What are the options I feel might work in presenting my processed images?

From my research (Colberg, 2017) page 46 consideration is given to different groups having different degrees of visual sophistication, and this should shape the concept. As a book publication with the intent of avoiding small edition size, it is appropriate to make a photobook accessible. I should avoid making it overly complicated. I ought to add text that helps the viewer understand it.

This is my first obvious challenge as to date I’ve been aiming at multilayered meaning and have preferred by analogy Shakespeare prose rather than Daily Mirror. What is to be gained by trying to be too clever (and potentially failing at it too)?

(Colberg, 2017) page 47 also draws attention to the “zine form often looking like a sloppily made photobook.” I may have made the point elsewhere that I use the zine as part of my workflow when creating a hand-bound book. It is not a deliverable item in its own right.

Narrative

(Colberg, 2017) page 47 discusses narrative and how it both means “story” (as in what is the story being told here?) and the process or technique of telling a story (as in: how is the story being told?)

I have learned that “it is important to keep these two aspects of a photobook apart: what is the story? How is the story being told?”

Then does there have to be a story. No. Bit most photography os about something so there is probably some sort of story.

I’m going to try and keep these points in mind as I look at some options.

I have these ideas to take into the review this week, Week 6:

• Use mixed images where archives and abstracts are somehow layered. Until I try it out I won’t really know how effective this will be.
• Take each abstract as the main image and have around it two small related pictures; a family archive photo in one position, a narrative picture of a person or a newspaper quote of them.

The latter translates through the form of a timeline and should be comprehensible. A complication to this is the idea of time collapsed alluded to here. I now explore the metaphor of a ladder where there is the transmission of the gene as an information carrier. In fact the DNA double helix is visually like a ladder. At each rung, of my ladder there is a photographic archive print relating to relatives who share in common biology.

Still running for a book publication:

• Use a template approach such as discussed previously by adapting the layout from Rachel Howard’s Repetition is Truth exhibition book. 

The structure is:

• Interview (including contextualising photos in miniature)
• Prose (also the same with contextualising photos in miniature)
• The main body of abstract paintings created using the hidden brush of gravity.
• A collection of abstract miniatures giving a kind of contact sheet view accompanied by minor captions.

Adopting Howard’s method for me overcomes a problem of wanting to be like this artist and major in abstract imagery. I’m aware of personal significance I had gained from Howard’s exhibition that is not transferable to my audience. Then it is probably too early in the FMP module to bar more considered options.

Bibliography

Colberg, J. (2017) Understanding Photo Books the Form and Content of the Photographic Book. Edited by Taylor and Francis. New York: Focal Press.