Assignment 3: A photographic commission

I looked at the ‘Lonely Planet Magazine Asia’ to get ideas for the layout for this assignment. One thing I noticed about them though is that whilst on their website they say that they accept photos in landscape format only, a significant amount of their content is portrait orientation. I initially took photos in landscape with only a few in portrait, and ended up returning to try and get a shot that could be used as a cover shot potentially.

I chose the palace at Gyeongbokgung because it is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Seoul, and I really enjoyed visiting it when I was on holiday there in December. I also used the photos from my December shoot for the layouts that come before this project, and liked how they looked. I needed to do a whole new shoot for the assignment though, and so set up some trips there. the main issue I had was weather, I would have loved to have blue skies like I did in winter, but that was not to be until I went back for the cover shoot! The palace was closed then however, but I was able to take photos of the gate. 

The palace grounds also includes the National Folk Museum, which I decided to dedicate 2 pages of the 5 to. The first page is the main Gwanghwamun gate, then we move through into the grounds, and page 2 is a double page featuring Geungjeongjeon, the main throne hall. I made lots of images the right size for a double page spread, but this was the one I chose as it was the most striking, and it also seemed the right position to have a double page spread. The magazine seems to either use double page spreads for the first or second pair of pages. I wanted my first page to be of the main gate but to also include the title information with it. The throne hall is also a part that most visitors stop at as they go through the palace, before getting swallowed up in the vast grounds where you never quite know whether you will see everything or not! There are also still some parts being renovated, but there was definitely more open than when I first saw it. I chose to focus on autumn colours and picked out photos with reds to illustrate this. I love the pavilion on the island, and although disappointed that it wasn’t as bright as it was on my first visit due to the lighting, but it was still reflected in the water and looks peaceful. Pages 4 and 5 show the National Folk museum, page 4 the museum building and statues outside, and page 5 the old street that is preserved there. I found the various statue collections fascinating and have a lot of images of them. 

To prepare for my shoot, I looked at the work of a few photographers. The first was Steve McCurry as he is a well-known Magnum travel photographer, and he has striking images of many Asian countries. The main set I looked at was of Japan, and although different topics, I liked the way he showed people in some of them, parts of people and people going about daily lives. Martin Parr is someone who’s work I have always admired, I like the way he uses close up shots to give a different view of traditional British pastimes. Again, he depicts normal daily life, but in eye-catching images. RJ Koehler is a photographer who has done some work around Korea, and I love his Autumnal shots. He has some interesting shots of the palaces from high places, and I need to go and find these places too. http://rjkoehler.tumblr.com/ Trey Ratcliff is a photographer that I listen to on podcasts, and I love his photos of New Zealand where he currently lives. I looked at his Korea collection http://www.stuckincustoms.com/category/travel/south-korea/ which are mainly HDR images. I am still not sure about HDR and if I like it, but found some of these images intriguing. For a magazine general travel shoot though, I decided HDR was not appropriate. 

I used my Lumix GX1 for the shoots, with the 14mm lens only as I didn’t want too many distractions. I also did take a few on my Samsung phone, although did not use them for the final edit. 

I then edited according to what pages I felt images were appropriate for, and looked through the magazine to determine image sizes. There was a lot of playing around and I finally settled with the images after changing a few around. I decided to use Helevetica neue as a font for the title and introduction, at a size of 36 for the title and 18 introduction. Initially I thought about using a coloured font, but then went back to plain black. Captions were in Verdana 12 point throughout apart from page 1 which I kept as Helevetica neue, and the main text in Times 14 point. I found putting the text in quite challenging, as I kept managing to delete layers, but then worked out what had gone wrong. I am not good at writing this kind of text, and so took it mostly from wikipedia and travel websites as I believe it is an assessment mainly of the photos telling the story. 

Exercise: Make a page layout

We were shown a few different layouts and asked to find various photos from our collections to try them out with. As we are later making a photo story, I decided to use photos on one theme and make this into a mini photo story project.

The first page I made has the title in Verdana font, size 21 then size 14 for the introduction. The reason I chose Verdana is that it is sans serif and very clear and simple. I then chose Times 12 for the writing, as serif fonts are easier to read. The 2 images show slightly different aspects of the palace grounds.

The second has Arial size 14 another clear sans serif font. I think it looks clear and very easy to read. The images were chosen to go together as they are of a very similar subject and I felt the colours also being quite pale worked. 

For the double page spread, I chose a subject with a strong visual and one that draws us in. It is slightly off centre. The text for the caption is  Helevetica size 14, another sans serif font. Both the sky and snow provide ample spaces for clear text, but I felt top left was the best place in this image. 

The heading is Tahoma, 30 and caption 14. For the text I chose PT Serif size 12,  I feel the 2 fonts interact well with each other. The images on the right show the effects of the weather more clearly.Again, I feel the contrasting colours in 2 images work with the paler images in the other 2. 

