Genesis, Evolution and Completion of the Project: "I Am Not There" (August 2017)

Genesis of the Project

My mother passed away in 2007, at the age of 83, after suffering for many years with severe clinical depression. She lived on her own after my father died in 1995, until a few weeks before her death. My brother and I did not live locally but we gave her practical support during this period, one or other of us visiting her most weekends. However, we found it difficult both to fully understand her illness and to give her the emotional support that she desperately needed, particularly in the final years of her life. Many years after she died I was still asking the questions: “how could I have been a better son?” and “Is there any way I can turn the frustrations and the regrets of this period of my life to some sort of practical use?” I vaguely considered writing a book, purely for personal use since there would be no market for a second hand, non-celebrity account of clinical depression in an elderly person, however well-written. I also considered producing a video presentation or perhaps some multi-media work, but this never got off the ground. I had some archival prints and photographs of my mother during her final years, but these were basically ‘family snaps’ of the type that nearly everybody who owns a camera makes, and they were not intended to be used as anything other than mementos.

When I started the current OCA course in late 2015 I essentially had ‘carte blanche’ to choose, with the agreement of my tutor, an area of interest that could be developed into the single major project which would define my course work. I considered a variety of topics for the project and wrote skeleton plans for how I could develop each of these. The project that I most wanted to work on, but which I found most difficult to plan, was one about my relationship with my mother during her final years. I forced myself to think more deeply about how I could turn this into a photographic project, given the paucity of archival material. I have been interested in producing photo-montages of images, blended together using ‘Photoshop’ software, since I studied on the OCA Level 1 ‘Digital Arts: a Creative Approach’ course many years ago (the course has long been discontinued). Shortly before I started to formulate my plans I saw some striking blended images by the Italian photo-journalist Annalisa Murri at the Sony World Photography Awards exhibition (2015). A year on from the Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh, when an 8-storey building collapsed killing over 1000 people, Murri’s monochrome images blended the portraits (head and shoulders) of female survivors with images of urban settings around the area where the tragedy had occurred. I found the blended images to be both poignant and aesthetically pleasing. I have written about Murri’s work in my blog (Annalisa Murri). I considered how I could blend images in my own work and came up with the idea of combining one or more archival images of my mother and my family with (an) image(s) created specifically for the project, such that the image juxtaposition carried meaning for me and, hopefully, for the observer.

I sketched out the various project options and sent them to my tutor, Les Monaghan. It was clear from his feedback that he found the project about my mother by far the most interesting and creatively challenging of the various options. Given that it was my first choice anyway the decision to go ahead with this project was easy, even if its execution was (rightly, as it happened) perceived to be extremely challenging. Towards the end of 2015 I put together a full project plan and started work on the project.

Evolution of the Project

My original plans, outlined in a document produced in January 2016 (see the blog post), involved producing a portfolio of blended images, with accompanying text, that would be used to prepare a photo book. The book was intended to be just part of the assessment material, being accompanied by A3-sized prints and a multi-media presentation. The book would, essentially, be a picture story combining elements of the past with elements of the present. The task of generating emotion, atmosphere and, ultimately, empathy in the viewer through the combination of the text and images was considered to be key to the success of the project.

Work on the project was divided into three areas: research, producing the text for the photo book and creating the blended images for the photo book.

Research

I sub-divided my research into studying (a) the work of artists and photographers who use photo-montage to produce a powerful response in the viewer and (b) the work of photographers who document or have documented the lives of friends, family and close acquaintances in a way that can provoke empathy with the viewer.

 Influential artists who use or have used photo-montage, such as John Heartfield and Peter Kennard, were studied in detail. Artists who construct and then photograph scenes in order to produce visual and/or emotional impact, such as Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman and Sophie Calle, were also researched.

I was less familiar with the work of photographers who had documented the lives of family, friends and acquaintances and was grateful to my tutor for providing many useful references. The work of Jim Mortram, Richard Billingham, Rosy Martin and many others was researched for clues as to how to build a photographic portfolio of (family) relationships that provokes an emotional response. Others whose work I discovered during my research included less well known photographers such as Robin Grierson, Aviv Yaron and John Levett. The book “Gary’s Friends”, by Adrian Clarke (another of my tutor’s recommendations) was particularly helpful, both in advising me on ways of producing empathy in the viewer/reader, through the use of both text and images, and (ultimately) in providing a workable template for the design of my own photo book.

