"I am not There": Photo Book Design

Introduction

From the outset of the project I intended to produce a photo book as part of my submission for assessment. As the project moved forwards it gradually became clear that the book would be the primary submission document. This post describes my thought processes regarding the design of the book.

Book Evolution

Some aspects of the book design have remained in place from the outset. I wanted to document my relationship with my mother in her final years in both words and images, with each passage of text relating to a single image. I could see no simple alternative to placing each passage of text on the left hand page, with the corresponding image on the right hand page, separated by the centrefold. Most photo books contain little or no text, but for me the text was an essential part of the project. Other examples of photo books where the text and images occupy roughly equal space were hard to come by, but I did find a template in “Gary’s Friends”, by Adrian Clarke (Adrian Clarke), and this book has proved to be very useful in developing the design.

In the early stages of the project I produced a mixture of A4-shaped ‘landscape’ and ‘portrait’ images. Half way through the project I thought about whether to (a) retain the shapes of the images and place them horizontally (for landscape images) or vertically on square pages, with white surrounds, (b) convert all the images to ‘landscape’ format and incorporate them either ‘full bleed’ or with a white surround onto the appropriate A4 landscape-shaped pages or (c) convert all the images to a square format for square pages, with or without ‘full bleed’. Adrian Clarke used choice (a). However, both my tutor and I preferred to use a ‘full bleed’, so option (a) was eliminated. It would have been almost impossible for me to convert some of the (minority of) portrait format images into landscape format, so in the end I chose option (c), with full bleed, and converted all the images that had already been given the ‘thumbs up’ by my tutor into square format. All future images were also produced in square format.

For stylistic reasons I chose to produce 50% desaturated images having a ‘matt’ finish (very few glossy images appear in published photo books and a matt finish seemed entirely appropriate for partially desaturated images). I chose the images to be caption-less, since they already related to the text on the opposite page and the caption would have had to have been placed either over the image or below the text on the opposite page. From the start my square images were all produced at 300dpi and 2500 pixels length, for printing. I intended to use my favourite ‘Calibri’ font for the text, but eventually had to settle for ‘Times New Roman’, because the software that I used to create the book would not accept ‘Calibri’. A typical double page from the finished photo book, illustrating the design decisions that had been made by this stage, is shown below (Image 1).

Image 1: A Typical Page from my finished (Hard Cover) Photo Book

Book Production

Serious design considerations came to the fore after I had produced my first draft photo book, a softback version using the ‘print on demand’ publisher Blurb. The front and back covers from this book are illustrated below (Image 2). Feedback from my tutor included the advice that I should get my hands on every photo book that I could, not just to consider design issues but also to examine how the look and feel of the book could influence both the creator and the observer. I tried to carry out his advice as best I could. “The Photobook: a History Volume III” (Badger and Parr) was also consulted extensively. Some of the more important design issues that were discussed with my tutor, together with how they were resolved, are discussed below.

Image 2: Back and Front Covers of the first (Soft Cover) Draft of my Photo Book

My tutor was happy with the use of a soft cover for the book, but not with the gloss cover and bold text. For future drafts of the book and for the final version I used a matt cover and made modifications to the nature of the cover text (see Image 3). However, having subsequently produced a book with a hardback cover (Image 3) I preferred the feel and texture of the hard back, so this was retained for further drafts and the final version of the book.

I was a little concerned that the book, with pages approximately 17cm square, was a little smaller than I would have liked. However, my tutor was happy with the size so it was left unaltered. I chose not to number the pages of the book – this didn’t seem necessary and is not common practice for published photo books.

Image 3: Front Cover of the first Draft of the Hard Cover Photo Book, showing Text Design Changes

There was a serious problem with the ‘graph’. This ‘one off’ image was designed to be (2:1) ‘letterbox’ size, to fit across two pages. However, the centre of the graph predictably disappeared into the centrefold of the book (hard and soft cover). I considered a number of options. My tutor was keen for me to investigate self-publishing the book and attaching the graph either as a ‘fold-out’ or glued/printed/pasted across the centre pages of a book whose pages had been stapled together, so that there would be no centrefold. I looked at self-publishing, both by reading books and by visiting a photo book fair in London, where the ‘Self Publish Be Happy’ representative confirmed that a stapled book with blank central pages would be my best option. The graph could be printed on or attached across the central pages. Following this advice I carefully considered what to do. I thought about how many copies of this very personal document I was likely to produce – probably no more than six to eight for the assessors, my tutor, close family and me. In the end I decided to produce a ‘print on demand’ book with two blank pages. I then separately produced the graph with exactly the same dimensions as the book. I will permanently attach the graph as a ‘foldout’ onto the right hand of the two blank pages that have been left in each copy of the book. This will add a ‘personal touch’ to the book, whilst ensuring that I do not have to do too much work in order to produce the few copies needed.