Exercise: practise writing captions

This exercise asked us to look at captioning used by various publications and then add captions to our own photos.

In the last exercise, I commented on the captioning used by some publications. National Geographic used long captions, sometimes in italics. All the online publications I looked at, The Washington Post, Smithsonian Magazine, Guardian and New York Times used captions with a short version of the story and places the images at the top. In some cases, photographer information was included in the caption.

Project: Research Published Layouts

For this project, we had to look at various publications and look at how they laid out photos and text, and how they used captions.

The first magazine I looked at was the May edition of National Geographic. The cover shot showed a baby, on a very plain white background for text. The first story I looked at was called 'On Beyond 100' and started with an image that was almost a double page spread, and the second page was a large image covering most of the 2 pages and a small amount of text. The next was a smaller photo and a large amount of text. The photos are in a square format, with white space around. On some pages the text dominates and some the photos do. The photos are portraits, some with lots of background and some with other people in them.
'Russian Refuge' starts with a portrait image, then a double page spread. The images are mainly of wildlife and often fill the page and spread to the second one if not a full double page spread. Italics were used for captions, which made them stand out more than others.
'Breaking the Silence' opens with a double page spread, and then has one more before a whole page portrait shot. There are then maps and more double pages to illustrate the story. Other pages are portraits taking up a whole page each, taken on a black background.
'Our Fertilized World' starts off with 2 double spreads. This article has long captions with no italics. The next page has an image at the top and maps and 3 images over the text.
'Element Hunters' starts with a portrait on one page. All images are optioned, no italics. Captions are lengthy, some in white depending on the colour. All images are the same style.
'China's Ancient Lifeline' starts off with a double page HDR image, then another double page spread before the text and maps. Then come landscape images at the top with the text under, and there are more double page spreads.

The next magazine was Wild Travel. There was an image of a frog on the front, with room left for the magazine title. This is a magazine I have not seen before, and I was quite surprised at how many images were used.
'Sun Sea and Shearwaters' starts off with a double page spread, with an introduction and large title over it. The next page has images at the top, with text underneath. Then there are 3 more images, 2 landscape and one portrait, large blocks of colour. The next page has 2 images that go over the middle, with others on each side. Then there is a single page with images of different sizes.
'The Hills are Alive' has the first image over 1.5 pages, with a portrait next to it. There is an image of a vast landscape next to a close up. Lots of animal shots. The text is lots of animal info and lots of small photos to illustrate.
'Fade to White' has a double page spread then a mix of shots of people, animals and the terrain and travel - one image goes across two pages.
'Guide - Destination Costa Rica' - This starts off with a portrait image and one page to introduce the guide, then a double page spread. Small images are used, mixed sizes. Some are photos of animals in a circular shape.
'Beach Patrol' - Starts with a double page spread but this time the text crosses the middle of one page. There are collages showing the differing stages of a turtle's lifespan at the top of a page with text under.
'Force of Nature' starts with a double page image with the introduction on it on one side. Then it is followed by various sized landscape images, over both pages. The next page has a mix of portrait and landscape images of various sizes.

Guardian Weekend, from 27/4/13, had a very small amount of text on the cover, overlaying the image.
'A Woman's Place' opens with some text on a white space, and includes an image of a woman in the workplace in square format over the rest of the double page. The images throughout are of women in their workplaces, the women are clear but there is a lot of background included to indicate where they work. Some are portrait, some landscape. The colours are very rich. Some pages have 2 images. There are no captions, the text around the photos tells the story.

Observer Magazine, 28/4/13, has a cover where the text of the title goes behind the photo.
'After the Massacre' uses captions that are quotes from the person in the photo. The opening page has 2 square format photos of people, put facing away from each other, maybe to symbolise loneliness or wanting to turn away from people affected. The full portrait shows a person and her injury is the main focus. The next double page has some text down one side, then 5 photos of varying sizes, showing the victims in different places, one with obvious injuries.

You Magazine 28/4/13 again had text from the title behind the persons head, the rest of the text was fitted around.
'Our Children Were Murdered by our Husbands' started with a large image and some text down the side. Captions were on the inlay with text and were of newspaper articles. The lighting highlighted the faces of the mothers. The next page shows each mum in the same place as the initial photo, one is portrait style and one landscape. Each has a caption and photo of the children, plus a quote. The story ends with an inlay of the children and newspaper, a full page (portrait) of a woman.

Stern Magazine, 8/5/13 has a title that goes behind the subject and you can almost not read the title at all. The format is what makes us know which magazine it is, the star on the top left corner.
'Bilder der Woche' each one is a double page image with a small text for each one in a corner.
'Heiss Erwartet' has a double page spread, with a short caption and title. The next page is 2 images and text, then smaller images.
'Dolce Vita' starts with a double page image, title and introduction, then there is a square image over 2 pages leaving a space on the right for one more image. The double pages have some colour images and some black and white.