My research continued throughout the course of the project and is detailed in a series of posts for my blog.

Text

I originally wrote the text for the photo book as a single essay, dealing with my relationship with my mother in the years following my father’s death. I found the essay surprisingly easy to write, although emotionally draining. In particular, the emotions brought about when writing about mum’s final months were hard to contain. If this text could affect readers one quarter as much as it affected me whilst writing (and reading) it then I would hardly need the images! My tutor was happy with the text, describing it as “poignant and eloquent”. Subsequently the text was modified, split into sections, added to, subtracted from and moved around, but the core writing remains largely unaltered at the end of the project.

Images

The images would, of course, be at the core of the project and as such the majority of my course work was spent in sorting through archival images and photographic slides, planning and then producing new images (both at home and on location) and (most time consuming of all) creating blended images. By the time of my first assignment (January 2016) I had produced ideas for around 20 blended images, based on either events or passages of time during the period covered by the project. I had turned four of these ideas into blended photographic ‘sketches’ (rough blended examples illustrating what I was trying to achieve). Three of these sketches remain, albeit in somewhat different form, in the final photo book. As an example, one of the retained sketches in its original form (Image 1) blended together a photograph of the living room of my mother’s house following clearance (taken in 2007) with an image of the exterior of the residential care home where she spent the last few weeks of her life (photographed in November 2015). The image, which was intended to accompany a passage of text relating to my mother’s transfer into the care home, tries to represent emptiness and loss. I think that it works well and my tutor described it as a ‘touchstone’ image. Perhaps this image best portrays what I was trying to find when blending photographs from different periods together. However, I hope that the observer can interpret the signals in all the images in the photo book and understand what I was trying to achieve.

Image 1

Emboldened by my initial work and positive feedback from my tutor I set about producing around 24 blended image ‘sketches’ to accompany and relate to passages of text in my written essay. Some of these involved laborious and painstaking work on the computer, whilst others were produced relatively easily. In the end I produced 27 ‘sketches’ for my second assignment. Feedback was positive again, although it was clear that my tutor was impressed with some sketches more than others. A positive ‘Skype’ tutorial (Assignment 3) followed and I was encouraged to continue experimentation and develop new ideas. In addition to the images I had produced a graph, which attempted to portray feelings and emotions during a day spent with my mother in a pseudo-scientific manner, perhaps alluding to my background as a scientist. My tutor was very keen for me to keep and develop this graph, but to separate it from the images in some way.

By this time (June 2016) it was becoming clear that the photo book was going to be my primary and possibly only submission for assessment and I made some decisions about its structure, which would impact upon image production. Firstly I decided to produce square images only – this would allow me to ‘bleed’ each to the edge of the page in a square book. Since I had only produced A4 ‘landscape’ and ‘portrait’ images to this point I had to alter all my current sketches into the square format – a challenging task. Secondly I decided to produce a single book, with text on the left hand page and an image (relating to this text) on the right hand page. This familiar format, whilst somewhat mundane artistically, seemed to be the only way to marry the text and images as I wanted them to appear.

Things started to go somewhat awry during the second half of 2016. I created a dozen more image sketches, mainly based on specific events in my mother’s life, giving me nearly 40 for potential inclusion in a photo book. However, my tutor now took the time to review my work to date quite critically and his feedback for the fourth assignment made for uncomfortable reading. He only rated ten of my images as definitely working. Other images/montages were “hard to place within contemporary practice”. A tutorial followed and afterwards I had to take a long, hard look at where I stood. I had the text in place but only (at best) half the images needed for the photo book. For a while I was uncertain about how or indeed whether to continue. However, having come so far I eventually pressed on.