The design of the photo book is now complete and I have produced a single copy that incorporates the graph, as well as all the other changes mentioned above. An image of the fold-out graph, attached to the book, is below (Image 4). I am happy with the overall result: all that remains for me to do at this point is to produce further copies of the book and attach a copy of the graph to each copy of the book. One copy of the book will then, together with other project material, be sent for assessment.

Image 4: Fold-out Graph attached to a Hard Cover Version of the Photo Book

Major Project Influences (19): Peter Beard and David Wojnarowicz. Photo-collages and Photo-montages of Images and Text

During this course I have researched the work of leading figures in the history of photo-montage, including John Heartfield and Peter Kennard, whose work predominantly consists of the blending of two or more images. However, I have become increasingly interested in art that consists of the blending of one or more images with (a) passage(s) of text. The written word has the power to create atmosphere and emotion in the mind of the reader, just as an image can. A combination of both has, at least, the potential to amplify these feelings, provided an appropriate juxtaposition can be found. For this reason I have looked at blending text into some of my images during the later stages of the project. Two influences in this area have been the Americans Peter Beard and David Wojnarowicz.

Peter Beard (1938 - )

The writer, artist, photographer and diarist Peter Beard is a true polymath. He has spent much of his life living in Kenya, where he has been a protector of endangered wildlife. He has also been a renowned fashion photographer and was a close friend of, amongst others, Andy Warhol, Karen Blixen and Francis Bacon. However, he is perhaps best known for his amazing diaries (or, perhaps more accurately, journals), which fuse photographs, writing, newspaper cuttings, artwork, food labels and much more to produce intricate, multi-layered, rich visual experiences. I was particularly attracted to the pages in which he has blended images of some of the fashion models that he has worked with together with other material. One example is shown below (Image 1). The rich imagery created by this type of work can certainly produce an emotional response, although the nature of that response is hard to gauge - Beard’s diaries are essentially documenting his life rather than trying to overtly make a political point (although he has been and doubtless still is concerned with political and, in particular, environmental issues).

Image 1 (Peter Beard)

David Wojnarowicz (1954 – 1992)

David Wojnarowicz was a painter, writer, photographer, filmmaker and performance artist, active in the 1980s and early 1990s. Following a troubled childhood he became a part of the New York avant-garde arts community. He was gay and saw many friends, as well as his lover, become victims of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s. As a consequence of his experiences he became an AIDS activist and his work took on a strongly political content, concentrating on the social and legal injustices inherent in the response to the AIDS epidemic in the USA. Image 2 is one potent example of his work during this period, combining text and images to produce a powerful essay on the injustices felt by sexually active gay people at that time. Wojnarowicz was diagnosed with HIV in 1987 and died of an AIDS–related illness in 1992.

Image 2 (David Wojnarowicz)

Comments and Learning Points

The art of Wojnarowicz and Beard has little in common, other than for the fact that both Americans have produced work that merges images and text. Beard’s work is arguably more creative and certainly more complex, as well as having a more pleasing aesthetic. Wojnarowicz’s work is direct, uncompromising and juxtaposes text and imagery to make a strong political point. As such it has the capacity to stir the emotions of the viewer in a different way to that of Beard. Both types of image are equally valid, although perhaps Wojnarowicz’s work is a clearer example of conceptual art. I have developed and tried to fuse some of the ideas displayed in both the images shown here with my own ideas, in order to produce two new images for my photo book – the last two to be inserted. Many other artists combine images (painted, drawn and/or photographed) with text and I suspect that I will investigate this type of work again in the future: it interests me greatly from an artistic perspective. The work of the two artists discussed in this post is therefore a late but very important influence on my output.

Exhibition Review. "The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection" (Tate Modern, London)

(Visited on 3 December 2016 and 1 April 2017)

Despite its reputation as a ‘trailblazer’ for the arts, the Tate Modern only started collecting photographic art seriously in 2009 and its collection is naturally rather limited in scope. Sir Elton John has, on the other hand, been a serious collector of photographic prints since the early 1990s and has built up an unrivalled collection of modernist photographic art prints dating from the 1920s to the 1950s. Not only does he have an eye for the very best of modernist photo prints but he has the financial clout to obtain these works of art when they appear on the market. This is a very fine collection indeed and I really enjoyed wandering round the galleries, marvelling at what was, of its time, the very highest quality cutting edge photographic art.

The list of featured photographers reads like a “Who’s Who” of modernist photography - André Kertész, Man Ray, Robert Frank, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, László Moholy-Nagy, Alexander Rodchenko and Dorothea Lange to name but a few. Lange’s best known work, “Migrant Mother” (Image 1), looks awesome when viewed close up, whilst Rodchenko’s classic “Shukhov Tower” (Image 2) is one of several prints that feature photographs looking up from below or down from above.