Paris Match
'Cleveland la Maison de l'horreur' starts with a double page with some introductory text in the bottom corner and the title. Then there is a collage of images of the house and suspect, missing posters and then a large picture of the girls now, which appears to be taken in a hospital. There are then some police images of the suspect.
'Haiti la lecon de vie' starts off again with a double page image containing some text. The next page has an image over the centre bit then 3 on the side showing the classroom - this format was used again.

Dorset Maagzine May 2013 has quite a busy title page, the sky in the image holds the title.
'The Broadchurch Effect' starts with a portrait of the writer in landscape format, and one of people below it. There are short captions for each image either on the image or just below. The next double page has collages of 3 or 4 images at the top and text under. The last page has an image of 3 people taken in the same place as the initial portrait.
'Pedals, Peaks and Padding' starts with a half page image, on which the caption is placed sideways. Then follow images of cyclists and maps with text around them. The photos are all different sizes and formats.

Whilst doing this project I was struck with the varying image sizes used and the fact there seems to be no set pattern any more. I guess that the images are taken on various cameras and there is no standard size, which may explain this. Captions also vary, some in italics and some sideways, some on the image and some just below. Some publications varied this too, again no set theme.

Exercise: An essay on photojournalism

Photojournalism and the Tabloid Press by Karin E Becker (in The Photography Reader by Liz Wells)

• Taking the opening and closing paragraphs, summarise the writer’s basic contention and conclusion. 

These talk about the immediate, direct appeal of photos. Is it ‘true’ journalism? It seems excluded from the ‘serious’ press. Tabloids - display and appeal of photos are used to judge the tabloid press as ‘merely’ popular. Critique from tabloid directed against elite journalism. How photos are used as a news vehicle and deconstruction of news. There is a dichotomy between serious journalistic photography and tabloid photography. 

• What does the conclusion add to the opening statement? 

Photojournalism has a popular status rather than journalism. The essays are not cleanly edited and are not composed as well. Lots of overlaps between photos and text. The emotional nature of photos was mentioned and how subjects may be presented as social equals. 

• Stages of the argument

The early picture press

 This described the history of illustrated magazines from the 1840’s in various European countries. It mentions America from the 1850’s. These magazines used illustrators and sent them to events to engrave pictures on their return. ‘Eye witness.’ At the time wood engravings were thought to be truer. Sometimes engravings were made from a photo. In the 1890’s there was a gradual change to using photos. The successful depiction of 

‘Maine’  and how it was explained. The war with Spain saw an increase in weekly magazines in the US. Advertising support grew. It is believed that use of photos may have increased magazine sales at the beginning of the century. d

The tabloid=sensationalism=photography

Daily newspapers took longer to use photos as it was felt the process was too cumbersome at the start. Tabloid press in the 1920‘s - sensational photos of violence, sex, accidents and society scandals. Sensational journalism breaks ethical guidelines to sell more papers by attracting attention. It is not always subject matter but the way photos are reproduced that appealed to emotions and created the sensation. Examples are the cameraman watching an execution with a camera taped to his ankle at the point of death. 

The daily press ‘supplements’ the news

Daily newspapers in Europe and North America didn’t have regular photos until 1920, mainly in tabloids. As tabloids had lowered credibility of the press, it was hard for photos  to be seen as a medium for serious news. Weekly supplements started with the daily press in magazine format - better reproduction. Newspapers were the primary product and were not seen to be downgraded by the photo. 

The picture magazines’ legacy

Mass circulation picture magazines mainly emerged between the wars in Germany and other European countries, and the late 1930’s in England and the US. They established new genres of photo reportage. Photo essays and documenting people. Documentary photography was accepted as art and started to be  seen in museums. The status of photojournalism and photojournalists reached unprecedented heights. 

The contemporary domain of the tabloid

Many different kinds of newspapers are in tabloid format. There is a varying degree of overlap with the elite press. Reliance on news stand selling - ie the front page sells. More presence of photos. Three broad categories of coverage - private or other persons in circumstances that make them newsworthy, celebrities and ‘news’ style events.

Plain pictures of ordinary people

Often a photo in a very plain setting is used with words to explain what happened. May resemble an ordinary family photo without the words. Often people are looking at the camera. Accessible to viewers. Co-operative. Or could be ID portrait style or candid showing events that are underway. 

Celebrities

Usually shown posing at home with family. Seeing the ‘real’ person. Angle and eye contact bring them to viewer’s level. Often alongside performance or file photos. Candid photos appear quite often but not as much as we think. Most paarazzi photos appear in the weekly press. 

The news event

‘News’ has many definitions but there is a core of national and international news events covered. Reminds us often what may appear candid but maybe more planned. Experiences with lots of emotion. Sometimes photos are grainy or underexposed - accepted as the ‘tabloid style.’ How ordinary people are affected by events. 