Taking on board my tutor’s advice about fitting my images within contemporary practice (and having revised my knowledge of contemporary photographic practice) I abandoned all but the ten images that ‘worked’ and started to create some new ones, based on the ideas inherent in the ten images that worked. Many of the ‘failed’ images related to specific events in my relationship with my mother whilst others were, perhaps, rather too naïve. I tried to produce blended images having more general themes that the viewer could (hopefully) relate to more easily. I also introduced a short new section of text and images (originally two images, but eventually three) relating more generally to the subject of clinical depression. I chose to produce each blended image 50% saturated; partly to indicate a blend of the past (monochrome) with the present (colour) and partly to harmonise the images and style throughout the book. Thankfully my tutor was reasonably happy (Assignment 5) with the end-product, with only relatively minor changes suggested. Later I split the text further for reasons of book design (see below) and added two more images but at last (in spring 2017) image production for the project was complete, leaving me with 25 blended images and one graph.

Completion of the Project

I had the text and images: all I had to do now was to produce the photo book! Using ‘The Photobook: a History Volume III’ (Badger and Parr) as a reference starting point (see my blog) and studying other photo books both within and outside my own collection I planned out a basic design for a draft book. I stuck with the design decisions described above and finally, being aware that I would need to produce at least one more iteration, I produced a first draft ‘softback’ photo book, using ‘Blurb’ as the publisher. This was sent to my tutor for feedback (final Assignment 6: ‘Skype’ tutorial and written feedback). In addition to my tutor suggesting further research and commenting on some formatting details the following significant issues were highlighted:

·         Softback or hardback? My tutor commented that “softback feels fine”, but I decided eventually to go for a hardback book, because of the more tactile feel of the cover.

·         There was too much text on some of the pages – I even had to use a smaller font size on a couple of pages. In order to solve this problem I re-wrote some of the text and split up other sections of text. As a consequence I had to produce and incorporate two new images (my last two) into the book. These have not been seen by my tutor – whether I have learned from him over the last two years will be left for the assessors to decide! However, I (perhaps naively) consider the very last image (image 2) to represent advances that I have made, both in terms of content and style, in the production of blended photo-montage images over the two years that I have been working on the project. This image was incorporated into the general section on clinical depression and is open to various interpretations.

Image 2

·         There was a problem with the graph (see above), which was designed in (2:1) landscape (‘letterbox’) format, so that it would fit across two square pages of the photo book. Of course the centre of the graph disappeared into the centrefold. We discussed ways that I could overcome this problem, including self-publishing the book, with the pages stapled together so that there was no centrefold. I did some research into this (see my blog) and for a while was minded to go down this pathway. However, in the end I decided to take up another of my tutor’s suggestions and hand-insert the graph myself as a ‘foldout’ onto a blank page of my ‘Blurb’ book. Given that I only chose to produce five copies of the final book this seemed a logical decision and the hand-inserted foldout graph adds a personal touch to the design of a very personal book.

The final draft of the photo book has now been produced. The book (with fold-out graph) will be accompanied by prints of all the blended images and a print-out of my blog posts (the blog will, of course, remain as the primary source of logbook information for the assessors). I will shortly be taking the book and other material to ‘HQ’ in Barnsley for assessment in November 2017 at which point my project, course work, degree work and a ten year journey of discovery, learning, frustration, setbacks, sadness and joy will have been completed.

"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

Progress Update, 18 July 2017

Well, I’ve very nearly finished the course! I have revised my photo book, adding a couple of extra images, and have reached the point where I am happy with both the text and images – no further alterations will be made. Likewise, I am happy with the cover design. I have made various decisions regarding the design of the book. Only two major project decisions remain to be made: firstly, whether to submit a self-published version of the book for assessment or the commercially produced book and secondly whether to accompany the book with a multimedia presentation, which I have not started. Work carried out since my last update is described below.

Book Text and Images

In the first draft of the book, the passages of text accompanying each of the images varied in length from around 120 words to over 400 words. This necessitated using a smaller font size for some of the longer passages. I knew that I would have to do something about this and my tutor concurred. I therefore spent some time revising and, in some cases, splitting the text whilst trying to retain the sentiments expressed throughout the book. Eventually I was able, by incorporating two additional passages of text, to cut down the length of each passage to a maximum of 270 words. Although not perfect (around 175 words for each section would have been ideal) I decided that I could make no further compromises on this issue. Each section of text comfortably fits the page, using a standard 12 point ‘Times New Roman’ font size.

