Book 4

Seawright, P., & Bamford, I (2013) Volunteer, Dublin: Artist Photo Books

I liked this book from the moment I picked it up off the shelf. The cover is soft and smooth... it is inviting to the viewer straight off the shelf. I had never considered that the cover is an important part of the book as well as the subject matter inside. The image or text on the front cover I know has to be eye catching and attention grabbing to first of all get somebody to pick it up, but that transfer from taking it off the shelf to opening the front page is also quite important.

The layout and composition changes throughout the book, some images are double page, some on the left side and some on the right side. With all of the images though there is a border around the image, none are completely full bleed.
The pages are crisp white and so the images really pop off the page. It is clean and bright and the book opens flat which means you can really see the whole image and dive into it.

The images pulled me in and kept me focused. The subject matter is not that exciting to me, but I really enjoyed looking through and spending time with this book.

There is no text within this book, just an introduction to the project at the beginning. The introduction does a really good job of explaining the book in a short amount of text, when looking through the photographs I understood what I was looking at and I think that did help to guide me through the book.

Experimentation

My next test is on Acetate.

I am really happy with how this test came on. The colours are visible, not as bright as on normal white paper but you can see the colours. When held up to the light the image is still visible.

I think that it already has a sense of life by being slightly see-through. Sort of an air of mystery to the image.

I am definitely going to be using acetate in my final piece. It is great because although it is still see-through the image is also just as visible so the layering should work well using acetate. I will try this as one of my later experiments.

Experimenting

I wanted to try printing on some unusual materials, as well as see-through.

This is a plastic wallet. As you can see it didn't work. The ink stained slightly but then just rubbed off and smudged as it came out of the printer. I think that the surface is too slippery and nothing for the ink to soak into or stain.
I won't be using this material as part of my final piece. It was a little too unsuccessful.

Book 3

Arbus, D., Isreal, M., & Arbus, D (1997) Diane Arbus New York, NY: Aperture Foundation

This book is a compilation of images, so is not just one project. The composition is the same all the way through with image on the right page and text on the left page.
The image is placed in the same space, centered with equal border on top and bottom of the page, and equal spacing on the right and left of the image.
This works well because the book runs smoothly. It does not disconnect the viewer or break the flow part way through.

The text is always at the bottom left of the page facing the text.
I think this works well because it shows that it is joined to the photograph, yet it gives the image its own space by being on the other page. The text is in line with the bottom of the facing photograph.

The photographs are black and white throughout which adds the emotion to the photograph and also adds to the smooth flow of the book. Arbus' photographs make statements and some are a little shocking to the viewer even in black and white, so if they were colour I think that it would pull the viewer away perhaps or would disjoint and then the viewer would not be connected. It could feel a bit bumpy and juttery when looking through.

I personally like to be lead through and flow through smoothly with no sudden jolts or breaks in that journey.

Printing experiment

Today I printed an image onto tracing paper.
I wanted to try tracing paper because it has a semi-transparency but you can't see all the way through. It is similar I think to my point about the Gambian people, you can't see all the way through them, there is that feeling that they are hiding something behind their smiles.

I was hoping that the tracing paper would be a success, because it fits so well with what I am trying to say through this project. But unfortunately it didn't work too greatly. The colours show up so well, but it is just the same as printing onto white paper. You can't see anything through it and so it is not going to work for this project.

It's a shame.

This is the test on tracing paper -

Book 2

McCullin, D (1971) The destruction business, London: Open Gate Books

This book is a compilation of many different photographic projects by McCullin. 

The thing that really struck me with this book straight away was the image on the front page introducing his images taken in Africa. 

The images that are included in this section are a mixture of children, adults, injured soldiers and groups of people. Yet the image that is the first we see, with the word 'Africa' above it is that of a very manourished, skeletal, naked child. Why ?

Is it because at the time the book was published, 1971, these were the images that people were beginning to get accustomed to seeing, or was it that we were not yet accustomed so it was a shock?

This is something that I want to be very careful with in my own book. Word and image association is such a massive thing to the viewer, subliminal messages can be found between text and image, so seeing this has made me aware that I need to consider these things and be aware of it in my own book.

The image and text placement throughout this photo book is interesting. It is different on each page you turn to, which I think keeps interest in the book. I don't think that the text is ever made to look more important than the image, which I like. The image is always the bigger and so it is where you eye is drawn, and then you look to the text to give you a snippet of information about the photograph.

 I feel that the text is what McCullin would say if he were taking you through the book himself. It is like thoughts that would pop into his mind on seeing the image and feel it appropriate to share.
It is similar to how you would take a friend or loved one through a photo album in the comfort of your home.

I also like that each photo is black and white. I think that it is also to do with the distress of the book, due to age I expect, but it has a real emotional feel to it. The images are slightly grainy which means you have to really look at them and it invites you to study them further. It makes it feel real.


The bio is in the front of the book, and the text is about McCullin. I think this is because it is a mixture of projects in the book, sort of an overview of his works at that time. Yet, each sub category does not have any textual information to go with it. The viewer is left to make their own stories/meaning/view of each image.

Book 1

Kessels, E (2012) In almost every picture, Amsterdam: KesselsKramer

 The book is roughly A5 in size, so quite small but a nice size to be able to hold and look through.
In this book all of the images are on the Right page and full bleed. The text is on the left page, and centered half way down the page and on the left. This is recurring all the way through, except for 15 images which are double page full bleed.

I like that the images are all on the right page. The composition of each photograph is almost exactly the same each time which means that you can hold the book and flick through it viewing almost all of the images with ease. If the viewer is in a bit of a hurry it is easy to just flick through and not have to spend time moving the book, yet if you do want to spend time with the images the touching page is mostly blank so this is not distracting to the photographs.
The text however is really far away from the photograph so it can feel a little disjointed, however it is the same on each page so the flow is not broken.

 The text that is matched with each image is kept simple. It states the month, year, exact place and geographical place that the image is taken. The project runs from 1980 until 2012 so I think it is nice to be told the date of each image because as a viewer it is then easy to compare photographs but also it feels like we are being taken on a journey with the couple.

The text which explains the book and the imagery is on the very back page. This is quite interesting as it means that the viewer has to first look through the book and make up their own mind about what is going on and then when getting to the end the photographer tells them what they were trying to portray through the book. This means that the photographer has not given the viewer an idea in their mind before viewing the books, meaning that it is fresh and probably more interesting to the viewer.

It feels very similar to looking back through family photo albums, time has passed between each photograph and it is interesting to notice the changes not just to the place and space but also to the subject that is present in each image.



I think that this layout would work with my images. I could place one child on each double page, and on the text page I would include name, age and school year. However, if it were the same on each page, I wonder if that would take away from the point of me wanting to give them the sense of being a person, being an individual rather than considered always as a generalized group. Perhaps the images would need to be in a more random aesthetic to stop them being too repetitive.