Reframing the picture in words and layout

Photos - meaning in relation to how they are seen. Relationship to words - tabloid press more dramatic. Headlines used a lot. Meaning of this relationship between photos and text. Text illustrates the image. Often direct quotes are used, to do with the people in the photos. Use of first/third person. Apart from events or part of it. Montages used as well as retouching - not good for representation of fact. Photos should be a window. 

* Becker contrasts the use of photos in the tabloid press with their use elsewhere. Do these contrasts bolster her central argument or detract from it?  Bolster - pointing out differences and why - does bolster. Numerous contrasts but not representative. 

* How successful do you think the writer has been in arguing her case? Very. This made me a lot more informed. Lots of examples were covering a long period of time. Not quite decisive though about the original contention. 

Book review: Selbst portrait Che Guevara 2005 Ernesto che Guevario

This showed lots of photos of Che Guevara as a child, trips to South America and writings etc, letters and history. There was a real sense of a family album as all the photos were different styles and sizes. Images of India. He had his own self portraits too, and a history of everything. 

Book Review: De Fotografo - Fotos of Che Guevara

Different places in South America, documentary style, meaning the photos are not always straight. Lots of different sizes. Sports in Mexico, Chichen Itza. Aspects of war. Some images of India in 1959 that were really grainy. Beche - style shots of factories in Cuba. Black and white images mixed in amid colour images. Lots of artefacts in the sky. 

Book Review: Cien Imagenes de la Revolution Cubana 1953-1966 by Pedro Alvarez Tabio

Black and white images of fighters, behind the scenes and front line. Both soldiers and civilians are shown in the pictures. Che Guevara portraits, tanks and people in fields. Towards the end many of the photos showed people in fields. There was quite a mix of ordinary life shots between set up politically motivated shots. There was a shot of Fidel Castro and Nelson Mandela, as well as a balance of street photos vs war photos. 

Book Review: Im kopf waren wir schon in Deutschland: Heimats imigration in 27 Portraits by Goethe Institut

This book followed people who are taking the Start Deutsch 1 exam, which is needed to settle in Germany. It introduces them with a portrait, then talks about the impact of the exam and why they came to Germany. Clear, striking photos of their homelands follow, together with their written thoughts about it. 

Exhibition: Museum Kunstpalast Duesseldorf

Reiner Ruthenbeck.

Among the varied collection of modern and 19th Century traditional art was a collection of black and white photos.
One series depicted what looked like a cello concert, and behind the scenes  photos of people lying down with the cello, covering the cello up etc. Great photos of an audience enthralled in the music.
Another series, "Leben Mit Pop," was an interesting collection of photos taken around pop concerts from the early 1960's. The last photos depicted a demonstration which seems to have taken place in London. 

Exhibition: K21 Gallery Duesseldorf June 2013

This gallery had several photo exhibitions running.
Thomas Ruff: large prints of starscapes, this is a series of negatives he bought of the southern hemisphere that were taken for scientific research. The stars appear amazingly clearly and the size makes them seem as if you are looking right at the sky. Beautiful.

Christian Boltanski: Having seen one of his exhibitions during a photography course in London, I knew to expect the unexpected! On the walls, you see portraits enlarged from newspapers of both victims and perpetrators of crimes. A metal box of photos is under each photo which is lit individually by a small spot light. The room has a rack of linen sheets, giving an air of forensics. Nothing distinguishes the victims from the perpetrators, giving an eerie sense of uncertainty.

Bernd and Hilda Becher: This was well organised small portraits arranged in blocks of 3 down by 5 across depicting their industrial architecture series. The buildings are clear and have an odd sense of beauty about them.

Wolfgang Tilmans: This took up the whole lower ground floor of K21, and was more like a series of mini-exhibitions. It was hard to believe at times that all the photos were taken by the same person as there was such variation. There were large prints of the stars and moon, capturing large pictures of landscapes (mainly tree branches) emphasising colour. Some were merely a print of one colour on a large piece of photographic paper. Others were stark documentary style, some documenting male genitalia and sexual acts, as well as some portraits. 

Exhibition: New York Arbor, Brussels

This was an exhibition by Mitch Epstein, which I was in June. It was a series of trees, similar to Eugene Atget's work with trees in Paris taken at the start of the 20th Century. It was portrait-style placement of trees in New York and showed the diversity of the city - what is behind the trees and who is there. It showed the huge amount of urban development. There were texts about the roles of the trees and how necessary they are for human life.
The work was presented as fairly large prints, 3 large ones greet you as you enter. They do, however, lack some contrast and some are quite grey and lifeless depending on the subject.
As you go through and look at locations familiar from TV, it gives a different insight into each neighbourhood, by making us focus on the trees rather than people to depict it. 