I decided to produce two new images to accompany the extra passages of text. I chose to ‘start from scratch’, rather than return to previously discarded images, and the result was two images that blended text with photographs – perhaps an indication of my increasing interest in this area (as noted by my post on the influences of the art of Peter Beard and David Wojnarowicz ). I feel that both new images fit well within the book, with one (used in the short section discussing the illness of clinical depression) perhaps posing some interesting questions for the viewer.

I also made (mainly minor) alterations to some of my other images, following a careful review of how they looked and ‘felt’ in the first draft of the photo book. My tutor agrees with me that desaturation works for my images, so desaturated images will be retained in the final version of the book.

I have now reached the point where I can draw a line under this work. The text and images are complete – no further alterations will be made.

Book Design

I have, following my tutor’s recommendation, changed the text on the front cover from bold to normal and moved the text to below the image. We concur that with this change the front and back covers look fine.

The first draft of the book was published ‘softback’ and my tutor was happy with this. However, I would like to look at producing a hardback book, with a matt cover, to investigate whether the surface is more tactile.

I have decided not to number the pages, because I don’t think that this will add any value to the book.

Although I felt that the size of the book was a little small my tutor was happy with this, describing it as “like a keepsake, or memento…” I will retain this size for future commercial editions, although for self-publishing I may (whether or not by choice) go slightly larger.

I have added a couple of ‘chapter titles’ to separate the section on clinical depression from the rest of the book, using the same format (bold title on faint Yorkshire Dales landscape) as has been used elsewhere in the book. This brings the book size up to 66 pages.

I have placed the double page graph at the centre of the book (pages 33-34). I hope that a self-published, stapled book will then avoid the danger of the centre of the graph being lost in the centrefold – something that I anticipate will occur in my commercially published book drafts. My tutor suggested that the graph could be included as a ‘foldout’, but this would require a lot of extra work. I will write a separate post on self-publishing (research and application) at a later date.

The typeface (‘Times New Roman’) is consistent throughout the book and the font size (12) is consistent for all passages of text.

Future Work

Having completed the changes described above and applied all my design decisions I have ordered a ‘second draft’ photo book from a commercial supplier (‘Blurb’) and await its arrival. I plan to use this book as a fall back for assessment submission, whilst I investigate self-publishing the book. The main disadvantage of the ‘Blurb’ book is that part of the graph will be hidden by the centrefold. I also hope to have more flexibility by self-publishing. Research and practice of self-publication will therefore take up much of my time in the next month. I will continue to update my blog, although I feel that my posts on influences, exhibitions, books etc. are pretty much complete. I’m currently writing an artist statement and introduction to the project for the assessors. I don’t intend to write explanatory notes for each image, as I have done in the past, because I feel that the accompanying text in the photo book offers enough information.

I will produce square prints of all my images, to include in my submission. However, I am starting to have doubts about the importance of supplying an accompanying multimedia presentation for the assessors – will it add value to my submission? I’ll make a final decision on this when the book has been finished and the chosen copy for submission is in my hands.

Progress Update 30 May 2017

Having received my first draft photo book back from ‘Blurb’ I posted a copy to my tutor, together with a progress update – this constituted my 6^th and final assignment for this course. I’ve now had feedback from him in the form of both a tutor report and a final ‘Skype’ tutorial and I’m very pleased to know that I’m almost finished, with plenty of time to prepare for submission. I can’t believe that after almost 10 years of part-time study, I’ve almost reached the end of my degree course: what will I do with myself afterwards?

The bulk of the feedback concentrated on the design of the photo book. Since I have practically no experience of book design, my tutor’s comments and suggestions in this area were very welcome and much appreciated. These are discussed below, but first I’ll look briefly at the contents of the book.

Book Text and Images

The text and images are fine in their current format. The images (including the new ones) “work harmoniously” and “front and back cover images work well”. I had already planned to correct some technical issues relating to some of the images in the book and I will make these corrections in the next week or two, in order to produce a complete set of images that can go into the final photo book without further alteration. The square format and 50% saturation work, so I will make no changes in this regard. Likewise, the text is fine (as it has been for some time) and could go into the final draft of the book ‘as is’.

However, I will have to make some changes to the text and possibly add more images, in order to accommodate alterations to the design of the book (see below).