Image 1. Dorothea Lange: "Migrant Mother" (1936)

Image 2. Alexander Rodchenko: "Shukhov Tower" (1927)

Irving Penn’s 1948 portraits of celebrities (Dali, Duke Ellington, Noel Coward) posed between two angled walls are early examples of non-conformist portrait photography. Man Ray’s famous portraits of his fellow Surrealists are also here – indeed, a good proportion of the collection features portraits of one type or another.

Did the exhibition hold any specific value for my current project work? Herbert Bayer’s “Humanly Impossible (Self-Portrait)” (Image 3) provided me with some inspiration regarding the use of mirrors in composition and reminded me that even in 1932, when this work was produced, photographers were experimenting in the darkroom with image manipulation.

Image 3. Herbert Bayer: "Humanly Impossible (Self-portrait)" (1932)

Frederick Sommer’s double exposure of fellow Surrealist Max Ernst (1946) represents an early example of the deliberate double exposure, a motif that I use often in my current project work whilst, in addition to Irving Penn’s work (see above), there are many examples of creatively produced ‘non-conformist’ portraits, of which Stieglitz’s portrait of Georgia O’Keefe is a classic example. Man Ray’s portrait of Max Ernst, in which Ernst appears to be placed behind a cracked glass window, represents another motif that I have used in my recent studies, although I had already produced the image before I visited this exhibition – great minds think alike!

Overall, however, this is an exhibition to ignite the imagination and creativity of any photographer with a serious interest in modernist art. To see so many excellent quality prints produced by the great photographers of the modernist era is inspirational. One final point: Sir Elton says that he has never bought a work for profit. Nevertheless, with the massive increase in interest in photographic art in recent years his collection must represent an excellent investment. If only The Tate had had the foresight to start a photographic collection 30 years ago…..

Major Project Influences (17): Surrealist Photography

For many years I have enjoyed the art of the Surrealists – in particular the work of Salvador Dali. In the 1930s, when the movement was at its peak, painting, sculpture and prose were the dominant art forms that the Surrealists used to express their individual interpretations of dreams and psychic states. Photography was generally viewed at this time as an objective medium for realism and therefore hardly suitable for artists wishing to express their thoughts in an abstract or ‘dreamlike’ form. However, the Surrealists’ love of experimentation and invention not only overcame this potential hurdle but led to the discovery and development of new photographic techniques. By the time the Surrealist movement faded as war broke out in Europe some of its finest and most memorable works had been produced in photographic form.

Whilst the contribution of Man Ray to photographic art (photograms, solarisation etc.) is generally considered to have been of the greatest importance, my own work for this project has been influenced more by the montages and double exposures that were (painstakingly, in the darkroom) produced by Surrealist photographers, many of whom remained largely unknown and/or unheralded. A number of these works were included in ‘The Radical Eye’ exhibition at Tate Modern in 2016-17 (see elsewhere for a  Review). I will mention here just a small number of examples of Surrealist work to give a flavour of how they were not just ahead of the times but how they also influenced my current project work.

Herbert Bayer (1900-1985) came from the Bauhaus school of photographers but produced several imaginative, hallucinatory photomontages that were absolutely typical of the output of the Surrealists. “Lonely Metropolitan” (Image 1) is perhaps his best known work – the use of hands and the overlay motif can be found in my current project work. Bayer loved to experiment in the darkroom in order to produce apparently impossible photographic effects: a typical example of this can be seen in my review of “The Radical Eye” exhibition.

Image 1. Herbert Bayer: "Lonely Metropolitan" (1932)

Erotic subjects were commonplace in the work of the Surrealists and Heinz Hajek-Halke’s montage, “Erotica – Close Up” (Image 2), is a typical example. Once again, the overlaying of one photograph over selected parts of another photograph has been liberally used in my current project work.

Image 2. Heinz Hajek-Halke: "Erotica - Close Up" (1930)

Double exposures were also liberally used by the Surrealists. An interesting example is the photograph of Max Ernst, one of the driving forces in the Surrealist movement, by the Surrealist photographer Frederick Sommer (Image 3). Ernst was himself a prolific polymath, who produced many photo-collages in his lifetime. The use of digital double and multiple exposures has formed a major part of my repertoire in the current project.

Image 3. Frederick Sommer: "Max Ernst" (1946)

Of course photography does not always have to resort to trickery and darkroom techniques in order to influence my work. Lee Miller (1907-78) was best known as Man Ray’s assistant and muse, but was an extremely accomplished photographer in her own right (see my post reviewing the major retrospective exhibition of her work at the Imperial War Museum).  Her photograph “Portrait of Space” (Image 4), with the camera apparently looking out onto a barren land through torn fabric, provided me with ideas for a couple of my own images. It is sad and ironic that, like my mother, Miller struggled with clinical depression in her later years.