TV Show: David Suchet People I Have Shot

This was on ITV 3 in May, where David Suchet went around taking some shots as taken by his grandfather, many years later. His grandfather was James Jarche. David Suchet showed us lots of the original negatives, the main one I remember was an image of a man in Berlin which used only available  light. He mainly took people shots. David Suchet had never done an assignment shoot before this programme.
He talked about using a Leica as it is good for stories. He talked about layouts - starting top left to bottom right to show the story. He also talked a lot about how stories differ from single images. He followed the stories his grandfather took, he went and found the places, found out the history and talked to locals to try and recreate the images.
Mining was still going on in one area of North Wales, he followed miners who work in one of the mines his grandfather photographed. This part of the show really highlighted the power of images to help us remember things, he showed locals the images his grandfather had taken and this sent them down memory lane and he heard so many stories. He also showed us images from Libya and went to the Imperial War Museum archives. He talked about how it felt as he took Army images of a 'fake war;' feeling removed as he took photos, and said it was odd that he was taking photos as there was shooting all around him and people potentially being killed.
He went to the Senetaph to recreate an image for the Weekly Illustrated and also took lots of backstage images in a theatre. He showed us colour images from 1944 at a show 'Lilac Domingo.' the images were incredibly sharp. He also talked about 'being invisible' and how this is the best way for a photographer to be.
His exhibition at the end was amazing and really consolidated what must have been an amazing personal journey. 

Exhibitions: Deutsche Börse Prize and Studio Works

I went to the Photographer's gallery at the end of May and was pleased that I was there for the Deutsche Borse prize exhibiton as I know Mishka Henner from uni and wanted to see his work in print. There were 4 exhibitions in this part which I will describe individually.

War Primer 2 - Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin - this was from a book originally by Bertold Brecht from 1955, War Primer, which had photos, fragments and newspaper clippings with 4 line poems. The new edition layered google search results for the poems over the originals, modernising the book and giving it a complete new look. I am not particularly interested in War photography, but enjoyed seeing how this project had been 'modernised.'

No Mans Land - Mishka Henner was an extremely though provoking set of images, of women in Southern European streets. He used google street view to take the photos of women as they waited on 'street corners.' He researched sites talking about where prostitutes can be found, then used street view to find them. Looking at the images and knowing how they have been taken leads to a real sense of voyeurism, there is a definitive sense that these images could not have been taken by someone using a camera. This also raises issues of image taking and privacy, and CCTV too. I wonder if these women have any idea about it and think this is a great social experiment with a type of photography that has been made possible with new technology.

What Happened - Great Britain 1970-1990 by Chris Killip was a set of black and white images of working people in the North of England. The photographer immersed himself in the communities and by doing so was able to document the lives of these people in striking images. Nothing is hidden from the camera it seems, the images show how tough life was for these people.

The Afronauts by Christina de Middel was a fun take on documenting the story of Zambia's space programme, which started in 1964. The portraits showed the people involved, often wearing their space helmets in the images, or a version of a space helmet in some cases.

The other exhibition in the gallery was Studio Works by Claire Aho. This was a real selection of her studio shots, some taken for ads and magazines, some showing originals before they were cropped for use, which showed how images are really taken for these situations. This gave us an idea of the process involved. Some images also showed the lighting set ups, and many displayed a great sense of humour. 

Exhibition: Travel with Me

I saw this exhibition and met the photographers at Lancaster Children's Centre in May. First I was shown original books from the 1980's where traveller children had been given disposable cameras to depict their life, to show others how they lived and educate them. Someone at the Children's Centre found albums which had space for recording a voice over for each numbered photo. They gave cameras to children living on traveller sites all over Lancaster. The result was an eclectic mix of ages represented and varying aspects of their lives shown in print. It was interesting to see what they do both on and off site, setting up travelling circuses for example. Hearing them speak about their images was inspiring. They were also given a party to celebrate their work, local librarians and teachers were invited. They decorated covers to keep their work in and it was great to see how proudly they did this. 

Exhibition: portraits

This exhibition was at Bridport medical practice. There were some very striking black and white images of people in various situations, mainly outside. They did not appear to have been taken in the UK, but as there was no information to be found I am still not sure where they were from! Some images were on what appeared to be farms, with animals in the back or foreground (llamas appeared in one!). The photos were very detailed and high contrast. I initially wanted to find out more information about where they were taken but then realised that not having the information was a little more exciting, we can draw our own conclusions. 

Nikon Club - Video Workshop

This workshop was the first I had been to in KL, and I have to say the experience was much better over in Sabah for workshops! The teacher was awesome but the classroom was way too small for everyone and it didn't feel as friendly. I learnt heaps though, and for me the highlight was seeing a video of time lapse made for yahoo and maybank that took 5 months to make! We were shown various tools we can use for taking videos, remote control skateboards for example. We got to try out a few things at the centre, and left with a lot of notes on how to make videos and some basics about editing. I haven't yet done much with video, but now have a lot of ideas......

Exhibition: Nikon Centre, Kuala Lumpur

While I was in KL, I went to the Nikon Centre for the video workshop, and also saw their exhibition which had various themes. Most photos were street photography involving locals, and were taken for nikon competitions. There were some interesting scenes and it was a good introduction to towns I have not yet visited in Malaysia. There was a real mix of colour, black and white and HDR. The HDR images were still a little surreal though, I still am not sure what my thoughts are on that!