Book Design

General Design

·         My tutor felt that the feel and tactility of the book could be considerably improved by losing the gloss cover, although softback (as submitted) was fine. He suggested aiming for the tactile nature of Kennard’s “@earth” book (which I have). As for many of the bullets listed here, he suggested research in the form of looking at and handling a variety of photo books would be invaluable. In the light of these comments I will avoid using gloss on the cover, but will likely switch to a hard cover (as for Kennard’s book) for the final version.

·         He liked the (relatively small) size of the book, making it feel “like a keepsake, or memento”. I had favoured using a slightly larger size (21cm instead of 18cm) for the final version. However, I will probably now retain the original size (if possible), at least for the final draft (see below).

·         The text on the front cover (Times New Roman, bold) was too large and heavy. My tutor also suggested moving the title and author to the bottom of the front cover page, with title aligned left and author aligned right. I’m happy to go along with this, but will consider other options before making a decision.

·         The design, with all photos on the right page, “is classic but works well”.

·         The inside typeface is mismatched: I will alter this.

·         The pages in the draft book were not numbered. There seems little reason to number pages, except for reference purposes if I decide to include explanatory text with my assessment submission. I’ll make a final decision about numbering at a late stage.

Specific Issues

The two biggest issues that I have with regard to the book design are dealt with below.

·         The amount of text that accompanies each image in the book is very variable. On some pages there was so much text that I had to use a smaller font size to accommodate it on a single page. I realised at the time that I would need to do something about this in the final draft of the book, but was hoping that by producing a somewhat larger book I would be able to use the smaller font size throughout and that the text would then be clearly legible. However, my tutor (and I can see his point) felt that I should simply use less text per page, with more space, on every page. This may involve, as he said, “increasing overall size or number of pages”. This leaves me with a significant problem: should I try to remove some sections of text on particularly ‘wordy’ pages in order to produce a roughly consistent amount of text for each page or allow the text to ‘roll over’ onto a second page? In the latter case should I produce additional image montages, use (say) additional Nidderdale landscapes or simply leave the right hand pages adjacent to the ‘roll over’ text blank? Adrian Clarke used a variation on the ‘Nidderdale landscapes’ theme in his book “Gary’s Friends”. This is the one dilemma that remains for me to solve.

·         The one-off ‘graph’ that my tutor and I are both very keen to incorporate into the final book was included in the draft book as a (2:1) ‘letterbox’ sized image across two pages. However, the centre of the graph was, predictably, lost in the guttering. Whilst my tutor has been keen to incorporate the graph as a ‘foldout’, this would be challenging to achieve. I attended a photo book publishers’ fair at the Tate Modern (London) a week ago and had a chat with a knowledgeable gentleman from the “Self-Publish, Be Happy” company. His advice, which I intend to take, was to make the graph the centrefold of a stapled book, when there would be no guttering.

Future Work

I am planning to sort out as many of the outstanding issues relating to the production of a final photo book as I can in the first three weeks of June, before holidays start to eat into my time. My immediate plan of action is to:

·         Make final alterations to the images that I already have, so that they are ready to incorporate in the ‘assessment’ version of my photo book.

·         Make a decision on how to modify the text and whether to produce extra images (see bullet point above) and then carry out the necessary modifications.

·         Make recommended alterations to the cover design.

·         Incorporate the graph as a ‘centrefold’ in the book, once other alterations have been made.

·         Continue researching the design of photo books, then make decisions about the size, tactility, etc. of my final photo book.

·         Research opportunities for self-publishing.

·         Having incorporated all the design alterations, produce a ‘final draft’ template and obtain the book from ‘Blurb’. This book could be used as a ‘fall back’ for assessment if I am unable to produce a stapled, self-published version in time for submission.

I will concentrate on the “last level of experimentation” (self-publishing the photo book, with final alterations) in July and August, prior to submission for assessment. I still plan to produce an accompanying multimedia presentation for assessment (time permitting) and will likewise obtain prints of all the images used in the photo book, during this period. My blog will be developed throughout, until close to submission in September.

