I started out with 157 photos and widdled it down to 33.

Of those 33 I have chosen 12, out of those I have made two into black and white copies.

EDITS

For this photo I brought the exposer up to brighten it a little. Due to the fact that there is lots of texture and shape in the image, I have made a black on with copy of it.

for the two below, I brightened them up a little and made them a little more vibrant so that the colours popped out more.

FINAL PHOTOS

This is one of my favourites, it is of the skeleton of a leaf. The main vain that runs to the stem stands out and is in focus, where as where the leaf starts to curve towards the camera is out of focus, this adds an interesting depth of field to the image. The veins make a sort of maze for the viewer to follow with there eyes, adding a sort of mystique to and part of nature which most people would usually over look. this leaf has been give a sort of immortality through this photo, a second life, to live on in in a photo.

Photoshoot 1 – Roses by Jenna Raine

Inspiration:

Birds are singin’
La-da-da, da-da-dee
Yesterday is dead to me
I feel the ground beneath my feet

When I say, ooh
Don’t go killin’ all my roses
‘Cause I’ve only started growin’
Ooh
Don’t go rain on my parade
I’m just tryna have a good, good day

Plan: I’m going to by some roses and get some photos in my dining room as it has some really nice natural light as there is a massive window. This will now have to be shot in the morning or early afternoon due to the early sunset. I would also like to experiment with different lighting techniques in the studio and create some more staged experimental pieces.

Photoshoot 2 – song for nobody by Thomas Merton

Inspiration:

A yellow flower
(Light and spirit)
Sings by itself
For nobody.

A golden spirit
(Light and emptiness)
Sings without a word
By itself.

Let no one touch this gentle sun
In whose dark eye
Someone is awake.

(No light, no gold, no name, no colour
And no thought:
O, wide awake!)

A golden heaven
Sings by itself
A song to nobody.

Plan: I’m going to by some daisies or other from of yellow flower and get some photos in my dining room as it has some really nice natural light as there is a massive window. This will now have to be shot in the early afternoon due to the early sunset. I would like to create some photos similar to Josef Seduks still life’s. I also would like to create some images that reflect the overall tone of the poem

Photoshoot 3 – withering lilies by Robert Leighton

Inspiration:

And must ye pass away,
Yellow waving lilies?
Greener grow the woodland alleys,
Greener, greener every day;
Summer’s coming up the valleys–
Yet ye will not stay!

I come at morn and even,
This green bank my cushion;
And I worship, in a fashion,
From the lilies up to Heaven:
God, accept my earnest passion,
Be it rudely given!

I bless the time of flowers,
And kneel with each new comer.
My heart’s a temple all the Summer,
Visited through all its hours,
Choir’d by every little hummer
Of the leafy bowers.

plan: I’m going to get some lilies and wait for them to wilt a bit before I take photos. I’m going to get images of the wilting process. I’m going to recreate images similar to Josef Sudek’s but at different times through out the day. I am also going to bring them into the studio in school and get some images that are more staged and play around with lighting techniques.

Photoshoot 4 –

Photoshoot 5 – To a vase of flowers by C. B. Langston

Inspiration:

Are they sighs of sorrow, my sweet flowers!
That with your fragrant breath you waft me up?
You never more will see day’s sunny hours,
But languish life away in that fair cup.

With loving, eager hand I snapt your stems,
With all their blossoms wet with dew of morn,
Nor deemed the trembling drops like flashing gems,
Were tears of silent grief that you were torn.

Sweet flowers!–ah, many maids there are like you,
Snatched from their native shades, that for a while
Drink deep of pleasure’s gilded cup, and rue
The false allurement of her fatal smile!

Then ’tis not due to me such incense sweet,
‘Twas I who caused your drooping forms to mourn,
Who thought your bright eyes glistened to entreat,
That I would bear your boughs my room t’ adorn.

Oh! you are like fair martyrs in your death,
Bowing your lovely heads to those who slay;
Returning good for ill, with latest breath,
And, with your souls serene, passing away.

vaseeee

INCOMPLETE

Josef Sudek was best know for his photos of the streets of Prague and dubbed the poet of Prague for this very reason, However, He started out his life as a bookbinder and getting his certificate at the age of seventeen. Sudek began to experiment with a box camera and became fond of self portraits. Taking his camera with him during the acts of world war two he produced three albums, however he lost his right arm while serving. After the war Sudek turned to photography.

Heavily influenced by Impressionism, Pictorialism, and Czech Poeticism, there is a romantic flow to Sudek’s images where the glass and roses meld into one to transform what once may have been mundane, to have a grace in which would have gone unseen before. In every image the light has been carefully used to add a glow to the subjects.

“Everything around us, dead or alive, in the eyes of a crazy photographer mysteriously takes on many variations, so that a seemingly dead object comes to life through light or by its surroundings….to capture some of this – I suppose that’s lyricism.”

Josef Sudek

Sudek used objects such as flowers, egg shell and glasses of water to carry meaning through his photographs. He would often work with material in his studio, sometimes on commission but in later years as photographic exercise and investigation. His still lives were undoubtedly inspired by his large collection of paintings, books and by his relationships with painters in Prague.

Other work by Keith Dotson

floriography based on emotions

windows

Windows into the mortality of being.

Paul Caponigro

Keith Dotson

mirrors

A mirror in to the fragile beauty of life.

Ralph Gibson

Robert Mapplethorpe

windows shoot.

I’m going to go out and get some pictures of trees mainly focusing on dead ones and maybe get some of abstracts of leaves on the floor depending on how damp they are cause if they are mushy it wont look brilliant. I’m going to look for mushrooms whilst I am out as they don’t have a very long lifespan. I will also look for weeds that have pretty flowers though it might be the wrong time of year or this.

mirror shoots

I’m gonna buy some flowers and use some that we already have in a vase at home and stage them to look romantic I may even get my father to hold some. And I may even experiment with shutter speed.

I am going to ask a friend if she would pose for me as we like late-night walks and especially in cemeteries

What are the differences between photographs that are windows and mirrors?

As stated by John Szarkowski, in 1974, in an essay he wrote that accompanied the exhibition, “is it a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world?.”

Key words associated with:

Mirrors: tableaux, subjective, romanticism, fiction, personal, warped, reflective, manipulated.

Windows: documentary, depictive, objective, realism, public, candid, straight, external.

Identifying windows and mirrors.

The below image is a window, it allows the viewer of the image to see the world around the boy and the influences that affected him. This photo was taken by Diane Arbus and is titled The boy with the toy hand grenade. It was taken in central park in 1962. The boy in the photo is Colin wood, according to a 2005 article by the Washington Post, written by David seal, Colin has no recollection of having his picture being taken. Colin told Segal that he wouldn’t of posed like this unless he where asked and he recons he was imitating what he saw in war movies. It is likely that Colin was out with his nanny when Arbus came a cross him and grabbed a few shots, due to this it is very much like a documentary image and can be seen as an image reminiscent of the decisive moment.

Final layout

Evaluation

All together I believe this was successful. The photos are ordered I away that the themes of the photos run smoothly running from living beings to geometrical photos, to more abstract images. I do wish I could of spent more time down at the harbour or maybe had a more concise plan for when I was at the harbour.