Exhibition: Cold Comfort, Kota Kinabalu

I saw this exhibition in January at Suria Mall in KK. The photos were taken by Mathias Heng, and were displayed by Leica. The photos documented 5 visits to Japan, where the author visited to document the lives of local people following the 2011 Tsunami. The photos gave an insight into what the people were going through and showed also how some areas are now being rebuilt as people start to put their lives back together. The suffering was evident as was the resilience of people from the images. 

Exercise: Revisit your first assignment

The first exercise in Unit 3 is to look back at the feedback from the first assignment and consider what changes we might make in light of it. My feedback mentioned a potential missed opportunity for recording a different culture, and this made me think of more ways to shoot. Since I did this project, I have started to go jogging more in the park, and people of all backgrounds use this park for walking, jogging etc. I had started to think about maybe using these people, as I now feel a little more confident in approaching them to shoot portraits. It feels like this may also address the apparent lack of a 'sense of place.' I have also got to know a few people in the street and thought about shooting family portraits outside houses.
I sat down to think about all of this and was quite excited about a potential reshoot and thought about doing these over the weekends and taking my time to do them. I would also re-process the original shots in monochrome as suggested, to remove the tungsten cast and see what they looked like, although the reshoot during daylight was my preferred option.
At this current moment, however, I am unable to return to my neighbourhood for the foreseeable future and so am unsure what to do next. I will re-process the photos as this is possible where I am, and will keep revising my plans for a reshoot.
I got evacuated from Tawau last week as the FCO deemed the area unsafe. I moved from my house a few days before for security reasons as it was felt I was safer staying in town with my work colleagues. This happened just as I was re-reading the comments from my tutor about assignment 1 and submitting assignment 2, and thinking about the re-shoot.
This whole process is something I am still coming to terms with, and the longer we are away, the more unlikely it seems that we will go back, and even if we do, I am not sure how safe it will feel due to the events just before we left and the potential risks. I have heard that there are lots of police and army now, and navy ships out in the bay so it all feels a little surreal how much it changed since we left just 8 days ago and the area got deemed safe for 'essential travel only.' This was a place I enjoyed driving round and felt secure in most of the time, but it seems all had changed.
I will try and figure out a new plan and keep updating my blog as I go, I am starting to slowly work through Part 3 now. 

Assignment 2: A Photographic Book Cover

For this assignment, we had to:
" Create a design for a book jacket (which wraps around and includes front cover, spine and back cover) for a work of fiction, using your own photography . The main photograph should be one that you've shot specifically for this project. Approach this assignment as one facing a professional photographer, to be completed to the same professional standards that you see in book publishing. The assignment focuses on fiction rather than non-fiction, so that you have the opportunity to conceptualise rather than choose a literal image."

First we had to choose one of the books they listed. At first, none looked too inspiring. I chose Farenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury first, but then decided that all the images I could think of were too literal and I wanted to find something more challenging. I settled on The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I also needed a book that I could do a shoot for in Borneo and this one seemed to be one that fit this criteria. Also, it was one of the books I had access to.

As I read the book, I came up with ideas involving butlers, cutlery layouts, buildings from the colonial period (as this is possible in Borneo), old cars and relics from the post war period. I did an initial shoot at the tea gardens in Sandakan, of cream teas, considered the staff (who dress like old-fashioned butlers and maids), the cutlery as it was laid out, and some old relics like an iron and telephone they have there. I also took a few of the building as this was representative of the period. I looked at other versions of the cover, and eliminated a few ideas such as the cutlery idea as they have already been done, as has taking a photo of a butler or car, they are too literal also.

I settled on 2 ideas for the photograph for the cover. I wanted initially to use an image and cut it out and place it on a background, but decided to also shoot images where the typography could be placed over the image. I went back and experimented with these ideas, and settled on a few shots to try out. I also decided that I wanted to turn the image into a black and white or sepia image, as I feel this represents the time period more accurately. I experimented with a few effects in lightroom, using the black and white presets. The one I used in the cover was a toned preset called 'antique.'

The images I shot were of the tea house and grounds with sky in them, and then of relics I found there and a cream tea as this also represents the period, something a butler may serve his master. One issue I had is that I shot the photos of the building in landscape automatically, even though I was aware that I may need to use it in protrait orientation, but decided that it gave me more to crop and more choice of which part of the image to use when I resized it. Another problem I had was that my initial idea involved using a whole image and wrap it around, but I was unable to lighten it enough to take the text for the back cover, and so I chose then to use the image on the front cover only. I also tried one cover where the image was placed without the text over it.

I looked up the Faber and Faber image on google images, and needed both the black and white ones for different formats.

I created the ISBN by putting on of the edition's ISBN's into google and searching through images.

This was the image after processing in lightroom 4 using the black and white toned antique preset.

The original image.