Image 4. Lee Miller: "Portrait of Space" (1937)

Whilst I have cited specific examples of Surrealists’ work that has influenced me in this post their use of experimentation, abstract ideas and novel concepts has also provided me with inspiration for my current project, as well as for past projects. It is reasonable to assume that my future work will also be influenced by Surrealism.

Major Project Influences (16): Individual Images

In my logbook and blog I have discussed the influences that many artists and photographers have had on my course work and output. In some cases the artist’s influence has changed the direction of my project work. In other cases it has changed my way of thinking about my work, helped me to crystallise my ideas, assisted me in translating memories into images or hinted at how I can evoke emotion in the viewer, through the use of my text and images. These influences have been critical to the development of the project to the stage where the end point (a photo book) is in sight.

However, along the rocky road to the completion of the major project I have been influenced by single images produced by photographers whose output has otherwise often had no effect on my work. A small number of examples are highlighted here.

Jack Davison

Jack Davison is a young English portrait and fashion photographer, some of whose work appeared in an article for the December 2015 issue of the British Journal of Photography. One image (Image 1), part of a commission for ‘Garage’ magazine, caught my eye. The use of torn paper, revealing a second subject through the split in the man’s head, spoke to me of division, torn emotions, stress and the juxtaposition of two different experiences - all relevant to memories of my relationship with my mother. How and why Davison produced this image is unclear – it may have been a single photograph of an old advertisement hoarding or fly poster in which the torn top poster reveals a second poster underneath. This is not as important as the effect that the image had on me and the ideas that it gave me, some of which have been incorporated into more than one image from my (as yet) unfinished photo book, with the possibility of more to follow.

Image 1 (Jack Davison)

David Jimenez

I know of David Jimenez’s photo book ‘Infinito’ only through a few images, including one of the cover (Image 2), and a short description of the ‘mysterious’ contents that are incorporated on page 271 of Parr and Badger’s ‘The Photobook: A History Volume 3’ (Phaidon). However, the cover page did provide one solution to a problem that I had had in photographically representing the time towards the end of my mother’s life when I was spending most of my time with her dealing with her financial affairs, cooking and doing pretty much everything except giving her the emotional help that she so badly needed. The resultant image (Image 2a), which visually represents part of the accompanying text, may not be incorporated into the final photo book (I’m looking at alternative representations), but the connection with the Jimenez image is clear to see.

Image 2 (David Jimenez)

Image 2a (Martin Johnson)

Anne-Marie Glasheen

Although I didn’t realise it at the time the ‘Memories’ themed issue of the Journal of London Independent Photography (LIP; winter 2008, no.11) would prove to be very influential for my current project. The journal included an article in which writer, poet and photographer Anne-Marie Glasheen used double exposures of women from several generations of her family, against a wooded background, to represent her memories of them (e.g. Images 3a and 3b). The effect is quite ghost-like and mysterious and has been influential in my portrayal of my own family members in a number of images, although for my project I have tried to juxtapose and blend two or more photographs where there is a strong connection between each of the images. The type of double exposure used by Glasheen has cropped up on a few other occasions – wherever it does, study of the image(s) evokes memories and emotions inside me. Note that the wooded background for images 3a and 3b is the same.

Image 3a (Anne-Marie Glasheen)

Image 3b (Anne-Marie Glasheen)

John Levett

I have written elsewhere about the influence on my work of the photographer John Levett. In the same ‘memories’ themed issue of LIP (see above) he writes movingly about his relationship with his parents and, in particular, his mother. Not only was his writing (which takes the form of an imaginary ‘question and answer’ session with himself, a device that he uses rather well in his work) both moving and very relevant to my own project but his photographs, which initially appear to be rather crude and poorly exposed and presented, are actually strongly evocative of the past and his relationship with his mother. The strongest of the images, which is used for the cover of this issue (Image 4), uses the photographer’s hands to provide a human link between the artist and the photograph of his mother. A number of my own images use a similar device in different ways. This image has provided the largest influence of any single photograph for my current project work.

Image 4 (John Levett)

Major Project Influences (15): 'Instagram'

There’s no doubt that, when it comes to new technology, I’m a bit of a Luddite. This applies particularly to the use of mobile phones (I just use my smartphone for making phone calls and sending text messages, as well as very occasionally for taking photographs on the rare occasions when I don’t have a camera handy) and social media (I don’t use ‘Facebook’ or ‘Twitter’ and see no reason for doing so in the future). However, my images do occasionally find their way onto others’ ‘Flickr’ accounts (see, for example, some Antarctica images at https://www.flickr.com/photos/naturetrek/sets/72157667613083114 if you don’t believe me) and I am starting to take an interest in some of the most interesting of the millions of images that are downloaded every day onto others’ ‘Instagram’ accounts.

