As a wedding photographer there is a certain level of familiarity with making a book as throughout the year I design albums full of wedding photos, and while many photographers may send there work to a designer, I design the books myself. So with that experience comes certain use paces of knowledge, such as knowing about printing guides, the bleed, the gutter, the safe zone. Understanding negative space, and how photographs work next to each other to form narrative as well as to create a pleasing aesthetic in terms of colours and content. However, I want to put some of my preconceived ideas of how photos should be layed out in a book, aside. This is not a wedding album, this is a photobook. Colberg (2016) spends a good deal of time in his book "understanding Photobooks" encouraging the reader to collaborate with a designer when putting together a photo book, but unfortunately I don't have that budget, or any designer friends who are able to help me through this process, so i will have to rely on my analysis of Photobooks I have scene and read, the information that can be gleamed from his book and others, perhaps online resources such as youtube, and my own design experience.
Following my look into photobook by Crewdson, Stallar and The Dualism, and with reference to Colbergs "Understanding Photobooks" I have redesigned my book layout, and I am now only using work from this module. At this point I am still set that the book will be 10x10 inches, however how the book will be put together, whether printed using an online service or another way, is something I have not decided on yet. I previously produced a book with Blurb for my undergraduate degree, and while I felt the final product was put together well, it felt more like a coffee table book, or a reference book, than an art book. I think this is due to how blurb and such other companies mass produce these books. I don't want that for these photos, I want this to be more along the lines of an intimate exhibition, an experience in your hands.
But thoughts of binding and printing asside, this is my second draft layout. It currently consists of 12 spreads with a single image per spread. Still keeping with the "American Photobook" theme, though like Jan Staller I have played with the method slightly. I start by creating a seemingly consistent design, but then break this up with smaller erratically placed images as I move through the book. These smaller images placed on the left of the book are always the images taken watching someone else take photos with the intention that as the viewer flicks through they will realise that some of the photos they are viewing are the third person view of the taking of previous photos in the book, creating mystification around who is viewing and who is being viewed. The largest image, and the last image of the book, are the two most outwardly sexual images, and also to my mind, the most confrontational images.
Jörg Colberg. 2016, Understanding Photobooks, Focal Press.
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