For deciding the cover size, I looked up the formats that the book has already been published in, at this link http://www.iblist.com/book2276.htm . The one I decided to use as my basis was published by Faber and Faber in 2005, dimensions 5 x 7.6 x 0.9inches. This meant my template had to be 10.9 inches, and the middle 0.9 inches would be the spine, so I put guides in accordingly using photoshop elements 8. For my initial design, I used a black background and white text, and for the others I used a black background and white text on the back cover and spine, but black text on the cover over the image. One version was totally made up of the image and black text, but this did not show up well on the back cover and my attempts to lighten the image did not work in the way I hoped and so I decided not to choose this image.

Using type was the next challenge. As I explained above, some involved white text on a black background. My first attempt used Imprint MT shadow for the title and headings, and Times New Roman for the rest of the text. In the other versions, I also used Helevetica and Cambria as a variation. I was initially very happy with my initial attempt but then realised I had not included any text over the photo or integrated the photo as I would like and so I tried a few more variations.

This was my first attempt, which used Imprint MT Shadow text for the cover and spine (cover size 54/author 30 other text 14). The spine has text size 28 and 20 for the title and author respectively. On the back cover, I used Imprint MT Shadow size 30 for the title, then went for a sans-serif font Times New Roman bold at size 13 for the main text.

 I wanted to then try a version where the photo spanned the whole cover. First though I had to reverse the image as the building was on the wrong side for my plans, this was very simply done in photoshop elements 8. For this version, I used Arial for the cover (size 48 title and 30 author, spine 20/18), then Arial for the title on the back cover (22) then Times New Roman bold for the text size 10.

This was one version where I had cropped the landscape photo to give me a portrait view. This one uses Helevetica bold for the title (40, author 18) and the text has been placed in the blank spaces on the photograph. The spine uses Helevetica bold 24 then 18. The back cover is Helevetica reg 30 then the text is Cambria bold 13 for the book information then 11 for the blurb.

The final version uses Helevetica bold 44 for the title and size 24 for the author. The information about the Booker prize is size 14 in Helevetica bold oblique to emphasize the information. The spine is Helevetica size 22 and 12, then the back cover title  is Helevetica reg size 30, and the text is Times New Roman size 13.

On the whole, I am happy with the finished result as I feel it represents the time period and is not an obvious reference to the nature of the book, by including a butler as I cold have. The one change I would make is considering the shadow effects, the 2 shoots occurred on very different days weather wise and this was actually the easiest shadow to work with. I may also have taken images with a little more sky to give a little more flexibitlity as this could easily be cropped out. I found it challenging and fun at the same time, especially when I discovered that some of my ideas such as a table full of cutlery had been done in some form already after a more extensive google search. I have been exposed to the challenges book designers face when choosing a theme and it has already made me look more closely at fiction books after I read them to see if I can figure out why the decision was made for a certain image.

Part 2: Conceptual Cover Design

For this exercise, we had to look at different book covers and see if we could unpack why the designer chose the cover they did, and if the images would have been easy to take photographically.

The Honeymoon’s Over: True Stories of Love, Marriage, and Divorced by Andrea Chapin and Sally Wofford-Girand (2007)

This image is very simple, and is to depict a book that has 21 stories and give an idea of what all these stories are about. Burnt toast is a great picture to symbolise problems in relationships in my opinion, it represents things starting to go wrong. It matches the title as well. Using a plain white background means the toast stands out a lot, and highlights the burnt quality of the toast. The designer also chose to use all capital letters, which kind of emphasises the title. The editors are written in a lighter font, perhaps as they have not written the main text and the authors are more prominent.

It seems like one font but in different colours and sizes has been used.

Missing Men by Joyce Johnson (2005)

This book is a memoir about women growing up with no fathers as they lost them when they were small, and how the younger one, having also grown up with no grandfather, looks for photos to see if she can piece together her family. It also seems to be a story about how powerful family photos can be and the secrets that can be kept, and if there are no photos of someone then somehow they did not exist. The author also lost a husband and left the second one, and so there has been a major absence or loss of men in her life. The cover of the book shows a bed that has been slept in but currently has no occupant, perhaps pointing to the loss of men in the author’s life. The pillow is obviously well used but there is no-one there. The i in the title has been left out, and the shape in the bed infers the missing letter. According to the book cover archive, the fonts used are trade gothic and century. The designer (Joe Montgomery) has used italics to highlight the author’s previous works, and has included one review on the front to try and draw people in. The publisher logo is positioned above the information in italics, quite prominent and obvious but not distracting from the overall content of the photo.