‘Instagram’ is essentially designed for (mainly) young mobile phone users with apps that allow them to instantly process, download and share their phone images with others via the internet. Often the mobile phone is their only camera. Many people use ‘Instagram’ simply to share pictures of family and friends, show where they are on holiday at any given time, etc. However, as one would expect from young, bright, socially aware people who perhaps have no interest in pursuing photography as a career but are full of ideas, some really creative images are appearing on peoples’ ‘Instagram’ accounts. I wouldn’t have any knowledge of this if it were not for the fact that a rash of books, featuring some of (I assume) the most creative ‘Instagram’ work around, were not appearing in the ‘photography’ sections of major booksellers.

Producing books of some of the best ‘Instagram’ images and selling them at (Waterstones) prices of £8 to £17 must be ‘money for old rope’ as far as publishers are concerned, but for mugs like me who look at and occasionally buy these books, the creativity behind some of the images is a regular source of ideas and inspiration. My work is heavily influenced by the creativity provided by others and some of the ‘Instagram’ images that I have found have had a direct or indirect influence on my current project work. Perhaps the most influential book has been ‘Insta Grammar Nordic’ (Lannoo), which features images by a variety of Nordic mobile phone users. Many of the results are atmospheric and some can have an emotional effect – the images are very evocative of the region. Several of the most interesting images have been downloaded by an ‘Instagrammer’ called ‘@KRISTINENOR’: some of her images can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/kristinenor/. Whilst a wide range of subject matter is featured it is the abstract or semi-abstract images (for example Image 1 and Image 2) that impress me. I haven’t seen the use of huge areas of dark (negative?) space, as in Image 2, before – it may or may not be original, but it seems to me to be a potent weapon in the armoury of a photographer who wishes to create a certain mood and atmosphere in their work. Large areas of light space, as in Image 1, are more commonly seen in images, but the use of a hand (trying to get in?) is again very effective in creating atmosphere, according to how the viewer interprets the image.

Image 1 (Kristinenor)

Image 2 (Kristinenor)

The idea of the photographer holding up a photograph or a photo frame, in order either to highlight a part of the subject matter beyond it or to juxtapose the frame with the remainder of the image, is not new. However, Kyle Steed (@kylesteed; www.kylesteed.com) uses the idea in imaginative ways (Image 3). His work can be found in ‘The Instagram Book’ (Ammo). John Levett (see the separate post in this blog) also uses ‘held’ photographs in his work and these influences have worn off on me, as three of the images in my photo book refer to this type of work.

Image 3 (Kyle Steed)

Other influences have been absorbed but not yet used – they may come in useful for future projects, but there is probably still time for me to develop any particularly relevant ones within the current project. One atmospheric example, shown in Image 4, was produced by Pei Ketron (@pketron; www.penelopesloom.com) and can be found in ‘This Is Happening’ (Chronicle Books). What does the future hold for ‘Instagram’? One thing is for sure: many more ‘Instagram’ books will appear in the coming months and years.

Image 4 (Pei Ketron) 

Reflections on Current Photographic Practice. Part 1. Portfolios of Thematically Linked Images.

It has taken me quite a few years to understand what is meant by ‘Conceptual Photographic Art’ and even longer for me to produce a portfolio of work that might be considered to fit this classification. During my first OCA Level 3 course, ‘Your Own Portfolio’, students were specifically asked, for their major project, to produce a portfolio of 10-20 images and that there should be a stated theme linking the images. Things started off well for me, as I produced a series of images of people feeding birds (including Images 1a and 1b) for a project whose initial idea was to represent the different benefits that we get from feeding birds.

                         

Images 1a and 1b: “Feeding the Birds” from my major project for OCA Photography 3: ‘Your Own Portfolio”

If I had stopped after producing a dozen or so images of this type and submitted my major project work for assessment without further ado I would probably have done ok at assessment. However, I continued with my ‘environmental hat on’ and produced a further, much more diverse set of images in which I attempted to illustrate all the ‘bad’ things that we do to the environment, thus effectively splitting the project (and portfolio) into two sections: ‘what the birds do for us’ and ‘what we do for the birds’. In retrospect I should not have been surprised by the assessors’ terse comments when I had passed the course with a very modest 48% mark. These comments included remarks that I should have stuck to and developed the portfolio of people feeding birds and that I appeared to be more interested in the birds than I was in the  photography (a bit harsh, but there is more than a grain of truth in this).