Progress Update 2 May 2017

I’ve now received my draft photo book back from ‘Blurb’ and had a good look through it. Overall I’m reasonably happy with the design and feel of the book, although I can see a number of ways in which it can be improved (discussed below). I hope that a further iteration of the book should see me reach the final product. More advice from my tutor will be sought and I am prepared to change, add and/or remove images in order to produce the final version. I’ve actioned some (mainly technical) changes to the current images, but I don’t envisage making more than a tiny number of alterations to the text. The key questions to answer are whether the images in the book work artistically, whether they enhance the emotions invoked by the text, whether they fit together from a stylistic point of view and whether they tell the story of my relationship with my mother in her final years in a way that encourages empathy in the viewer/reader. The front and back covers of the draft (by no means certain to be used in the final product) are shown in the image below.

Covers for Draft Photo Book

There are (mostly) minor technical issues with specific images, which will be rectified if the images are retained, before a final draft is produced. The following general comments can be made.

General Comments on the Photo Book

·         The book (7” square; soft cover) feels too small and lightweight. Ideally I’d like it to be 20-25cm square and have a hard cover. ‘Blurb’ only does 7” and 12” square sizes, so I should research other book-making companies as I think that 12” square is too large.

·         I’m happy with the general presentation (text on the left, images on the right with a full ‘bleed’).

·         There are some issues with images ‘disappearing’ into the spine: these will be addressed for the next (final?) version.

·         Ideally I would like slightly bigger margins around the text.

·         Should the pages be numbered (at the moment they are not)? Numbering (LHS only) might assist the assessors and also help during the preparation of the book, but should not be necessary for the general reader.

·         The shorter passages of text should be placed consistently on each page (Centrally? Near the top?) in the next iteration: at the moment there are some disparities between the pages of text.

·         I have introduced single ‘prologue’ and ‘epilogue’ double pages of an image and corresponding text. These have, together with the main story, been given title pages with faint images of Nidderdale landscapes in the background. I like this idea, but have not yet consulted my tutor about it. Does this idea work?

·         Do I make an effort to separate out the two ‘clinical depression intermission’ double pages (two pages of text, two images) from the main work, relating to my relationship with my mother, which is on either side of this text? Likewise, do I separate out the unique double page graph in some way?

General Comments on the Text

·         I used a ‘Times New Roman’ font for the text (‘Blurb’ doesn’t offer my favoured ‘Calibri’). I’m happy with the font, but still open to alternative suggestions.

·         The font size is consistent on most of the pages but in one or two cases I had to use a smaller font size in order to fit all the text onto a single page. I must ensure that the font size is consistent throughout in the final book, which I could do in the following ways: (a) alter the font size for all the text to the smaller font size – this should read ok in a larger book; (b) reduce the amount of text for the pages where a smaller font size has been used by re-writing the text; (c) split the longer passages of text into two and incorporate additional images. I currently favour the ‘easy’ option (a), but am open to alternatives.

·         I have used ‘justify’ rather than ‘align text left’. This is my preferred option, but I am open to the alternative option if a good argument can be put forward for it.

·         I would like to make the right hand margin slightly larger, so that there is no chance of the text disappearing into the spine of the book in (say) a hard copy edition.

·         I would like to somehow differentiate the two pages of text relating to clinical depression from the rest of the text, since this represents an ‘intermission’ in my story. How do I do this? See also the final bullet of ‘General Comments on the photo book’ above.

General Comments on the Images

·         The images have all (with the exception of the monochrome first image of my mother, taken in 1940, and the final colour image of my mother, taken on her 80^th birthday) been produced as 50% saturated. This, together with the square format of the images, benefits consistency of style. Does this format work in book form? I think that it does, but I can change to full colour or modify the saturation level to any degree if necessary.

·         Some images need to be moved a little right (i.e. away from the spine of the book) in order to demonstrate key features, but generally there is no issue with them ‘disappearing’ into the spine of the book in this particular ‘Blurb’ soft cover edition.

·         This minor issue aside, the full bleed appears to work well.

·         Does the design of the new prologue, main title and epilogue pages, using faint images of Nidderdale landscapes as background, work?

·         Some of the images, particularly those in the first half of the book, have printed out a little too dark or light in places. These images will be altered, if they are retained for the final version.

·         Following my tutor’s comments on the set of images that I submitted for my last assignment (Assignment 5) and a reappraisal of the connection between the text, images and the emphasis of the book I have introduced one additional new image, replaced another image, drastically altered a third and made significant modifications to a few others. The artistic and technical content of these images need to be discussed with my tutor, in addition to the points raised above.