NoVA by James Boice (2008)

This novel is set around the life of a teenager who hangs himself, and what life in suburbia is like. It talks about how he came to die. It is a comment on how America is to live in and what goes on behind the scenes, even when things look good on the surface. The cover is very cleanly shot, which seems to represent the cleanness of suburbia. There is also a white picket fence, which of course places the novel clearly in suburbia, and the sun is also just coming through the fence. It is very minimalist. I think the image is inverted as the book is from the perspective of someone who hanged themselves, maybe this is what their last view of suburbia was. The designer was Paul Sahre, and the type is all in Prensa. The title has a capital V and A at the end, perhaps because the story is named after Northern Virginia where it is set. Again, the designer has used italics to show a previous book by the same author, and there is a lot of clean space at the bottom of the photo which has not been disturbed with the writing. 

The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi (2008)

This novel is about migration and how it can affect people, the feelings of being disconnected. The image on the cover is inverted and is of a street, perhaps representing a disconnected memory of a life in the past that one of the characters had in a previous country. The cover for this was designed by Rodrigo Corral, and it looks like the photo was taken specifically for the cover, of a regular street at sunset. Interestingly, only one font, copperplate, is used, in varying sizes and in capitals throughout. I am curious that the author is written in a larger font than the title, drawing more attention. This time, the author’s previous book is underlines rather than in italics, still emphasised.  There is a review on the cover but due to the text size I almost missed it the first time I studied the image.

A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis (2001)

This book sets out to answer the question “What is love?”  The image shows empty chairs in a somewhat empty space and so we are drawn to look at them. The room they are in has nothing much inside, and seems to be lit by windows on either side. One of the chairs is resting on the other one, perhaps a symbol of love meaning one person can lean on the other for support. All the text on the cover is helevetica, and this has been placed inside a box at the top of the picture. It seems again like the photo was shot especially for the book, and all they needed was an empty space for the shoot, maybe in a studio. The designer chose to put a review on the cover, maybe to highlight it.

Presence: Collected Stories of Arthur Miller (2008)

This is a collection of 6 stories, which all seem quite varied and it is interesting to see that the book was named after the final one, and the image seems more in keeping with this story than with the others. It was also a compilation made after his death, and so may represent the feeling that the author is still with us even though he is now dead. The image is simple yet striking, a ghostly figure appearing from the fog. It definitely to me fits the title of the book, knowing someone is there but them not being clear. We are not told the fonts, but the author is at the top and in a much larger font than the title again. The font used for the author is quite flamboyant, in contrast with the plainness of the title, which is also all in capitals. There is one review at the bottom in white text, which is not clear in the version I have seen except that the review is from the Boston Globe, a prominent source.

Part 2: Choosing your imagery

This exercise is one where I had to look at book covers and find ones with a certain theme then write about them and why the design may have been chosen.

An out-of -focus photograph:

Wake Up Sir! By Jonathan Ames

The image is both out of focus and slanted to one side on this cover, which highlights the story quite well as it is about whether the character depicted in the photo exists or not. It is a novel where the main character drinks a lot and so therefore is unsure if he has a butler or not, I think the image shows this quite well, especially having the image at an angle. This immediately made me guess the drinking theme of the story and so it is quite an accurate portrayal, and although blurred, it is obvious that the image is of a butler-type character. 

An inverted photograph:

Lost and Found by C.P. Surendran

The image on the front cover is upside down, and there are items appearing to fall from the buildings which are items mentioned in the synopsis. The book has a lot of different characters, including a Pakistani terrorist living in Mumbai, a beggar who is now in films, an autorickshaw driver, and includes lots of different stories depicting the characters. The images appearing to fall and the plane lead us to think about what might happen and also to me give a sense of the potential chaotic nature of the book. The man falling in the picture has also displaced the O, again leading me to think about chaos. 

An historical archival photograph, but not depicting the subject precisely:

Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The edition I chose is not strictly fitting the criteria but I feel it illustrates it well anyway. The book is set in post-world war 1 Britain, which to me means there should be a black and white photo on the cover, but this edition has a colour photo of a field leading into a small forest. The book discusses death, of soldiers in the war and of one of the main characters who commits suicide, and the simplicity of the image with the shadows gives a sense of peace within the theme of death. 

A still-life close-up

The Body by Hanif Kureishi

The cover has what looks like a set of plain Russian dolls on the front, shot from the top and 2 have the lid missing. The story is about an old man dealing with his own mortality, having his brain transplanted into a younger body, and all the issues of mind/body separation that come with it. The story is about different kinds of bodies, and the plainness of the Russian dolls on the cover depicts the simplicity of the body, contrasting with the complicated nature of the mind. The missing lids on 2 dolls point to the transplant – removal of the core. 

A minimalist landscape or outdoor scene with a large area of sky

The “Driving over Lemons” trilogy by Chris Stewart

All 3 covers have a large area of bright blue sky, depicting the ideal view that people have of this region of Spain. This draws you in, you want to find out more about this magical area. It also gives a similarity to the 3 books, making them related to each other in some way. The blue draws out the bright colours on the covers too, and we expect a bright story inside. What we get is a truthful account of what life is really like for a Brit moving to the area, and lots of humour too. As soon as I saw the theme, I thought of these books, although my copies are actually in the UK at the moment.