So where had I gone wrong? Firstly, I had not stuck to the remit of linking the images via a stated theme. Secondly I had been swayed by my own emotions into producing a photographic project that tried (not very successfully) to make a statement regarding something that I feel strongly about. In doing this I spent a lot of time and effort working on a project that was essentially wasted – at least as far as my journey towards an arts degree was concerned.

Bearing this in mind, how do photographic artists at the cutting edge of current practice avoid the pitfalls that I fell into and produce work that is considered outstanding by their peers? Furthermore, what can I learn from their work that will help me to produce portfolios that reflect current photographic practice (as my tutor has recommended and as the assessors will expect) and is there any way in which I can do this whilst making a powerful statement about an issue that I feel strongly about? This latter question is very important to me, because I don’t believe that I can produce ‘art for art’s sake’ – I need strong motivation to drive me.

For this post I’ll look at a handful of selected recent image portfolios by photographers or ‘photograph collectors’ whose work fits the criterion of having an obvious stated theme linking the images. All their work has been critically acclaimed and has appeared in books and/or exhibitions. The portfolios would no doubt have received excellent marks from assessors if they had been submitted as a major ‘OCA Photography 3: Your Own Portfolio’ project! What can I learn from these works? Do I like them and, if not, why not?

Chloe Dewe Mathews: “Shot at Dawn”

In her critically acclaimed work “Shot at Dawn”, which has been published as a photobook, Chloe Dewe Mathews has visited the exact sites where British and Allied troops were executed (mainly for desertion) during the First World War. Following research by Mathews and others she photographed the sites as they appeared 100 years later, at the time of day when the individuals were executed. The result is a series of landscapes, both urban and rural. Typical examples are shown in Images 2a and 2b.

              

Images 2a and 2b from “Shot at Dawn” by Chloe Dewe Mathews

A number of films, television series and television documentaries have dealt in a moving way with this emotive subject. My problem with this work is that what for me is just a series of bland and rather boring landscapes fails to convey any of the emotion relating to these horrific events that I can absorb from the other media. Perhaps video, of the camera moving towards the place of execution, followed by the noise of gunfire, might have worked. Despite the variability of subject matter (although they are all landscapes) there is a clear, linking theme between the images. This series highlights a problem relating to my own work, which I have mentioned before: it is sometimes very difficult to convey emotion or even atmosphere in a photograph. My own opinion is that this (commissioned) work has given Mathews a thankless task. However, other very different (and informed) opinions are available!

Sam Ivin: “Lingering Ghosts”

Sam Ivin’s ‘defaced’ images of UK asylum seekers (e.g. Images 3a and 3b) were featured in the ‘migration’ issue of the British Journal of Photography (BJP) in September 2016. One of the images made the front cover.

                                                

Images 3a and 3b: Sam Ivin, “Lingering Ghosts”

The idea of defacing or hiding faces of people in photographic portraits is not new (BJP recently devoted a whole issue to this theme) but here Ivin scratches out the eyes of his subjects to remove the obvious emotional points of contact and leaves images that “reflect the pain, disorientation and anger of those looking for sanctuary” in the UK.

Ivin’s work (which has been published as a photobook), whilst perhaps being not entirely original, does clearly make a political statement and there is a very obvious link between the images. I admire his stance. However, I do wonder (and this is not to denigrate his work in any way) what difference his work will make to the asylum seekers, or the system that they face in the UK. Who will buy the book? How many artists and photographers have the power to change the world through their images whilst still working within the field of conceptual photographic art? Very few, I suspect.

Katy Grannan: “Anonymous”

Katy Grannan’s portraits of ‘anonymous’ passers-by in San Francisco and Los Angeles featured in the “Out of Focus: Photography” exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London in 2012. All the subjects gave their permission for Grannan to photograph them after she approached them in the street. The photographs (e.g. Images 4a and 4b) hint at lives well-lived, but perhaps without much reward.

                                            

Images 4a and 4b: Katy Grannan, “Anonymous”

I estimate that about 50% of all the portfolios featured in BJP during the two years that I subscribed to the magazine were portraits of people: the percentage is even higher when considering exhibitions of photography students’ final year portfolios. ‘People taking pictures of each other’ is still a dominant topic and it must be hard to find an original concept within this field. Sam Ivin (see above) succeeds and Katy Grannan’s portfolio works well because her subjects are neither young nor fashion models but ordinary citizens, many of them elderly, ‘snapped’ in a variety of natural but characterful poses. Is this work still valid as current photographic practice? Is it now necessary to add another layer of complexity to a portfolio of human portraits? I’m not a portrait photographer, so I don’t pretend to know the answer to these questions. What I do know is that portrait portfolios are pretty much guaranteed to have a theme linking them.