Hopefully, once the issues described above have been addressed, I will be in a good position to produce a final photo book. I also intend to produce a multimedia presentation, with video, but will wait until the image set has been finalised before getting round to this.

Progress Update 12 April 2017

My major project work is moving inexorably forwards and yesterday (11 April) I completed a first draft of my photo book for publication and sent it off to ‘Blurb’ for printing. When I receive the book later in the month I will, for the first time, be able to look at a hard copy version of the result of 18 months’ worth of project work. I have asked for two copies of the book; one for myself and one to send to my tutor for feedback. I am under no illusions that there is still work to do before I complete the project, but I hope that the second draft of the photo book will be the final version.

Following my tutor’s feedback from the 5^th (penultimate) assignment and my own review of the project work to date I made some minor revisions to the text, splitting one section of text into two in order to incorporate one additional montage. I then reviewed each of my images in turn, looking both for technical faults or problems as well as for ways in which I could introduce greater emotion and/or clarity into the montages. Following the review I made minor changes to most of the images, major changes to a few images and also replaced one image with a new one (although I retained the same basic idea in this last case). I produced one new image, to incorporate with a section of ‘split’ text (see above). The square format and 50% desaturated ‘style’ for the images was retained for the book – I have the option of using full colour if the printed images look too ‘washed out’. I did consider using monochrome for the images, but although this works well in many cases there are problems with a few of the montages.

I spent a lot of time thinking about what images to use for the front and back covers. For a long time I planned to use a new montage (one that did not directly relate to any of the images inside the book). However, I could not come up with a montage or single image that successfully summarised the content of the photo book. Eventually, having looked at many published photo book covers in shops, on the internet and in “The Photobook: a History Volume 3”, I decided to place a pared down version of one of the early images in the book on the front cover (Image 1) and a portion of another image on the back cover. Both images reflect ‘memories’ and the documentary nature of the project. The covers are, of course, subject to later change.

Image 1

I changed the title of the book on several occasions, but in the end reverted to “I Am Not There”. This is the title of the poem which I have included towards the end of the book, but also relates to the guilt, foreboding and other emotions that I experienced when I was not with my mother or even when I was with her but was unable to give her appropriate emotional support.

I have used ‘Blurb’ before to publish photo books and know how to handle their ‘Bookwright’ software, so it was relatively easy to produce the book template by combining the text and images. I asked for a soft cover book. I will seek advice and consider other photo book producers before producing the final version for assessment. This book will most likely have a hard cover.

Having completed the draft photo book I do not intend to ‘rest on my laurels’. I will produce large square prints of all the images used in the book (for studying fine detail and also possibly for submission for assessment). I still intend to produce a multimedia file, including video, potentially for assessment and am always looking for new ideas for montages in order to add to or replace those that I have already produced. However, replacement of images at this late stage of the project will only be done with good reason. I have one tutorial and one assignment left before assessment and I intend to use these to iron out any remaining faults and problems with the format and design of the images and photo book.

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.

Major Project Influences (8) - Adrian Clarke and Book Review: 'Gary's Friends' (West Pier Press, 2007)

My tutor recommended that I look at ‘Gary’s Friends’, both because of the relevance of the subject matter and because as a photo book it might give me some ideas about how to construct a book about my relationship with my mother.

Adrian Clarke gave up his career as a lawyer, specialising in cases of miscarriage of justice, in order to become a professional photographer. However, he retained his interest in human interaction, swapping clients for sitters. ‘Gary’s Friends’ is a collection of portraits of people affected by violence, alcoholism and drug addiction in former mining villages in County Durham and in Middlesborough. Each of the 40 portraits is accompanied by an account from the sitter of how they had lived their lives. In addition, Clarke includes some ‘gritty’ urban and rural landscape photographs of the area in which the sitters lived.

The book, which was published nearly ten years ago, has met with critical acclaim from a number of sources, both as a photo book and as a social statement.