John Stezaker: “Marriage”

John Stezaker has made a very successful career as an artist by appropriating old photographs from flea markets and second hand bookshops, cutting them up and then combining them to form collages. Why he does this is not clear to me, so let’s call it ‘playful’ and ‘art for art’s sake’. His work, which is generally accepted as photographic art, has won him international acclaim. He has certainly carved out a very distinctive niche for himself. His work is original, based on clear concepts and within each series there is a clear theme linking the images. As an example I include two images from his “marriage” series (Images 5a and 5b), in which publicity stills, one of a man and one of a woman, are cut and then joined together to produce weird, androgynous, hybrid faces.

                                  

Images 5a and 5b: John Stezaker, “Marriage”

Stezaker’s work fulfils all the criteria for acceptance as conceptual photographic art, even if he is not the photographer. However, as with some of the other examples featured here, I have to question its purpose. For photographic art to make an impact on me or to stir my emotions it must be both aesthetically pleasing and have a purpose, other than to be recognised and lauded for its concept and originality. Stezaker’s work fails on both counts, although I’m sure that he won’t lose any sleep over this.

Eric Kessels: “In Almost Every Picture #14”

Eric Kessels and John Stezaker have at least two things in common: they were both finalists in the Deutsche Borse Photography Prize competition and they both work predominantly with appropriated photographs. Kessels has gone even further than Stezaker for his portfolio “In Almost Every Picture #14” by using the cast-offs from portraits of bathers photographed by somebody who made a living by shooting polaroid beach portraits of holidaymakers and then punching out his sitters’ heads to put them on to badges. Images 6a and 6b are representative of the cast-offs, which have been published in a book and also featured in an article for the December 2015 edition of BJP.

                      

Images 6a and 6b: Eric Kessels, “In Almost Every Picture #14”

At first glance one might imagine that Kessels is having a laugh at our expense, but closer examination reveals that there is a clear concept here and the images are linked by a very clear theme (the hole in the middle of the photograph, the beach and the sea for starters). Also, this work features in his 14^th book along the same lines and he makes a living out of appropriating and producing this work. Using true ‘Art Speak Bullshit’ Kessels has produced a rationale for why these images are important. It will not surprise the reader to know that I am far from impressed by Kessels’ project, which also presumably took minimal effort to put together, but I cannot deny that it is photographic art.

Annalisa Murri: “Then the Sky Crashed Down on Us”

I’m going to finish this review by looking at a project that impressed me and has influenced my current work. Annalisa Murri came 3^rd in the ‘Contemporary Issues’ section of the 2015 Sony World Photography Awards with a project in which she interviewed and photographed survivors of the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh, where an 8 storey building collapsed, killing over 1000 people. This was essentially a piece of photojournalism, re-telling the story of the tragedy through the eyes of some female survivors. What made her feature stand out was the clever use of monochrome double exposures, featuring portraits of the survivors blended into urban locations, presumably at or near the site of the tragedy (Images 7a and 7b).

                       

Images 7a and 7b: Annalisa Murri, « Then the Sky Crashed Down on Us”

For me, this portfolio fulfils all the criteria for acceptance as conceptual photographic art, in which the images are linked by a clear theme and form part of a harmonious set. Furthermore, I find the images to be aesthetically appealing and relevant to my own work, particularly as they have atmosphere and provoke an emotional response. Indeed, they influenced my decision to work with double and multiple exposures for the ongoing project – I have written a more detailed article on Murri's work  in the ‘Influences’ section of my blog.

However, I do have one concern about Murri’s project. Is it exploitative? Does it help the survivors of this tragedy in any way or is it used as a vehicle by the photographer to make a living and build her reputation? Photojournalism of this kind always raises these moral and ethical issues. Even Don McCullin, whose photographs of the human suffering caused by war and famine in the ‘third world’ did so much to raise both awareness and relief aid in the west, suffered from moral dilemmas of this nature.

Final Thoughts

The six very different projects that I have discussed in this post are, I believe, good examples of current practice in conceptual photographic art. The images in each portfolio are thematically linked and form harmonious sets. My reaction to each set has been very variable, however, and this says more about me than it does about photographic art. I tend to dismiss ‘art for art’s sake’, where the message is either superficial or relates to the artist’s own philosophy, which is usually shrouded by what non-artists might call “art speak bullshit”. I am more interested by projects that raise moral, ethical and/or political issues, even when the images are not particularly interesting. I am even more interested in projects that raise these issues with images that are aesthetically appealing and/or produce an emotional response. These are the projects that I want to talk about and share with others. I am still searching for the ‘holy grail’, the project that does all these things and also changes the world for the better. If I could produce such a project I would die happy!

Does my philosophy mean that I am not an artist? I need to look at my past to resolve this issue. Throughout my working life as a medicinal chemist within the pharmaceutical industry I had the goal of trying to discover a cure for a disease or, at least, something that would improve the health of people I had never met. I never achieved this goal (very few scientists do) but at least I tried. Now and in the future I have similar ideals: to bring my art to the attention of the world and to make a difference. Of course this is probably a pipe dream but as long as I’m trying to make art I will need motivation and that motivation will not come from potentially making money or gaining acceptance within a community that I hardly know or understand. Perhaps this makes me a perennial outsider. Perhaps my aims are not achievable. However, I will never compromise these aims.

Research and Book Review: “The Photobook: A History volume III” by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger, Phaidon, 2014.

The primary output from my current project will, all being well, be a photobook. My tutor has encouraged me to study and learn from other photobooks in order to help me to choose a suitable style and format for my own book, which should conform to current practice. “The Photobook: A History volume III” is the final (?) volume in the definitive reference series dealing with the worldwide evolution and development of the photobook in all its forms. It deals with photobooks published from the late 1940s until shortly before its publication in 2014. As such, it is an important source of information both for me and for others who design, study and/or simply enjoy purchasing and reading photobooks. At first I was rather put off by the price of the book and spent some time at my local Waterstones (as close to a local photographic library as I can get) glancing through its pages. Eventually, however, I ‘bit the bullet’ and purchased my own copy.

Image 1: Front Cover of “The Photobook: A History volume III”

The book is divided into chapters dealing, often loosely, with photobooks in relation to propaganda, protest, desire, modern life, place, conflict, identity, memory and finally with books that “represent and re-present the medium”. I have looked in detail at the section ('memory') which is of most relevance to my project work and dipped into the other sections – this is, after all, a reference work that I will come back to many times in the future. The editors incorporate works by well-known and respected artists and art photographers such as Roger Ballen, Sophie Calle, Pieter Hugo, Joel Meyerowitz and Stephen Shore. At the opposite end of the scale relative unknowns have had their books singled out for attention. Photographers whose reputations have been cemented by the publication of one book (Cristina de Middel’s “The Afronauts” is a good example) are also represented here. Each chapter begins with an overview of the subject matter discussed within, together with a discussion to its relationship with the chosen books. Selected images of single pages or (more commonly) double page spreads for each of the chosen books are then accompanied by brief overviews of these books in relation to their subject matter, design and historical and artistic context. A typical double page spread is shown below (Image 2).

Image 2: Double Page Spread from “The Photobook: A History Volume III”

This reference work clearly provides an invaluable reference point in charting the development of the photobook, current trends, important and influential single books by (often) internationally recognised photographers and developing current trends in the production of photobooks. However, I was particularly interested in the design and layout of the selected works. The following generalisations are of relevance to my own work:

·         Most of the photographs are presented in portrait or square format, one to a page.

·         Where a single photograph is shown on a double page spread this is almost invariably on the right hand side. In these books the left hand page is often left blank or perhaps has just a caption for the image.

·         There is usually little or no text visible on the selected double page spreads. Explanatory text (where present) presumably comes as an introduction or preface to the book. In discussing individual works Parr and Badger sometimes indicate that the viewer is left to come up with their own interpretation of the set of images contained therein, perhaps with no more than the book title for guidance.

·         In some books the images are bled to the corners of each page and in other books the images are bled to the horizontal or vertical edges only. However, in many books the images sit in the middle of the pages, with edging of varying thickness around them. Occasionally images are spread across two pages and sometimes two or more of these production methods are used within the same book. In other words there is no favoured method for presenting the images on the page and I could not detect any obvious changes when comparing current practice with 20^th century practice.

·         A few photobooks (presumably very limited editions) come complete with very ornate packaging and even, in one or two cases, with additional objects that are of relevance to the photobook story.

Whilst the selection of the photobooks for inclusion in this reference work was subjective I am sure that this book is very representative of the styles and developing trends in photobook subject matter and design over the last seventy years, with the emphasis in the book being rightly placed on 21^st century photobooks. It is clear that my proposed book will contain far more text than these works, which is a concern, although I cannot see an obvious way round this. “The Photobook: A History Volume III” has also given me some design options. It seems that “anything goes” as far as image design and placement is concerned. My tutor, for example, favours bleeding my images to the corners of the pages whilst I am not so sure about this. However, the “A4 Landscape” image format is rather uncommon in the photobooks discussed here. As a consequence I am now planning to produce square images, which could be fitted into the book in a number of ways, whilst I am more limited in what I can do with my current mixed set of A4 landscape and portrait images.

“The Photobook: A History Volume III” provides me with much food for thought, not just in terms of designing my own photobook(s), but also in terms of how the choice of subject matter for a book can make a big impact. This book will no doubt repay further study in the coming weeks and months.