Review

Children of broken marriages, violent and/or alcoholic parents, juvenile delinquency, early exposure to drugs, gangs, alcoholism, prostitution, violence and heroin addiction are themes in a bleak picture of shattered lives, surrounded by an industrial wasteland following the closure of local mines. Clarke paints a bleak picture of his subjects, all of whom are connected, in some cases tenuously, to Gary Crooks, ex-drug addict, drug dealer, gangster and armed robber. Each portrait is placed opposite autobiographical text, succinctly paraphrased by the photographer.

When I first opened the book I started reading the text before looking at the portraits, but I soon switched to first observing the portraits and then trying to second guess the story of the subjects before reading the text. It seems that other readers of this book may have used a similar technique – in his introduction, Alexander Masters memorably suggests that Kay (Image 1) “might be a holiday operator testing a hotel bed in Tenerife, but is actually an alcoholic sitting in her rehab room”. It soon became clear that there were few winners in these stories, although many talk about making new beginnings.

Image 1; Kay Moore (Adrian Clarke)

Amidst all the personal carnage there are stories of minor heroism, in particular from the mothers, such as Christine Crooks (Gary’s aunt), who never abandoned her son Philip (see Image 2) despite his continuing heroin addiction.

Image 2; Christine and Philip Crooks (Adrian Clarke)

Image 2 is a great example of how Clarke brings out the character of his subjects very well in the family images, where the subjects can and do interact. When the sitters are alone it becomes harder to predict how their lives have turned out. Nearly all the portraits were taken indoors, either in the sitters’ homes or in institutions, using natural light. Sometimes they are cropped tight but on other occasions their surroundings (usually in a sitting room) give the viewer the chance to get a feel for their immediate environment. It was only when I looked through the portrait photographs again, ignoring the text, that I realised how much of the sitters’ characters were revealed in the photographs.

The landscape photographs further add to the bleak picture created by the text. Cemeteries, dead end streets, motorways and urban and rural decay all feature, with the image of a man walking his dog past a derelict garage (Image 3) being typical.

Image 3 (Adrian Clarke)

Those of us who read this book are likely to be in far better shape than the subjects that he describes. This should not allow us to be critical of them. What would have happened to me if I had been born in one of these villages, perhaps to a single mother who could only make her living out on the streets? Perhaps I might have been born a heroin addict (an example is described in the book). Only the strong and/or lucky can make good having been brought up in an environment such as this and how strong you are as a person is dictated, to some extent, by your genes – it’s a vicious circle, in which the easy solution appears to be to turn to crime and/or to take to drink or the needle. Clarke delineates a major social problem that is not limited to the communities that he so eloquently describes, but he does not offer a solution.

Photo Book Organisation

Following some introductory images and the written introduction by Alexander Masters, Adrian Clarke’s book sticks to a rigid format. Text is placed on the left hand page and portrait images are opposite the text on the right hand page. If, as it often does, the text goes onto a second page, it is accompanied by a non-portrait image opposite. I am planning to also place passages of text on the left hand page, but to follow each passage of text by an odd number (1,3,5) of images, to be placed starting on the right hand page but then alternating between right and left until the final image is placed on the right hand page. A new piece of text will then be placed on the next (left hand) page unless a new chapter is to be started (my current intention is to split my photo book into four or five sections, although this may change in the future). Clarke’s is the first photo book that I have found where there is a substantial amount of accompanying text and where the formatting has some similarity to the way I would like to format my own photo book.

Final Comments and Learning Points

Adrian Clarke’s text and images speak eloquently of a broken or crumbling community at a certain time, where lives had been and were being ruined by social deprivation, shortages of jobs, boredom and social decay. As such, this work carries a powerful punch. Will it change (or has it changed) society? This is doubtful, because it is likely only to be read by the ‘converted’. We are also, of course, looking at an unrepresentative cross-section of the community. Surely not everybody in the area was taking drugs, was an alcoholic or a prostitute. Some people would have tried to break out of this apparently dead end existence and doubtless some will have succeeded. New housing estates (mentioned in the book) will have brought comparatively well off commuters into the area: new supermarkets to serve them and industrial estates to replace the rubble will have brought jobs. The community will be changing, hopefully for the better.

The use of a combination of text and images here produces powerful and at times emotional messages. This is exactly what I am trying to do in my own project, so Adrian Clarke’s book represents an excellent lead for me to follow. Likewise, the construction of the photo book provides a useful template for me to investigate.